Robert Whyte Boeken

Australians have a love-hate relationship with spiders. Spiders inspire fear, especially dangerous species such as the Redback and Sydney Funnelweb. Yet Peacock Spiders, whose males spread a colorful fan and wave their legs in a courtship dance to impress females, have won rapturous appreciation worldwide. A Field Guide to Spiders of Australiacovers all known Australian spider families, using over 1,300 stunning color photographs of live animals to enable identification of commonly encountered spiders to the family level, and, in some cases, to genus and species. Highly accurate and vetted by experts, it contains the most up-to-date taxonomy information and is the most comprehensive account of Australian spiders ever published. With more than two-thirds of Australian spiders yet to be scientifically described, this field guide sets the scene for future explorations of the extraordinary Australian fauna. For the full list of spider families included in the guide, click here.

Ten year old Edward lives with a group of boys in welfare housing that is badly supervised. He is attacked, abused and is only saved from a certain life of crime by a teacher who adopts him and takes him under his wing. But the community doesn't accept a man adopting a boy and they are both hounded until they make a run for freedom. An adventure story that explores the relationship between males and the fight for the right to a normal life by a little boy and his grown up mentor.

An RAAF photographer survives an explosion in the Korean War and wake up with an Argentine Pilot. They become firm friends but the Aussie has to learn the hard way the true meaning of Machismo. A generation later, their sons fight different sides of another war and discover too late that Machismo has a better side. A tragic story of war, love, and friendship.

A whistling butcher is probably not anything particularly abnormal, she told herself. After all there are plenty of singing butchers, butchers who tell you jokes, butchers who tell you their life stories. But this one, with his little striped apron and his long legs in very short shorts, big feet with footy socks, blue singlet under the apron to match the blue denim shorts, the muscular arms and legs shining, hairless, olive skinned.