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Sunday, July 22, 2012

The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith (Thomas Keneally)


The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith
Thomas Keneally

Blurb: When Jimmie Blacksmith marries a white woman the backlash from both Jimmie's tribe and white society initiates a series of dramatic events. As Jimmie tries to survive between two cultures, tensions reach a head when the Newbys, Jimmie's white employers, try to break up his marriage. The Newby women are murdered and Jimmie flees, pursued by police and vigilantes. The hunt intensifies as further murders are committed, and concludes with tragic results. 

Thomas Keneally's fictionalised account of the 19th century Aboriginal, Jimmy Governor, is a powerful story of a black man's revenge against an unjust and intolerant society.

ISBN: 0207197164 (Paperback)
Year: 1972
Publisher: A&R Classics
Pages: 178 (Fiction)

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Saturday, July 21, 2012

The Constitution of the United States of America (Inscribed and Illustrated by Sam Fink / Philadelphia Convention)


The Constitution of the United States of America
Inscribed and Illustrated by Sam Fink (Philadelphia Convention)

Blurb: In 1787... 
We were given the right to practice the religion of our choice. We were given the right to say what we wanted without persecution. It was written that our house and property were secure from unreasonable search and seizure. We were given the right to a public trial. Fifty-five men we will never know sat in a sweltering room and fought for us. We were given our rights as citizens of the United States.

This fall, as we return again to the ballot box to decide the course of our country's congressional and state leadership, every voter must find their way back to that room in Philadelphia. Welcome Books is proud to provide a map. 

The Constitution of the United States of America, inscribed and illustrated by the master calligrapher, Sam Fink, brings to life the issues underlying the triumphs of this abiding document. Originally published in pen and ink for Random House in 1987, Mr Fink has, at the request of Welcome Books, gone back to his original black-and-white art and painted it anew, created a full-colour masterpiece. The result is glorious. Each amendment, each article, each word so thoughtfully placed in The Constitution has been given Mr. Fink's profound touch. With a powerful intelligence and a wonderful sense of humour, he has provided us with an entry point into this complex document, allowing us to read it with greater ease and understanding.

In 1787, we were entrusted with our most important living document, The Constitution of the United States of America. Have we kept it safe? To answer this, we must begin by reading it, each and every one of us - so that we may claim an intimate knowledge of its content: so that we may never forget its tenets; so that we may remember the kind of world we want to live in. This, Sam Fink, in his direct and unadorned way, respectful and loving, helps us do.

ISBN: 9780941807999 (Hardback)
Year: 1787 / 2006
Publisher: Welcome Books
Pages: 135 (Non-Fiction)

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Friday, July 20, 2012

Learning from Legends - AFL (Bruce McAvaney)


Learning from Legends - AFL
Interviews by Bruce McAvaney

Blurb: Following the success of Learning from Legends Sport, Business and Australian Cricket, the fourth in the series, Learning from Legends AFL, shifts its leadership focus to the country's biggest professional sport, Australian football, and delivers further insight into the thoughts, experiences and opinions of AFL Legends both past and present. 

Based on extensive interviews conducted by pre-eminent sports commentator Bruce McAvaney, Learning from Legends AFL explores leadership with nearly 50 of the game's greatest ambassadors. The Legends tell McAvaney about their earliest influences, the most inspiring leaders they have played for and with, their key leadership lessons and much more.

The leadership insights presented in Learning from Legends AFL will inspire, motivate and inform all who read it. Although the names are familiar, the insights are unique, and each Legend has contributed in the hope that others may learn from their experiences and triumphs. 

ISBN: 9781921486128 (Hardback)
Year: 2009
Publisher: Fairfax Books
Pages: 255 (Non-Fiction)

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Thursday, July 19, 2012

Jesus on ThyFace - Social Networking for the Modern Messiah (Denise Haskew and Steve W Parker)


Jesus on ThyFace - Social Networking for the Modern Messiah
Denise Haskew and Steve W Parker

Blurb: Some years ago, several short biographies of my life were published in an anthology of works you may or may not have come across called 'The Bible', which, without blowing my Angels' trumpets, went on to become the best-selling book of all time. Although laudable in many ways, I always felt these biographies lacked the immediacy of the actual events, as well as being somewhat light on laughs, and for some time I toyed with the idea of submitting my own version to publishers for their consideration.

Of course, there are many other people whose stories are interwoven with mine: my cousins, the Zebedees, John the Baptist, my mum (the Virgin Mary), not to mention Pontius Pilate, the Roman Governor at the time. Then it struck me - we were all mad crazy on social networking back then, and everyone had a ThyFace account. So I thought what could be more immediate than reading my story as it unfolded on out ThyFace scrolls? So I contacted the guys - most of them are up here anyway, although a few of them are living in 'another place', shall we say. And I'm glad to report, they all gave their immediate blessing.

So here it is: the story of the last four years of my time on Earth as revealed on ThyFace, the forerunning of modern social networking sites such as MySpace and Facebook. Blessed art thou. Amen

Jesus Christ

ISBN: 9780857201454 (Hardback)
Year: 2010
Publisher: Simon & Schuster 
Pages: 88 (Fiction)

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Wednesday, July 18, 2012

Earth Hive: Aliens Book 1 (Steve Perry)


Earth Hive: Aliens Book 1
Steve Perry

Blurb: They come in silence like death in the night... They breed inside the living and kill at birth...Born on another world; they are perfect killing machines...They are Aliens

Wilks was a space marine with a near-fatal flaw: he had a heart. Billie was a child, the only survivor of a far-flung colony outpost. Thrown together in the last hellish night of an alien invasion, Billie and Wilks helped each other get out alive.

