Fiction books in our library
Taboo by Call Number: F SCOISBN: 9781925483741From Kim Scott, two-times winner of the Miles Franklin Literary Award, comes a work charged with ambition and poetry, in equal parts brutal, mysterious and idealistic, about a young woman cast into a drama that has been playing for over two hundred years ...
Taboo takes place in the present day, in the rural South-West of Western Australia, and tells the story of a group of Noongar people who revisit, for the first time in many decades, a taboo place: the site of a massacre that followed the assassination, by these Noongar's descendants, of a white man who had stolen a black woman. They come at the invitation of Dan Horton, the elderly owner of the farm on which the massacres unfolded. He hopes that by hosting the group he will satisfy his wife's dying wishes and cleanse some moral stain from the ground on which he and his family have lived for generations.
But the sins of the past will not be so easily expunged.
We walk with the ragtag group through this taboo country and note in them glimmers of re-connection with language, lore, country. We learn alongside them how countless generations of Noongar may have lived in ideal rapport with the land. This is a novel of survival and renewal, as much as destruction; and, ultimately, of hope as much as despair.
The Secret River by ISBN: 9781920885755Publication Date: 2005After a childhood of poverty and petty crime in the slums of London, William Thornhill is sentenced in 1806 to be transported to New South Wales for the term of his natural life. With his wife Sal and children in tow, he arrives in a harsh land that feels at first like a death sentence. But among the convicts there is a whisper that freedom can be bought, an opportunity to start afresh. Away from the infant township of Sydney, up the Hawkesbury River, Thornhill encounters men who have tried to do just that- Blackwood, who is attempting to reconcile himself with the place and its people, and Smasher Williams, whose fear of this alien world turns into brutal depravity towards it. As Thornhill and his family stake their claim on a patch of ground by the river, the battle lines between old and new inhabitants are drawn. The Secret Riverjoins a tradition of grand historical fiction that stretches from Thomas Keneally's The Chant of Jimmy Blacksmithand Peter Carey's True History of the Kelly Gang.
Crow Country by ISBN: 9781742373959Publication Date: 2012A gripping time-slip adventure, in the tradition of Ruth Park's Playing Beatie Bow.
Love Like Water by ISBN: 9781741148855Publication Date: 2008More than a love story, this is a bold, confronting book about friendship, love, sex and identity at the heart of Australia, where black and white, bush and city collide.
Sweet One by ISBN: 9781922089755Publication Date: 2014When a senior Aboriginal war veteran dies horribly at the hands of state government authorities, Izzy, a journalist and daughter of a war veteran herself, flies to the goldfields of Western Australia to cover his death. But Izzy is about to learn that for every action there is an equal and bloody reaction. On the trail of the vigilantes, she finds herself embedded in a secret war that is finally, irrevocably, going to explode onto the surface.
Nukkin Ya by ISBN: 0141309431Nukkin Ya is the sequel to Deadly, Unna?. Fifteen-year-old Gary Black, 'Blacky', isn't sure what he wants or where he is going. The one thing he does know is that he wants to escape the small country town he's grown up in.
Gracey by ISBN: 9780702226106Publication Date: 1995Gracey's coming home to Cunningham on holidays. But now she's a state athletics champion and a private school student, and everything looks different - even frightening. Part history, part mystery, Graceyis a challenging story about the past and the present, murder and compassion, and black and white identity. Graceyis the second book in James Moloney's award winning trilogy, beginning with Dougyand concluding with Angela.
Our Race for Reconciliation by Call Number: HEIISBN: 9781760276119Mel Gordon loves running, and watching Seinfeld, but mostly she loves Cathy Freeman. It's 2000 and the Olympics are going to be held in Australia. In a year of surprises, Mel finds out that Cathy Freeman is coming to talk to her school. And her family is heading to Sydney! It becomes an unforgettable journey to Corroboree 2000, bringing together all Australians as they march and sing and celebrate Australia's Indigenous heritage and also acknowledge past wrong.
Red Dirt Talking by ISBN: 9781921888793Publication Date: 2012It's build-up time in the north-western town of Ransom, just before the big wet, when people go off the rails. In the midst of a bitter custody battle, an eight year old girl goes missing. Annie, an anthropology graduate fresh from the city, is determined to uncover the mystery of the child's disappearance. As Annie searches for the truth beneath the township's wild speculations, she finds herself increasingly drawn towards Mick Hooper, a muscly, seemingly laid-back bloke with secrets of his own. Praise for the Book 'an insightful and wryly funnylook at life in the remote Outback.' Melissa Lucashenko 'The characters who inhabit and walk through this story are very real people, with all the human strengths and weaknesses that make us who we are.' Samuel Wagan Watson
Benang by ISBN: 9781863682404Publication Date: 1999I tell you that this story of my own is part of a much older story... one of a perpetual billowing from the sea, with its rhythm of return, return, remain... I offer these words, especially to those of you I embarrass, and who turn away from the shame of seeing me... We are still here, Benang.
The Secret River by ISBN: 9781921758621Publication Date: 2005-01-01After a childhood of poverty and petty crime in the slums of London, William Thornhill is sentenced in 1806 to be transported to New South Wales for the term of his natural life. With his wife Sal and children in tow, he arrives in a harsh land that feels at first like a death sentence. But among the convicts there is a whisper that freedom can be bought, an opportunity to start afresh. Away from the infant township of Sydney, up the Hawkesbury River, Thornhill encounters men who have tried to do just that- Blackwood, who is attempting to reconcile himself with the place and its people, and Smasher Williams, whose fear of this alien world turns into brutal depravity towards it. As Thornhill and his family stake their claim on a patch of ground by the river, the battle lines between old and new inhabitants are drawn. The Secret Riverjoins a tradition of grand historical fiction that stretches from Thomas Keneally's The Chant of Jimmy Blacksmithand Peter Carey's True History of the Kelly Gang.
