Australian Short Stories

Australia's national character and spirit have always been defined, rightly or wrongly, by 'the bush'. This entertaining, thought-provoking, humorous, nostalgic, and, above all, highly readable collection of stories for the modern reader shows why the romance endures.

From Jim Haynes, one of our most successful and prolific Australian authors, comes a collection of classic and iconic stories from the remote outback, cattle station, wheat farm, and rural town. The bush is where our iconic characters are found living in, taking refuge or exploring, whether an Aborigine, explorer, squatter, bushranger, or stockman.

The Best Australian Yarns is a substantial and definitive work collected from memory, mates, word of mouth and decades of researching popular Aussie culture and history.

Including oft-told legendary yarns, reminiscences from the shearing shed, tall stories from the bush, sporting yarns, railway yarns, stories from the world of show business, digger yarns from both world wars, convict and bushranger yarns and anecdotes from the colonial days, yarns from shanties and gold rushes, ghost stories, bunyips and yowies, hauntings, and weird happenings.

The trucker's job - so vital to our nation's everyday life - makes for a diverse treasure trove of stories. This first-ever collection of stories about Aussie truckers captures the humour, tragedy, and fascinating history of their world, proving once again that truth is often stranger, funnier, and more inspiring than fiction. The unlikely yarns and tales, collected by Jim Haynes, quickly transport the listener into the intriguing but often hard and lonely world of the long-distance truck driver.

Romance, revenge, reckoning in this mid 19c Australian Historical fiction novel. John Leary boards ship in Ireland in 1850, a young carpenter ambitious for a new life in Australia. He sails with revenge in his heart - his beloved sister has been raped by her landlord, William Baxterhouse, who escapes on another ship with even grander plans for success in New South Wales.

I tell you, you meet some strange characters in this game.... Boasting the biggest beats in the world - some as large as France - Australia's outback police have seen it all: natural disasters, incredible acts of selflessness, unspeakable crimes and daring rescues, just to name a few. And they've met some unforgettable characters along the way: from the murderer who stuffed his victims' bodies down wombat holes to the policeman who arrested his own wife....

A fascinating collection of short stories by some of Australia's best classic writers.

This is a collection of short stories by well-known Australian author, Mary Grant Bruce (1878-1958). It combines the stories previously published as “Australian Christmas Yarns Volumes I & II”, with the addition of three previously unreleased stories.

Writing under the ambiguous pseudonyms ‘Waif Wander’ and ‘W. W.’, Mary Fortune penned a staggering 500 detective stories over a 40-year span, from 1868 to 1908. Narrated by the fictional detective Mark Sinclair, the series comprises Sinclair’s memoirs as he looks back through a “detective’s album” of mugshots from his long police career. This volume includes eight classic stories from one of the pioneers in the detective writing genre.

Brighten your day and dive into Flat Spell Tales! The author, Tony Martello, transforms ordinary events in our lives into fiction based on half-realities. Drop in and surf stories about romance, revenge, treasure hunts, and humor. He invites you along with him on a variety of adventures that take you into extreme nature, complex human relationships, and animal allegories. 

This collection of short stories by notable Australian author Mary Grant Bruce (1878-1958) reflects on Australian experiences of summertime. Infused with the smells, sounds, and textures of Australian life during the Christmas season, these stories also highlight the strengths and yearnings of their characters.

This collection follows on from Australian Christmas Yarns Volume I and consists of 10 stories by notable Australian author Mary Grant Bruce (1878-1958). These stories sketch challenges of landscape, relationship, loss and hope. 

A young woman tries to cheat her algorithm, creating a wholesome online persona while her "real" life dissipates. A grandmother speaks to her granddaughter through the fog of generations. Two lovers divide over alternative meat options. A factory worker fits eyes in companion dolls until she is called on to install her own. The women I know are sharp, absurd, sly, wrong, wry, repressed, hungry, horny, bold, envious, dominating, uncertain, overdetermined, underpaid, bored, smart, crystalizing, themselves.

Dive deep into the mystical world of Aboriginal culture with Charles William Peck's landmark work, Australian Legends. As one of the earliest compilations, this book intricately narrates tales steeped in Dreamtime mythology, helping you explore the indigenous culture's understanding of the cosmos, morality, and the natural world. Peck's storytelling draws you into an ancestral past that resonates profoundly with modern listeners.

Pounamu Pounamu is classic Ihimaera and also classic New Zealand literature. First published in 1972, it was his first book, which as he says in his new introduction 'fulfilled a childhood vow: to write about Maori using his own self and home place'. The vivid stories in this collection not only explore but also celebrate what it is to be a New Zealander, and they do so from a lively Maori perspective.

Bush Studies is a collection of six short stories by the enigmatic Australian author, Barbara Baynton (1857-1929). Embedded in Baynton's merciless, rugged vistas, these stories highlight the tragedy, harshness and humor of nineteenth century Australian bush life—particularly from the perspective of the women involved. 

The remarkable stories in Born Into This are eye-opening, razor-sharp and entertaining, often all at once. From an Aboriginal ranger trying to instil some pride in wayward urban teens on the harsh islands off the coast of Tasmania, to those scraping by on the margins of White society railroaded into complex and compromised decisions, Adam Thompson presents a powerful indictment of colonialism and racism.  

A film director in Hackney with a fox problem in her garden; an escapee from a cult in Japan; a Sydney café-owner rekindling an old flame; an English tutor who gets too close to an oligarch; a journalist on Mars, face-to-face with his fate. The world has taught these men and women to live off their wits. They know how to play smart, but what happens when they need to be wise? In the Time of Foxes is both thoroughly enjoyable and deeply insightful about the times in which we live, each narrative a compressed novel.

I sin strävan efter att bli Australiens främsta spion, åker Jared på absurda uppdrag och misslyckas på spektakulära sätt. Pond, Jared Pond. Australiens främsta spion och kvinnotjusare, enligt honom själv. Utrustad med ett hemligt regeringspiller som gör honom immun mot gifter, utför Jared uppdrag över hela världen för den australiensiska premiärministern Scurry Morrissette.