The Happiest Refugee

The bestselling, laugh-out-loud, reach for your hanky story of one of Australia's best-loved comedians.

The bestselling, laugh-out-loud, reach for your hanky story of one of Australia's best-loved comedians - now in hard cover gift edition. Anh Do nearly didn't make it to Australia. His entire family came close to losing their lives on the sea as they escaped from war-torn Vietnam in an overcrowded boat. But nothing - not murderous pirates, nor the imminent threat of death by hunger, disease or dehydration as they drifted for days - could quench their desire to make a better life in a country where freedom existed. Life in Australia was hard, an endless succession of back-breaking work, crowded rooms, ruthless landlords and make-do everything. But there was a loving extended family, and always friends and play and something to laugh about for Anh, his brother Khoa and their sister Tram. Things got harder when their father left home when Anh was thirteen - they felt his loss very deeply and their mother struggled to support the family on her own. His mother's sacrifice was an inspiration to Anh and he worked hard during his teenage years to help her make ends meet, also managing to graduate high school and then university. Another inspiration was the comedian Anh met when he was about to sign on for a 60-hour a week corporate job. Anh asked how many hours he worked. 'Four,' the answer came back, and that was it. He was going to be a comedian! The Happiest Refugee tells the incredible, uplifting and inspiring life story of one of our favourite personalities. Tragedy, humour, heartache and unswerving determination - a big life with big dreams. Anh's story will move and amuse all who read it.

The bestselling, laugh-out-loud, reach for your hanky story of one of Australia's best-loved comedians - now in hard cover gift edition.

Anh Do's inspirational story about his family's incredible escape from war-torn Vietnam and his childhood in Australia, told especially for children.

The laugh-out-loud, reach-for-your-hanky story of one of Australia's best-loved comedians.

Weary of life with his alcoholic, abusive father, sixteen-year-old Billy packs a few belongings and hits the road, hoping for something better than what he left behind.

Mojo is the moment when we do something that's purposeful, powerful, and positive and the rest of the world recognizes it. This book is about that moment--and how we can create it in our lives, maintain it, and recapture it when we need it. In his follow-up to the New York Times bestseller What Got You Here Won't Get You There, #1 executive coach Marshall Goldsmith shares the ways in which to get--and keep--our Mojo. Our professional and personal Mojo is impacted by four key factors: identity (who do you think you are), achievement (what have you done lately?), reputation (who do other people think you are--and what have you've done lately?), and acceptance (what can you change--and when do you need to just "let it go"?). Goldsmith outlines the positive actions leaders must take, with their teams or themselves, to initiate winning streaks and keep them coming. Mojo is: that positive spirit--towards what we are doing--now--that starts from the inside--and radiates to the outside. Mojo is at its peak when we are experiencing both happiness and meaning in what we are doing and communicating this experience to the world around us. The Mojo Toolkit provides fourteen practical tools to help you achieve both happiness and meaning--not only in business, but in life.

A masterwork of travel literature and of history: voyaging from Cuba to Jamaica, Puerto Rico to Trinidad, Haiti to Barbados, and islands in between, Joshua Jelly-Schapiro offers a kaleidoscopic portrait of each society, its culture and politics, connecting this region’s common heritage to its fierce grip on the world’s imagination. From the moment Columbus gazed out from the Santa María's deck in 1492 at what he mistook for an island off Asia, the Caribbean has been subjected to the misunderstandings and fantasies of outsiders. Running roughshod over the place, they have viewed these islands and their inhabitants as exotic allure to be consumed or conquered. The Caribbean stood at the center of the transatlantic slave trade for more than three hundred years, with societies shaped by mass migrations and forced labor. But its people, scattered across a vast archipelago and separated by the languages of their colonizers, have nonetheless together helped make the modern world—its politics, religion, economics, music, and culture. Jelly-Schapiro gives a sweeping account of how these islands’ inhabitants have searched and fought for better lives. With wit and erudition, he chronicles this “place where globalization began,” and introduces us to its forty million people who continue to decisively shape our world.

In 1979, Nam Le's family left Vietnam for Australia, an experience that inspires the first and last stories in The Boat. In between, however, Le's imagination lays claim to the world. The Boat takes us from a tourist in Tehran to a teenage hit man in Colombia; from an ageing New York artist to a boy coming of age in a small Victorian fishing town; from the city of Hiroshima just before the bomb is dropped to the haunting waste of the South China Sea in the wake of another war. Each story uncovers a raw human truth. Each story is absorbing and fully realised as a novel. Together, they make up a collection of astonishing diversity and achievement. Prizes: Winner of NSW Premier's Literary Awards: UTS Glenda Adams Award for New Writing 2009 and NSW Premier's Literary Award Book of the Year 2009. Shortlisted for Nielsen BookData/ABA Book of the Year Award - Booksellers' Choice 2009.

Meet Hot Dog, the sausage dog, and his friends! There's Kev, the goofy cat, who's always dressed up in some silly costume, and Lizzie, the gutsy lizard, who eats bug burgers for breakfast! Together they're going on a mad adventure to help a baby bird find its missing mum! Hot Dog and his friends will go to any lengths, and dizzying heights, to find her! But can they handle dirty nappies and karate-chopping roosters along the way?

