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GREEN, Michael

Dec 7, 2021 | *, *Featured books, *listed, Australian, Design, Fiction \ Novel, Historical Fiction, Queensland, Social Sciences \ Politics \ Government
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ISBN 978-1-922722-84-3
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Sons of Grace

The saga (tale, story) of a mother’s love for her boys.

Abbervale, mining village, 1940s country Australia. The McCanns a local family, Grace the wise and strong wife and mother, Gordon, a mining team boss with elder son, Bruce. His brother, William, works in the mine office. Delicate daughter, Millie, dies.

In 1949 comes the long strike. Tough times for Abbervale. Gordon is killed in a mine collapse.

Grace and boys move to the city. William works as an accountant. He marries Ellen and soon a child arrives. Bruce rises to Party leader and muscles William into state premiership. But William is appalled by the extent of criminal corruption, tolerated by Bruce and the Party. He sets about reform.

Ross, police officer and friend of William, is killed by corrupt police. This is the turning point for William. He resigns from the premiership and announces a judicial inquiry into state criminal activity.

Sons of Grace is a story about a family, first in a mining village then in the city. Its focus is on love between mother, father, son and wife. It highlights the futility of words to reform corruption. It points to the success of courageous action and the value of a strong supportive woman.

About the Author

Michael Green QC is a retired Catholic priest, a retired criminal barrister, a fortunate husband (non-retired), a devoted father and grandfather, a passionate traveller and hopeless golfer. He has written three self-help books and three novels. A resident of Newtown, an inner-city Sydney suburb, he is a keen reader, and is an organiser of Newtown Literary Lunch, a monthly celebration of books, food and wine.

 
 

LAWLESS, James

Dec 1, 2021 | *listed, Australian, Autobiography, Design, History, Medical, Queensland, Social Sciences \ Politics \ Government, Victoria

Nobody Dies Anymore 2
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ISBN 978-1-922629-68-5
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Nobody Dies Anymore vol. 2

It is about the colonial apartheid system as it then operated, the convulsions that accompanied its destructions and the ensuing struggle to create what had not been there before.

The origins of the book lie in the Children’s ward of what was then the Llewellyn Hospital in Kitwe, where hundreds of children died every year, the recorded casualties of a desperate battle against history’s nature and the implications of being black in Africa. It is a personal account written by the doctor who formulated the ideals behind the projects and the philosophy they were meant to sustain.

A kind of Odyssey passing through the gates of imperial security into the realm of demands with no known cultural response, it is a journey from which there is no return and a task with no hope of accomplishment in the lifetime of a man.

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ISBN 978-1-922722-28-7
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Nobody Dies Anymore vol.1 & 2

An African villager on the Zambian Plateau made the remark that inspired the title of this book. He was describing the impact of western medicine on a community where it was previously unknown.

In 1964 the United States Government, the Government of the Irish Republic and the Zambian Government negotiated the construction and staffing of a children’s hospital on the Copperbelt, probably the richest mineral area in the world.

The three presidents, Kaunda, Johnson and De Valera were all personally involved in the project associated with the project, a Flying Doctor Service was to be established, designed to construct and operate airfields and clinics in the remote and rural areas of Zambia.

Penicillin and chloroquine were two of the most formidable motivators for development in Africa. The advantages they produced, life instead of death, redefined the obligations of society and they had, by themselves, the capacity to revolutionise the continent.

About the Author

Jim was born in 1930 in Oldham, Lancashire-at that time at the centre of England’s thriving cotton industry. His father was later to become part owner of a Mill. Educated at Xavarian college Manchester he excelled at English and Physics. In the post war era National Service was compulsory and Jim joined the RAF, only to be discharged after 3 months because of a chronic lung condition (bronchiectasis) the result of multiple childhood chest infections.

Unsure where his future lay he was encouraged to follow his father in the cotton trade, initially gaining experience by working as a weaver in the mill. After a year he decided to become a doctor. At Huddersfield Technical College he completed the subjects required for entrance into medical school. It was there he showed his leadership skills and became President of the Students Union. In 1953 he went to St Andrews University to study medicine, where he met Meg Arrowsmith, a fellow medical student. They were engaged but did not marry until 1959, in Jim’s final year. He was a high-profile student and became President of the Students Union, President of the Medical Society and Editor of the University Newspaper. Jim was by personality type a ‘world improver’ and his whole life was based on improving the circumstances in which he found himself so that other people would benefit. He had little regard for his own welfare and gave his all to the project in hand.

