Australia tourist information on accommodation, tours, cheap flights and car hire.

Amazing Australian Books

Plenty of books are published in Australia every year, below we have started a small selection of the most amazing ones, though we expect this page to get a lot longer!

The Latham Diaries

Before it even hit the book shops the whole country was already talking about it; The Latham Diaries.
In this amazing book Mark Latham manages to insult just about every senior Labor politician, from the current party leader Kim Beazley all the way back to Gough Whitlam.
Some highlights of his latest book include;
- Richard Butler; has not resigned as Governor of Tasmania but was sacked for getting pissed at the Royal wedding in Denmark.
- Kevin Rudd; treacherous, nasty piece of work, addicted to the media and leaking. A junior minister in government, at best.
- Kim Beazley; indecent, dirty dog, stands for nothing and does nothing.
- Amanda van Stone; junker guts.
- Bob McMullan; combover
- Bob Carr; A grade asshole
John Howard's party thought this book was the best thing since sliced bread and they thoroughly enjoyed it. Mark Latham is the author of five other books on Australian public policy, including Civilising Global Capital (1998) and From the Suburbs (2003).

Click here to order the Latham Diaries from the online Aussie bookshop Buyaustralian.com

Click here for a selection of books on Australia

A Fortunate Life

True story of the life and adventures of Albert Facey in the early 1900s who worked on the Kalgoorlie goldfields, outback cattle stations and fought in the Second World War. The book was originally published by the Fremantle Arts Press in 1981. Later it was published by Penguin and became so popular that it sold over a quarter of a million copies and was made into a TV mini-series. He wrote his book in the town of Wickepin, about 200 km south east of Perth where you can visit his house which is now the premier tourist attraction of this town.

A Secret Country

Book by John Pilger that looks indepth at Australians dirty secrets like the white Australia policy, the dismissal, treatment of aboriginals etc. It makes for interesting comparison with our history books.

Climate change

Is climate change really happening and does it matter? The answer from the scientific community is a resounding yes, yet debates about the reality of climate change and what measures to take are slowing our response. Barrie Pittock, one of the world’s leading climate researchers, argues that we need to act urgently to avoid increasingly severe climate change.

Climate Change: Turning up the Heat explains how our attitudes to risk and uncertainty – constant companions in life – influence our decision making and, ultimately, how much we and future generations stand to lose from rapid climate change. Our climate takes a long time to alter so what we do now will have impacts decades later; we must encourage market forces to think long term.
More info...

In a sunburned country

Manning Clark

Historian that died in 1991 who wrote A History Of Australia; a publication in six volumes about white settlement in Australia.

Matt Zurbo

Matt Zurbo once did comedy with a bloated ex-wrestler called the Perculator and dominatrix, Mz Velvet Black. Other than that his life is quite strange. He balances life as a bush worker, harvesting tree ferns and regenerating temperate rainforest, in the ranges behind the Great Ocean Road, surfing badly and playing bush footy, with his writing and drawing. He is not an international man of mystery, just very vague. He’s into live music and has a dog called Bucket.

He has written and published a numer of books, ranging from childrens books to novels for adults and a music CD. See a selection here...

Meliors

Originally from New Zealand, but now living in Australia, Meliors makes artist books.
These are definitely not your standard format books, as you can see on the right.
You can view and buy Melior's work online through art websites like Etsy and Redbubbles or keep up to date with her latest work on her website meliors.net

artist book

Peter Carey

Now lives in New York but wrote some good books about Australia, we especially liked ' The true history of the Kelly Gang '. Based on historical records and diaries this book gives us an insight in to the hard life in the late 1800's where Irish ex-convict settlers are continuously harrassed by the corrupt police (of English background ) who are always out to jail them for theft or other crimes, no matter if they have done them or not. Ned Kelly has several run-ins with them, has a wild life with plenty of fights and a drunk uncle that burns down the family house, he does his first jail time at fifteen, and although he usually does his best to abide by the law, he shoots his first man at the age of fifteen to defend a bushranger friend.
Ned sticks to working on the family farm and honest paid employment as much as he can but with the police who hate the Irish making up criminal charges from time to time he simply can't help getting in trouble with the law from time to time.

The Bugle's Dictionary

This book has been described as the filthiest book in Australia, Melbourne-based author Andrew Pegler has managed to compile over a thousand descriptions of genitalia, copulation and bodily functions.

The Day My Bum Went Psycho

42 year old Melbourne author Andy Griffiths cashes in on the fact that children usually find farting and anything to do with it extremely funny and has written several mega selling epic works so far. "The day my bum went psycho" was such a success that he followed it up with another literary marvel titled "Zombie bums from Uranus". In 2003 Andy had no less than seven books in the Australian book top 15, and sold more than 180,000 books that year bringing in over $2 million dollars! For 2005 he has planned another epic; Bumageddon; the final conflict. Also American kids loved his books but the title was adapted to Zombie butts from Uranus.

The Fatal Shore

In this book Robert Hughes describes the history of convict life in Australia in a very good way.

The Peaceful Pill Handbook

Australian doctor Philip Nietschke became famous for his views that people who are beyond saving by medical science and who are suffering pain should be allowed to die, he pushed his views through to the point where he assisted some people to end their lives and even invented a machine that produced carbon- monoxide that people could use to end ther lives but customs officers confiscated this machine when he was on his way to a conference in the U.S. He was also involved in introducing the Northern Territory's euthanasia laws that were overturned within several weeks by Federal Government, only three terminally ill people had been able to utilize the law to end their suffering. In 2004 he launced his suicide pill and a film about a 79 year old American academic woman who was healthy but had decided she wanted to die before turning 80.
He wrote a book titled ' The Peaceful Pill Handbook ' but had his first print run confiscated at customs arriving back from the U.S. , later the Office of Film and Literature Classification cleared the book and he was allowed to print and distribute the book in Australia.