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Mark Dunn, The Convict Valley: the bloody struggle on Australia’s early frontier

Mark Dunn, The Convict Valley: the bloody struggle on Australia’s early frontier Allen & Unwin, 294 pp., ISBN: 9781760528645, p/bk, AUS$32.99 Mark Dunn opens his history of the Hunter Valley, The Convict Valley, with an observation from Lieutenant John Shortland. The naval…

Julian Leatherdale, Death in the Ladies' Goddess Club

Julian Leatherdale, Death in the Ladies' Goddess Club Allen & Unwin, March 2020, p/bk, ISBN: 9781 76052 963 5, RRP AUD$29.99 Death in the Ladies’ Goddess Club by Julian Leatherdale is set in Sydney in the 1930s and follows Joan Linderman, budding…

Peter Grose: Ten Rogues: the unlikely story of convict schemers, a stolen brig and an escape from Van Diemen’s Land to Chile.

Peter Grose, Ten Rogues: the unlikely story of convict schemers, a stolen brig and an escape from Van Diemen’s Land to Chile Allen & Unwin, February 2020, p/bk, 248pp, ISBN: 978 1 76063 261 8, RRP: AUD$29.99 Any visitor to Sarah Island…

David Hill, Convict Colony

David Hill, Convict Colony Allen & Unwin, 2019, 356 pp., ISBN: 9781760528669, p/bk, AUS$32.99 David Hill's new book Convict Colony is positioned as a story of a settlement that survived against all the odds, covering the first thirty years of the colonisation of…

Peter Corris, See you at the Toxteth: the best of Cliff Hardy and Corris on crime

Peter Corris, See you at the Toxteth: the best of Cliff Hardy and Corris on crime  Selected by Jean Bedford Allen & Unwin, 2019, 323 pp., ISBN: 9781760875633, p/bk, AUS$29.99 Many readers will feel privileged to hold one more book from Peter Corris…

Jessica North, Esther; The extraordinary true story of the First Fleet girl who became First Lady of the colony

Jessica North, Esther; The extraordinary true story of the First Fleet girl who became First Lady of the colony Allen & Unwin, 2019, pp 1-277, ISBN 9781760527372, p/bk, AUS$29.99 They could have hanged Esther Abrahams. In 1786, the pretty young Jewish woman had attempted…

Sam Willis and James Daybell, Histories of the Unexpected: how everything has a history

Sam Willis and James Daybell, Histories of the Unexpected: how everything has a history Atlantic Books, 2018, 465pp., ISBN: 9781786494122, (h/bk), AUS$39.99 Histories of the Unexpected: how everything has a history, by British celebrity historians Sam Willis and James Daybell, is based…

Robert Wainwright, Rocky Road

Robert Wainwright, Rocky Road  Allen and Unwin, 424pp., ISBN: 9781760291556, p/bk, RRP: $32.99 ‘Life is like a box of chocolates – you never know what you’re gonna get’ – Forrest Gump’s philosophising may not be the most prosaic observation but it…

Helen Pitt, The House

Helen Pitt, The House Allen & Unwin, 432pp., ISBN 9781760295462, p/bk, AUS$32.99 Helen Pitt launches head first in to over six decades of turmoil and tribulation on Bennelong Point in The House, available now from Allen & Unwin. She sets a cracking pace…