Newly married Jim and Meg spent a year in USA, working at the Miriam Hospital Providence, Rhode Island. Their plan was to then spend a year in a developing country and were accepted by the colonial territory of Northern Rhodesia to work in the hospital in Kitwe. That year extended to a decade. In1961 the country was in a state of Pre Independence unrest. Jim and Meg were among the few Europeans who supported the African move towards Independence and were shocked by the racial discrimination even in the hospitals. Through looking after their children Jim got to know the leaders of the Independence movement, including Kenneth Kaunda who in 1964 became the founding father and first President of Zambia.

It was difficult to returning to the UK 1970. In ten years, Jim had started Zambia’s first Children’s Hospital, established the Zambian Flying Doctor Service and become very close to the people of Zambia. Between them the couple had two significant papers on paediatrics published in the Lancet. On their return to their home country, they lived in North Yorkshire. Jim wrote of his experiences and they both did some general practice. He tried unsuccessfully to introduce the Zambian villagers’ concept of consensus to British Industry. The last four decades were spent in Australia, working in Apollo Bay, a fairly remote coastal town in Victoria. For the first 20 years they were the only doctors.

Again, Jim had an enormous impact on the area — a characteristic of his whole life.

He died in Apollo Bay in 2016.

 
 

KENNEDY, David

Jun 29, 2021 | *, *Featured books, *listed, Australian, Fiction \ Novel, Historical Fiction, Social Sciences \ Politics \ Government, Western Australia

Charles Washing & Racist Furniture Self-Published by David Kennedy
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ISBN 978-1-922629-96-8
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Charles Washing & Racist Furniture

The history of Charles Washing, his family, and furniture business is fascinating reading. The plight of Charlie’s parents, a full-blood Chinaman and an 18-year-old English Jewess in the 1850’s, escaping their respective homelands and settling in Ararat, Victoria, is difficult to comprehend, but it’s true. Raising 10 kids against the odds, we follow the journey to Creswick, Melbourne and finally Perth where their sons, driven by Charles set up Washing Brothers Furniture Factory. The Factories Act was a desperate attempt by the Government to eradicate Asiatic businesses pressured by Unions and European businessmen. To survive meant risking everything by breaking the law, dodging government inspectors, and even beating the Supreme Court. It was the birth of racist furniture.

SMITH, Richard & HOUGHTON, Henry

May 13, 2021 | *, *Featured books, *listed, Australian, Earth \ Nature, Sciences, Social Sciences \ Politics \ Government
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ISBN 978-1-922527-64-6 PAPERBACK

Eyes In The Sky 

This book is a must read for anyone concerned with climate change and lack of Government action addressing this rapidly unfolding crisis.

The authors, tell their story of introducing the new technology of observing Earth from Space into the WA Government, following the first images of Earth being sent back by man from space some 50 years ago.

Earth Observing Satellites (EOS) soon followed giving a new and unique view of the Earth revealing the massive human impacts driving climate change, species extinction and human conflicts. For the first time in history key WA Government agencies had unparalleled access to the means of measuring and sustainably managing WA’s natural assets across the whole continent and surrounding oceans. Many new and innovative applications of EOS were developed.

However these applications encountered the fundamental conflict between Ecology and Economics, which caused a drastic cutback when WA’s Land Information Authority found that in pursuit of its commercial goals, sustainability was unsustainable. A fatal paradox that the authors argue, urgently needs to be addressed if climate catastrophe for future generations is to be avoided.

Richard Smith and Henry Houghton authors

About the Authors

Richard Smith BSc (Agric) Hons (Lond), Dip Agric Econ (Oxon) PhD (UWA), migrated in 1965 to Western Australia aged 23, as a farm management consultant to 35 farmers, managing over a million acres. Then an Australian Wool Board Scholar, CSIRO Post-doctoral fellow, University Lecturer, CSIRO Research Scientist and NASA Research Associate. He has worked in the USA, Netherlands, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Vietnam, Malaysia and Indonesia.  He was recruited by his co-author, Henry Houghton in 1990 to lead the WA State Government’s Satellite Remote Sensing Centre. He has 66 peer reviewed scientific publications and given 52 conference presentations. He helped found a not-for-profit charity for indigenous peoples in the NW Kimberley and W Papua, Indonesia and wrote business plans for over $7 million of community development. He is a volunteer guide on Rottnest Island and a Lay Preacher in the Uniting Church, with an interest in Eco-theology.

Henry Houghton BSc (Surveying), Licensed Surveyor (1968), migrated from England to Western Australia in 1957. As a licensed surveyor of the Department of Lands and Surveys, he undertook land, soil, engineering, farm subdivision and mapping surveys across the State. In the mid 1970s he was coordinator of the State’s satellite remote sensing, establishing the WA remote sensing centre in 1982 leading in 1991 to the purpose-built Leeuwin Centre for Earth Sensing Technologies. Then as Director of Survey and Mapping and Surveyor General in the then Department of Land Administration he guided the development of the land information data sets essential for land management. Following retirement in 2001, he worked as land consultant in Victoria and Tasmania before working on land projects in the Philippines. He is a Fellow of the Institution of Surveyors Australia and was awarded an Australian Centenary Medal in 2001 for services to the community.

