A Night in Terror Tower - Goosebumps #27 (R.L. Stine)

A Night in Terror Tower - Goosebumps #27

R.L. Stine

Blurb: All locked up and no place to go!

Sue and her brother, Eddie, are visiting London when they run into a little problem. They can't find their tour group. Still, there's no reason to panic. No way their tour guide would just leave them. All alone. In a gloomy old prison tower. 

No way they'd get locked inside. After dark. With those eerie sounds. And a strange dark figure who wants them...dead.

ISBN: 059048351X (Paperback)

Year: 1995

Publisher: Scholastic 

Pages: 129 (Fiction)

Links

1. Blog on the book

2. Goodreads page

3. TV adaption of the story

4. Tumblr pages on the book

5. Buy from Amazon

Australian War Classics (Various)

Australian War Classics 

Various

Blurb: Four timeless accounts

We Were the Rats - Lawson Glassop

Glassop compellingly captures all the fear, bravery and determination of the so-called 'Rats of Tobruk' - the Australian soldiers who found themselves under protracted siege on the North African coast. We Were the Rats is a novel that paints a quintessential portrait of the fiercely independent and intrinsically larrikin Aussie Digger.

Desert Siege - Chester Wilmot

Tobruk, like Gallipoli, holds a special place in Australia's war annals. Wilmot's gripping account of how the Australian Imperial Force helped hold the besieged coastal fortress against the superior might of the Germans is based on personal observation, official documents, and eyewitness accounts - from both sides.

Behind Bamboo - Rohan D. Rivett

Rivett's saga of life as a Japanese prisoner of war, including the hell of his days on the infamous Burma-Thailand Railway, is brutal in its honesty, haunting in its realism and alive with the Australian POW's indomitable will to survive.

The Ridge and the River - T.A.G. Hungerford

Hungerford's tautly written novel, based on  his own experiences as a commando on Bougainville, recreates the ordeal of face-to-face confrontation with the enemy - and the unassailable Aussie humour and the triumph of sheer guts over the constant fear and group tensions intrinsic to jungle warfare.

ISBN: 0734305222 (Hardback)

Year: 1944 / 1946 / 1952

Publisher: Claremont

Pages: 1243 (Fiction / Non-Fiction)

Links

1. Buy from Dymocks

2. Buy from Amazon

3. Australian War Memorial

4. TV Series dealing with Australian's at War

5. Photos of Australian War Graves

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - Harry Potter Series #7 (J.K. Rowling)

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - Harry Potter Series #7

J.K. Rowling

Blurb: Harry is waiting in Privet Drive. The Order of the Phoenix is coming to escort him safely away without Voldemort and his supporters knowing - if they can. But what will Harry do then? How can he fulfil the momentous and seemingly impossible task that Professor Dumbledore has left him? 

Harry has been burdened with a dark, dangerous and seemingly impossible task: that of locating and destroying Voldemort's remaining Horcruxes. Never has Harry felt so alone, or faced a future so full of shadows. But Harry must somehow find within himself the strength to complete the task he has been given. He must leave the warmth, safety and companionship of The Burrow and follow without fear or hesitation the inexorable path laid out for him...

In this final, seventh instalment of the Harry Potter series, J.K. Rowling unveils in spectacular fashion the answers to the many questions that have been so eagerly awaited. The spellbinding, richly woven narrative, which plunges, twists and turns at a breathtaking pace, confirms the author as a mistress of storytelling, whose books will be read, reread and read again.

ISBN: 9780747591054 (Hardback)

Year: 2007

Publisher: Bloomsbury 

Pages: 607 (Fiction)

Links

1. IMDB page for the film adaption

2. Wikipedia page 

3. Goodreads page

4. Buy from Amazon

5. Harry Potter fan site

Through My Eyes - The Autobiography of Lindy Chamberlain-Creighton (Lindy Chamberlain-Creighton)

Through My Eyes - The Autobiography of Lindy Chamberlain-Creighton

Lindy Chamberlain-Creighton

Blurb: 'This is the story of a little girl who lived, and breathed, and loved, and was loved. She was part of me. She grew within my body and when she died, part of me died, and nothing will ever alter that fact. This is her story, and mind.' - Lindy Chamberlain-Creighton

'Page after page demolishes the myth and fables that have been spun around a nation's obsession with the baby's disappearance.' - The Sydney Morning Herald

'What first struck me on meeting Lindy was her sense of humour and surprising lack of bitterness. Here is a woman who has been under such macabre and intense public scrutiny and yet through all the tabloid hysteria they haven't managed to capture the real Lindy at all. There are so many myths about Lindy and the Chamberlain case that have still not been dispelled and to read this book is to get closer to the truth behind the story that has continued to fascinate Australia for the past 24 years.' - Miranda Otto, Actress

ISBN: 0975114530 (Paperback)

Year: 1990/2004

Publisher: East Street Publications

Pages: 804 (Non-Fiction)

Links

1. Author's official site

2. Wikipedia page for the author

3. Publisher's page for the book

4. Goodreads page

5. Buy from Dymocks

Plugger and the Mighty Swans (Jim Main)

Plugger and the Mighty Swans

Jim Main

Blurb: This is one of those special books. Warm but revealing. Taking you into the boardroom, the change rooms, the private boxes... the centre of the Sydney Cricket Ground at midnight and a strange, strange ritual.

