SHARPE IS BACK. This September, global bestseller Bernard Cornwell returns with his iconic hero, Richard Sharpe. Outsider. Hero. Rogue. And the one man you want on your side. SHARPE'S ASSASSIN is the brand new novel in the bestselling historical series that has sold over 20 million copies worldwide. The adventure continues in September 2021. Pre-order now.

Paul Barry's THE RISE AND RISE OF KERRY PACKER is a classic piece of Australian non-fiction publishing. Originally released in 1993 when Packer was still alive, it has sold well over a quarter of a million copies and is widely seen as the definitive book on a man who throughout his remarkable life mystified, inspired and challenged those around him. Since Kerry Packer's death Barry has unearthed a substantial amount of new testimony from those now prepared to come forward. This new edition of the book - THE RISE AND RISE OF KERRY PACKER UNCUT brings the true Packer story to Australia in a way that was never possible for the first edition. This is the real deal about Kerry Packer: unvarnished, uncut, more astonishing than you ever could have imagined.

On 24 August 2010, in battle in Afghanistan, Corporal Daniel Keighran risked his life in a hail of gunfire to save his fellow soldiers. His actions saw him awarded the Victoria Cross for Australia, making him the 99th Australian to receive our country's highest award for bravery. Courage Under Fire tells of Daniel's unlikely journey to become one of Australia's most celebrated soldiers. Growing up was tough for Daniel. When he was eleven, his father showed up in his life, for the first time, with a gunshot wound to the stomach. He relocated his son, daughter and their mother 400 kilometres away from their loving grandparents and a coastal home to a shack with a dirt floor in outback Queensland. From then on, Daniel fought to maintain a sense of order and purpose amid the chaos of family violence and criminal activity. Inspired by his much-loved grandfather, a WWII veteran, Daniel joined the army. There he found the structure that was missing from his teen years. Although just 17, Daniel adapted quickly to the demands of life in the military, always willing to learn, always wanting to grow, always seeking to emulate the example of his grandfather. Courage Under Fire is an outstanding military memoir, packed with tales of multiple tours, accounts of extraordinary camaraderie, and a reflection on the unseen cost of service. Most of all it is a testament to the idea that anything is possible if you know what you stand for.

From fringe conspiracy theories to 'alternative facts', a timely look at how we arrived in the 'fake news' era. Would your younger self, even from a few years ago, believe the news of today? An entire block of a major city blown up by a suicide bomber on Christmas Day because he believed phone towers spread disease. A representative elected to the US Congress on a platform that Democrats are secretly harvesting an anti-aging chemical from the blood of abused children. Angry rioters in furs and horns overrun the Capitol in a bloody carnage of insurrection, intent on hanging their very own candidate. The Prime Minister of Australia employing the wife of his friend who fronts a group the FBI have declared terrorists. A global pandemic which, even as they lie dying from it, people refuse to believe exists. Many who sat in shocked disbelief as pictures of these events beamed around the world had the same question: 'How did we get here?' For those rioters, it was the culmination of a journey of online radicalisation that began with the weaponisation of disinformation by their political leaders and outrageously biased 'news' commentators. Facts and Other Lies puts fake news in its historical context and explains how disinformation has fractured society, even threatening democracy itself. It explains why disinformation is so potent and so hard to stop, and what we can do to help prevent its proliferation in Australia-where politicians and shock jocks are already operating from the same dark playbook. It outlines how anyone can defuse disinformation in the home, office or pub, or wherever the deluded gather to spread their nonsense. Be prepared! 'Read this book if you want to save democracy' Wayne Swan, former Deputy Prime Minister of Australia 'Essential reading for anyone wanting to cut through the nonsense and get to the truth' Eason Jordan, former Chief News Executive, CNN 'This is a timely account of a growing malignancy affecting all modern democracies' Kevin Rudd, former Prime Minister of Australia 'We live in a world that unfolds at a pace, and with the violent twists and turns in the plot, of a thriller. This book captures the intensity of our politics and connects it to the science of misinformation . . . a great read' Professor Stephan Lewandowsky, Chair in Cognitive Psychology, University of Bristol

More than 130 years after his execution, the legend of Ned Kelly lives on Born in Victoria to an Irish convict father, the young Ned started his criminal career at 14 and was jailed for three years at 16 for a run-in with a policeman for stealing a horse. In 1890, Ned Kelly was hanged at 25 in the Melbourne Gaol, two years after the shooting of three policemen and the spate of outlandish bank robberies. It was from these killings and robberies where the legend of Ned Kelly, bushranger, antihero, and an icon of a nation, was born. The Kelly gang's last stand, at Glenrowan in Victoria, is at the very core of Australian folklore. The homemade armor that Ned donned in his last stand against the police force is an Australian icon and the subject of many stories and famous artworks. This year, 2013, sees Ned Kelly finally laid to rest in consecrated ground, as was his final wish.

