A collection of Les Murray’s thoughts in prose, loosely focused on Australia and Australians. Also includes two of his best-loved poems on these subjects, ‘The Dream of Wearing Shorts Forever’ and ‘The Quality of Sprawl’. Read More

Peter Robb’s first book is a mixture of travel, history, culture and personal experience, based on the fifteen years he lived in southern Italy. It is the story of the mafia and its links to Italian politics, but it is much more. Read More

This is a major book about Caravaggio, one of the greatest and most influential painters the world has seen. It includes eight pages of colour plates, and twenty-four of black and white. Read More

This is close to the top of the list of books Michael Duffy published that should have become bestsellers but didn’t. Inspired by The Screwtape Letters by CS Lewis, it is a series of notes sent by Uncle Mungo to a fictitious nephew who begins a political career. Read More

A history of human, mainly European, encounters with the eucalypt. In this delightful account of gum trees and their champions, the people turn out to be as interesting as the trees. Read More

David and Gerda Foster live in Bundanoon in the Southern Highlands of NSW, where for many years they and their children were largely self-sufficient. This is the account of a year’s growing and cooking. The many splendid colour photographs are by Peter Solness. Read More

In the 1970s and 1980s, Les Murray published a number of major essays that effectively explained the intellectual and imaginative landscape in which his poetry is set. Once this task was completed, he largely stopped writing non-poetry, except on postcards. Read More

Like Robb’s first book, Midnight in Sicily, this is a mixture of travel, history, culture and personal experience. Read More