Jim Main is a passionate - 'yes, obsessed' - Swans fan. He's also one of Australia's top football writers and sports authors. In Plugger and the Mighty Swans he takes you behind the scenes of the Swans' all but unbelievable run to the 1996 Grand Final.

You're there as the Swans nearly die and are only saved by a rival club (Collingwood) which doesn't want another club (Carlton) to sneak an unfair advantage. You're there for the dash to sign goal king Tony 'Plugger' Lockett. You're there in the 1960s, 50s, 40s, 30s, way back to the 1860s. 

ISBN: 1863502297 (Paperback)

Year: 1996

Publisher: Wilkinson Books

Pages: 292 (Non-Fiction)

Links

1. Libraries across Australia where you can get the book from

2. Buy from Oz Books

3. Wikipedia page for the author

4. Football magazine the author writes for

5. Official site of the Sydney Swans

The Cuckoo Clock of Doom - Goosebumps #28 (R.L. Stine)

The Cuckoo Clock of Doom - Goosebumps #28

R.L. Stine

Blurb: Don't beat the clock!

Tara the Terrible. That's what Michael Webster calls his bratty little sister. She loves getting Michael in trouble. Making his life miserable. Things couldn't get any worse.

Then Mr. Webster brings home the antique cuckoo clock. It's old. It's expensive. And Mr. Webster won't let anyone touch.  

Poor Michael. He should have listened to his dad.

Because someone put a spell on the clock. A strange spell.

A dangerous spell. And now Michael's life will never be the same again...

ISBN: 0590483528 (Paperback)

Year: 1995

Publisher: Scholastic

Pages: 118 (Fiction)

Links

1. Buy from Amazon

2. Review of the book

3. Goodreads page

4. Blog on the book

5. Wiki page on the book

Monster Blood III - Goosebumps #29 (R.L. Stine)

Monster Blood III - Goosebumps #29

R.L. Stine

Blurb: It's the slime that never dies!

Evan can't stand baby-sitting his genius cousin, Kermit. Kermit refuses to play video games. He won't even play Frisbee! All he likes to do is hang out in the basement doing strange experiments and playing mean practical jokes on Evan and his friend Andy.

But now Andy's found something that will teach Kermit a lesson once and for all.

It's green. It's slimy. And it comes in a can marked... Monster Blood!

ISBN: 0590483471 (Paperback)

Year: 1995

Publisher: Scholastic 

Pages: 126 (Fiction)

Links

1. Goodreads page

2. PDF preview of the book

3. Blog on the book

4. Buy from Amazon

5. Review of the book

The Va Dinci Cod (A.R.R.R. Roberts / Don Brine / Adam Roberts)

The Va Dinci Cod

A.R.R.R. Roberts / Don Brine / Adam Roberts

Blurb: Five utterly baffling mysteries that will change what you believe about the world. And fish. And the wisdom of ever reading another book:

-An eminent, renowned museum curator lies dead in his own gallery, with a three-foot cod stuffed down his throat...

-A brilliant young man, a renowned anagrammatologist, good-looking, gsoh, own flat, good job, non-smoker, very high standards of personal hygiene, single, he's not gay, and he's not antisocial, he meets lots of women really, just nobody seems quite right...

-A beautiful, renowned young French police cryptologist who studied for her cryptology degree at Royal Holloway - a university without a department in cryptology...

-A book full of rehashed conspiracy theory cods (Oh! My! God!) wallop becomes a global bestseller.

-Another book that should be called The Eda Vinci Cod gets called The Va Dinci Cod instead. An anagram is it? Err no.

The true reasons for the success of Don Brine's books are a secret that not even the Knights Templar, the CIA or the Church of the Resplendent Latter Day Apostles Who came Down from Space to Smite the Liberals (Alabama) are privy to.

Less-than-interestingly if you transcribe Don Brine into the Cyrillic alphabet and read it in a mirror and then transcribe it back out of the Cyrillic it reads as a transliteration of the Hebrew for Adam Roberts. If you squint a bit. 

Adam Roberts, get this, actually does teach at Royal Holloway. But not cryptology. Perhaps not even English.

ISBN: 0575077190 (Hardback)

Year: 2005

Publisher: Gollancz

Pages: 180 (Fiction)

Links

1. Wikipedia page

2. Goodreads page

3. Review of the book

4. Buy form Amazon

5. Buy from Dymocks

The Penguin Henry Lawson Short Stories (Henry Lawson edited by John Barnes)

The Penguin Henry Lawson Short Stories

Henry Lawson edited by John Barnes

Blurb: Henry Lawson is too often regarded as a legend rather than a writer to be enjoyed. 

In this selection John Barnes reveals Lawson not only as a writer who has delighted past generations.

His short stories, some humorous, some wry, some moving are, above all, enjoyable.

ISBN: 0140092153 (Paperback)

Year: 1986 / 1892-1902

Publisher: Penguin

Pages: 229 (Fiction)

Links

1. Wikipedia page for the author

2. Publisher's page

3. Goodreads page

4. Buy from Dymocks

5. Biography of the author