Magical Story - Jake and the Never Land Pirates (Gemma Lowe)

Magical Story - Jake and the Never Land Pirates

Edited by Gemma Lowe

Blurb: Cubby is going to play the harmonica at Merina the mermaid's birthday party. But Captain Hook is trying to sleep and cannot bear to listen to Cubby practise - so Hook steals Cubby's harmonica!

Will Jake and the crew be able to get the harmonica back in time for the party?

ISBN: 9781781860366 (Hardback)

Year: 2012

Publisher: Parragon

Pages: 28 (Fiction)

Links

1. Buy from the Book Depository

2. Buy from Between Reads

3. Publisher's page

4. Official site for Jake and the Never Land Pirates

5. Wikipedia page

Remembering Josh: Bali, A Father's Story (Brian Deegan)

Remembering Josh: Bali, A Father's Story

Brian Deegan

Blurb: 'I've not slept for 70 hours or more, walking, watching, waiting, praying for the end of this nightmare from which, at some stage, I must awake. But the reality is beginning to set in and I know only too well that at least in this life I shall never speak openly with my son. Never again shall I laugh with him, drink with him, discuss his future or watch him take to the field.'

So begins a father's descent into hell.

On 12 October 2002, Brian Deegan's son Joshua was killed in the terrorist explosion that ripped apart the Sari Club in Bali's Kuta Beach. Through grief and anger, this father has gone on a journey no parent should have to take. He has confronted the ghosts of his son's death, challenged the government's version of the truth and fought for the answers nobody wanted to give.

Raw and powerful, Remembering Josh cuts to the heart of love and honesty. Nobody reading this book will be left unaffected by it.

ISBN: 1741142776 (Paperback)

Year: 2004

Publisher: Allen & Unwin

Pages: 240 (Non-Fiction)

Links

1. Buy from Amazon

2. Buy from the ABC

3. Wikipedia page for the author

4. Wikipedia page on the Bali bombings

5. Australian government article on the event

A New Tomorrow - The Silverchair Story (Jeff Apter)

A New Tomorrow - The Silverchair Story

Jeff Apter

Blurb: Andrew Denton: 'I think you're enjoying life now. Would I be right?'

Daniel Johns: 'Yeah, definitely, I love life, it's the best thing in the world.' - Enough Rope, 2004.

It's taken Daniel Johns a long time to be able to make such a simple statement. Having spent more than ten years as the frontman for Silverchair, Australia's biggest rock band of the past decade, he's endured teen stardom, depression, anorexia, crippling reactive arthritis and the slings and arrows of the music industry, only to emerge tattooed and renewed. And now, the Newcastle-born band have just completed their fifth album in the famed Laurel Canyon studios.

A New Tomorrow tells the complete and unexpurgated story of Silverchair. Jeff Apter documents how Johns and his two schoolmates, drummer Ben Gillies and bassman Chris Joannou, graduated from The Loft above the Gillies family's garage to centre stage at Madison Square Garden - all within the time it typically takes most bands to record their first single. When the dust settled and they discovered their debut album, Frogstomp, had sold almost three million copies, Silverchair were faced with an even bigger challenge as they attempted to prove they were much more than 'Nirvana in Pyjamas'.

With the release of their 2002 masterpiece, Diorama, Silverchair firmly established their own musical identity, while Johns has developed into a songwriter with few peers in modern music.

Featuring exclusive interviews with the band and all of those who have worked with Silverchair over their rollercoaster ride of a career, A New Tomorrow covers all of the band members' solo work, the Daniel Johns-Natalie Imbruglia nuptials, the band's 'rebirth' at the WaveAid fundraiser and a sneak preview of their new studio album.

ISBN: 1741664837 (Paperback)

Year: 2006

Publisher: Random House Australia

Pages: 360 (Non-Fiction)

Links

1. Buy from Amazon

2. Publisher's page

3. Author's official site

4. Goodreads page

5. Band's official site

Toy Story 2 - Disney Pixar (Leslie Goldman)

Toy Story 2 - Disney Pixar

Leslie Goldman

Blurb: Woody has always taken care of the other toys. So when Woody is stolen by Al the toy collector, Buzz rounds up the rest of the toys to save Woody from certain doom - a toy museum! But when they finally find Woody, he doesn't want to come back - he wants to be a collector's item and sit under a glass case What will it take to make Woody remember that he's still a toy and meant to be played with?

Based on the action-packed sequel to the original Toy Story, with eight pages of full-colour photos from the movie.