Susie Gilbert traces the development of ENO from its earliest origins in the darkest Victorian slums of the Cut, where it was conceived as a vehicle of social reform, through two world wars, and via Sadler's Wells to its great glory days at the Coliseum and beyond. Setting the company's artistic achievements within the wider context of social and political attitudes to the arts and the ever-changing theatrical style, Gilbert provides a vivid cultural history of this unique institution's 150 years. Inspired by the idealism of Lilian Baylis, the company has been based on the belief that opera in the vernacular can not only reach out to even the least privileged members of society but also create a potent and immediate communication with its audience.With full access to ENO's archive, Gilbert has unearthed a rich range of material and held numerous interviews with a fascinating array of personalities, to weave an absorbing tale of life both in front and behind the scenes of ENO as it developed over the years.

The highly entertaining true story of a bloke who decides to make his favourite pastime (surfing) his profession for a year.

Ethan is supposed to be doing regular teenage things - like playing sports and hanging out with friends. He is not supposed to be in hospital getting a brain tumour removed by Gemini, a high-tech android doctor. But just as the operation begins, the medical facility is hit by an unusual bolt of lightning ... When Ethan wakes up he discovers that things are different. He's always been good with computers, but now his skills are next-level. Ethan almost feels like he's ... part of the machine. And what about the android Gemini? If Ethan is now part robot, does that make the robot part human? Ethan will need all his new skills just to stay alive. An electrifying new adventure series from the bestselling author Anh Do.

A practical book that brings together all the writing tools a small business needs. Learn how to write effective marketing brochures, newsletters, press releases and advertisements for your business.

If there's one thing I've learned from comic books, it's that everybody has a weakness—something that can totally ruin their day without fail. For the wolfman it's a silver bullet. For Superman it's Kryptonite. For me it was a letter. With one letter, my dad was sent back to Afghanistan to fly Apache helicopters for the U.S. army. Now all I have are his letters. Ninety-one of them to be exact. I keep them in his old plastic lunchbox—the one with the cool black car on it that says Knight Rider underneath. Apart from my comic books, Dad's letters are the only things I read more than once. I know which ones to read when I'm down and need a pick-me-up. I know which ones will make me feel like I can conquer the world. I also know exactly where to go when I forget Mom's birthday. No matter what, each letter always says exactly what I need to hear. But what I want to hear the most is that my dad is coming home.

A provocative look at an area few economists dare to tread, by Australia's most read economic commentator.

'Wise, compassionate collection of personal essays that forms a nationally important chronicle of our social and political history.' NZ Listener 'Linda Burgess can make you laugh and break your heart, often in the same sentence. Clear-eyed and wise, these elegant essays are the stories we share to survive.' Diana Wichtel 'You'll want to read this in one sitting but it's worth savouring every line.' Madeleine Chapman 'Somehow it makes perfect sense that a great New Zealand memoir would be written by a dreamy, left-handed wife of an ex-All Black.' Steve Braunias These pieces read like the freshest of recent novels: clever, restrained and wittily observant. They range across the personal and the observational. There are essays on Linda's lifetime of being an All Black wife (once an AB, always an AB); her love of teaching, education and the young; and a powerful essay on the death of her baby, Toby, striking in its honesty. Linda is interested in family and friendship; shared and sometimes distorted memories. Her personal truths link to universal truths. She explores the era in which she grew up, and her experiences are timeless. She looks at living abroad, at children leaving home, at house-hunting in Wellington, at travelling with a grandchild, at Leonard Cohen concerts as tribal gatherings. Moving but never sentimental, Linda Burgess's essays are an engrossing read.

A tour de force from acclaimed author Alan Gratz (Prisoner B-3087), this timely -- and timeless -- novel tells the powerful story of three different children seeking refuge. A New York Times bestseller!JOSEF is a Jewish boy living in 1930s Nazi Germany. With the threat of concentration camps looming, he and his family board a ship bound for the other side of the world . . .ISABEL is a Cuban girl in 1994. With riots and unrest plaguing her country, she and her family set out on a raft, hoping to find safety in America . . .MAHMOUD is a Syrian boy in 2015. With his homeland torn apart by violence and destruction, he and his family begin a long trek toward Europe . . .All three kids go on harrowing journeys in search of refuge. All will face unimaginable dangers -- from drownings to bombings to betrayals. But there is always the hope of tomorrow. And although Josef, Isabel, and Mahmoud are separated by continents and decades, shocking connections will tie their stories together in the end.This action-packed novel tackles topics both timely and timeless: courage, survival, and the quest for home.

Just then came: crump, CRUMP, CRUMP! Three bombs in quick succession, coming frighteningly close. With each explosion, the ground shook. Dust and chips fell from the ceiling. Everyone in the shelter gasped at the same time. Vinnie held his breath, waiting for the fourth bomb, but it didn't come.When Vinnie is sent away from the bombs in London, ...

When a boat carrying a group of asylum seekers is sunk by a freak wave, Faris wakes from the shipwreck in an Australia he's always dreamed of. There are kangaroos grazing under orange trees and the sky is always blue. On a nearby beach, Faris meets a group of young people who have come from far different times and places. They are also seeking refuge, and each has their own story of why they had to leave their own story of why they had to leave their country to make a new life for themselves. IT is only when Faris chooses to return to 'real life' and find his father in Australia that he learns the extraordinary truth about the friends he made in the golden beach. From one of Australia's best - loved authors comes a remarkable story about Australia's long history of migration and the people who make up our country.