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History

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Flawed Hero

The shock­ing sto­ry of the case against Aus­trali­a’s most high­ly dec­o­rat­ed sol­dier, Ben Roberts-Smith VC MG, and the defama­tion tri­al of the century.

With a Vic­to­ria Cross and Medal for Gal­lantry, Ben Roberts-Smith was the most high­ly dec­o­rat­ed Aus­tralian sol­dier, the best of the best. When he returned to civil­ian life, he became a poster boy for a nation hun­gry for war­rior heroes. He embod­ied the myth of the clas­sic Anzac, sev­en-foot-tall and bul­let­proof. But as his pub­lic rep­u­ta­tion con­tin­ued to grow, inside the army rumours were circulating.

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Crossing The Line

War is bru­tal. But there are lines that should nev­er be crossed. In mid-2017, whis­pers of exe­cu­tions, and cov­er-ups with­in Aus­trali­a’s most secre­tive and elite mil­i­tary unit, the SAS, reached Walk­ley Award-win­ning jour­nal­ist Nick McKen­zie. He and Chris Mas­ters began an inves­ti­ga­tion that would not only reveal shock­ing truths about Ben Roberts-Smith VC but plunge the reporters into the defama­tion tri­al of the century.

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The Aeneid

Flee­ing the ash­es of Troy, Aeneas, Achilles’ mighty foe in the Ili­ad, begins an incred­i­ble jour­ney to ful­fill his des­tiny as the founder of Rome. His voy­age will take him through stormy seas, entan­gle him in a trag­ic love affair, and lure him into the world of the dead itself — all the way tor­ment­ed by the venge­ful Juno, Queen of the Gods. Ulti­mate­ly, he reach­es the promised land of Italy where, after bloody bat­tles and with high hopes, he founds what will become the Roman empire.

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The Name Of The Rose

The year is 1327. Fran­cis­cans in a wealthy Ital­ian abbey are sus­pect­ed of heresy, and Broth­er William of Baskerville arrives to inves­ti­gate. When his del­i­cate mis­sion is sud­den­ly over­shad­owed by sev­en bizarre deaths, Broth­er William turns detective.

William col­lects evi­dence, deci­phers secret sym­bols and cod­ed man­u­scripts, and digs into the eerie labyrinth of the abbey where extra­or­di­nary things are hap­pen­ing under the cov­er of night. A spec­tac­u­lar pop­u­lar and crit­i­cal suc­cess, The Name of the Rose is not only a nar­ra­tive of a mur­der inves­ti­ga­tion but an aston­ish­ing chron­i­cle of the Mid­dle Ages.

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France: An Adventure History

A whol­ly orig­i­nal his­to­ry of France, filled with a life­time’s knowl­edge and pas­sion-by the author of the New York Times best­seller Parisians. Begin­ning with the Roman army’s first record­ed encounter with the Gauls and end­ing in the era of Emmanuel Macron, France takes read­ers on an end­less­ly enter­tain­ing jour­ney through French his­to­ry. Fre­quent­ly hilar­i­ous, always sur­pris­ing, Gra­ham Rob­b’s France com­bines the styl­is­tic ver­sa­til­i­ty of a nov­el­ist with the deep under­stand­ing of a schol­ar. Rob­b’s own adven­tures and dis­cov­er­ies while liv­ing, work­ing, and trav­el­ing in France con­nect this tour through space and time with on-the-ground expe­ri­ence. There are scenes of wars and rev­o­lu­tions from the plains of Provence to the slums and boule­vards of Paris.

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The Escape Artist

In April 1944 a teenag­er named Rudolf Vrba was plan­ning a dar­ing and unprece­dent­ed escape from Auschwitz. After hid­ing in a pile of tim­ber planks for three days while 3,000 SS men and their blood­hounds searched for him, Vrba and his fel­low escapee Fred Wet­zler would even­tu­al­ly cross Nazi-occu­pied Poland on foot, as pen­ni­less fugi­tives. Their mis­sion: to tell the world the truth of the Final Solu­tion. Vrba would pro­duce from mem­o­ry a breath­tak­ing report of more than thir­ty pages reveal­ing the true nature and scale of Auschwitz — a report that would find its way to Roo­sevelt, Churchill and the Pope, even­tu­al­ly sav­ing over 200,000 Jew­ish lives. A thrilling his­to­ry with enor­mous his­tor­i­cal impli­ca­tions, THE ESCAPE ARTIST is the extra­or­di­nary sto­ry of a com­plex man who would seek escape again and again: first from Auschwitz, then from his past, even from his own name. In telling his sto­ry, Jonathan Freed­land — the jour­nal­ist, broad­cast­er and acclaimed, mul­ti-mil­lion copy sell­ing author of the Sam Bourne nov­els — ensures that Rudolf Vrba’s hero­ic mis­sion will also escape oblivion.