ISBN: 073430059X (Paperback)

Year: 1999

Publisher: Penguin Books

Pages: 94 (Fiction)

Links

1. Buy from QBD

2. Buy from Amazon

3. Author's official site

4. IMDB for the film

5. Wikipedia page for the film

Tinker Bell and the Lost Treasure - The Magical Story - Disney Fairies (Lisa Marsoli)

Tinker Bell and the Lost Treasure - The Magical Story (Disney Fairies) 

Lisa Marsoli

Blurb: Tinker Bell is thrilled when she is asked to create the autumn sceptre to celebrate the rare blue moon. Her best friend Terence tries to help Tink but she just gets in her way. They fall out and Tink ends up shattering the precious moonstone held within the sceptre.

In order to fix the moonstone, Tink sets off on a perilous journey to find the enchanted Mirror of Incanta. But is it too late to save the blue moon and her friendship with Terrence?

ISBN: 9781407579276 (Hardback)

Year: 2009

Publisher: Parragon

Pages: 29 (Fiction)

Links

1. Publisher's page for the book

2. Wikipedia page for the film the book is based on

3. Wiki page

4. Buy from Amazon

5. Author's Goodreads page

The Mysterious Stranger - Toy Story (Dan Jolley & Chris Moreno)

The Mysterious Stranger - Toy Story

Dan Jolley & Chris Moreno

Blurb: This action-packed trade collects all four issues of Toy Story: The Mysterious Stranger. Woody, Buzz and the gang encounter a mysterious egg-shaped toy... They crash Andy's science fair in a heroic attempt to repair his broken exhibit... They toys must make peace with the family's new dog, buster...And finally, Sarge decides that the only way he can keep his troops safe is by revealing their walking-and-talking nature to Andy! Can Woody stop him before it's too late?

ISBN: 9781934506912 (Paperback)

Year: 2010

Publisher: Boom Kids

Pages: 96 (Fiction)

Links

1. Buy from Amazon

2. Preview some of the comic

3. Buy from Borders

4. Wikipedia page for the Toy Story series

5. Review of the film series

Open Secrets: A True Story of Love, Jealousy, and Murder (Carlton Stowers)

Open Secrets: A True Story of Love, Jealousy, and Murder

Carlton Stowers

Blurb: On a fall afternoon in 1983, in an upscale Dallas suburb, Rozanne Gailiunas was found stripped, bound to her bed, and shot through the skull. Her four-year-old son had been napping peacefully in the next room when she was killed. Rozanne's husband, Dr. Peter Gailiunas - and her lover, Larry Aylor - immediately fell under suspicion. Until a surprise informant identified the mastermind behind the murder as Aylor's own wife, Joy - a woman so driven by jealously and greed that she put out a contract on both Rozanne and later her own husband.

On the run and managing to elude investigators for eight years, the two-year search for the socialite would eventually end in the south of France. There, authorities found the elusive femme fatale, living as comfortably among the world's elite as she was among hired killers. At last, the authorities' questions would be answered, to reveal a shocking insight into the heart of an unlikely killer, and a small-town Texas crime that made international headlines.

ISBN: 9780312982140 (Paperback)

Year: 1994

Publisher: St. Martin's Paperbacks

Pages: 386 (Non-Fiction)

Links

1. Goodreads page for the book

2. Buy from Amazon

3. Reviews of the book

4. Buy from Barnes & Noble

5. Information on the hitman and other aspects of the case

In the Sea there are Crocodiles - The story of Enaiatollah Akbari (Fabio Geda)

In the Sea there are Crocodiles - The story of Enaiatollah Akbari

Fabio Geda

Blurb: If you hold a wish up high, any wish, just in front of your forehead, then life will always be worth living.

One night before putting him to bed, Enaiatollah's mother tells him three things: don't use drugs, don't use weapons, and don't steal. The next day, the ten-year-old Afghan boy wakes up to find she has gone. He is on the border of Pakistan, and he is all alone.

In this remarkable true story, Italian novelist Fabio Geda describes Enaiatollah's five-year journey from Afghanistan to Italy. His ordeal takes him through Pakistan, Iran, Turkey and Greece, enduring unimaginable hardships and challenges. Enaiatollah's engaging voice is brilliantly captured by Geda, and his search for a place to call home becomes a universal story of courage in the face of fear.

ISBN: 9780857560087 (Hardback)

Year: 2010

Publisher: David Fickling Books

Pages: 211 (Non-Fiction)

Links

1. Review of the book

2. Publisher's page for the book

3. Another review

4. Buy from Amazon

5. Goodreads page for the book

Lisey's Story (Stephen King)

Lisey's Story

Stephen King

Blurb: 'To the public eye, the spouses of well-known writers are all but invisible, and no one knew it better than Lisey Landon.' That is until the maddeningly humid, maddeningly muggy day her husband Scott, a celebrated, award-winning novelist, inaugurated the site of a new library. The day that started with a broken toothglass...