The extraordinary, must-read story of the brave, bold Hubert Wilkins - Australia's most adventurous explorer, naturalist, photographer, war hero, aviator, spy and daredevil - brought to life by Australia's greatest storyteller. Sir Hubert Wilkins is one of the most remarkable Australians who ever lived. The son of pioneer pastoralists in South Australia, Hubert studied engineering before moving on to photography. In 1908 he sailed for England and a job producing films with the Gaumont Film Co. Brave and bold, he became a polar expeditioner, a brilliant war photographer, a spy in the Soviet Union, a pioneering aviator-navigator, a death-defying submariner - all while being an explorer and chronicler of the planet and its life forms that would do Vasco da Gama and Sir David Attenborough proud. As a WW1 photographer he was twice awarded the Military Cross for bravery under fire, the only Australian photographer in any war to be decorated. He explored the Antarctic with Sir Ernest Shackleton, led a groundbreaking ornithological study in Australia and was knighted in 1928 for his aviation exploits, but many more astounding achievements would follow. Wilkins' quest for knowledge and polar explorations were lifelong passions and his missions to polar regions aboard the submarine Nautilus the stuff of legend. With masterful storytelling skill, Peter FitzSimons illuminates the life of Hubert Wilkins and his incredible achievements. Thrills and spills, derring-do, new worlds discovered - this is the most unforgettable tale of the most extraordinary life lived by any Australian.

The iconic Australian exploration story - brought to life by Peter FitzSimons, Australia's storyteller. 'They have left here today!' he calls to the others. When King puts his hand down above the ashes of the fire, it is to find it still hot. There is even a tiny flame flickering from the end of one log. They must have left just hours ago. MELBOURNE, 20 AUGUST 1860. In an ambitious quest to be the first Europeans to cross the harsh Australian continent, the Victorian Exploring Expedition sets off, farewelled by 15,000 cheering well-wishers. Led by Robert O'Hara Burke, a brave man totally lacking in the bush skills necessary for his task; surveyor and meteorologist William Wills; and 17 others, the expedition took 20 tons of equipment carried on six wagons, 23 horses and 26 camels. Almost immediately plagued by disputes and sackings, the expeditioners battled the extremes of the Australian landscape and weather: its deserts, the boggy mangrove swamps of the Gulf, the searing heat and flooding rains. Food ran short and, unable to live off the land, the men nevertheless mostly spurned the offers of help from the local Indigenous people. In desperation, leaving the rest of the party at the expedition's depot on Coopers Creek, Burke, Wills and John King made a dash for the Gulf in December 1860. Bad luck and bad management would see them miss by just hours a rendezvous back at Coopers Creek, leaving them stranded in the wilderness with practically no supplies. Only King survived to tell the tale. Yet, despite their tragic fates, the names of Burke and Wills have become synonymous with perseverance and bravery in the face of overwhelming odds. They live on in our nation's history - and their story remains immediate and compelling.

From the bestselling author of Kokoda and Gallipoli comes the epic story of Australia's deadliest Vietnam War battle. 4.31 pm: Enemy [on] left flank. Could be serious. 5.01 pm: Enemy ... penetrating both flanks and to north and south. 5.02: Running short of ammo. Require drop through trees. It was the afternoon of 18 August 1966, hot, humid with grey monsoonal skies. D Company, 6RAR were four kilometres east of their Nui Dat base, on patrol in a rubber plantation not far from the abandoned village of Long Tan. A day after their base had suffered a mortar strike, they were looking for Viet Cong soldiers. Then - just when they were least expecting - they found them. Under withering fire, some Diggers perished, some were grievously wounded, the rest fought on, as they remained under sustained attack. For hours these men fought for their lives against the enemy onslaught. The skies opened and the rain fell as ferocious mortar and automatic fire pinned them down. Snipers shot at close quarters from the trees that surrounded them. The Aussie, Kiwi and Yankee artillery batteries knew it was up to them but, outnumbered and running out of ammunition they fired, loaded, fired as Viet Cong and North Vietnamese Army forces just kept coming. And coming. Their only hope was if Armoured Personnel Carriers (APCs) could reach them before they were wiped out. The APCs did their best but low cloud and thunderstorms meant air support was stalled. A daring helicopter resupply mission was suggested but who would want to fly that? The odds against this small force were monumental... By far the deadliest battle for Australian forces in Vietnam, the Battle of Long Tan has a proud place in the annals of Australian military history - and every ANZAC who fought there could hold his head high. Peter FitzSimons, Australia's greatest storyteller, tells the real story of this classic battle. He reveals the horror, the bravery, the wins and the losses that faced our soldiers. He brings to life the personal stories of the men who fought, the events leading up to that memorable battle and the long war that followed, and the political decisions made in the halls of power that sealed their fates. The Battle of Long Tan is an engrossing and powerful history that shows the costs of war never end.

