Don Bradman is the Eternal Flame of cricket. As the greatest batsman of them all, Bradman consumed bowlers like a firestorm. Such a fabled and long career cast an immense shadow over Bradman's peers and opponents alike. Their stories are gathered here to make up Bradman's Band, the cricket legends who played alongside or against him in the Test arena. Among them are Larwood, Miller, Compton, Hutton, Headley, Allen, O'Reilly, Mailey, and Kippax.Author Ashley Mallett skilfully rekindles the Bodyline Ashes conflict, and the great religious divide Down Under of the 1930s. His description of the vendettas and jealousies among Bradman's peers are fascinating reflections on the players and the game. Bringing us closer to home is a profile of what The Don describes as his "greatest partnership", his sixty-five-year marriage to Jessie Bradman.The is a fascinating story of the cricket legends in Bradman's Band.

This fascinating book takes a different look at Australia's all-time sporting hero, Sir Donald Bradman.

Australian genre fiction writers have successfully exploited the Australian landscape and peoples and as a result their books are today “sold by the millions” across boundaries. They have created stories that are imaginative, visionary, and diverse. They appeal to local and international readerships and, most importantly, are thoroughly entertaining, thus making them a strong presence in the popular fiction bazaar. Sold by the Millions: Australia’s Bestsellers is the first collection to concentrate on Australia’s best-selling material that forms the armchair reading of many Australians. Leading experts of popular fiction provide introspective pieces on Romance, Horror, Crime, Science Fiction, Western, Comics, Travel, Sports and Children’s writing so that a wholesome picture emerges of the wide range of reading and research options available for scholars.

This is a very distinctive text that will stand out from the standard, more staid works in sport studies. This is a sophisticated text that will appeal to the maturing readership in the area looking for new perspectives on sport. Tara Brabazon is very well known in Australia, both in academia and as a journalist. Other texts in this area are all edited collections.

This remarkable true story pays tribute to a band of Aboriginal boys who grew up together in one group home - many succeeding spectacularly in later life. In 1945, Anglican priest Father Percy Smith brought six boys from their Northern Territory home to an Adelaide beach suburb. There, they became the first boys of St Francis, a place that would house 50 such boys over 11 years. Some were sent, with the blessing of their mothers, to gain an education. Others were members of the Stolen Generations. In their interviews with Ashley Mallett, many of these men recall Father Smith's kindness and care. His successors, however, were often brutal, and the boys faced prejudice in a wider world largely built to exclude Indigenous Australians. The Boys from St Francis is a multi-layered tale of triumph against the odds - using the early building blocks of education and sporting prowess. Many of them went on to become fiercely effective advocates for Aboriginal causes, achieving significant progress not just for themselves, but for Aboriginal people, changing their world for the better. Activist Charles Perkins, the first Indigenous man to receive a university degree, commenced his status as a national icon with the 1965 Freedom Rides. John Moriarty, the first Indigenous man picked for the national soccer team, designed the famous Dreaming images for five Qantas planes. Harold Thomas created the iconic Aboriginal flag. Vince Copley played football for the Port Adelaide Magpies. George Kruger worked with Fred Hollows in remote Indigenous communities for nearly 20 years. The Boys from St Francis is a sometimes shocking, but ultimately hopeful book about black and white Australia, told through one constellation of lives, sharing one seaside address.

The best of the best, these are the greatest players of the 20th Century playing in the same side. Former Test cricketer and author Ashley Mallett describes the agony and ecstasy in selecting the best Eleven of the past 100 years. From the short list to the final selection, he provides the reason and argument towards achieving the perfectly balanced side. The outcome is a team with great batting depth - nine players who have scored Test Centuries, and specialist batsmen who are courageous, consistent and adaptable. There are one batting all-rounder and two bowling all-rounders. The attack is a potent mix of genuine pace bowling, complemented by two brilliant spinners- one a leg-spinner, the other an off-spinner. This Eleven would beat any combination - anywhere and at anytime.

The talented black cricketers who toured England in 1868 have become one of Australia's enduring sporting legends. Aboriginal sporting heroes are found in many sports today, from football to tennis, boxing and athletics, but it was very different in the nineteenth century when the pastoral frontier was still bitterly disputed by whites and blacks. Aboriginal workers on the Wimmera sheep stations began to develop and organise their cricketing skills during the 1860s and were recruited into a team by station owner and former Test cricketer Tom Wills. On Boxing Day 1866 they played before 8000 people at the MCG, followed by a disastrous Sydney tour which lead to the deaths of some players. Former test player Ashley Mallet has dramatically reconstructed this important pioneering tour of England and has also included the careers of later black players, including the famous fast bowler Eddie Gilbert who died tragically without fulfilling his potential.