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It is 1997 in San Francisco and Simon and Sarah have been sent on a quest to see America: they must stand at least once in every 25-foot square of the country. Decades later, in an Australian city that has fallen on hard times, Caddy is camped by the Maribyrnong River, living on small change from odd jobs, ersatz vodka and memories. She's sick of being hot, dirty, broke and alone. Caddy's future changes shape when her friend, Ray, stumbles across some well-worn maps, including one of San Francisco, and their lives connect with those of teenagers Simon and Sarah in ways that are unexpected and profound. A meditation on happiness – where and in what place and with who we can find our centre, a perceptive vision of where our world is headed, and a testament to the power of memory and imagination, this is the best of novels: both highly original and eminently readable.
‘This strange story of love and loneliness, which explores how we all long to belong, is simply wonderful.’ Daily Mail When, in 1859, George Hills is pulled from the wreck of the steamship Admella, he carries with him the uneasy memory of a fellow survivor. Someone else – or something else – kept him warm as he lay dying, half-submerged in the freezing Southern Ocean, kept him bound to life. As George adapts to his life back on land, he can’t quite escape the feeling that he wasn’t alone when he emerged from the ocean that day, that a familiar presence has been watching him ever since. What the creature might want from him – his life? His first-born? Simply to return to its home? – will pursue him, and call him back to the water, where it all began. ‘[A] singular novel . . . [From the Wreck] movingly explores themes of loss, loneliness and guilt.’ Guardian ‘An absorbing, disturbing read, full of deep currents and lurking fears.’ Adrian Tchaikovsky, Arthur C. Clarke Award-winning author of The Children of Time
Winner of the 2015 Seizure Viva La Novella Prize Lives turned upside down by a bureaucratic error in this Kafkaesque work of neo-absurdism. 'Original, intelligent and compelling - a rare combination. Formaldehyde pulls off a complex narrative with frequent time and point-of-view shifts without ever losing the reader. For a novella that borders on the Kafkaesque, it has a good deal of heart. The interconnecting stories are handled adroitly - the clever structure never gets in the way of the writing, which is sharply observed, assured and witty. Smart but never showy. The most original novel I've read for some time.' - Graeme Simsion 'Immerse yourself in Jane Rawson's Formaldehyde if you like the seriously weird or the creepily wonderful. This story has small but persistent claws; under cover of its smooth, conversational narration you will be clasped and dragged into some tough, strange places. Let it take you there. Let it blow your tiny mind.' - Margo Lanagan 'Skipping across different times and genres, Formaldehyde is a wonderfully strange and inventive story of love, loss and severed limbs.' - Ryan O'Neill
Children and young people with Complex Learning Difficulties and Disabilities (CLDD) have co-existing and overlapping conditions which can manifest in complex learning patterns, extreme behaviours and a range of socio-medical needs which are new and unfamiliar to many educators. Their combination of issues and layered needs – mental health, relationship, behavioural, physical, medical, sensory, communication and cognitive – mean they often disengage from learning and challenge even our most experienced teachers. This book provides school practitioners and leaders with an approach and resources to engage this often disenfranchized group of children in learning. The Engagement for Learning...
Ecopunk! Speculative Tales of Radical Futures examines how humanity might cope with dramatic changes in nature, and adjust to new versions of normal. Ecopunk! shares stories in which the human race embraces these changes, using innovative technologies and fresh attitudes to make our emerging world sustainable. These 19 stories explore meteorological, agricultural and biological technologies, alternative histories, arcologies and communes, the beauty in flooded cities, innovations in cross-continental travel, animals on the verge of extinction, androids, reality tv shows, new food sources, environmental refugees, blurring the divide between humans and animals, and above all, friendship, family and love.
Australia — and the world — is changing. On the Great Barrier Reef corals bleach white, across the inland farmers struggle with declining rainfall, birds and insects disappear from our gardens and plastic waste chokes our shores. The 2019–20 summer saw bushfires ravage the country like never before and young and old alike are rightly anxious. Human activity is transforming the places we live in and love. In this extraordinarily powerful and moving book, some of Australia's best-known writers and thinkers — as well as ecologists, walkers, farmers, historians, ornithologists, artists and community activists — come together to reflect on what it is like to be alive during an ecologica...
Experiments explore basic principles of physics, chemistry and biology in a fun and practical way.
Lucy and Jem live on the Tasman Peninsula near Eaglehawk Neck, where Lucy is recovering from major surgery. As she tries to navigate her new body through the world, she develops a deep fascination with the local octopuses, and in doing so finds herself drawn towards the friendship of an old woman and her son. As the story unfolds, the octopuses come to shape Lucy's body and her sense of self in ways even she can't quite understand. The Octopus and I is a stunning debut novel that explores the wild, beating heart at the intersection of human and animal, love and loss, fear and hope.
Essays, stories and poems on Tasmanians' changing relationship with nature. This book is published to celebrate the Tasmanian Land Conservancy's 20th birthday
'a controlled and literate work that earns its emotional peaks' - Saturday Paper 'a delight' - The Australian A memoir about staying in one place, told through trees, by the award-winning author of MR WIGG, NEST and WHERE THE TREES WERE. "The understorey is where I live, alongside these plants and creatures. I tend the forest, stand at the foot of trees and look up, gather what has fallen." This is the story of a tree-change, of escaping suburban Brisbane for a cottage on ten acres in search of a quiet life. Of establishing a writers retreat shortly before the Global Financial Crisis hit, and of losing just about everything when it did. It is also the story of what the author found there: th...