Robert Drewe

Alphabetical Dance, an ancient irrigator, hands down the art of floating land to his young son Will in 19th-century Wiltshire. Years later, at a Bath spa, Will meets an actress and the couple embarks on a voyage that sees their romance bifurcate and their lives fatefully intertwine with others.

The Drowner

Set among the surf and sandhills of the Australian beach - and the tidal changes of three generations of the Lang family - 'The Bodysurfers' is an Australian classic. A short-story collection which has become a bestseller and which has been adapted for film, television, radio and the theatre, 'The Bodysurfers', on its first publication, marked a major change in Australian literature.

The Bodysurfers

Our Sunshine is the tale of a man whose story outgrew his life. Robert Drewe's strikingly imaginative re-creation of the inner life of Ned Kelly is written with a brilliant clarity and impressionistic economy. It carries the reader into a dreamworld of astonishing and violent revelation, an entrancing and frightening landscape of murder, sexuality, persecution, robbery, vanity, politics, and corruption.

Popular Penguins

Our Sunshine

Aged six, Robert Drewe moved with his family from Melbourne to Perth, the world's most isolated city – and proud of it. This sun-baked coast was innocently proud, too, of its tranquillity and friendliness. Then a man he knew murdered a boy he also knew. The murderer randomly killed eight strangers – variously shooting, strangling, stabbing, bludgeoning and hacking his victims and running them down with cars – an innocent Perth was changed forever. In the middle-class suburbs which were the killer's main stalking grounds, the mysterious murders created widespread anxiety and instant local myth. 'The murders and their aftermath have both intrigued me and weighed heavily on me for three decades. To try to make sense of this time and place, and of my own childhood and adolescence, I had, finally, to write about it.' The result is The Shark Net, a vibrant and haunting memoir that reaches beyond the dark recesses of murder and chaos to encompass their ordinary suburban backdrop.

The Shark Net

The Penguin Book of the City

The Savage Crows

Grace is a young urban film critic on the run from a delusional stalker an erotomaniac who fell in love with the photo on her magazine column. Leading an adventure tour in the wilderness in Australia, she chances upon a young refugee, an escapee from a desert detention camp. He's on the run, she's on the run. This is a novel about that most pertinent and deluded of animal obsessions territory.

Grace

A tale of passion and pursuit, Fortune is the story of Don Spargo, a modern explorer who finds a sunken treasure ship off the West Australian coast and becomes a folk hero, a lover, and a hunted and haunted man. Suspenseful, satirical and deeply moving, this novel challenges the nature of reality and legend in those scenes of modern conflict – from the media to art, from politics to crime – that have obsessed the Western individual since World War II.

Fortune

Nimblefoot

Brodie's Notes on The Savage Crows

Our Sunshine: Popular Penguins

It occurs to me that it might be cathartic to write a dog - walker's journal: the true, unsentimental ruminations of a dog - walker with things on his mind more important than dogs. A dog - walker who, frankly, prefers humans. A dog - walker who decides to make the most of this begrudged walk to mull over writing ideas and dilemmas. A prickly, grumpy, even sometimes hungover dog - walker.

Ruminations of a Reluctant Dog-Walker

Walking Ella

Set among the surf and sandhills of the Australian beach – and the tidal changes of three generations of the Lang family – The Bodysurfers is an Australian classic. A short-story collection which has become a bestseller and been adapted for film, television, radio and the theatre, The Bodysurfers on its first publication marked a major change in Australian literature.

Bodysurfers: Popular Penguins

John Kinsella

Kungadgee, Victoria, Australia. A weekend in late November, 2014. At Hugh and Christine Cleary's new vineyard, Whipbird, six generations of the Cleary family are coming together from far and wide to celebrate the 160th anniversary of the arrival of their ancestor Conor Cleary from Ireland. Hugh has been meticulously planning the event for months - a chance to proudly showcase Whipbird to the extended clan. Some of these family members know each other; some don't. As the wine flows, it promises to be an eventful couple of days. Comic, topical, honest, sharply intelligent, and, above all, sympathetic, Robert Drewe's exhilarating new novel tells a classic Australian family saga as it has never been told before.

Whipbird

Fortune, by Robert Drewe (large Print).

A Dog-day Dossier

From a floury encounter on a baker's work table to the art of sitting backwards on chairs, from budgie training to spontaneous human combustion, this collection showcases the nonfiction writing of one of Australia's best-loved authors. These pieces encompass suburban portraits and coastal living, affectionate nostalgia and the absurdity of the every day. They are endearing and often hilarious snapshots of life from a master novelist who has turned the column into an artform.

Robert Drewe

Books

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