Penguin Random House Australia: 1771 books

*We walked off the ferry along the wide, sloping gangplank, and when my feet hit the firm wooden planks of the jetty I staggered, legs suddenly feeling like jelly . . . Taking Mum's hand, I whispered, 'Are we really safe, here?'*After a perilous and terrifying escape from war-torn Afghanistan, Gulnessa...

On 28 June 1915, young James Martin sailed from Melbourne aboard the troopship Berrima - bound, ultimately, for Gallipoli. He was just fourteen years old. Soldier Boy is Jim's extraordinary true story, the story of a young and enthusiastic school boy who became Australia's youngest known Anzac. Four...

'One of the better books on our time and the fools we have lately survived. Like War and Peace and the Iliad, it is abundant, instructive, exhilarating and cathartic.' BOB CARR From the suicide bombing of Glasgow Airport and the flooding of England to the horse flu and the Chinese earthquake and the...

In a small Australian country town, a young woman is accused of the murders of her own daughter and the local rat catcher's wife. As she stands to face the charges in court, a stranger enters, determined to explain her crimes. This masterly story from Woman in a Lampshade perfectly displays Elizabeth Jolley's remarkable talent for character and story.

Cate Christie is a party girl, unable to commit to anything, until she is involved in a tragic accident that changes everything. To escape her guilt and her parents' bitter disapproval, Cate leaves Perth for her aunt Ida's isolated farm in country Western Australia. Henry is a drifter, a young swagman-like...

When burglars break into Jack's house, they take all his stuff. Now he's got no skateboard, no TV, no music, nothing. All his brothers do is fight, his mum thinks they all need counselling, his dad's trying to set an example, but hey, who's interested? Jack just wants to get out of that house. So...

From the bestselling author of The Mistake comes a hauntingly powerful story about families and secrets and the dark shadows cast by the past. Curl Curl, Sydney, January 1978. Angie's a looker. Or she's going to be. She's only fourteen, but already, heads turn wherever she goes. Male heads, mainly...

Sick jokes, yucky jokes, crazy jokes, cool jokes - more than 400 hilarious gags and riddles collected from children all across Australia.

Two branches of the McAllister family lead very different lives on cattle stations in Central Australia. Rob, a stickler for correctness, manages a wealthy, company-owned property, while his easygoing brother Sandy struggles to support his wife and son on an impoverished leasehold. When tragedy throws...

During China's collectivist era in the later 1950s, a rural work team set to repair a river floodgate receives a new labour recruit: Hei-hai, a skinny, sorry, silent boy.� Assigned to pump the bellows at the worksite forge, Hei-hai proves indifferent to pain or suffering, but eerily sensitive to...

A big old Victorian terrace in Jersey Road, Woollahra, is thought to be haunted by the two Darkling sisters from the 1920s. When a young family moves in, dark images of these sisters, and of relationships closer to home, hang over them. Beautifully crafted and keenly observed, this story from...

Three generations of Stewart women share a deep connection to their family farm, but a secret from the past threatens to tear them apart. Widowed matriarch Maggie remembers a time when the Italian prisoners of war came to work on their land, changing her heart and her home forever. Single mum Toni...

Feel that War and Peace went on a bit? Wish there were more laughs in Catcher in the Rye? Very cross that The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo had no references to three-time world hotdog-eating champion, Joey Chestnut? Then ***Smithereens***is for you. At only 300 pages you can knock it off during one...

Sandy's beach holiday at Perfect Bay is perfect!� The waves are just the right size.� But when Sandy is dumped by a BIG wave, her holiday isn't perfect anymore . . .