Great Granny B
By Catherine Davis

Unsatisfied with the prospect of serving a husband Helen Witt opted for serving Australia and life on the high seas. She served with the Voluntary Aid Detachment during the war and travelled to distant lands as a Welfare Officer with Australian Immigration.

An inspiring insight into the story of one woman and her role in helping to change the make-up of Australia. 173pp.

Anh Do nearly didn't make it to Australia. His entire family came close to losing their lives on the sea as they escaped from war-torn Vietnam in an overcrowded boat. But nothing - not murderous pirates, nor the imminent threat of death by hunger, disease or dehydration as they drifted for days - could quench their desire to make a better life in a country where freedom existed.

Life in Australia was hard, an endless succession of back-breaking work, crowded rooms, ruthless landlords and make-do everything. But there was a loving extended family, and always friends and play and something to laugh about for Anh, his brother Khoa and their sister Tram. Things got harder when their father left home when Anh was thirteen - they felt his loss very deeply and their mother struggled to support the family on her own.

His mother's sacrifice was an inspiration to Anh and he worked hard during his teenage years to help her make ends meet, also managing to graduate high school and then university. Another inspiration was the comedian Anh met when he was about to sign on for a 60-hour a week corporate job. Anh asked how many hours he worked. 'Four,' the answer came back, and that was it. He was going to be a comedian!

The Happiest Refugee tells the incredible, uplifting and inspiring life story of one of our favourite personalities. Tragedy, humour, heartache and unswerving determination - a big life with big dreams. Anh's story will move and amuse all who read it.

Sam and Jenny Bailey.

At the age of 19, a young farmer, Sam Bailey, miscalculated a bend in the road, overturned his ute and became a quadriplegic. After months of struggle, he learned how to resume his life as a farmer, running a sheep and cattle property in northwest New South Wales. Then he met and fell in love with Jenny Black, an ABC Rural journalist, proposed to her on air, and the rest is history. Jenny tells Sam′s story in his own laconic, wry style. By turns romantic, funny and moving, it affirms the strength of iron-willed determination and the power of love. 

After seven tough years of droving Kerry McGinnis yearns for a proper home. When her father buys a property in Queensland's Gulf Country Kerry and her sister Judith discover that lif in a man's country is far from easy. 312 pp.

Tom Cole. This remarkable autobiographical account details Cole’s life in the outback during the 1920s and 30s. Drover, stationhand, crocodile and buffalo hunter. 360 pp.

Alan Marshall's story of his childhood – a happy world in which, despite his crippling poliomyelitis, he plays, climbs, fights, swims, rides and laughs.

His world was the Australian countryside early last century: rough-riders, bushmen, farmers and tellers of tall stories – a world held precious by the young Alan Marshall.

In the Middle of Nowhere is the compelling true account of 18 year old nurse Terry Augustus and John Underwood, a young born and bred cattleman she found flat on his back in ward 3 of St Vincents' Hospital, nursing a serious spinal injury sustained while mustering cattle. John itching to get home to his family’s cattle station in the Northern Territory, promised Terry He’d write. After five long years of corresponding, John and Terry married and moved to their new home – a tent and a newly drilled bore in the middle of nowhere. Their love for each other was only matched by their love for this ‘last frontier’ in the heart of the Territory. Modern day pioneers they built their cattle station from scratch, and educated a new generation of Underwoods' there, on the headwaters of the Victorian River, 600 kilometres south-west of Katherine. Times where tough but with the power of love and the strength of the family helped them overcome any obstacle.

In July 2008, Peter Lloyd, one of ABC-TV's best-known foreign correspondents was arrested on the streets of Singapore on drug charges.
In the years before this, he had brought us news, both good and bad, from across the world. He had stood among the gruesome human wreckage laid out in an improvised outdoor mortuary after the Bali Bombing; joined Thailand's disaster recovery workers collecting the bloated flotsam of the Boxing Day Tsunami. And he was there for the worst atrocity in Pakistan's history, a shocking suicide bombing attempt on Benazir Bhutto's life, two months before she was finally assassinated.
Being an eyewitness to history extracts a very high price and these horrific events became the stuff of recurring nightmares, and a private agony. After his arrest, Peter was diagnosed with post traumatic stress disorder. As prisoner number 12988 in the Singapore penal system he suffered the small and large humiliations of prison life. And to survive in gaol, he entered it with the mindset of a seasoned journalist on assignment. He tells his Inside Story with compelling candour, great warmth and a very sharp wit.

'Is that you...?' Matron's voice would ring out across the dormitory. In that pause sixty little girls would stop in their tracks, waiting to hear who was in trouble. Life in Queensland's notorious Cherbourg Mission.