The name Captain James Cook is one of the most recognisable in Australian history - an almost mythic figure who is often discussed, celebrated, reviled and debated. But who was the real James Cook? This Yorkshire farm boy would go on to become the foremost mariner, scientist, navigator and cartographer of his era, and to personally map a third of the globe. His great voyages of discovery were incredible feats of seamanship and navigation. Leading a crew of men into uncharted territories, Cook would face the best and worst of humanity as he took himself and his crew to the edge of the known world - and beyond. With his masterful storytelling talent, Peter FitzSimons brings the real James Cook to life. Focusing on his most iconic expedition, the voyage of the Endeavour, where Cook first set foot on Australian and New Zealand soil, FitzSimons contrasts Cook against another figure who looms large in Australasian history: Joseph Banks, the aristocratic botanist. As they left England, Banks, a rich, famous playboy, was everything that Cook was not. The voyage tested Cook's character and would help define his legacy. Now, 240 years after James Cook's death, FitzSimons reveals what kind of man James was at heart. His strengths, his weaknesses, his passions and pursuits, failures and successes. JAMES COOK reveals the man behind the myth.

The epic story of the Boer War and Harry 'Breaker' Morant: drover, horseman, bush poet - murderer or hero? Most Australians have heard of the Boer War of 1899 to 1902 and of Harry 'Breaker' Morant, a figure who rivals Ned Kelly as an archetypal Australian folk hero. Born in England and emigrating to Queensland in 1883 in his early twenties, Morant was a charming but reckless man who established a reputation as a rider, polo player and writer. He submitted ballads to The Bulletin that were published under the name 'The Breaker' and counted Banjo Paterson as a friend. When appeals were made for horsemen to serve in the war in South Africa, Morant joined up, first with the South Australian Mounted Rifles and then with a South African irregular unit, the Bushveldt Carbineers. In September 1901 Morant and two other Australians, Lieutenants Peter Handcock and George Witton, were arrested for the murder of Boer prisoners. Morant and Handcock were court-martialled and executed in February 1902 as the Boer War was in its closing stages, but the debate over their convictions continues to this day. Does Breaker Morant deserve his iconic status? Who was Harry Morant? What events and passions led him to a conflict that was essentially an Imperial war, played out on a distant continent under a foreign flag? Was he a scapegoat for British war crimes or a criminal himself? With his trademark brilliant command of story, Peter FitzSimons unravels the many myths and fictions that surround the life of Harry Morant. The truths FitzSimons uncovers about 'The Breaker' and the part he played in the Boer War are astonishing - and, in the hands of this master storyteller, make compelling reading.

History comes to life with Peter FitzSimons in the story of Australia’s most famous polar explorer and the giants from the heroic age of polar exploration: Scott, Amundsen and Shackleton.Sir Douglas Mawson, born in 1882 and knighted in 1914, remains Australia's greatest Antarctic explorer. On 2 December 1911, his Australasian Antarctic Expedition left Hobart to explore the virgin frozen coastline below Australia, 2000 miles of which had never felt the tread of a human foot. He was on his way to fulfil a national dream he had first conceived three years earlier, while on his first trip to the frozen continent on the Nimrod expedition under the leadership of the charismatic Anglo-Irishman Sir Ernest Shackleton. Even as Mawson and his men were approaching Antarctica, two other famous Antarctic explorers were already engaged in nothing less than a race to become the first men to reach the South Pole. While Roald Amundsen of Norway, with his small team, was racing with dogs along one route, England's legendary Scott of the Antarctic, with his far larger team, was relying primarily on ponies and 'man-hauling' to get there along another. As Mawson and his men make their home on the windiest place on earth and prepare for their own record-breaking treks, with devastating drama to be their constant companion, the stories of Amundsen and Scott similarly play out. With his trademark in-depth research, FitzSimons provides a compelling portrait of these great Antarctic explorers. For the first time, he weaves together their legendary feats into one thrilling account, bringing the jaw-dropping events of this bygone era dazzlingly back to life.

