The Lieutenant and The Secret River (Slipcase edition)
Kate Grenville

The Lieutenant is described by Kate Grenville as the other side of The Secret River story. Inspired by the 1790 notebooks of William Dawes, in which he recorded his conversations with a young Gadigal woman, this is a story about a man discovering his true self in extraordinary circumstances. Presented in a beautifully designed, signed slipcase. The Lieutenant alone retails for $45, so this is fantastic value. It's even better value at Abbey's special price of $59.95 (usually $70)!

Kick
Rufus Butler Seder
"Kick!" does for kids what "Gallop!" does for animals - one child rides a bike, another kicks a football, a swimmer cuts through the water, and a skater pirouettes on ice. The effect is joyous, magical, mesmerizing, and perhaps even more compelling than "Gallop!" Because of the endless fascination that children find in watching other children. The second book created by Rufus Butler Seder, the inventor, artist, and filmmaker who developed Scanimation out of his obsession with antique optical toys and other pre-motion-picture illusions, "Kick!" uses 'persistence of vision' and a patented state-of-the-art multiphase animation process to create astonishment. There is nothing else like this unique, patented technology that literally inspires wonder.The images burst with activity, and adding greatly is a happy, rhyming text that captures in words, the pure energy of the figures in motion. You can't put it down.

The Superorganism
Bert Hölldobler & E. O. Wilson

Based on remarkable research, eighteen years after the publication of "The Ants", this new volume expands our knowledge of social insects (among them, ants, bees, wasps and termites). Superorganisms - tightly knit colonies of individuals, formed by altruistic co-operation, complex communication and division of labour - represent one of the basic stages of biological organisation, midway between the organism and the species. As the authors demonstrate, the study of the superorganism has led to important advances in our understanding of how the transitions between such levels have occurred in evolution and how life has progressed from simple to complex forms. Visually spectacular, "The Superorganism" provides a deep look into a part of the living world hitherto glimpsed by only a few.

Complete Stories
David Malouf

David Malouf's imagination inhabits shocking violence, quick humor, appealing warmth and harsh cruelty with equal intensity. He shares tales of bookish boys, taciturn men and intimate stories of men and women looking for something they seem to have missed, or missed out on.
This is a comprehensive compilation of David's shorter work. Stories are set in the stark and challenging Australian interior and the more lush and mysterious coastal enclaves; others are set in Australia's past.
The youthful dreams, physical desires and mental despair of Malouf's richly varied characters as they explore their place in the world are always moving and universal.
Readers won't want to skim a single page of the 31 stories in this epic collection, a few of which are novella length. Together, they represent a quarter-century of a formidable craftsman's career. Winner of the inaugural Australia-Asia Literary Award.

Hitler
Ian Kershaw

When the two volumes of Ian Kershaw's biography of Hitler, Hitler 1889-1936: Hubris and Hitler 1936-1945: Nemesis were published, they were immediately greeted around the world as the essential works on perhaps the most malign figure ever to hold power in modern Europe. In the face of considerable demand for such an edition, Kershaw has now created a single volume version. The result is a frightening, fascinating narrative of how a bitter provincial failure from an obscure corner of Austria rose to unparalleled power.

Handel: The Man and His Music
Jonathan Keats

Though unquestionably one of the greatest and best-loved of all composers, George Frideric Handel (1685-1759) had received little attention from biographers before Jonathan Keates' masterful Handel: The Man and His Music appeared in 1985. This fully updated and expanded edition - published to commemorate the 250th anniversary of the composer's death - charts in detail Handel's life, from his youth in Germany, through his brilliantly successful Italian sojourn, to the opulence and squalor of Georgian London.