Showing results by publisher "Bolinda audio" in Literature & Fiction

Just when everything was going so good, Les slips a disc in his back. He can't run, he can't train. He can't do anything much. But he can still drive his car. So it's down to Narooma for the South Coast Blues Festival and a bit of R&R: 30 bands and three days and nights of non-stop rock 'n' roll. Which would have been great, only Les has to have a slight altercation with four fishermen on his first night in town. Now the toughest, meanest, most horrible bloke on the south coast is after his blood.

They don't call him Lucky Les for nothing. A ticket in a raffle and Norton was off to the US of A, where it turned out hot, red hot, and it wasn't just the weather. Night club brawls, mafia hitmen, and too many girls called Lori, all in a sea of margaritas. Even for Les Norton, it was just too hot to handle. So it was off to the Caribbean, where Millwood Downie - schoolteacher, historian, and would-be stand-up comic - helps Les trace his family tree and possibly uncover the biggest earn ever.

Les Norton, a big red-headed country boy from Queensland, has just arrived in the big smoke and is set to make his mark. Working as a bouncer at an illegal casino in the Cross, Les encounters a number of fascinating characters who make up the seamier side of one of the most exciting cities in the world – gamblers, conmen, bookies, bouncers, hookers and hit men, who ply their respective trades from the golden sands of Bondi to the tainted gutters of Kings Cross... usually on the wrong side of the law.

It's been seven years since Mallory shot to fame as a literary sensation. But after years of struggling with writer's block, she's desperate to resurrect her career before it spirals into obscurity. She needs inspiration to strike – and fast. Enter Leo – a young struggling addict sleeping under bridges and trading sex for survival. He's vulnerable. He's enigmatic. He's exactly what Mallory has been looking for. Mallory needs Leo if she wants another bestseller. Authenticity sells, and there's nothing more authentic than real life. She's the perfect person to tell Leo's story.

Les is quite happy resting up after the flu when Warren has to tip him into an earn. Norton's mate from the Albanian Mafia, Bodene Menjou, is planning to make the most politically correct movie ever made in Australia, Gone With the Willy Willy, and has a script stolen. If Les can find it, a lazy $50,000 could fall in. How can Norton say no?

When a movie about an Australian war hero takes Alby Murdoch to Vietnam, he discovers that some old soldiers never die and that it's not just the cameras doing the shooting. A job as stills photographer and some top-notch nosh were two good reasons for Alby Murdock to be in Saigon. The third was that he had to clear out of Sydney and the spy game for a while. But when Alby snaps a photo of the wrong passing cyclo, suddenly more action is taking place off camera than on.

Glasgow for Bertie is the promised land. The city of pies and Irn Bru, far from his controlling mother, Irene, – his place of escape. But how will he respond to the news of the proposed merging of Edinburgh and Glasgow? A new member of Bertie’s class at school is causing ripples in his social circle. She is called Galactica MacFee and is going to be a match for Olive and her lieutenant, Pansy. And an incredible new discovery: a Pictish stone that is said to have the first-know written poem carved into it is the talk of the town.

When Rob Forbes returns to his childhood home of Zimbabwe after decades away, he doesn't plan to stay long. A big job back in London awaits. But he finds himself questioning his priorities when he experiences the open-hearted exuberance of people who have so little compared to his wealthy colleagues; a powerful reconnection to the animals and wild places he loved as a child; and a growing friendship with Tibetan guru and neighbour Rinpoche. What if it is possible to live with the same ineffable lightness as the intriguing lama?

An amusing, often outrageous, collection of the best columns Robert G.Barrett wrote for People magazine, focusing on Australian life and its heroes and villains. Together these columns represent an often funny, always entertaining and uniquely telling assessment of modern-day Australia.

Ride With Me driver P.J. Larkin has written three unpublished novels and is desperate for her latest, a #MeToo story, to find a publisher. Her agent has sent it to George Dunn, editor at Peapod Press, but he rejected it. George has just sold his own novel for a million dollars. But wait, did he steal P.J.'s novel? That's what P.J. imagines and impulsively posts about George's book on social media. Within hours, George is embroiled in a scandal, his job and book deal in jeopardy. Amid the publicity, P.J.'s novel is snapped up by another publisher. But has P.J.