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The Incredible Life of Hubert Wilkins: Australia’s Greatest Explorer

The extra­or­di­nary, must-read sto­ry of the brave, bold Hubert Wilkins — Aus­trali­a’s most adven­tur­ous explor­er, nat­u­ral­ist, pho­tog­ra­ph­er, war hero, avi­a­tor, spy and dare­dev­il — brought to life by Aus­trali­a’s great­est sto­ry­teller. Sir Hubert Wilkins is one of the most remark­able Aus­tralians who ever lived. The son of pio­neer pas­toral­ists in South Aus­tralia, Hubert stud­ied engi­neer­ing before mov­ing on to pho­tog­ra­phy, then sail­ing for Eng­land and a job pro­duc­ing films with the Gau­mont Film Co. Brave and bold, he became a polar expe­di­tion­er, a bril­liant war pho­tog­ra­ph­er, a spy in the Sovi­et Union, a pio­neer­ing avi­a­tor-nav­i­ga­tor, a death-defy­ing sub­mariner — all while being an explor­er and chron­i­cler of the plan­et and its life forms that would do Vas­co da Gama and Sir David Atten­bor­ough proud. As a WW1 pho­tog­ra­ph­er he was twice award­ed the Mil­i­tary Cross for brav­ery under fire, the only Aus­tralian pho­tog­ra­ph­er in any war to be dec­o­rat­ed. He went on expe­di­tion with Sir Ernest Shack­le­ton, led a ground­break­ing nat­ur­al his­to­ry study in Aus­tralia and was knight­ed in 1928 for his avi­a­tion exploits, but many more astound­ing achieve­ments would fol­low. Wilkins’ quest for knowl­edge and polar explo­rations were life­long pas­sions and his mis­sions to polar regions aboard the sub­ma­rine Nau­tilus the stuff of leg­end. With mas­ter­ful sto­ry­telling skill, Peter FitzSi­mons illu­mi­nates the life of Hubert Wilkins and his incred­i­ble achieve­ments. Thrills and spills, der­ring-do, new worlds dis­cov­ered — this is the most unfor­get­table tale of the most extra­or­di­nary life lived by any Australian.

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So Sad To Fall In Battle

The Bat­tle of Iwo Jima has been memo­ri­al­ized innu­mer­able times as the sub­ject of count­less books and motion pic­tures, most recent­ly Clint Eastwood’s films Flags of Our Fathers and Let­ters from Iwo Jima, and no wartime pho­to is more famous than Joe Rosenthal’s Pulitzer Prize-win­ning image of Marines rais­ing the flag on Mount Surib­achi. Yet most Amer­i­cans know only one side of this piv­otal and bloody bat­tle. First pub­lished in Japan to great acclaim, becom­ing a best­seller and a prize-win­ner, So Sad to Fall in Bat­tle shows us the strug­gle, through the eyes of Japan­ese com­man­der Tadamichi Kurib­ayashi, one of the most fas­ci­nat­ing and least-known fig­ures of World War II.

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The Ship That Never Was: The Greatest Escape Story Of Australian Colonial History

The great­est escape sto­ry of Aus­tralian colo­nial his­to­ry by the son of Australia’s best-loved sto­ry­teller In 1823, cock­ney sailor and chancer James Porter was con­vict­ed of steal­ing a stack of beaver furs and trans­port­ed halfway around the world to Van Diemen’s Land. After sev­er­al escape attempts from the noto­ri­ous penal colony, Porter, who told author­i­ties he was a ‘beer-machine mak­er’, was sent to Mac­quar­ie Har­bour, known in Van Diemen’s Land as hell on earth.

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Shackleton

An author­i­ta­tive biog­ra­phy of Sir Ernest Shack­le­ton from polar adven­tur­er Ran­ulph Fiennes. In 1915, Sir Ernest Shack­le­ton’s attempt to tra­verse the Antarc­tic was cut short when his ship, Endurance, became trapped in ice. The dis­as­ter left Shack­le­ton and his men alone at the frozen South Pole, fight­ing for their lives. Their sur­vival and escape is the most famous adven­ture in his­to­ry. Shack­le­ton is an engag­ing new account of the adven­tur­er, his life and his incred­i­ble lead­er­ship under the most extreme of cir­cum­stances. Writ­ten by polar adven­tur­er Sir Ran­ulph Fiennes who fol­lowed in Shack­le­ton’s foot­steps, he brings his own unique insights to bear on these infa­mous expe­di­tions. Shack­le­ton is both re-appraisal and a vale­dic­tion, sep­a­rat­ing the man from the myth he has become.

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