Years later, Lisey is ruminating on their marriage of profound, sometimes frightening intimacy. Lisey has always known there was a powerful place where her husband ventured to face his demons. Now it's Lisey's turn. And what begins as a widow's effort to sort through her husband's effects becomes a perilous journey into the heart of darkness.

Lisey's Story is a beautifully textured suspense narrative about the wellsprings of creativity, the temptations of madness and the secret language of love.

ISBN: 0340898941 (Paperback)

Year: 2006

Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton

Pages: 562 (Fiction)

Links

1. Wikipedia page for the book

2. Review of the book

3. Another review

4. Buy from Amazon

5. Author's official page

The Way of the World: A Story of Truth and Hope in an Age of Extremism (Ron Suskind)

The Way of the World: A Story of Truth and Hope in an Age of Extremism

Ron Suskind

Blurb: From Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and bestselling author Ron Suskind comes a startling look at how America and the West lost their way and at our governments' struggle, day by day, to reclaim the moral authority upon which their survival depends.

In a sweeping, propulsive, and multilayered narrative, The Way of the World investigates how the West relinquished the moral leadership it now desperately needs to fight the real threat of our era: a nuclear weapon in the hands of terrorists. Suskind shows where the most neglected dangers lie in the story of 'The Armageddon Test' - a desperate gamble to send undercover teams into the world's nuclear black market to frustrate the efforts of terrorists trying to procure weapons-grade uranium. In the end, he finally reveals for the first time the explosive falsehood underlying the Iraq War and the Blair-Bush coalition.

The Way of the World simultaneously follows an ensemble of characters around the world who are turning fear and frustration into a desperate - and often daring - brand of human salvation. They include a striving, 24-year-old Pakistani emigre, a fearless UN refugee commissioner, an Afghan teenager, a Holocaust survivor's son, and Benazir Bhutto, who discovers, days before her death, how she's been abandoned by the United States at her moment of greatest need. They are all testing Western values at a time of peril, and discovering solutions - human solutions - to so much that has gone wrong.

ISBN: 9781847374486 (Paperback)

Year: 2008

Publisher: Simon & Schuster

Pages: 415 (Non-Fiction)

Links

1. Buy from Amazon

2. Wikipedia page for the book

3. Google books page

4. Author's official page

5. Review of the book

Disney's The Lion King: Pocket Story (Various)

Disney's The Lion King: Pocket Story

Various

Blurb: Run away, Simba. Run away and never return.

When Simba, a lion cub prince, is banished from Pride Rock, he soon befriends Pumbaa, a warthog, and Timon, a meerkat. But will Simba return home and become king? Find out in this amazing adventure.

ISBN: 9781407576442 (Paperback)

Year: 2009

Publisher: Parragon

Pages: 24 (Fiction)

Links

1. Broadway tickets for The Lion King

2. Wikipedia page for the film

3. IMDB for the film

4. Trailer for the 3D re-release of the film

5. Review of the film

Disney Pixar's Toy Story 3: Book of the film (Jasmine Jones)

Disney Pixar's Toy Story 3: Book of the film

Jasmine Jones

Blurb: The time has come that every toy dreads, the child that used to play for hours with his toys is all grown up and heading off to college.

And that time has now come for Buzz, Woody and the gang. As Andy leaves behind his home to start life as a grown up the toys face an unknown future. What will happen to them?

Find out in this complete retelling of the brand new Disney Pixar smash hit film. Featuring your favourite toys, as well as some interesting new faces, things are never bound to run smoothly as the toys embark on a new adventure without Andy.

ISBN: 9781407583891 (Paperback)

Year: 2010

Publisher: Parragon

Pages: 126 (Fiction)

Links

1. Buy from Amazon

2. Publisher's page

3. Google books page

4. Official page for the film series

5. Wikipedia page for the film

To Cut a Long Story Short (Jeffrey Archer)

To Cut a Long Story Short

Jeffrey Archer

Blurb: The latest short-story collection from the master storyteller. The fourteen - all new - stories show Jeffrey Archer's great skills with a wide variety of character, of subject and of setting, but all with that trademark twist in the tail.

Every reader will have their own favourites: the choices run from love at first sight across the train tracks to the cleverest of confidence tricks, from the quirks of the legal profession - and those who are able to manipulate both sides of the Bar - to the creative financial talents of a member of Her Majesty's diplomatic service - but for a good cause. The last story, 'The Grass is Always Greener', is possibly the best piece Archer has written, and will haunt you for the rest of your life.

ISBN: 9780007841936 (Paperback)

Year: 2000

Publisher: Harper Collins Publishers

Pages: 419 (Fiction)

Links

1. Wikipedia page for the book

2. Author's Official Site

3. Google books page

4. Buy from Amazon

5. Review of the book