Books

Knig's queer decomposing shows us that our self-composition is more than simply identity. Who we are is part of 'we' as well as 'I'. This is a book you can do things along with: read it in self-isolation, on the bus, during sex, or on a walk, say, by the...

The labour never finishes. Astrid Lorange speaks of building a poetics - intensive and intentional - as a way of perceiving the world of relations in their shadow, every poem here requests an attentiveness to the relations of our lives, to the entwining...

Philosophical questions of reality and duality underpin many of the poems in Zenobia Frost's After the Demolition, leading to a sense of rebuilding and remembrance in the aftermath of abodes. Frost's poetic is a kind of antipodean neo-Gothic,...

Australians hear the call of Country, but without knowledge of the history and the lives of its animals and plants, that call is confused and loses itself in opal fields and vainglorious stockman's museums. Follow Crisp: not for her the umbrella on the...

*Shortlisted for the SPN Book of the Year Award 2020*Nganajungu Yagu is dedicated to Papertalk Green's mother, and is built around selected correspondence between Yagu and Daughter. It gently reminds us of the sacrifices made by our matriarchs over time...

In Walk Back Over, Wiradjuri woman - read: poet, academic, historian, teacher - Jeanine Leane takes off our wallpaper to reveal the personal and political layers of a nuanced history. With Leane, we walk back over history pages, walk back over the night...

In A J Carruthers's new poetry collection, collisions between disparate languages, histories and ideas - each with their own distinct voices - are staged through a visually arresting and innovative approach to form. Drawing on media such as musical...

Explore Australia's spectacular natural world!Colour along as you discover fascinating facts about Australia's wondrous wildlife, from birds and butterflies to wallabies and whales, along with crystals, fossils and other marvels of nature.This...

Age range 3+Lucy loves bugs. She loves big bugs and teeny tiny bugs. Colourful, glamorous bugs and weird, blobby bugs. She loves watching bugs, drawing bugs, reading about bugs and talking about bugs. She loves bugs that decorate their homes, bugs that...

Madjem Bambandila is a stunning celebration of the artistic and cultural practice of acclaimed Wergaia and Wemba Wemba artist Kelly Koumalatsos.Co-written by Kelly Koumalatsos and Dr Paola Balla and featuring the voices of a broad range of artists,...

Age range 3+Dive into the fun-filled world of Dino Gang!Trio the Triceratops, Roary the Tyrannosaurus rex and Fern the Brachiosaurus are Melbourne Museum's most lovable and adventurous new pals, and they're here to take you on a behind-the-scenes tour of...

The Power and the Passion highlights the urgent need for the repatriation of ancestral remains, and for the return of all precious cultural material to its rightful owners. Taking the 1985 landmark reburial of ancestral remains in Melbourne's Kings...

Age range 3+What kinds of Cretaceous creatures roam the forest at night?Join Horridus the Triceratops and Archie the Avisaurus as they explore the undergrowth and discover the magic of a twilight stroll through the trees in this second instalment of the...

Age range 5+The Quest for Kool follows the adventures of an intrepid palaeontologist echidna named Tacho. Her all-time favourite animal is the Koolasuchus, and her greatest wish is to meet one of these long-extinct amphibians in the flesh. So she invents...

Horridus: Journey of a Triceratopschronicles the 67-million-year voyage across deep time of one of the most remarkable fossils ever discovered. From Montana to Melbourne, photography and artwork have been gathered together with meditations from a...

Age range: 12+What wasTriceratopsand its world really like?Uncover the story of this iconic dinosaur revealed by the latest scientific discoveries.A comprehensive guide toTriceratopsfrom a renowned expert in the field of palaeontology. Brimming with...

Age rang: 3+Join Horridus the Triceratops and Archie the Avisaurus on their Cretaceous quest to unlock the secrets of Hidden Valley.Along the way they'll encounter lakes, mountains, Tyrannosaurs, Pterosaurs and a distinct lack of decent snacks.Will they...

*CBCA 2022 Notable Book: Eve Pownall Award*Age range 6 to 9Seal has made his home in the waters of a coastal village, but he often finds himself trapped and ensnared in the plastic rubbish filling the Bay. Fortunately, he is rescued by Lizzie and Grandpa...

Treasures of the Natural World catalogue accompanies an exhibition at the Melbourne Museum. A collection of some of the most fascinating and rare treasures from the Natural History Museum, London and enriched by the addition of First Peoples' narratives,...

The only title available on Australian Dragon Lizards including the most recent understanding of their origins and life history.Australia's mostly hot dry continent is home to nearly 800 described species and the seven Australian families represent four...

Ever met a thingadonta or seen a fangaroo? What about a gigantic titanosaur or a mighty diprotodon? Come on an Aussie fossil adventure and explore prehistoric life down under. Discover amazing animals unique to Australia.Danielle Clode, the award-winning...

Age range 0 to 3Children will be delighted and curious to find that the shapes include interesting surfaces such as raised spots, coloured glitter, fur and felt as well as spot gloss or glitter outlining shapes to add to their pleasure...

**Wilderness Society Environment Award for Children's Literature, Winner 2017****CBCA, Notable Award for Picture Book of the Year 2017****CBCA, Notable Award for Eve Pownell Information Book of the Year 2017**Age range 3+On a tiny island lives a waddle...

