Pacific Island Books : Fiction, songs and drama

Pacific Island Books
Australia: Fiction, songs and drama

Australia: Fiction, Songs and Drama

(64K)

Aboriginal Myths, Legends & Fables by A. W. Reed. Published by New Holland Publishers. ISBN 1876334290. Recommended retail price $16.95

Aboriginal Myths, Legends & Fables presents a wealth of poetic and imaginative tales from Aboriginal cultural heritage. While retelling the stories simply,, this book captures the mystical bonds that exist between Aboriginal people, their environment and the spirit life of the Dreamtime. Each story provides the reader with an insight into the fascinating beliefs of one of the oldest living cultures on earth. Soft cover, 412 pages. Published in 1999.

(65K)

Aboriginal Stories by A. W. Reed. Published by New Holland Publishers. ISBN 1876334290. Recommended retail price $18.95.

Aboriginal Stories presents a collection of myths and legends gathered from various sources, representing the rich and diverse tapestry of beliefs of Aboriginal people throughout Australia.

Tales range from creation myths and legends of the sun, moon and stars to legends of animals, birds, rivers, lakes and shores, as well as hero stories. In addition there are lists of Aboriginal words arranged alphabetically - English to Aboriginal and Aboriginal to English - together with a short selection of common phrases and sentences. Soft cover, 364 pages. Published in 1999.

(14K)

Book of Possibilities,The : Contemporary Australian poets by Jill Jones. Published by Hale and Iremonger. Recommended retail price $14.

What are the possibilities at the end of the millennium? In her quest for understanding, Jill Jones interrogates the gambits of desire and knowledge, the epiphanies of ordinary life, stories of love and exile, the ambiguous relationship between individual and community.

The Book of Possibilities is imbued with a tough lyricism and restless sensuality, laced with humor, compassion and the music of Mozart and the blues. Tides, weather, exploration of identity, the texture of urban living, parties, love, death (and taxes), ‘the delights we’ve bargained for’ are all preoccupations of this strong new work. Soft cover, 94 pages.

(31K)

Bunyip Archives, The by James E. Schutte. Recommended retail price $ 18, our price $12.

Set in the unconquered Australian Outback, The Bunyip Archives is the action-packed tale of the discovery of a tribe of bunyips, the Down Under equivalent of Bigfoot.

Far from fearsome, the bunyips are human-like marsupials with gentle natures and an unquenchable thirst for beer.

Discover of the bunyips turns the orderly life of research biologist Paul McDaniel into a nightmare. Paul must first deal with his own unsettling ambition, since the scientific community promises huge rewards. He decides to let his superiors study the bunyips, then to return the placid and thoughtful little creatures to their Outback habitat. From here the plot thickens (or sickens, depending on your outlook). Hard cover, 282 pages.

(18K)

In the Constellation of the Crab by Doris Brett. Published by Hale and Iremonger. Recommended retail price $11.

Here, with heightened intensity and greatly augmented range, are the strong themes which have already distinguished Doris Brett’s poetry: flight, light, magic, and metamorphosis. Of especial power are her haunting lyrics about cancer and the all-too-real operating theatre; but her re-inventions of the old fairytales are also marvelous. Hers is the flashing, compacted, restless imagination which somehow always knows that “we are in the giant’s kitchen.”

“The cancer poems were my journal – I wrote my way through the experience. Their essence has been the transformation of a life-threatening experience, with all its pain and terror, into something illuminating and transcendent. I see it as a companion for the journey.” Soft cover, 64 pages.

(32K)

Scarring, The by Geoff Page. Published by Hale and Iremonger. Recommended retail price $15.

This is a pastoral tale, a war story, a love story, a modern tragedy. It is a verse novel of great subtlety and power, the author’s thirteenth book of poetry.

The Scarring follows the fortunes of a married couple – propertied, young, beautiful, in love, sexually enraptured, the Mitchells seem the perfect couple. But their separation through war sows the seeds of their eventual destruction, the inevitability of the unfolding tragedy heightened by the form the narrative takes: we are carried along by the gently insistent poetic rhythms, hand in glove with the substance of the story.

Click below for related works

Absence, New & Selected Poems by Antigone Kefala

Olive Tree, The: Collected Poems by Mark O'Connor

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Last modified on Thursday, July 10, 2003