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Scarecrow and the Army of Thieves by Matthew Reilly . It is a top-secret base known only as Dragon Island. A long-forgotten relic of the Cold War, it houses a weapon of terrible destructive force, a weapon that has just been re-activated...
When Dragon Island is seized by a brutal terrorist force calling itself the Army of Thieves, the fate of the world hangs in the balance, and there are no crack units close enough to get there in time to stop the Army setting off the weapon.
Except, that is, for a small equipment-testing team up in the Arctic led by a Marine captain named Schofield, call-sign SCARECROW. It's not a strike force; just a handful of Marines and civilians. It's not equipped to attack a fortified island held by a vicious army. But Scarecrow will lead the team in anyway, because someone has to.
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The Sense Of An Ending by Julian Barnes . Tony Webster and his clique first met Adrian Finn at school. Sex-hungry and book-hungry, they would navigate the girl-less sixth form together, trading in affectations, in-jokes, rumour and wit. Maybe Adrian was a little more serious than the others, certainly more intelligent, but they all swore to stay friends for life.
Now Tony is in middle age. He’s had a career and a single marriage, a calm divorce. He’s certainly never tried to hurt anybody. Memory, though, is imperfect. It can always throw up surprises, as a lawyer’s letter is about to prove.
The Sense Of An Ending is the story of one man coming to terms with the mutable past. Laced with trademark precision, dexterity and insight, it is the work of one of the world’s most distinguished writers.
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The Marriage Plot by Jeffrey Eugenides . Madeleine Hanna, a dutiful English major at an American university, enrolls in a semiotics course. Before long she falls in love with Leonard Morten, a charismatic loner and college Darwinist. Then Mitchell Grammaticus, a devotee of Patti Smith, reappears in her life with the firm idea that she will be his wife!
The triangle at the heart of this novel is at once age-old and completely fresh and surprising. Jeffrey Eugenides explores the original energies of the novel as an art form, while creating a story so contemporary that it reads like an intimate journal of our own lives.
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The Street Sweeper by Elliot Perlman . Lamont Williams, an African American probationary janitor in a Manhattan hospital, strikes up an unlikely friendship with an elderly patient. A few kilometres away, Australian historian Adam Zignelik finds both his career and his long-term romantic relationship falling apart.
Two very different paths - Lamont's and Adam's - lead to a much greater story as The Street Sweeper spans the twentieth century and the globe, from New York to Melbourne to Chicago to Auschwitz. Epic in scope, dealing with memory, love, racism and unexpected kindness, this is a remarkable feat of storytelling from the acclaimed author of Three Dollars and Seven Types of Ambiguity.
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A Private Life by Michael Kirby . Michael Kirby is one of Australia's most admired public figures. At a time of spin and obfuscation, he speaks out passionately and straightforwardly on the issues that are important to him. Even those who disagree with him have been moved by the courage required of him to come out as a high-profile gay man, which at times has caused him to be subjected to the most outrageous assaults on his character.
This is a collection of reminiscences in which we can discover the private Michael Kirby. It allows the public figure speak in his own voice, without any intermediary. He opens up as never before about his early life, about being gay, about his forty-two year relationship with Johan van Vloten, about his religious beliefs and even about his youthful infatuation with James Dean, which sent him on a sentimental journey to Dean's home town in the year 2000, an adventure he here wryly recalls.
Beautifully written, reflective and generous, in that warm and gently self-deprecating voice that is so characteristic of him, this is a memoir that Michael Kirby's many admirers have been waiting for.
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Autumn Laing by Alex Miller . In the 1930s Autumn Laing seduced the abundantly talented artist Pat Donlon. Fifty-three years later, cantankerous, engaging, unrestrainable 85-year-old Autumn is shocked to find within herself a powerful need for redemption. As she begins to tell her story, she writes, 'They are all dead and I am old and skeleton-gaunt. This is where it began...'
Written with compassion and intelligence, this energetic, funny and wise novel peels back the layers of storytelling and asks what truth has to do with it. Autumn Laing is an unflinchingly intimate portrait of a woman, and a brilliantly energetic story of love, loyalty and creativity.
Click here to read an exclusve Q&A with Alex Miller.
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The Affair by Lee Child . March 1997. A woman has her throat cut behind a bar in Carter Crossing, Mississippi. Just down the road is a big army base.Is the murderer a local guy - or is he a soldier?
Jack Reacher, still a major in the military police, is sent in undercover. The county sheriff is a former U.S. Marine - and a stunningly beautiful woman. Her investigation is going nowhere. Is the Pentagon stonewalling her? Or doesn't she really want to find the killer?
The adrenaline-pumping, high-voltage action in The Affair is set just six months before the opening ofKilling Floor, and it marks a turning point in Reacher's career. If he does what the army wants, will he be able to live with himself? And if he doesn't, will the army be able to live with him? Is this his last case in uniform?
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Scarecrow and the Army of Thieves by Matthew Reilly . It is a top-secret base known only as Dragon Island. A long-forgotten relic of the Cold War, it houses a weapon of terrible destructive force, a weapon that has just been re-activated...
When Dragon Island is seized by a brutal terrorist force calling itself the Army of Thieves, the fate of the world hangs in the balance, and there are no crack units close enough to get there in time to stop the Army setting off the weapon.
Except, that is, for a small equipment-testing team up in the Arctic led by a Marine captain named Schofield, call-sign SCARECROW. It's not a strike force; just a handful of Marines and civilians. It's not equipped to attack a fortified island held by a vicious army. But Scarecrow will lead the team in anyway, because someone has to.
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