Slang permeates Australian society – it can be found in pubs and RSLs, at footy matches and on TV soaps, in the hallowed halls of parliament, in schoolyards (often behind the dunnies), and up the backyard round the barbie. Macquarie's Best Aussie Slang provides a doorway to dip into this wonderful world. Some features of this edition include:
- definitions written in accessible colloquial English – simple and easy to understand
- historical treatment of important items of Aussie slang: fair dinkum, Anzacs, humping the bluey, bludger, etc.
- rhyming slang
- special attention given to slang phrases
- not happy Jan!
- I hope your chooks turn into emus and kick your dunny down
- useful as a roo bar on a skateboard
- silly as a two-bob watch
- mad as a cut snake
- don't come the raw prawn with me
- regional slang gathered from contributors from all over the country

Bury Me Vertical

R M Winn

Have you heard the one about the codger who fed his greyhound his heart medicine to make it go faster at the track? What about the bloke who was growing six-foot ears of corn in his ute? Or the penny-pinching Scotsman whose last request is to be buried upright?

Everyone knows someone who tells a good story. You find these blokes propping up the bar, or at the sale yards, or you run into them down the road. Ryle Winn knows more of these yarn-spinners than most - he's spent a lot of time on the land and had about fifty different jobs. He's a dab hand at bending the truth himself.
In his latest collection, Ryle shares the best cock and bull stories from around the traps and his own remarkable life.  Pull up a chair and get comfortable - you won't be anywhere for a while.

The Australian sense of humour was born of convict blood, hopeful gold diggers, itinerant bush workers, canny swagmen, iron-back bush women, laconic soldiers, sweaty factory workers and larrikin city-slickers. Above all it is the humour of a pioneering country where men, women and children battled with an idiosyncratic climate where the uncertainty of droughts, floods and bushfires were always around the corner. This collection is a sampling of the Australian sense of humour and a good example of our living folklore. Although they are similar to jokes, and some have had circulation as jokes, they are quite different. They are descendants of a tradition of storytelling that has all but disappeared. They spin a yarn, drawing the listener in, inviting you to meet characters like lazy Len, Dad and Dave, and Sandy the Shearer. They are keys to our past and our unique culture.

A rich and generously told reminiscence about growing up in the Australian bush of the 1950s, and the eccentric life of Mick Eames, the country undertaker.When Mick Eames, footballer and spare parts man, moved his family to Holbrook in the 1940s, he had no idea that the job of town undertaker would fall his way. Instead of immaculately attired attendants and battery-operated lowering devices of the city, Mick Eames' lot was much simpler. He had a hearse that wouldn't start, a couple of four-by-twos and a rather unlikely assortment of funeral assistants, including Kelly O'Brien, the very sociable gravedigger who was known to sleep in the job. Written with great warmth and gentle humour, The Country Undertaker is as poignant as it is funny. There are no big names or great moments in history; rather a wonderful assortment of bush stories and a whole cast of supporting eccentrics (including the matriarch who insisted her prize bull be chief mourner at her funeral), leaving you quietly nostalgic for an Australia long past.

Susan Butler

Australians have ways of saying things that can confound other English speakers. The Dinkum Dictionary tells the stories behind the origins of a rich mix of distinctly Australian words and phrases, and with more than twenty new entries the third edition is an essential reference for the home, the office, the classroom, for anyone curious about how and why we use words.

Australia has a rich tradition of story telling that reflects our unique history and experience. Great Australian Stories gathers some of the best of our stories from colonial times to the present, with bush yarns, tall stories, urban myths, and tales of the mysterious and downright weird.
This is an Australia of down-to-earth realism, tragedy and heroism, dry humour, an unexpectedly wide supernatural streak, and a strong sense of place. Stories feature cocky farmers, numbskulls like the drongo, bunyips, famous tricksters like Jacky Bindi-I and the world's greatest whinger, as well as larger than life real characters like the sad Eliza Donnithorne.
With favourite yarns from around the country, Great Australian Stories is the most representative collection available of the stories we tell about ourselves. Graham Seal explains where the stories come from, and why even the outright lies reveal a truth of sorts.

If you've ever wondered why your girlfriend's a Sheila even though her name is Kate, or why your friend in the outer suburbs of Sydney is said to live beyond the black stump, then this is the book for you!

Throwing light on all the quirky, intriguing and downright bizarre words and phrases that make up "Australian English", this entertaining dictionary of slang belongs on everyone's bookshelf.

If you're an Australian, you'll be fascinated to find out how some of the sayings came to be; and if you're a visitor you'll find it an invaluable resource for understanding what people are actually talking about!

There is much wisdom and many a laugh to be found in this delightful collection of Australian sayings. The play of humour, practical good sense and irony locates them unmistakably in this country, and in the particular habits of people in the bush.