For anyone who ever wondered what Marcel Proust had in mind when he wrote the one-and-a-quarter-million words of In Search of Lost Time (while bedridden no less), Alain de Botton has the answer. For, in this stylish, erudite and frequently hilarious book, de Botton dips deeply into Proust’s life and work - his fiction, letter, and conversations – and distils from them that rare self-help manual: one that is actually helpful.

Nelbow Rockfist is a dwarf on a mission. Her brother has a bad case of demonic possession and there is a shortage of exorcists. Her only hope is to convince the sorcerer Grumblechin to come out of retirement, but the once-infamous spellcaster is adamant she won't leave the comfort of her tower for anything, least of all to meddle with demons. Meanwhile, Orsnart Rogtog knows that firsts are difficult. Being the first orc 'pryvate eye' in a city of dwarves is tough. Avoiding the axe blows of gangsters and smugglers while trying to crack a case is tougher.

Jessamyn St. Germain is meant to be a star. Not an actor who occasionally books yogurt commercials and certainly not a lowly usher at one of Vancouver's smallest regional theatres. No, she is bound for greatness, and that's why the part of Maria in the theatre's upcoming production of The Sound of Music is hers. Or it's going to be.

Sandy Thorne launched the first bestseller I've Met Some Bloody Wags! By Biting the Top Off a Stubbie of Beer on the Midday Show, and has spent over 20 years travelling the world spinning bush yarns and humour. Battler O'Brien has been a battler all his life - riding the rodeo circuit and droving sheep with his missus on the far west stock route to survive. But Battler sees that the only chance for his family lies with the "Bundaroo" land ballot. He's prepared to do almost anything to win...

Norm has lived in Norman his whole life. It’s where he grew up with his dad, where he went to school and met his best friend Ella. But the town is dying – the river has dried up, and with it all the jobs. One night at the pub, on the anniversary of his dad’s death, Norm announces a plan. He’s going to build a Big Thing – like Coffs Harbour’s Big Banana or Ballina’s Big Prawn – to drive tourism to the town and give it a future. And to show Ella that she could have a future here too, maybe even with him.

Frances was not looking for a relationship when she met Elaine in a bar. She was, in fact, looking to drown her sorrows in a pint or 12 and nurse a broken heart that was shattered by the gorgeous, electric Adrienne. But somehow (it involved a steady stream of beer and weed, as things often did with Frances) Elaine ended up in Frances’s bed and never left. Now, faced with mounting pressure from her drug dealer, Dom, Frances comes up with a terrible idea: ask Elaine to move in with her to split the rent.

Enticed by advertisements for a luxury retirement home in India, a group of strangers leave England to begin a new life. On arrival, however, they discover the palace is a shell of its former self, the staff are more than a little eccentric and the days of the Raj appear to be long gone. But, as they soon discover, life and love can begin again, even in the most unexpected circumstances.

Suppose you were murdered and then woke up 300 years earlier in someone else’s body. Wouldn’t you want to put yourself in suspended animation and be re-awoken in time to prevent yourself being murdered in the first place? This is the extraordinary tale of an ordinary man in a race across Time.

Sandy Thorne launched the first bestseller I've Met Some Bloody Wags!: By Biting the Top Off a Stubbie of Beer on the Midday Show, and has spent over 20 years travelling the world spinning bush yarns and humour. The irrepressible larrikin bushie and his wild and woolly brood move onto their 50,000 acre "block" way out in the back country. The result is chaos, calamity, colossal cock-ups…and a good chuckle or three every minute.

From the best-selling author of The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel and Tulip Fever, a deliciously funny, poignant and wry novel, full of surprising twists and turns. James is getting on a bit and needs full-time help. So Phoebe and Robert, his middle-aged offspring, employ Mandy, who seems willing to take him off their hands. But as James regales his family with tales of Mandy's virtues, their shopping trips and the shared pleasure of their journeys to garden centres, Phoebe and Robert sense something is amiss.