'I felt certain there must be gold in those hills, Jack', wrote a prospector to Ion Idriess, 'but I know very little about the game.' And so Jack Idriess wrote Prospecting for Gold in 1931. This is the 20th edition and known throughout Australia as the classic self-help manual for would-be prospectors. 'This book is written to help the new hand who ventures into the bush seeking gold... The "towny" prospector, with this book as a guide, will soon master methods of prospecting and the working of his find.' In an easy conversational tone, the author of Lasseter's Last Ride and Flynn of the Inland sets many a hopeful prospector on the road to discovering gold.
The extraordinary story of a classic Australian Pioneer - told by Australia's 'Boswell of the Bush', Ion L. Idriess. Almost single-handedly John Flynn of the Australian Inland Mission brought to the outback the Flying Doctor Service and the Bush Hospitals. His magnificent vision, formed as he travelled on the back of a camel across the vast space of Australia's outback, took a lifetime of courageous commitment to bring to reality. 'It is impossible to read this book and remain untouched by the greatness of John Flynn's inspiration.' - Morning Post, London Ion L. Idriess celebrated Australia's exuberant history in over 50 books, written in an easy conversational style that has made him lastingly popular. In stories such as 'Flynn of the Inland', 'Back O' Cairns' and 'Lasseter's Last Ride', Idriess brings to life the wild beauty of the outback and the many colourful characters who people it.
(from The Spectator, May 1936) In his introduction to Lasseter's Last Ride (Cape, 7s. 6d.) Field-Marshal Sir William Birdwood writes : "The annals of Central Australian exploration are tragic and heroic, but it is long indeed since I read a more moving story of endurance and heroism in the face of terrific odds than the epic which Mr. Ion Idriess has woven out of the last few months of the life of L. H. B. Lasseter." The reader will agree with this, and wonder why he has not heard of Mr. Idriess before. He is well known in Australia, but this is his first book to be published in England. It will not be his last, if the present one meets with the success it deserves. Having himself been a prospector, the story he has constructed out of the fragments of documentary evidence - a few reports, the barely legible diary and letters found buried near Lasseter's last camps - is probably very close to what actually happened. Harry Lasseter had once discovered a rich gold reef in unexplored west Central Australia. Owing to a faulty watch, the bearings he took were useless. An expedition was fitted out to locate it. From the first, misfortune dogged the steps of the party. Food ran short and they returned to the base-camp - all except Lasseter, who went on alone. When his two camels bolted he was left waterless in the desert. Blinded by sand and tortured by dysentry, he found the reef, but died shortly afterwards, deserted by a tribe of aborigines with whom he had tried to make friends. Mr. Idriess tells this story in a simple, virile style which is, in its intense economy, comparable to Hemingway at his best.
Broken Hill in the early 1900s was a hell on earth. In his 1956 book The Silver City, which draws on his childhood experiences in Broken Hill, he produces some of his most evocative writing to describe it. In The Silver City Idriess also conveys an acute sense of his distress at the despoilation of the natural world by wave after wave of settlers.
One hundred years after the charge of the 4th Light Horse Brigade at Beersheba in October 1917... 'The Desert Column is based on the diaries that he kept through out the war. Published in 1932, it is one of Idriess' earliest works. Harry Chauvel noted in the foreword that it was the only book of the campaign that to his knowledge was "viewed entirely from the private soldier's point of view"... Idriess served as a sniper with the 5th Australian Light Horse. Enlisting in 1914, he began his diary "as we crowded the decks off Gallipoli" and he continued writing until returning to Australia... The diaries cover his experience of some of the war's major events from life in the trenches at Gallipoli to the battles at Romani and Beersheba. One of Idriess' strengths as a writer is his ability to place the reader at the scene of the action... The diaries reveal a keenness of observation and a descriptive and pacey style that Idriess would develop further in The Desert Column.' - The Australian War Memorial
Only a twin from a shark calling family can appease the ancestors and bring a community back together in this powerful and haunting story. Isabel is on a plane heading back to her island birthplace in Papua New Guinea. Izzy is looking forward to seeing her family again, but there’s another tragic reason for the trip. Izzy’s twin brother, Ray, died in a freak diving accident, and Izzy and her mum are taking his ashes home for traditional death ceremonies. After they arrive, Izzy realises things have changed since their last visit. Logging threatens the community’s way of life and sharks no longer answer the song of the shark callers. Izzy’s cousin Noah explains that the clan needs someone to undertake a traditional diving ritual. The person must be a twin from the shark calling lineage. The dive will be perilous. And Izzy is the last twin. Will she have the courage to attempt the dive? And what deep, dark secrets will the ocean reveal if she does?
