The extraordinary story of John Flynn - famous pioneer of the Australian Inland Mission - and his struggle to ease the isolation of the people of the Australian outback. Flynn's dreams for the sparsely populated Australian interior were first formed as he rode on a camel through it. By the end of his life he had seen the development of transport and communication systems, the building of Bush Hospitals and the establishment of the Flying Doctor Services.

When Flynn of the Inland was first published, the Sydney Morning Herald hailed Idriess as the 'Boswell of the Bush' and wrote: ' In conversational style the completed study is built up, and history is revealed while scarce we know it. And throughout, as is fitting, the high aim in view and the means by which it is accomplished transcend the telling, transcend even the man.'

The Morning Post in London wrote: 'It is impossible to read this book and remain untouched by the greatness of John Flynn's inspiration.'

AUTHOR DETAILS

Ion (Jack) Idriess (1889-1979) was one of Australia's best-loved writers, with 56 books to his credit, and many millions of copies sold. When he returned from the First World War, he submmitted The Desert Column to Angus & Robertson, but it wasn't until his obsession with gold mining led to his Prospecting for Gold, that he was published, and instantly successful. A small, wiry, mild-mannered wanderer, Idriess spent much of his life campaigning for Australian publishing and promoting his own books from Melbourne to Broome. Flynn of the Inland and Lasseter's Last Ride are his two most lasting and consistently successful stories.

Nemarluk - Ion L. Idriess
Imprint ISBN 1 875892 10 9
224pp AU$14.95

Nemarluk was Chief of the Cahnmah Aborigines, called by Idriess the 'last of the Stone Age men'. Nemarluk was known as the scourge of the Northern Territory police, but his brave and murderous attempts to thwart the invasion of his lands was admired and respected by Idriess. In this action-packed fictionalisation, Idriess recounts the tracking of Nemarluk by his nemesis, Bul-Bul, and the eventual incarceration and death of the King of the Wilds.

Nemarluk was one of the few books written from a sympathetic perspective at a time when few white writers had the experience or understanding to tackle stories about Aborigines. It is not only a fast-moving tale about heroism but also an important document recording the social and ethical relationships between black and white Australians.

Ion (Jack) Idriess wrote 56 books and sold over 3 million copies throughout his career. He was largely responsible for popularising Australian writing at a time when local publishing was still not considered viable. Born in 1891, he served in the 5th Light Horse in the First World War and returned to write The Desert Column, which was published following his huge success with Prospecting for Gold. A small wiry mild-mannered man, Idriess was a wanderer and adventurer, with a vast pride in Australia, past, present and future.

Glad Morning Again - Michael Keon
Imprint Lives ISBN 1 875892 34 6
326pp illustrated AU$17.95

A superbly written memoir from a man who has been a journalist and member of some of the most interesting cultural circles in Australia during some of the most interesting times. His friendships with Albert Tucker, Joy Hester, the powerful John and Sunday Reed, the flamboyant Max Harris, are a thread running through his finely considered and action-packed story. Full of lively anecdotes, this book is also an unusually philosophical account of the heyday of Melbourne artistic circles. Keon's view of Australia is quietly optimistic and will make a lasting contribution to the national discussion about identity. Without any hint of the cultural cringe that marks so many memoirs of this time and place, Glad Morning Again is a triumphant re-evaluation of the end of the age of Australia's innocence.

Michael Keon was born in Melbourne in 1918, and he describes the territory of his youth with evocatively passionate skill. He went to work at the Herald, where he was Sir Keith Murdoch's copy boy. He describes Murdoch with deep respect, and attributes much of his later commitment to Australian culture as developing from that first contact with the energetic strength of Keith Murdoch. It was also his friendships with the many artists and writers who gathered around Heide in Melbourne in the years before the Second World War which have shaped his views. He was the originator the the provocative Contemporary Art Society shows and wrote for Angry Penguins and Comment. In later years, Keon went to China to follow in the footsteps of Morrison of Peking. He married Elizabeth Marcos in the Philippines, and returned to Melbourne where he now lives.

Generations of Men - Judith Wright
Imprint Lives ISBN 1 875892 16 8
272pp AU$14.95

The pioneering family story of her forebears from Australia's best-known poet, Judith Wright. The names, dates and events are factual and are based on diaries, letters and personal reminiscences, but Wright has taken this material and with her poet's imagination turned it into a reconstruction of a past era; people, places and even moods.
A beautifully written family history that documents not only the settling of Judith Wright's own family into New South Wales last century, but also the life of a nation, as Australia was colonised by 'generations of men' unsuited in many ways to the historical and geographical context of their new environment. For many years unavailable, Judith Wright's elegant chronicle is fascinating both as a historical document and a personal meditation.

Judith Wright was born in 1915 at Armidale, New South Wales, into a prominent New England pastoral family. A worker for conservation, the environment, Aboriginal land rights and human rights from the early days of these movements, Judith Wright has expressed their concerns over a lifetime of writing. Her first book of poetry was The Moving Image, published in 1946, and was followed by Woman to Man in 1949, and twenty books since.