Paramédico is a brilliant collection of adventures by Australian paramedic Benjamin Gilmour as he works and volunteers on ambulances around the world. From England to Mexico, and Iceland to Pakistan, Gilmour takes us on an extraordinary thrill-ride with his wild co-workers. Along the way, he learns a few things, too, and shows us not only how precious life truly is, but how to passionately embrace it.

Rita is an escort, one of the best in Australia. It all began on a whim at 18, after she rang the number on a sign looking for nude models. Always the outsider, she quickly learns the sex industry is comprised of many other people just like her and she becomes immersed in this world: the drugs, the late nights, the glamour, being an outcast, the attention and validation from men. Mostly she thrives on how taboo her life has become.

Suzi did a bad thing. She’s paying for it now, pregnant, scared, and living in an isolated cottage with her jealous husband, Nick. When Nora moves into the only house nearby, Suzi is delighted to have a friend. So much so that she’s almost tempted to tell Nora her terrible secret. But there’s more to Nora than meets the eye. It’s impossible - does she already know what Suzi did?

Life changed beyond recognition for Alice when her son, Eddie, was born with autism spectrum disorder. She must do everything to support him, but at what cost to her family? When her cherished grandmother is hospitalised, a hidden box of mementos reveals a tattered photo of a young man, a tiny leather shoe and a letter. Her grandmother begs Alice to return to Poland to see what became of those she held dearest.

Christie Watson was a nurse for 20 years. Taking us from birth to death and from A&E to the mortuary, The Language of Kindness is an astonishing account of a profession defined by acts of care, compassion and kindness. We watch Christie as she nurses a premature baby who has miraculously made it through the night, we stand by her side during her patient's agonising heart-lung transplant and we hold our breath as she washes the hair of a child fatally injured in a fire, attempting to remove the toxic smell of smoke before the grieving family arrive.

The Persimmon Tree opens in Indonesia in 1942 on the cusp of Japanese invasion and the evacuation of Batavia (Jakarta) by the Dutch. Seventeen-year-old Nicholas Duncan is on holiday there, in pursuit of an exotic butterfly known as the Magpie Crow. It's an uncertain, dangerous time to be in Indonesia, and Nick's options of getting out are fast dwindling. Amidst the fear and chaos he falls in love with Anna, the beautiful daughter of a Dutch acquaintance, and she nicknames him 'Mr Butterfly'.

Lily has grown up believing she accidentally killed her mother when she was four. She not only has her own memory of holding the gun, but her father's account of the event. Now 14, she yearns for her mother, and for forgiveness. Living on a peach farm in South Carolina with her father, she has only one friend: Rosaleen, a black servant whose sharp exterior hides a tender heart. South Carolina in the '60s is a place where segregation is still considered a cause worth fighting for.

Everyone's invited. Everyone's a suspect. And everyone's talking about it. In a remote hunting lodge, deep in the Scottish wilderness, old friends gather for New Year. The beautiful one. The golden couple. The volatile one. The new parents. The quiet one. The city boy. The outsider. The victim. Not an accident - a murder among friends.

Peter Carey's stunning, Booker Prize-winning novel about Australia's most famous outlaw. As he flees the police, Ned Kelly scribbles his narrative in semiliterate but magically descriptive prose. To his pursuers he is a thief and a murderer. To his own people he's a hero for opposing the English. Ned, who saw his first prison cell at 15, has become the most wanted man in the wild colony of Victoria, taking over towns and defying authority.

The ultimate collection of unbelievable true Australian stories: the unknown, the forgotten and the surprising. Did you know that in 1932 the Australian army was called out to wage war on an invading army of 20,000...emus? Or that the first royal personage to arrive in Australia was the King of Iceland, and he came as a convict? And how about the spooky phenomenon of the mischief-making Guyra Ghost? From Jim Haynes, one of our most successful and prolific tellers of yarns and bush tales, comes this collection of unbelievable true Australian stories.

At 19 years old, college student Josie Stratton was kidnapped by a madman and held shackled for 10 months in an abandoned warehouse before she finally escaped her hellish prison. Eight years later, when the body of a young woman is found chained in the basement of a vacant house, Cincinnati Police Detective Zach Copeland is instantly reminded of the crime committed against Josie Stratton. Zach was just a rookie on the perimeter of that case, but he's never forgotten the traumatized woman with the haunted eyes.

It is now 100 years since drugs were first banned in the United States. On the eve of this centenary, journalist Johann Hari set off on an epic three-year, 30,000-mile journey into the war on drugs. What he found is that more and more people all over the world have begun to recognize three startling truths: Drugs are not what we think they are. Addiction is not what we think it is. And the drug war has very different motives to the ones we have seen on our TV screens for so long.

Having spent the last few years in Denmark uncovering the secrets of the happiest country in the world, Helen Russell knows it's time to move back to the UK. She thinks. Maybe. Or maybe that's a terrible idea. Like many of us, she suffers from chronic indecision and a fear of change. So she decides to give herself a year for an experiment: to overhaul every area of her life, learn how to embrace change and become a lean, mean decision-making machine.

Born in 1894, Facey lived the rough frontier life of a sheep farmer, survived the gore of Gallipoli, raised a family through the Depression and spent 60 years with his beloved wife, Evelyn. Despite enduring hardships we can barely imagine today, Facey always saw his life as a "fortunate" one. A true classic of Australian literature, his simply written autobiography is an inspiration. It is the story of a life lived to the full - the extraordinary journey of an ordinary man.

Todd and Jeff have had enough of the city. Sick of the daily grind and workaday corporate shenanigans, they throw caution to the wind and buy 100 acres in the Hunter Valley, intent on living a golden bucolic life and building a fabulous B&B, where they can offer the joys of country life to heart-weary souls. Todd will cook; Jeff will renovate. They can make wine and grow their own food and live the dream. How hard can it be?