Science/Social Studies picture book focusing on the balance of nature in Australia. Gives factual information about the attempts to control the beetles which were destroying sugar cane crops. Giant toads, the size of dinner plates, were imported to eat the beetles. At first the toads stayed in the fields where they belonged, but soon they strayed to the towns and caused many problems. This book shows that you never know what might happen when you interfere with Mother Nature. The illustrations are wonderful, especially the one of the toad dressed up as a baby!

Meaghan Morris, early and late, writes cultural criticism at its global/local,wry perverse best. Lest this sound too late-capitalist cynical or rude, I should say that she writes from and as the local and national site of Australia, making this political and libidinal space of transnational cultural studies resonate with the most urgent, critical, and international issues that trouble our politics and poetics.

As such, she reinvents Asia/Pacific as she writes, showing us (or should I say the writerly obsessive "me") how to work and affiliate in a space of writing and moral-political concern. When I read her essays, I face the panic white sublimity of awe and admiration, clotted and displaced. She invents topics and tropes for each essay or book, reframing tourism, mass media, film, movement, embodied location, identity, without falling into the "banality of cultural studies" or the throwaway language and motel spaces that haunt our politics.

She is an untimely critic, whose writing is both too soon and too late for the market. But the "tyranny of space" in the Pacific has been overcome, and I for one am very grateful such an artist and cultural critic and scholar exists all packed into one person, Meaghan Morris.

There are no books in architecture that are this sincere, candid, and honest. Glenn Murcutt's words through his interviews with Philip Drew are expressive and quite refreshing. In his own words, he explains how, where, and most importantly why he has developed his worldview. In the world of overenphasized aesthetics, Murcutt expresses his design philosophies in a more down to earth vocabulary and design. His upbringing in PNG, his parenting, and all of the experiences that he has had (traveling in Europe and around the World) has lead to his unique point of view of architecture and the world.

This is a great book to read. It is very easy to read, and it emphasizes the things that are truly important in life.

This book hit the mark for a travel guide to Africa. Small, it fits into the 32 pound weight limit for local plane flights. The map which comes with it is nicely detailed. The book has a good blend on info about the parks and brief reviews of the places to stay. There aren't a lot of books to help with traveling to Tanzania, so this was a good find.

I brought this after reading Bill Bryson's comments in the New York Times and had a good guffaw. The authors, who usually write very irreverant guides about Europe, give Mars the same treatment-it not only makes science fun, but it makes you want to go to Mars on the next rocket out. Even my 11 year old has picked it up and used it for her science project at school. Pics are great too--altogether a fun little book!

Treasured Islands: Crossing The South Seas with Robert Louis Stevenson by Lowell Holmes (Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Anthropology, Wichita State University) is a personal look at a beloved and renowned author of classics in terms of his high adventures on the South Pacific between 1888 and 1890. Life on the islands, European religious influence, and the saga of indigenous populations are all covered in this dramatic, exciting, and well-researched account. Biographer Lowell Holmes draws upon his impressive expertise regarding the life and work of Robert Louis Stevenson (he produced a documentary film on Stevenson in the Pacific) to deftly craft a work of historical accuracy and insight. Treasured Islands is a very highly recommended for personal, academic, and community library collections, and a "must" for admirers of Robert Louis Stevenson's literary works.

This book offers an excellent analysis of the policy concerns that have and will continue to dominate the Australian political landscape.

The editors, and in particular, Madelaine Chiam, have compiled and useful and interesting collection of perspectives, covering the spectrum of IR issues, whilst being able to maintain a political narration which draws a vivid and interesting picture of how Australia has and should approach its international commitments, both legal and moral.

5/5

Almost any other book on Australia's Aborigines that you can find will be an anthropological description of Aboriginal life as seen in its declining years or modern Aboriginal problems in the 20th century. Some may record the awful history of injustice, the fatal impact of alcohol and white police---maybe even the deliberate policy of breaking up cultures and families that existed until recent times. There are a lot of books out there and I certainly am not familiar with all of them. Geoffrey Blainey wrote this highly original book back in 1975. I first read it a couple of years later and have kept it in mind all these years as a book that looked at the whole picture of Aborigines and their life in Australia in an entirely different way. I am basing this review on the original edition. He begins by pointing out that Australia was the only continent to be discovered by sea---and not by Europeans, but by pre-neolithic, island-hopping peoples of the distant past. When in later ages, much of the low-lying area north of present-day Australia was flooded by rising seas, the continent was isolated for millennia. Blainey tells how the Aborigines "terraformed" Australia by fire, how they learned to exploit every plant, insect, animal, and water source, how they coped with the volcanic eruptions of five to eight thousand years ago, how they developed the technology they needed, using all the materials available. Without any domesticable animals except dogs, which had come with them, and without any metals, they managed to maintain a stable lifestyle for thousands of years. Neither were they totally ignorant of the outside world, as northern Aborigines had contacts with Indonesian sailors, traders, and slave-catchers long before Captain Cook "discovered" Australia. Some of the materials bartered found their way far inland.

Though infant mortality and incidence of violent death in war and quarrels was higher than in Europe, in the year 1800 it was probably true that the average Aborigine had as good a standard of living as the average European---or better. They may not have had houses, but they felt no need for them in most parts of the country. They were nomads who didn't have sheep or cattle, but who wandered their beloved country in conjunction with natural seasons of plenty. Their diet was better than that enjoyed by many European peasants or factory workers, they had more leisure time, working fewer hours to get what they needed to live (and did not rely on child labor) and a richer cultural life in which all participated. The way in which the Aborigines conquered their environment and managed to wrest from it such a standard of living is indeed nothing less than a triumph. If you tend to think of Aborigines in terms of losers in the battle for survival, read this book. If all you know about Aboriginal triumph is Cathy Freeman winning that gold medal at the Sydney Olympics, read this well-written, interesting volume to know she came from a tremendously long line of tough, successful people.

As all books of this author this one is wtitten with a lot of humour and love to animals. It's simply must read book.

I have been waiting for DK to publish a train book for adults. Ultimate Train is done in classic DK style with lots of pictures and brief, but relevant, text. This book is long-awaited and sure to be a hit with any adult (or child!) train lover.