Thirteen years later Wilks is in prison, and Billie lives in a mental institution, the nightmare memories of the massacre at Rim seared into her mind. Now the government has tapped Wilks to lead an expedition to the aliens' home planet to bring back a live alien. But the competition on Earth to develop the aliens as a new weapons system is brutal. When Wilk's team departs on their mission, a trained assassin trails them. And what follows is no less than guerilla warfare on the aliens' planet - and alien conquest on Earth!

ISBN: 9780553561203 (Paperback)
Year: 1992
Publisher: Bantam Books
Pages: 278 (Fiction)

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Tuesday, July 17, 2012

The Red Badge of Courage (Stephen Crane)


The Red Badge of Courage
Stephen Crane

Blurb: He felt that in this crisis his laws of life were useless. Whatever he had learned of himself was here of no avail. He was an unknown quantity.

Following one soldier's journey from naive recruit to hardened survivor, The Red Badge of Courage is a vivid and powerfully psychological take on the American Civil War. Fighting for the Union army, Henry Fleming is thrown into a bloody war where the harsh realities and horrors of battle quickly become evident. Fearful, occasionally vain, but always viewing the war with honest eyes, Henry eventually comes to thrive as a soldier in combat and it is with a new conscience and outlook that he matures into manhood. 

ISBN: 9780007902200 (Paperback)
Year: 1895
Publisher: Collins Classics
Pages: 188 (Fiction)

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Monday, July 16, 2012

The Return of the Worthy - Star Trek (Peter David, Bill Mumy, J. Michael Straczynski)


The Return of the Worthy - Star Trek
Peter David, Bill Mumy, J. Michael Straczynski

Blurb: These are the continuing comic adventures of Kirk, Spock, Scotty and the crew of the U.S.S. Enterprise, as the classic Star Trek team warp into thrilling new worlds!

When Captain Kirk and his crew accidentally discover a group of heroes thought long-dead, they must help them acclimatise to a galaxy they barely recognise. But when internal stresses threaten to tear the group apart, can Kirk help them become heroes again? Also in this collection: a very special tale of dying worlds and those who remember them, and a shocking team-up with...the Klingons?

Written by acclaimed Star Trek novelist and comics legend Peter David (The Incredible Hulk), Lost in Space star Bill Mumy, Babylon 5 creator J. Michael Straczynski and Star Trek author Howard Weinstein, with pencillers Gordon Purcell (New Teen Titans) and Ken Hooper (Aquaman), and featuring rare interviews with William Shatner (Captain Kirk) and George Takei (Mr Sulu), these never-before-collected tales will take you beyond the final frontier!

ISBN: 184576319X (Paperback)
Year: 2006
Publisher: Titan Books
Pages: 160 (Fiction)

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Sunday, July 15, 2012

The Mammoth Hunters - Earth's Children #3 (Jean M. Auel)


The Mammoth Hunters - Earth's Children #3
Jean M. Auel

Blurb: Join Ayla's unforgettable odyssey through an exotic, primeval world...

No longer alone, Ayla leaves the Valley of Horses that has become her home. Travelling with her is Jondalar, the handsome young man she has nursed back to health and come to love. Together, they embark on a journey that will lead them to the Mamutoi: the Mammoth Hunters.

But as she gradually settles into this new life amongst a people at first strange and disturbingly different, Ayla finds herself irresistibly drawn to the magnetic Ranec, their master-carver...

ISBN: 9781444704358 (Paperback)
Year: 1985
Publisher: Hodder
Pages: 718 (Fiction)

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Saturday, July 14, 2012

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)

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Friday, July 13, 2012

The Wind Through the Keyhole - The Dark Tower #4.5 (Stephen King)


The Wind Through the Keyhole - The Dark Tower #4.5
Stephen King

Blurb: For readers new to Stephen King's epic seven-volume fantasy masterpiece The Dark Tower, The Wind Through the Keyhole is both a stand-alone novel and a wonderful introduction to the series. It is an enchanting Russian doll of a novel, a story within a story within a story, which features both the younger and older Roland Deschain - Mid-World's last gunslinger - on his quest to find the Dark Tower. 

For the legions of fans it is a gift of deeper insight and a chance to discover what happened to Roland and his ka-tet between the time they leave the Emerald City and arrive on the outskirts of Calla Bryn Sturgis.

We join Roland and his ka-tet as a ferocious storm halts their progress along the Path of the Beam. As they shelter from the screaming wind and the snapping trees, Roland tells them not just one strange tale, but two - and in doing so sheds fascinating light on his own troubled past. 

In his early days as a gunslinger, in the guilt ridden year following his mother's death, Roland is sent by his father to a ranch to investigate a recent slaughter. Here Roland discovers a bloody churn of bootprints, clawed animal tracks, terrible carnage - evidence that the 'skin-man', a shape shifter, is at work. There is only one surviving witness; a brave but terrified boy called Bill Streeter. 

Roland, himself only a teenager, calms the boy by reciting a story from Magic Tales of the Eld that his mother used to read to him at bedtime, 'The Wind Through the Keyhole'. 'A person's never too old for stories,' he says to Bill. 'Man and boy, girl and woman, we live for them.' 

And stories like these, they live for us. 

ISBN: 9781444731712 (Paperback)
Year: 2012
Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton 
Pages: 335 (Fiction)

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