Lindsay Johannsen: 30 books

Aussie battlers are built tough. Best them, burn ‘em out, bankrupt the buggers and back they’ll come, bold as brass and tonguing for another go – or ready to give something else a try. It’s their overarching optimism, see. And an ability to be philosophical about failure in any form, be it...

All countries have some interesting local characters out in their rural back blocks, but these two somewhat defective old-timers are in a league of their own.

A tale of epic proportions for the kiddies – of inspired pioneering invention, of galaxy-wide space-exploration and the utterly gut-wrenching strangeness of alien worlds and cultures, and of grit, determination and fortitude in the face of immense adversity. They’ll laugh, they’ll cry, they’ll scream for mercy, but most of all they’ll beg you to stop reading it to them.

The grandmother mentioned here, Dear Reader, was my beloved stepmother, and the story, in essence, is true. Yet painting a picture faithful to her person and personality meant applying a little poetic licence (so to speak), an indulgence I hope you will understand and appreciate.

Nothing happens in isolation. Momentous events are always accompanied by peripheral happenings, each with a greater or lesser link to the main issue. Often these affairs are overshadowed, and when the dust finally settles and the official accounts are written they are, for one reason or another, not included. Such applied to certain other doings relevant to that first Christmas Day...

An inverse correlation seems to exist between an invention's size and its numerical success. Small inventions can infest the world (mobile phones, Velcro, spray cans); larger ones may seem to (shopping trolleys, cars, shipping containers), but really huge ones (suspension bridges, radio telescopes,...

…being a few of one’s idle-moment word-doodles – 48, 49, 50! These short descriptions need at least fifty characters, see.

(360 words, actually - text on pics.) A timeless mystery. One which will endure for minutes even.

As the name implies, this is actually a song. I could say I wrote it for the grandies but the truth is… Well it's like The Enchanted Music Box; it just came into my stream of consciousness. I wrestled the words into shape, arranged the tune that came with it and sang it onto a CD. But the world...

(200 Words, actually; text on pics.) An illustrated poem for a treasured grand daughter, showing some of Life's unexpected twists and turns – a chance meeting, a blossoming friendship, then discovery, disaster and a tragic parting of ways.

I wrote this story for my great grandchildren and they enjoyed it immensely. Your little grandies might like it too.And you may even find it amusing yourself … or enjoy reading it to your young’ns, anyway.(…and let me say, dear reader, that you do so with my very warmest compliments.) L.J.

Being memories and observations from selected events and personal experiences gathered during trips from Alice Springs to Darwin over one's lifetime, fifteen hundred K's from the Red Heart to the Top End – most recently in our retirement motor-home Tar Baby. How boring, thinks you. And...

Being recollections and observations of 1950's 60's and 70's trips between Alice Springs and Adelaide, comparisons with the journey today and tales of our more recent travels and adventures in and about Adelaide, South Australia's Riverlands and the eastern Eyre Peninsular wheat...

Two slightly suspect larrikins working a small remote Central Australian mine celebrate Christmas there during the height of a typically oppressive summer – hot as buggery, the odd whirlywind trying to tear their shelter apart, not a breath of wind otherwise, bushflies by the million – and a perceived wrong they see as needing a slight umm ... “adjustment”.