The Text Publishing Company: 414 books

The Getting of Wisdom is the classic Australian novel of school days, a compelling and frank account of a young girl's coming of age. The Getting of Wisdom was first published in 1910 and has continued to sell well. Germaine Greer's introduction, of course, makes this edition even more appealing...

Winner, Australian Literature Society Gold Medal in 1956. Introduction by Sonya Hartnett. 'Nearly everyone between the ages of eighteen and thirty turns against his family and wants to escape from it. When he is sixty he wants to creep back to the nursery fireside, but it is no longer there.' Handsome,...

Shortlisted for the 2017 Text Prize Lottie collects dead creatures and lovingly cares for them, hoping to preserve them, to save them from disintegration. Her father understands—Lottie has a scientific mind, he thinks. Her aunt wants it to stop, and she goes to cruel lengths to make sure...

A great, untamed story about childhood, a summer holiday and a sinister tragedy that looms over everything. Introduction by Kate De Goldi. The terrible happenings take place at the abandoned meatworks in Calliope Bay, a forbidden and dangerous place, where the cries of animals being...

In 1917, while the world is at war, Alma and her children are living in a sleep-out at the back of Mrs Lovett's house in working-class Footscray. When Alma falls pregnant, her daughter Molly is born in secret. As Molly grows up, there is a man who sometimes follows her on her way to school. Anna...

The penal colony of Moreton Bay is under the command of Patrick Logan, a man not afraid of brutal discipline. But his rule is being questioned and the arrival of his sister-in-law Frances will change everything. The Commandant, with an introduction by Carmen Callil, is an unforgettable tale...

A Jack Mason Adventure, Book 4 After a series of fatal bombings across London, Jack, Scarlet and Mr Doyle are drawn into another baffling case: the reported sighting of a monster loose in the city's underground sewers. Before they can investigate, the team must travel to Spain to hunt...

Winner, Victorian Premier’s Literary Award for Non-Fiction, 2016 As a boy, Gerald Murnane became obsessed with horse racing. He had never ridden a horse, nor seen a race. Yet he was fascinated by photos of horse races in the Sporting Globe, and by the incantation of horses' names in radio...

I disapproved of bankers, on principle. Not that I knew any. Until this job, I had worked and made friends with people who shared my views. Mostly moral, mostly kind. An unlikely candidate, then, for the job of executive speechwriter, to be putting words in the mouths of plutocrats deeply suspicious...

Seen every Thursday on the ABC's 7.30 Report, John Clarke and Bryan Dawe are an Australian institution. In 1987, John and Bryan began a weekly radio broadcast in which they enacted mock interviews between prominent and newsworthy figures about issues of the day. This noble public service soon...

Born in New Zealand, Ruth Park came to Australia to continue her work as a journalist, newly married to D'Arcy Niland. Determined to earn their living as writers, they submitted story outlines to radio stations, idea for articles to newspapers and accepted whatever freelance jobs came their way. The...

The Odd Angry Shot is the seminal account of Australian soldiers in the Vietnam War. Brief and bracing, tragic yet darkly funny, it portrays a close-knit group of knockabout SAS fighters: their mateship, homesickness and fears; their practical jokes, drinking and fighting. The enemy is not...

Fear Drive My Feet is Peter Ryan’s enduring account of his time patrolling isolated regions of New Guinea during World War II. Far from his fellow Australians and with Japanese forces closing in around him, the eighteen-year-old Ryan endures the hardships of the jungle, overcoming loneliness,...

The final book by Sumner Locke Elliott, the award-winning author of Careful, He Might Hear You. Drawing heavily on Locke Elliott's own experiences, Fairyland charts the life of Seaton Daly, an aspiring writer coming to terms with his homosexuality in the repressive atmosphere of inner-city...