David Hunt tramples the tall poppies of the past in charting Australia's transformation from aspiration to nation - an epic tale of charlatans and costermongers, of bush bards and bushier beards, of workers and women who weren't going to take it anymore. Girt Nation introduces Alfred Deakin, the Liberal necromancer whose dead advisors made Australia a better place to live, and Banjo Paterson, the jihadist who called on God and the Prophet to drive the Australian infidels from the Sudan 'like sand before the gale'. And meet Catherine Helen Spence, the feminist polymath who envisaged a utopian future of free contraceptives, easy divorce and immigration restrictions to prevent the 'Chinese coming to destroy all we have struggled for!' Thrill as Jandamarra leads the Bunuba against Western Australia, and Valentine Keating leads the Crutchy Push, an all-amputee street gang, against the conventionally limbed. Gasp as Essendon Football Club trainer Carl von Ledebur injects his charges with crushed dog and goat testicles. Weep as Scott Morrison's communist great-great-aunt Mary Gilmore holds a hose in New Australia. And marvel at how Labor, a political party that spent a quarter of a century infighting over how to spell its own name, ever rose to power. 'Makes you wish David Hunt had been your history teacher. Laugh-out-loud funny and you'll actually learn something.' —Mark Humphries 'An entertaining and instructive historical romp through the formative period of Australian nation-making with a colourful cast of rhymesters, revolutionaries, rebels, racists, reprobates and rabbits.' —Frank Bongiorno, Professor of History, The Australian National University 'Once again, David Hunt uses his sharpened wit to chisel away at misconceptions from Australian history leaving us with the cold, hard truth of how our nation came to be.' —Osher Günsberg 'Australian history told intelligently, but with more humour than ever before ... Girt Nation is fabulous storytelling, putting meat on the bones of the national story.' —The Weekend Australian

Girt. No word could better capture the essence of Australia ... In this hilarious history, David Hunt reveals the truth of Australia's past, from megafauna to Macquarie - the cock-ups and curiosities, the forgotten eccentrics and Eureka moments that have made us who we are. Girt introduces forgotten heroes like Mary McLoghlin, transported for the crime of "felony of sock", and Trim the cat, who beat a French monkey to become the first animal to circumnavigate Australia. It recounts the misfortunes of the escaped Irish convicts who set out to walk from Sydney to China, guided only by a hand-drawn paper compass, and explains the role of the coconut in Australia's only military coup. Our nation's beginnings are steeped in the strange, the ridiculous and the frankly bizarre. Girt proudly reclaims these stories for all of us. Not to read it would be un-Australian. About the author: David Hunt is an unusually tall and handsome man who likes writing his own biographical notes for all the books he has written (one). He has worked as an historical consultant and comedy writer for television, and also has a proper job. "A sneaky, sometimes shocking peek under the dirty rug of Australian history." John Birmingham "Hilarious and insightful -- Hunt has found the deep wells of humour in Australia's history." Chris Taylor, The Chaser

In this side-splitting sequel to his best-selling history, David Hunt takes us to the Australian frontier. This was the Wild South, home to hardy pioneers, gun-slinging bushrangers, directionally challenged explorers, nervous indigenous people, Caroline Chisholm and sheep. Lots of sheep. First there was Girt. Now comes . . . True Girt True Girt introduces Thomas Davey, the hard-drinking Tasmanian governor who invented the Blow My Skull cocktail, and Captain Moonlite, Australia's most famous LGBTI bushranger. Meet William Nicholson, the Melbourne hipster who gave Australia the steam-powered coffee roaster and the world the secret ballot. And say hello to Harry, the first camel used in Australian exploration, who shot dead his owner, the explorer John Horrocks. Learn how Truganini's death inspired the Martian invasion of Earth. Discover the role of Hall and Oates in the Myall Creek Massacre. And be reminded why you should never ever smoke with the Wild Colonial Boy and Mad Dan Morgan. If Manning Clark and Bill Bryson were left on a desert island with only one pen, they would write True Girt. 'An engaging, witty and utterly irreverent take on Australian history.' —Graeme Simsion, author of The Rosie Project 'Astounding, gruesome and frequently hilarious, True Girt is riveting from beginning to end.' —Nick Earls

