Position Doubtful - Mapping landscapes and memories by Kim Mahood

$12.00 NZD

Category: Australia | Reading Level: good

SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2017 VICTORIAN PREMIER'S LITERARY AWARDS FOR NON-FICTION Imagine the document you have before you is not a book but a map. It is well-used, creased, and folded, so that when you open it, no matter how carefully, something tears and a line that is neither latitude nor longitude opens in the hidden geography of the place you are about to enter. Since the publication of her prize-winning memoir, Craft for a Dry Lake, in 2000, writer and artist Kim Mahood has been returning to the Tanami desert country in far north-western Australia where, as a child, she lived with her family on a remote cattle station. The land is timeless, but much has changed: the station has been handed back to its traditional owners; the mining companies have arrived; and Aboriginal art has flourished. Comedy and tragedy, familiarity and uncertainty are Mahood's constant companions as she immerses herself in the life of a small community and in groundbreaking mapping projects. What emerges in Position Doubtful is a revelation of the significance of the land to its people -- and of the burden of history. Mahood is an artist of astonishing versatility. She works with words, with paint, with installations, and with performance art. Her writing about her own work and collaborations, and about the work of the desert artists, is profoundly enlightening, making palpable the link between artist and country. This is a beautiful and intense exploration of friendships, landscape, and homecoming. Written with great energy and humour, Position Doubtful offers a unique portrait of the complexities of black and white relations in contemporary Australia. PRAISE FOR KIM MAHOOD '[Mahood] is a talented writer whose mastery of the language is absolute. The combination of an artist's eye, a mapmaker's precision, and a wordsmith's playfulness makes for a work of captivating beauty ... a significant and timely work.' The Weekend Australian 'An extraordinary excavation of the relationship, past and present, between settlers and indigenous Australians, deeply grounded in this alluring tract of desert, but with relevance for us all.' The Monthly ...Show more

Morris & Company - Pre-Raphaelites and the Arts & Crafts Movement in South Australia by Christopher Menz

$35.00 NZD

Category: Interior design | Reading Level: very good

The Boy Adeodatus - The Portrait of a Lucky Young Bastard by Bernard Smith

$10.00 NZD

Category: Biography | Reading Level: very good

This is the story of an illegitimate son and the mother who decided to keep him. It is the story, too, of a foster mother who loved children and of her extended family. This extraordinary autobiography recreates the atmosphere of a Sydney suburb around World War I, and subtly explores the changing times . ...Show more

Mediaeval and Renaissance Illuminated Manuscripts in Australian Collections by Margaret M Mannion; Vera F Vines

$40.00 NZD

Category: Books About Books | Reading Level: very good

Private Presses and Australia by Geoffrey Farmer

$20.00 NZD

Category: Books About Books | Reading Level: very good

Eye Contact - Photographing Indigenous Australians by Jane Lydon

$25.00 NZD

Category: Photography | Reading Level: good-very good

Norfolk Island - An Outline of its History 1774-1968 by Merval Hoare

$15.00 NZD

Category: Australia | Reading Level: good

Contemporary Aboriginal Art - A Guide to the Rebirth of an Ancient Culture by Susan McCulloch

$25.00 NZD

Category: Maori & Pacific | Reading Level: very good

An illustrated guide to Australia's 20 major art-producing communities, prefaced by a description of each region and a history of the development of Aboriginal art since the mid-1970s. The book explores the cultural wellspring the art originates from and whether "traditional" art still exists.

The Stuart Case by K S Inglis

$14.00 NZD

Category: Australia

Dispossession - Black Australians and White Invaders by Henry Reynolds

$15.00 NZD

Category: Australia | Reading Level: very good

A fascinating collection of documents revealing in their own words how white Australians regarded Aboriginal people in the two centuries since white colonisation led to black dispossession.

Terra Nullius - A Journey through No One's Land by Sven Lindqvist

$12.00 NZD

Category: Travel | Reading Level: very good

In critically acclaimed "Desert Divers" and "Exterminate all the Brutes", Sven Lindqvist travelled through Africa's deserts, and unearthed the cruelty of colonialism. Now he has done the same for Australia. Lindqvist travels through the south of country, lyrically describing its landscape, flora and fau na and geology, while also telling the history of the country, and revealing the shocking treatment of its Aboriginal peoples. He catalogues some truly shocking abuses, such as the rounding up of Aborigine women for transportation to the chillingly named "Isle of the Dead" for inappropriate and often fatal syphilis treatment; and the extensive forced separation of 'halfblood' children from their families to squalid, prison-like camps. Stretching from the formation of the Australian continent 600 million years ago to the 2002 hunger strikes in the Woomera detention camp, Terra Nullius leaves us with a strong sense of Australia as a piece of earth, steeped in geological and tragic human history. ...Show more

The Original Australians - Story of the Aboriginal people by Josephine Flood

$15.00 NZD

Category: Australia | Reading Level: very good

This fascinating and intelligent volume tells the remarkable story of Australian Aboriginal history from its distant beginnings in the age of Dreamtime, through the first contact with Europeans and other outsiders, right up to the present day. "The Original Australians" offers stunning insights into the life and experiences of one of the world's oldest cultures. This volume also looks at some of the most commonly asked questions, such as where did the Aboriginal people come from? And how did they survive in such a harsh environment? As well as debunking common myths. It also attempts to look at Aboriginal history and culture from both black and white perspectives, in order to better understand its place in today's global society. ...Show more