Over the past few decades, 'investigative journalism' has come to mean the kind of brave reporting that exposes injustice, wrongdoing and, above all, the abuse of power. At a time when journalism is under attack perhaps as never before, this celebration of the very best of investigative journalism, and some of the greatest practitioners of the craft, could not be more timely. In selecting for this anthology articles, broadcasts and book extracts that have got behind the fa-ade of official silence to reveal important and disturbing truths, John Pilger is paying his own professional tribute to some of the men and women he most admires. Here are the famous muckrakers (Seymour Hersh on the My Lai massacre), as well as the less well known (Wilfred Burchett, the first Westerner to enter Hiroshima in September 1945; Israeli journalist Amira Hass, reporting from the Gaza Strip in the 1990s). Here, too, are the mavericks (the great German undercover reporter G-nter Wallraff; Jessica Mitford on 'The American Way of Death'). The book ranges from across many of the critical events, scandals and struggles of the past fifty years, from the scenes witnessed at the liberation of the death camp at Dachau in 1945, to the bloodshed caused by the invasion of Iraq in 2003. Along the way it bears witness to epic injustices committed against the peoples of Vietnam, Cambodia, East Timor and Palestine. John Pilger sets each piece of reporting in its context, often offering personal insights into the writer, and introduces the collection with a passionate essay arguing that the kind of journalism he celebrates here is being subverted by the very forces that ought to be its enemy. Taken as a whole, the book tells an extraordinary 'secret history' of the modern era, through the stories filed by some of its finest journalists. It is also a call to arms to journalists everywhere - before it is too late.

A first hand account of perhaps the most powerful and influential crime group currently operating in Australia and North America. It is the first time ever that an insider has told the true and chilling story of the bike gangs that dominate the drug and illegal weapons trade.

Organized crime is still the source of endless fascination for book-buyers and Mafia Files presents the rap sheets of key figures in the underworld, along with the story of their lives.

For 35 years, the United States and Russia each had their own superhero. Three days ago, America's hero died. Today will be bad. In the face of an overwhelming attack, one young woman-unassuming and anonymous-might be America's only hope. Her codename ... COBALT BLUE

The edge-of-your-seat, heart-in-mouth new Jack Reacher thriller for 2020 - his 25th adventure. No one's bigger than Jack Reacher.Jack Reacher gets off the bus in a sleepy no-name town outside Nashville, Tennessee. He plans to grab a cup of coffee and move right along.Not going to happen.The town has been shut down by a cyber attack. At the centre of it all, whetherhe likes it or not, is Rusty Rutherford. He's an average IT guy, but he knows more than he thinks.As the bad guys move in on Rusty, Reacher moves in on them . . .And now Rusty knows he's protected, he's never going to leave the big man's side.Reacher might just have to stick around and find out what the hell's gone wrong . . . and then put it right, like only he can.***'Jack Reacher is today's James Bond, a thriller hero we can't get enough of.' Ken Follett'If you haven't read any Jack Reacher, you have a treat in store . . . a hitchhiker without a phone, a one-man force for good.' - The Times'A contemporary version of the knight in shining armour . . . Reacher is a mythic figure.' Literary Review'Jack Reacher is a wonderfully epic hero; tough, taciturn, yet vulnerable... Irresistible.' People'Jack Reacher has long since earned his prominent place in the pantheon of cool, smart-talking American heroes.' New York Times

A unique and outstanding military and industrial achievement, the Collins class submarine project was also plagued with difficulties and mired in politics. Its story is one of heroes and villains, grand passions, intrigue, lies, spies and backstabbing. It is as well a story of enormous commitment and resolve to achieve what many thought impossible. The building of these submarines was Australia's largest, most expensive and most controversial military project. From initiation in the 1981-82 budget to the delivery of the last submarine in 2003, the total cost was in excess of six billion dollars. Over 130 key players were interviewed for this book, and the Australian Defence Department allowed access to its classified archives and the Australian Navy archives. Vividly illustrated with photographs from the collections of the Royal Australian Navy and ASC Pty Ltd, The Collins Class Submarine Story: Steel, Spies and Spin is a riveting and accessibly written chronicle of a grand-scale quest for excellence.

Definitive account of the famous 1963 Great Train Robbery, and its aftermath.

Now, for the first time, the captain of the submarine USS Nautilus tells the newly declassified story of his ship's desperate Cold War race beneath the polar ice pack. The Cold War was in full swing. The Soviet Union had just successfully launched Sputnik, and President Eisenhower badly wanted to redeem the reputation of the US as technologically superior. "Operation Sunshine" was the answer: under top-secret orders, the Captain and crew of one of the first nuclear submarines, the USS Nautilus, crossed under the North Pole and became the first naval vessel to forge all the way under the polar ice pack to emerge near the former Soviet Union. Readers will voyage along with Captain Anderson as he shares newly declassified stories of his sub's encounters with terrible storms, fire in the hold, collisions with ice, broken compasses, and more.

A compelling narrative written by a former undercover police operative, this memoir offers personal insight into the inner workings of the Mafia and some of the most notorious crimes in Australian history. Posing as a dodgy art dealer, Colin McLaren eventually maneuvered his way into Godfather Antonio Romeo's band of mafiosi and immersed himself within their world. This account of that period details the listening devices, wire taps,�and drug deals, and the delicate balance between staying sane and staying alive. Chronicling two of the bloodiest decades in organized crime, this remarkable record offers a fascinating view of the blurring of identities, the conflicting loyalties, and the strain on family that is part of the difficult nature of undercover work.