SELOCHAN, Viberto

Apr 19, 2021 | *Featured books, *listed, Design, Family History, Melbourne, Social Sciences \ Politics \ Government

Author David Alomes' new book The death of Violence
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Author's Interview

ISBN 978-1-922527-80-6
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The Portuguese Lady’s Earrings

The Portuguese Lady’s Earrings covers the rich tapestry of the de Oliveira Evora family. Their rise to power and wealth began with their role in the Portuguese Empire, the Church predominantly through Jesuits, and with military regimes. Jewish money financed the family’s business from the spice trade to trading people and ownership of sugar plantations in Brazil.

In 1940, Portugal was under the dictatorship of President Antonio de Oliveira Salazar who was ambivalent about Jewish refugees flooding Lisbon. Sitting on the Atlantic, the City on the Tagus from where explorers launched the ‘Age of Discovery’ became a perfect port to flee from the Nazis.

The Establishment de Oliveira Evora family remained well entrenched in the business community and to a lesser extent with the Salazar government. It, however, maintained a strong relationship with the country’s centuries old established, successful and integrated Jewish community.

Follow Lia Maria who entwines herself with Tascha, a Jewish architectural student from Odessa; Olga Sara, the child of Tascha and Lia Maria, who is reared by her great uncle in Sao Paulo, Brazil after her mother disappears in Madeira; and Olga Sara’s son Carlos, born out of wedlock, who is sent to boarding school in England.

The Portuguese Lady’s Earrings elaborates on the secrecy that surrounds the family’s historical relationship with the Jewish community and indeed Olga Sara’s heritage.

About the Author

VIBERTO SELOCHAN moved to Australia from England. After completing a PhD at the Australian National University, he worked as an academic, intelligence analyst and an Australian diplomat. He is a business executive and entrepreneur. He published and edited books and wrote for Australian and Asian newspapers and magazines and is a public commentator. His philanthropic activities include micro finance. He lives in Melbourne.

MORGANELLA, Tina & ISABEL JIMINEZ, Maria

Nov 26, 2020 | *, *Featured books, *listed, Comedy \ Humour Fiction, Comics \ Manga \ Graphic Novels, Design, Fiction \ Novel, Self-help \ Personal Development, Social Sciences \ Politics \ Government, South Australia

Wear a Mask, Cupid! by self-published authors Tina Morganella and Maria Isabel Jimenez
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ISBN 978-1-9224522-9-0
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Wear a Mask, Cupid!

Love (or at the very least, desire) always finds a way, right? The true stories in this collection reflect our basic human need to connect with others, physically and emotionally – and we won’t let a little thing like a pandemic stand in our way.

Sometimes funny and romantic, often disastrous and heartbreaking, our brave contributors share their adventures in online dating, dating long distance, dating by stealth, and trying to date but failing. Despite being light-hearted or simply-told, all of the stories demonstrate in their own way, how deeply complex, lonely and profound life can be in lockdown.

Tina Morganella, editor of 'Wear a Mask, Cupid!
Dr Maria Isabel Jimenez, editor of 'Wear a Mask, Cupid!'

About the Editors

Ms Tina Morganella

Tina is a freelance writer and copyeditor with an MPhil in creative writing from the University of Adelaide, Australia. Tina writes short fiction, personal essays and travel literature. Her short stories have been published in STORGY Magazine (UK), Tulpa Magazine (Australia), Sky Island Journal (US), Entropy (US) Sudo (Australia) and Fly on the Wall Press (UK), amongst others. Tina also has nonfiction work published in the Australian press (The Big Issue, The Australian, The Adelaide Advertiser). In her bi-weekly blog, Use it in a Sentence, Tina introduces readers to Merriam Webster’s Word of the Day via micro fiction. Tina is currently between boyfriends, and yes, she has tried online dating with varying degrees of failure.

Dr Maria Isabel Jimenez

Maria is an Officer in the Australian Defence Force. She has a PhD in complex Military Procurement Projects from the University of South Australia, and extensive experience in logistics and procurement, both in the government and private sector. Strangely, none of this prepared her for her online dating tour of duty. Maria survives to tell the tale, with only minor battle scars and a motivational speaking tour planned, once COVID is over. She is fluent in Spanish, is learning French, and knows how to cha-cha. Current personal status: It’s complicated!!