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Non-fiction

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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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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 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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Dark Emu

In this sem­i­nal book, Bruce Pas­coe uncov­ers evi­dence that long before the arrival of white men, Abo­rig­i­nal peo­ple across the con­ti­nent were build­ing dams and wells; plant­i­ng, irri­gat­ing, and har­vest­ing seeds, and then pre­serv­ing the sur­plus and stor­ing it in hous­es, sheds, or secure ves­sels; and cre­at­ing elab­o­rate ceme­ter­ies and manip­u­lat­ing the land­scape. All of these behav­iours were incon­sis­tent with the hunter-gath­er­er tag, which turns out have been a con­ve­nient lie that worked to jus­ti­fy dispossession.

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