Showcases a unique and rarely seen collection of cultural objects from New Guinea. Referred to as 'war trophies' during the German possesion of New Guinea, before the takeover by Australian military forces in 1914. The Australian War Museum...

Visions of Colonial Grandeur explores Melbourne'sinternational exhibitions through the art collection of 19th-century businessmanJohn Twycross. John Twycross, also known as Top Hat, was a merchant and artcollector who lived and worked in 'Marvellous...

Step back to a time when Australia's red centre was flooded by a vast shallow ocean, the Eromanga Sea. While dinosaurs stalked the scattered islands that made up the Australian continent, giant marine reptiles ruled the waves. Plesiosaurs and...

Victoria is often seen as the forgotten state when it comes to gem minerals. The history of gems in Victoria is inextricably linked to the discovery of gold in 1851. In 1854, George Milner Stephen publicised for the first time, the discovery of gems in...

This is the only up-to-date book available about the Eastern Kulin peoples. The Kulin nation lived around Port Phillip Bay and the Yarra River valley and their territory stretched as far north as the Murray River at Echuca. Gary Presland looks at the...

The flying career of John Robertson Duigan spanned just a decade from 1908 to 1918. 100 years ago he built and successfully flew the first aeroplane made in Australia using only photographs, journal articles and an unreliable textbook as his guides. He...

We might think of sponges as bathroom objects but the real living animals are far more interesting.They come in all shapes and sizes, occur in all oceans of the world, and have amazing lives.Sponges have lived in our oceans for 600 million years. Ancient...

This guide covers barnacles of mainly south-eastern Australia and begins withinformation about their biology, habitats and diversity. A description of each animal is accompanied by a colour photograph. A key is also provided for easier identification of...

For most of us, shrimps, prawns and lobsters immediately brings to mind something edible and tasty and many are small inconspicuous inhabitants living on our shores and in shallow water.This guide includes a description of each animal...

For many people, the first experience of marine environments is amazement at the bewildering variety of life in the oceans. Sea anemones and corals, sea stars and sea urchins, octopuses and squids are just a few marine creatures that we never encounter...

Crabs, hermit crabs and allies will familiarise the amateur naturalist, beachcomber, diver and others who have an interest in the marine environment of crabs, hermit crabs and their close relatives. What they do, how they behave, their environments,...

Ellis Rowan (1848-1922) was a painter, naturalist, writer and explorer. For almost 50 years, she travelled to remote parts of Australia, India, Europe, America and New Guinea in pursuit of exotic flowers and wildlife to paint. One of Australia's...

Enter the musical world of Stuart and Georgian Britain, of concert-going, music makers and thinkers, printers and publishers. Written to accompany the upcoming collections-in-focus exhibition at the National Library of Australia, this book invites you...

The modernist RSL club, the Art Deco cinema, the stilted Queenslander or the elaborate Edwardian. The iconography of Australia's regional towns is familiar to many of us, whether we live, work and play in these places, or just journey through. A...

'What we now want from a biography, or autobiography, is the very thing that Virginia Woolf said that we have no right to want: art. Not only art, obviously, but art nevertheless. And we love the illumination of dark corners of the soul, having...

Surveyor Thomas Scott Townsend (18121869) is an elusive, almost legendary figure, closer to folklore than to history. His name is given to the country's second highest mountain, but the details of his career are obscure and his personal identity has...

'Petite, plucky and always immaculately dressed in the constraint of Victorian finery...throughout her life she was acclaimed internationally, winning 29 medals, and accolades from leading art critics. Her work was also collected by royalty,...

'[Cazneaux's] work is what matters, its place in the history of Australian photography and its influence on past, present and future generations of photographers.' - Max Dupain, 1978Harold Cazneaux (1878-1953) is widely considered the...

A smirking boy shuffled past the door, and Marion, hands shaking, quickly turned the key in the lock. It was Cotterson, the boy from Sewers Canal who wanted to burn the Sobraon. Her heart jolted.The barge had delivered the Forty Thieves onto the...

Harry Peters - formerly Hermann Ludwig Pollnow, known to his family as Mutzi - was born in Berlin in 1920. As a teenager, he fled Nazi Germany and landed in rural Australia. Harry's parents, Max and Edith, stayed and perished in Nazi camps.This story, of...

Vintage Crochet builds on the success of Vintage Knits (2022) and features vintage patterns from Australian publications such as the Australian Women's Weekly and the Australian Woman's Mirror. The book presents a curated selection of patterns from these...

Margaret Lilardia Tucker MBE (affectionately known as Aunty Marge) was a significant Aboriginal activist and one of the first Aboriginal women to publish for mainstream audiences. If Everyone Cared (1977) was a landmark publication. In that first...

Age range 3 to 6Yiasou! That's hello in Greek!Or would you like to speak Chinese? What about Italian or Korean? Murinhpatha or Kaurna?Meet 12 Australian friends who can speak different languages. They tell us how to count from 1 to 10, say hello...

Age range 6 to 9Little Brother is told by his brother and his friends that he's too small to help out at the Spring Festival. He's too little to fly a kite and he's not strong enough to hold a dragon pole. But Father says he has a special job to do. What...