Victorias Nest visits the North Dakota farming community of Merton, fifteen years after Prairie Preacher. This continues the story of the Schroeder Family as Victoria becomes an adult. It is about her struggles as she tries to find her place in her family and the world. It is necessary for her to forgive and accept herself and her short comings as well as those of her family and friends. She must learn to appreciate the real meaning of her faith and the important things in her life. She deals with abortion, death and true love.

Victoria’s South-West is an iconic region of Australia that includes the exceptional landscape features of the Grampians-Gariwerd, the Victorian Volcanic Plain with crater lakes and cones, the forests of the Great Dividing Range, and Melbourne and Port Phillip Bay. Victoria’s South-West supports remarkable wildlife, including some found only in the region, and is recognised as both nationally and globally significant for the conservation of biodiversity. Wildlife of Victoria’s South-West is a comprehensive photographic field guide to the region’s wildlife, many of which occur throughout south-eastern Australia. It covers all the mammals, birds, reptiles and frogs that occur in the region, including on land and in the coastal marine environment. Each of the 432 taxa profiles includes detailed information on identification, range, conservation status, habitat and ecology, and the local Aboriginal name for the species when known. An outstanding colour image and regional distribution map is also included for each species. Additional information is provided on habitat types, conservation and management of wildlife in Victoria’s South-West as well as 19 places in the region to visit and view wildlife. Ideal for those who wish to identify and learn more about the diversity of animals found in the region, while also gaining an understanding of the distinct role Victoria’s South-West has in contributing to conserving Australia’s stunning wildlife.

A second volume of collected short fiction—from the bestselling author and winner of the 2015 Rea Award for the Short Story Few authors write with such sheer love of story and language as T.C. Boyle, and that is nowhere more evident than in his inventive, wickedly funny, and always entertaining short stories. In 1998, T.C. Boyle Stories brought together the author’s first four collections to critical acclaim. Now, T.C. Boyle Stories II gathers the work from his three most recent collections along with fourteen new tales previously unpublished in book form as well as a preface in which Boyle looks back on his career as a writer of stories and the art of making them. By turns mythic and realistic, farcical and tragic, ironic and moving, Boyle’s stories have mapped a wide range of human emotions. The fifty-eight stories in this new volume, written over the last eighteen years, reflect his maturing themes. Along with the satires and tall tales that established his reputation, readers will find stories speaking to contemporary social issues, from air rage to abortion doctors, and character-driven tales of quiet power and passion. Others capture timeless themes, from first love and its consequences to confrontations with mortality, or explore the conflict between civilization and wildness. The new stories find Boyle engagingly testing his characters’ emotional and physical endurance, whether it’s a group of giants being bred as weapons of war in a fictional Latin American country, a Russian woman who ignores dire warnings in returning to her radiation-contaminated home, a hermetic writer who gets more than a break in his routine when he travels to receive a minor award, or a man in a California mountain town who goes a little too far in his concern for a widow. Mordant wit, emotional power, exquisite prose: it is all here in abundance. T.C. Boyle Stories II is a grand career statement from a writer whose imagination knows no bounds.

Before he turned 10 years old, Dolphyn learned to push his feelings down and keep his reactions bottled up. He had a premonition that someday all of his pent-up anger would come bubbling to the surface, and all it would take was one final straw and he would surely snap. That day came when he was 27 years old, and with each and every explosion of fury from then on, came this sudden and unique talent of being able to make someone die just by uttering a few words. This strange gift worked in his favor, until he caused the woman he loves, to end her life. When he realized what he had done, he searched everywhere, trying desperately to find her. Will he get to her in time? Could he break the spell? Read Behind The Wishes to find out.

The Action Plan for Australian Birds 2020 is the most comprehensive review of the status of Australia's avifauna ever attempted. The latest in a series of action plans for Australian birds that have been produced every decade since 1992, it is also the largest. The accounts in this plan have been authored by more than 300 of the most knowledgeable bird experts in the country, and feature far more detail than any of the earlier plans. This volume also includes accounts of over 60 taxa that are no longer considered threatened, mainly thanks to sustained conservation action over many decades. This extensive book covers key themes that have emerged in the last decade, including the increasing impact of climate change as a threatening process, most obviously in Queensland's tropical rainforests where many birds are being pushed up the mountains. However, the effects are also indirect, as happened in the catastrophic fires of 2019/20. Many of the newly listed birds are subspecies confined to Kangaroo Island, where fire destroyed over half the population. But there are good news stories too, especially on islands where there have been spectacular successes with predator control. Such uplifting results demonstrate that when action plans are followed by action on the ground, threatened species can indeed be recovered and threats alleviated.