Australian Soccer-From The Beginning

A state by state history of men’s and women’s soccer in Australia written by legendary soccer journalist Ted Simmons OAM. Deeply researched and containing a wealth of historical pictures, the book takes readers from the coal mines, gentleman’s clubs and ethnic clans of soccer’s origins in Australia through its expansion, and the growth of women’s soccer, to its place today as the most-played sport in the country. For the first time in Australian publishing, women’s soccer sits on an equal footing with the men’s game in this encyclopaedic body of work.
$45 + P&P

Memories of Ash Wednesday

The fire of 16 February 1983 in the Macedon Ranges

Compiled and Edited by Bryan Power

This book documents the personal memories of dozens of people who lived through the Ash Wednesday fire of 16 February 1983 in the Macedon Ranges, centred on Macedon and Mount Macedon but including surrounding areas, giving minute by minute accounts of their survival and the aftermath of this catastrophic event.
Some have not spoken about their experiences before.
Included are a wealth of pictures taken on the day of the fire and immediately after, exposing the utter devastation of the area, plus other information surrounding an event that has become part of the lexicon of fire disaster in Victoria.
This is the second book produced by Bryan Power.
$40 plus postage

Geelong to Gallipoli – and Back: 1914-1919

Compiled by Wendy Hebbard

Roy and Bert Gollan served at Gallipoli and in Europe with so many other young Geelong men, a distressing number of whom did not return. Fortunately the brothers survived.
Roy was a journalist with the Geelong Advertiser and later the Melbourne Argus, and in news reports and letters home which were published in the Advertiser and its supplement (News of the Week), he writes of what he saw and experienced. His brother Bert, himself no slouch with a pen, does likewise.
Alongside their clear and matter-of-fact descriptions of life at the front are a selection of letters from some of Geelong’s other young World War I volunteers, brief biographies, and images, the whole revealing a compelling, moving and sometimes humorous story of the war. These young men were all from Geelong, but they could have been from anywhere in Australia.
This is Wendy Hebbard’s second book.
$35 plus postage

Orchard Lane

By Margaret Lygnos

A delightful fourth novel from this author. The story follows the trials and tribulations of a group of neighbours – a diverse group of people all from different walks of life -- in a tiny Melbourne street, through the eyes of recent arrival Maryanne, who has moved back to the city from the country. Was it the right move?
$35 plus postage

A Boy’s Life: The Shaping of a Medical Pioneer

By John M Court

What is it in a child’s life that sets them on their chosen path?
Dr John Court is an eminent paediatrician who became an internationally renowned specialist in the field of childhood diabetes.
Born in Melbourne, he had a working association with the Royal Children’s Hospital in Melbourne that lasted over fifty years. He invented medical equipment, pioneered new treatment methods, challenged convention and fought tirelessly in the interests of adolescent patients. The philosophies that drove his life were shaped by a childhood lived in a very different world to that of today’s children, and here he looks back over his boyhood and remarkable career with humour and enormous insight. Whether he was being called upon to treat a young gorilla or standing vigil beside the bed of a dying child, Dr Court drew wisdom from every experience and in this episodic-style biography has drawn an evocative and entertaining picture of a remarkable life.

Gardens and Birds of the Macedon Ranges

Noted garden designer Rosemary Davies has produced another in a series of informative books, this one focusing on the Macedon Ranges. Illustrated with stunning pictures from gardens around the region, including some of the magnificent hill gardens of Mount Macedon, the book will inform those who are looking to combine the beauty of nature with the best habitat for plants and wildlife in their own garden, as well as those who just like to know a bit about their surrounds as they wander in the natural environment.
With the aid of gorgeous pictures from the prize-winning camera of the late Ron Weste, this guide also details the local birdlife of the Macedon Ranges and gives advice on the best plants to use to attract them to your garden. It is the complete package for garden lovers everywhere.

Skewiff / The Meaning of Australia

Australia boasts some of the most imaginative place names in the world. Ever wondered what they mean?
This highly entertaining dictionary is packed full of alternative meanings that offer a slightly skewed view of what it is to be Australian!
Coming soon in ePUB format.

Passage to Pusan

A harrowing account of the life of a Brisbane mother whose son was killed in the Korean War, and her battle to make the journey to find her beloved first-born child’s grave. Journalist Louise Evans has written an evocative tale of Thelma Healey’s escape from a violent husband and the drudgery she endured to realise her dream of being with her son one last time.

Ride On Mowers

A delightful collection of stories about life in the country written by Kathy Mexted. Kathy’s comedic touch makes for a highly entertaining little book, illustrated with spectacular photographs showcasing the best of the Hanging Rock and Woodend area.

A Trip Over the Australian Alps

In 1891, Harry Langham and friends from Melbourne University and the YMCA ramblers club began an adventure that became a lifelong passion, exploring the alpine peaks of Victoria. Reproducing original historic photographs and diary, this book by Wendy Hebbard documents the journey of the group as they explore their way across the mountains and follows up with the illustrated lecture later given by Langham.

In these days long before ski lodges and tourist facilities, and horrifyingly ill-equipped by modern standards, the young men make their way from peak to snowy peak, sometimes battling snow storms, sometimes halted by the sheer breathtaking beauty and spiritual essence of the rugged alpine region. Incredibly, their snow shoes are handmade with bits of wood and rope. Their clothes are more suited to a day at the races. Struck by the beauty of the scenes they encountered across places such as Buffalo, Hotham, the Gorge, Feathertop, Blowhard and more, these men returned to the Alps for many years to come. This unique record contains hundreds of historic photographs.

Gallipoli Eyewitness

Lt Gerald Gibson arrived in Egypt in December 1914 with a camera, two notebooks and his car appropriated to the Light Horse Brigade. He had no idea the following months in this ancient land would be the precursor to participation in one of Australia’s most dramatic theatres of war – Gallipoli. Through the extraordinary events of the Anzac invasion of Turkey’s Gallipoli Peninsula, he became eyewitness to an event that has been commemorated in Australia for nearly 100 years.

Gibson’s diary challenges some long-held beliefs about Gallipoli but, more importantly, with his unique collection of photographs it also paints a dramatic picture of life at an event that has emerged as one of the defining moments in Australia’s history.

Haystacks & Hellfire:

European Settlement in South Gisborne.

Explores the origins of white settlement in South Gisborne, a farming district known in the Gold Rush as Cabbage Tree/Couangalt whose story involves Melbourne’s elite as well as the ‘small voices’ of Victoria’s colonial history.

Thorough and scholarly research on early families and their lives is backed up with hundreds of historic pictures.

The book details the pioneer squatters of the 1830s and the immigrants who arrived with the Gold Rush in the 1850s. Families include Adeney, Aitken, Akhurst, Allardice, Ashe, Barwise, Beaty, Beattie, Borbidge, Bruce, Benson, Callery, Clarke, Collyer, Crow, Deverall, Dixon, Fell, Fillingham, Funston, Gilligan, Jenkins, Kennedy, Levack, Liddy, Lidgett, Lock, Martin, McCorkell, McGeorge, Pfeil, Short, Townsing, Tweddle, Watson, Weigall, Wilson, Woodworth.

Haystacks & Hellfire draws on documentary sources, old newspapers, written recollections and dozens of interviews to take readers on a journey through the district’s family lives from the earliest days up to the beginnings of the commuter culture in the 1970s.

Second edition available.

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