This book really inspired me to look in my garden for new things to make baskets with. I was already using pine needles, but now have expanded. Last fall I gathered iris leaves, iris stems, cattails, rushes and honeysuckle. Made a few small baskets, and found it is fun (and cheaper) to gather and prepare your own materials. This year, I am adding dandelion stems, daisy and coreopsis stems, paperwhite and lily leaves, yucca leaves (green and already dried), pine roots...what fun! Some of the plants described in this book are not available in the US, but the myriad of beautiful baskets made from dried bulb leaves alone is enough start my head buzzing with new ideas. Love this book!

Covering the frogs of the entire comtinent, this book is surpisingly compact (great for taking in the field) yet packs in the information and photographs! I found it extremely helpful in the field as there are often several photographs of each species- which helps in identification of species often variable in appearance throughout their range.Great book, containing all the usual field guide info and more!

Full of useful information for tourists, including ratings and reviews of places to stay and sites to see. The authors have a very down-to-earth, honest approach to the reader and some of their comments had me laughing out loud. For example, in commenting on the kangaroo, the book reads:

"To give you an idea of what you're dealing with in a tame kangaroo, just watch them with children--even when...[they]...pull their ears and walk on their tails, they just get up and walk away. If they wanted, they could open the kids up like a tin of sardines--they have claws like a saber-tooth tiger's tooth."

Combined with the Frommer's Australia books (both the 4th edition and the 'for about $50 a day' edition) I've found tons of useful information and probably won't even need to resort to a travel agent next time we visit.

This is a great book I brought with me all over Australia and found invaluable. This book gives detailed info on more sites than you could ever hope to dive, and even if you don't dive the pictures are great. Top book!

In this fascinating book, Kevin Foster looks at the ways in which Britain experienced the Falklands war. He makes sense of the vast number of accounts, and of the various themes rehearsed.

The Thatcher Government portrayed its decision to fight, and its conduct of the campaign, as expressions of the essential national character, the 'true Britain'. The mass media at once swung into line. In fact, the war primarily served a purpose hostile to the nation, Thatcher's political survival.

Government and media equated Argentina's initial recovery of the Islands with the Nazi invasion of Poland, as they immediately identified the war with the Second World War, and Thatcher with Churchill. They saw the Falklands as the image of Britain, a ravished island Eden. They ignored the harsher similarities, of economic dependence, under-investment and social inequality.

The media depended on the military for information, which turned the journalists into what one called 'troopie groupies'. The media became a single, responsible voice speaking for 'our common cause'. According to their account, 'our' Government never faltered, 'our' flawless heroes carried out a perfect campaign. On the other side, their corrupt, undemocratic Government and its murderous thugs waged a campaign of Latin incompetence.

The war was supposedly unavoidable. There was no alternative; the British Government, guileless innocent in a naughty world, was forced into war by the Satanic enemy. Our supreme temptation was the serpent 'appeasement', diplomacy a cunning trap set by wily foreigners. Peace demonstrators were described as pro-fascist, dissenters as collaborators. In practice, this meant rejecting in principle all ceasefire proposals and negotiations; it meant war without compromise. The only acceptable ethical outcome was the enemy's total surrender.

Government and media celebrated the war as the source of national salvation, even, in Thatcher's memoirs, of world salvation. War was rebirth, welfare, humanitarianism.

This presentation of the Falklands war has become the media model for all subsequent wars. Kevin Foster's book is a model of sanity; its publication now is especially timely.

Simply there is no other book on Fiji that matches the expertise of Dr Ryan's knowledge and the brilliance of his photography. A must for any visitor to the South Pacific.

A new edition of Finding Fiji is available and can be located by searching for "Moon Handbooks: Fiji" on this site.

This is an insightful, but ultimately sad, true story of modern Australian culture. It is set in a most bizarre university college in Australia in the 1990s. The story is one of reckless youth, trust, power structures, farce and betrayal. In it Dr Cameron has captured something quintessentially Australian and contemporary.

It is the story of an exceptionally gifted man, holding an important and ultimately symbolic position, over a period of five years as the Principle of an apparently unremarkable university college in Sydney. But the reader, like the author, is soon exposed to a rather alarming expose of modern youth culture. The casual, somewhat inauspicious beginning soon develops into an embroiling series of events; heated debates,'carpark conspiracies', the recklessness and idealism of youth, and the like; laced with side excursions, charming anecdotes, and insightful caricatures. But I can't find the words to properly convey my feeling of this books intensity, diversity, and worth, or the overall respect that I have for the author himself.

Dr Camerons charming style and eloquence speaks volumes over those with whom he had cause for argument, and whom ultimaltey caused his sad and ultimately 'resignation'. This is a story with deserves to be told, and it is told by someone with an extraordinary gift for the telling. Not for the faint of heart or mind, but a truly great and timely book nonetheless.

"The First Electric Road" is a short history of the electric tramway which ran between Doncaster and Box Hill between 1889 and 1895. (Doncaster and Box Hill are now part of suburban Melbourne, Australia). This was the first electric tramway in the southern hemisphere. The book is well written and researched. It is liberally illustrated with photograpghs and contains several maps. The book is an essential item for anyone who is interested in the tramways of the greatest tramway city in the English speaking world. The book is available from the author at 730 Hawthorn Road, East Brighton, Victoria, Australia

The Canberra Press Gallery consists of those journalists (print, radio, television) assigned by their media organisations to cover the political scene of the Australian Federal Parliament.

This book, by an experienced journalist and author, looks at the workings of the press gallery, how the gallery decides which stories to pursue, which to ignore, and the working relationships which develop between the journalists themselves and the people (politicians and their staff) on whom the journalists report.

Gallery operations, deadlines and beliefs shape the news that is published for public consumption.

Although specific to Australia, I imagine that similar situations exist in other countries, particularly the U.S. and the UK.