A powerful and very different account of war and its effect on those who fightThe Anzac battlefield on Gallipoli was made for snipers. Scrub, cliffs, spurs and hills meant that both Anzac and Turkish positions often overlooked one another. The unwary or unlucky were prey to snipers on both sides, and the sudden crack of a gunshot and instant death were an ever-present menace. The most successful and most feared sniper of the Gallipoli campaign was Billy Sing, a Light Horseman from Queensland who was almost unique among the Australian troops in having a Chinese-born father. A combination of patience, stealth and an incredible eye made him utterly deadly, with the incredible - and horrifying - figure of over 200 credited "kills". John Hamilton, author of the bestselling Goodbye Cobber, God Bless You, has written an extraordinary account of a hidden side of the campaign - the snipers' war. Following Sing from his recruitment onwards, Hamilton takes us on a journey into the squalor, dust, blood and heroism of Gallipoli, seen from the unique viewpoint of the sniper.

William ‘Billy’ Sing was born in 1886 to an English mother and Chinese father. He and his two sisters were brought up in Clermont and Proserpine, in rural Queensland. He was one of the first to enlist in 1914 and at Gallipoli became famous for his shooting prowess. In his new novel, Billy Sing, Ouyang Yu embodies Sing's voice in a magically descriptive prose that captures both the Australian landscape and vernacular. In writing about Sing's triumphant yet conflicted life, and the horrors of war, Yu captures with imaginative power what it might mean to be both an outsider and a hero in one's own country. The telling is poetic and realist, the author's understanding of being a Chinese-Australian sensitively informs the narrative. ‘Australian son of both “Mother England” and “Father Cathay”, Billy Sing is a Gallipoli hero and a modern killer, beloved and abandoned, admirable and deluded, lost and found. In his most concentrated, accessible and humane novel yet, Ouyang Yu brings a figure from remote history fully alive with intensity and tragic depth, lets us hear his voice and feel his pain. Ouyang restores Billy Sing to an Australian history that has threatened to erase him, but leaves us fundamentally unsettled about just what that history has been and might be. This book is terrific, it moved me to tears.’ - Nicholas Birns, author of Contemporary Australian Literature: A World Not Yet Dead

A look back at the military career of William Edward "Billy" Sing, DCM (2 March 1886 - 19 May 1943), a part Chinese Australian soldier who served in the Australian Imperial Force during World War I, best known as a sniper during the Gallipoli Campaign.He took at least 150 confirmed kills during that campaign, and may have had over 200 kills in total. He miraculously survived both the Gallipoli Campaign and the Western Front only to come home to die as a broken and forgotten hero. This is his story.

SHORTLISTED FOR THE PENDERYN MUSIC BOOK PRIZERoots, Radicals & Rockers: How Skiffle Changed the World is the first book to explore this phenomenon in depth - a meticulously researched and joyous account that explains how skiffle sparked a revolution that shaped pop music as we have come to know it. It's a story of jazz pilgrims and blues blowers, Teddy Boys and beatnik girls, coffee-bar bohemians and refugees from the McCarthyite witch-hunts. Billy traces how the guitar came to the forefront of music in the UK and led directly to the British Invasion of the US charts in the 1960s.Emerging from the trad-jazz clubs of the early '50s, skiffle was adopted by kids who growing up during the dreary, post-war rationing years. These were Britain's first teenagers, looking for a music of their own in a pop culture dominated by crooners and mediated by a stuffy BBC. Lonnie Donegan hit the charts in 1956 with a version of 'Rock Island Line' and soon sales of guitars rocketed from 5,000 to 250,000 a year. Like punk rock that would flourish two decades later, skiffle was a do-it-yourself music. All you needed were three guitar chords and you could form a group, with mates playing tea-chest bass and washboard as a rhythm section.

From the incomparable Emmy, Grammy, and Tony Award winner, a powerful and revealing autobiography about race, sexuality, art, and healing—now in paperback It’s easy to be yourself when who and what you are is in vogue. But growing up Black and gay in America has never been easy. Before Billy Porter was slaying red carpets and giving an iconic Emmy-winning performance in the celebrated TV show Pose; before he was the groundbreaking Tony and Grammy Award–winning star of Broadway’s Kinky Boots; and before he was an acclaimed recording artist, actor, playwright, director, and all-around legend, Porter was a young boy in Pittsburgh who was seen as different, who didn’t fit in. At five years old, Porter was sent to therapy to “fix” his effeminacy. He was endlessly bullied at school, sexually abused by his stepfather, and criticized at his church. Porter came of age in a world where simply being himself was a constant struggle. Billy Porter’s Unprotected is the life story of a singular artist and survivor in his own words. It is the story of a boy whose talent and courage opened doors for him, but only a crack. It is the story of a teenager discovering himself, learning his voice and his craft amid deep trauma. And it is the story of a young man whose unbreakable determination led him through countless hard times to where he is now; a proud icon who refuses to back down or hide. Porter is a multitalented, multifaceted treasure at the top of his game, and Unprotected is a resonant, inspirational story of trauma and healing, shot through with his singular voice.

Nine-year-old Leah's invisible friend seems harmless enough. . .until she begins to paint the future. Suddenly, the townspeople are divided between those who see her as a prophet and those who fear the danger she represents. Caught in the middle is Leah's agnostic father, who clashes with a powerful town pastor over Leah's prophecies and what to do about them. Leah is a child from Away, isolated from her peers because of her stutter. After her family moves to Mattingly, she begins painting scenes that are epic in scope, brilliant in detail, and suffused with rich, prophetic imagery. When the event foreshadowed in the first painting dramatically comes true, the town takes notice. Leah attributes her ability to foretell the future to an invisible friend she calls the Rainbow Man. Some of the townsfolk are enchanted with her. Others fear her. But there is one thing they all agree on—there is no such thing as the Rainbow Man. The town minister is unraveled by the notion that a mere child with no formal training may be hearing from God more clearly than he does. While the town bickers over what to do with this strange child, the content of Leah’s paintings grows darker. Still, Leah insists that the Rainbow Man’s heart is pure. Then a dramatic and tragic turn of events leaves the town reeling and places everyone’s lives in danger. The people of Mattingly face a single choice: will they cling to what they know . . . or embrace the things Leah believes in that cannot be seen? Supernatural standalone novel Includes discussion questions for book clubs Other books by Billy Coffey: Snow Day, Paper Angels, The Devil Walks in Mattingly, and In the Heart of the Dark Wood

A multilingual collection of Indigenous American poetry, joining voices old and new in songs of witness and reclamation. Unprecedented in scope, Sing gathers more than eighty poets from across the Americas, covering territory that stretches from Alaska to Chile, and features familiar names like Sherwin Bitsui, Louise Erdrich, Joy Harjo, Lee Maracle, and Simon Ortiz alongside international poets--both emerging and acclaimed--from regions underrepresented in anthologies.