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.

'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.