Rosie and Nona are sisters. Yapas. They are also best friends. It doesn’t matter that Rosie is white and Nona is Aboriginal: their family connections tie them together for life. The girls are inseparable until Nona moves away at the age of nine. By the time she returns, they’re in Year 10 and things have changed. Rosie prefers to hang out in the nearby mining town, where she goes to school with the glamorous Selena and her gorgeous older brother, Nick. When a political announcement highlights divisions between the Aboriginal community and the mining town, Rosie is put in a difficult position: will she have to choose between her first love and her oldest friend? Winner, Book of the Year: 2016 NT Literary Awards Highly commended, Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards for Writing for Young Adults Longlisted, 2015 Inky Awards Honour Book, 2015 Children’s Book Council of Australia, Book of the Year for Older Reader Shortlisted, 2016 Territory Read Award ‘A powerful coming-of-age story ... Atkins writes with clear-eyed sensitivity, and although I longed to hear Nona’s voice, its absence is deliberate and effective. Nona & Me is poignant young-adult fiction invoking the complex and often overlooked realities of remote indigenous life.’ —Sydney Morning Herald ‘[Clare Atkins] wrestles with some of this country's most hotly debated political issues with a rare lightness of touch. [Nona & Me is] a convincing portrait of a naive but feverish first love, friendships waxing and waning, and the clash between fitting in and sticking to your values. Above all, there's a warmth and optimism that's hard to resist.’ —Sunday Age ‘This [is a] powerful, beautifully contoured story of cross-cultural friendship.’ —The Weekend Australian

Rome, too, wants the sound of roaring as evening falls ... The Rome Zoo: a place born of fantasy and driven by a nation’s aspirations. It has witnessed – and reflected in its tarnished mirror – the great follies of the twentieth century. Now, in an ongoing battle that has seen it survive world wars and epidemics, the zoo must once again reinvent itself, and assert its relevance in the Eternal City. Caught up in these machinations is a cast of characters worthy of this baroque backdrop: a man desperate to find meaning in his own life, a woman tasked with halting the zoo’s decline and a rare animal, the last of its species, who bewitches the world. Drifting between past and present, The Rome Zoo weaves together these and many other stories, forming a colourful and evocative tapestry of life at this strange place. It is both a love story and a poignant juxtaposition of the human need to classify, to subdue, with the untameable nature of our dramas and anxieties. Spellbinding and disturbing, precise and dreamy, this award-winning novel, translated by Stephanie Smee, is unlike any other. Winner of the Swiss Literature Award, the Prix Michel-Dentan and the Prix du public de la RTS “Like all truly great literary allegories, The Rome Zoo is both innocent and wise, filled equally with tenderness and darkness. A gorgeous, dream-like fable of Italy's past and present.” —Ceridwen Dovey

The essays in Nationalizing Empires challenge the dichotomy between empire and nation state that for decades has dominated historiography. The authors center their attention on nation-building in the imperial core and maintain that the nineteenth century, rather than the age of nation-states, was the age of empires and nationalism. They identify a number of instances where nation building projects in the imperial metropolis aimed at the preservation and extension of empires rather than at their dissolution or the transformation of entire empires into nation states. Such observations have until recently largely escaped theoretical reflection.

A blueprint for the nation after the boom. Australians have just lived through a period of exceptional prosperity, but, says influential economist Ross Garnaut, the Dog Days are on their way. Are we ready for the challenges ahead? In Dog Days, Garnaut explains how we got here, what we can expect next and the tough choices we need to make to survive the new economic conditions. Are we clever enough – and our leaders courageous enough – to change what needs to be changed and preserve a fair and prosperous Australia? This is a book about the future by a leading adviser to government and business, someone with a proven record of seeing where the nation is going. Both forecast and analysis, it heralds a new era for Australia after the boom.