Australia's Funniest Yarns

Author: Graham Seal
Publisher: Allen & Unwin
ISBN: 1760872911
Category : Humor
Languages : en
Pages : 251

Book Description
Whatever the circumstances, Australians have always found something to laugh about, laugh at or laugh off. Graham Seal has been gathering traditional stories from country towns and the outback for decades, and here he compiles the very funniest stories he has encountered. 'Graham Seal writes ripper, fair dinkum, true-blue Aussie yarns.' - The Weekly Times Australians traditionally like their humour irreverent, crude and with very sharp teeth. Perhaps you've heard of the vicious drop bears that fall on unsuspecting tourists as they walk through the bush? Or the hoop snakes that put their tails in their mouths as they roll down the hill towards you? Or how about the Citizenship Test for Aspiring Australians which begins with this question about an essential life skill: 'How many slabs can you fit in the back of a Falcon ute while also allowing room for your cattle dog?' The bush is the source of traditional Aussie humour. Pioneering, settlement and battling fire, flood and drought have produced yarns of tough cocky farmers, shearers, bush workers, swaggies and dreadful cooks. Much of this humour relates to the resilience and fortitude necessary to endure the realities of rural life. Australians took this sensibility with them to war and to work in the cities, and the tradition continues today. Whatever the circumstances, Australians have always found something to laugh about, laugh at or laugh off. 'Graham Seal has the knack of the storyteller.' - Warren Fahey AM

The Best Australian Yarns

Author: Jim Haynes
Publisher: Allen & Unwin
ISBN: 1743316836
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 513

Book Description
Best Australian Yarns is a substantial and definitive collection of factual and fanciful Aussie stories, humor and anecdotes—the result of decades of researching popular Aussie culture and history and yarning to mates and other colorful characters from all parts of Australia and all walks of life. This collection includes tall stories from the bush, reminiscences from the racetrack and shearing shed, railway yarns, stories from the world of show business, Aboriginal legends and humor, digger yarns from both world wars, ghost stories, monsters, bunyips, and yowies... and many things you never knew about our amazing history and the characters who made it—the pioneers, heroes, convicts, bushrangers, eccentrics, and brave and forgotten men and women whose fascinating lives and achievements created the Aussie spirit that we all love. While the stories range from poignant to hilarious, many simply describe unusual coincidences, strange occurrences, or simple everyday humorous events with a refreshing understatement that vividly evokes a vanishing Australia where looking for a good laugh was a key component of a cheekier national character and a simpler lifestyle.

Great Australian Outback Yarns

Author: Bill Marsh
Publisher: HarperCollins Australia
ISBN: 1460714393
Category : Humor
Languages : en
Pages : 256

Book Description
A collection of the funniest yarns and most colourful characters from the bestselling 'Great Australian Stories' series from beloved storyteller Bill 'Swampy' Marsh. When he'd finished playing, a solemn silence fell as Brian and the gravediggers stared down into that three-quarter-filled hole. 'I must apologise,' Brian said to the two men, 'this's the first time I've played at a pauper's funeral, and I'm a bit emotional.' 'Well,' said one of the diggers, sniffling back the tears, 'it's the first time we've ever had a piper play at one of our septic tank installations.' The Australian Outback can be harsh, but it's the kind of place where you either learn to laugh off your troubles or fold under the pressure. Bill 'Swampy' Marsh has a deep affection and respect for people living in the Australian Bush, and he's spent more than twenty years travelling to every corner of our wide brown land, talking to people from all walks of life, collecting their memories and stories. Great Australian Outback Yarns captures the funniest tales from Swampy's many books in one volume. The colourful characters in these pages are full of generosity, humour and a larrikin Aussie spirit. These true stories of life in remote and regional Australia from Australia's master storyteller will leave you grinning from ear to ear. Bill 'Swampy' Marsh is an award-winning writer and performer of stories, songs and plays. He spent most of his youth in rural south-western NSW and now lives in Adelaide. This is his twenty-fifth book.

Great Australian Beer Yarns

Author: Peter Lalor
Publisher: Harper Collins Publishers Australia Pty Limited
ISBN: 9780733333279
Category : Alcoholism
Languages : en
Pages : 244

Book Description
A beer barrel full of yarns, laughs and beer-related facts, this is the perfect book to flip through while you're enjoying a cold one! Why is one of our prime ministers in the GUINNESS BOOK OF RECORDS? How many beers did Rodney Marsh really drink? How did beer save the life of a bloke bitten by a bloody great big brown snake? the answers to these and many other burning beer-related questions can be found in the pages of the great Aussie volume, GREAt AUStRALIAN BEER YARNS. With this collection of funny, frank and fascinating beer stories, Peter Lalor has managed to create every beer lover's dream - the perfect book to flip through while you're enjoying a cold one!

Great Australian Stories

Author: Graham Seal
Publisher: Allen & Unwin
ISBN: 1742693733
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 309

Book Description
From pioneer tales to urban myths, folklore expert Graham Seal has gathered some of the best Australian stories from around the country, and this?new edition contains?10 extra stories. Australia has a rich tradition of story telling that reflects?a unique history and experience. Great Australian Stories is the most representative collection available of the stories?Aussies tell about themselves. Graham Seal explains where the stories come from, and why even the outright lies reveal a truth of sorts.

Aussie Yarns

Author: Kel Richards
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781876825416
Category : Australia
Languages : en
Pages : 124

Book Description
Kel Richards has put together a collection of his original Aussie yarns and ballads to tickle your funny bone and stimulate your grey matter. Here's your chance to match wits with Constable Clancy Paterson, sole policeman in the tiny outback town of Yallambee, in some of his most puzzling cases.

The Big Book of Great Australian Bush Yarns

Author: Graham Seal
Publisher: Allen & Unwin
ISBN: 1761060856
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 520

Book Description
Two of Graham Seal's bestselling collections of stories from around Australia, now in one volume. 'Aussies know how to spin a good yarn, and Graham Seal knows how to tell them.' - Weekly Times Graham Seal is one of Australia's master storytellers. This bumper collection of yarns from the bush gathers some of our best stories since colonial times, retold in Graham's warm style. It takes a certain character to make a living in the Australian bush. In the most difficult situations, laughter often comes to the rescue. Here are pioneers and battlers, convicts and settler's children, and a land that tests them with fire, flood and drought, in stories resonant with Australia's distinctive wry humour. Originally published as two bestselling collections: Great Australian Stories and Larrikins, Bush Tales and Other Great Australian Stories. 'Graham Seal has the knack of the storyteller.' - Warren Fahey AM

Sand Talk

Author: Tyson Yunkaporta
Publisher: HarperCollins
ISBN: 0062975633
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 256

Book Description
A paradigm-shifting book in the vein of Sapiens that brings a crucial Indigenous perspective to historical and cultural issues of history, education, money, power, and sustainability—and offers a new template for living. As an indigenous person, Tyson Yunkaporta looks at global systems from a unique perspective, one tied to the natural and spiritual world. In considering how contemporary life diverges from the pattern of creation, he raises important questions. How does this affect us? How can we do things differently? In this thoughtful, culturally rich, mind-expanding book, he provides answers. Yunkaporta’s writing process begins with images. Honoring indigenous traditions, he makes carvings of what he wants to say, channeling his thoughts through symbols and diagrams rather than words. He yarns with people, looking for ways to connect images and stories with place and relationship to create a coherent world view, and he uses sand talk, the Aboriginal custom of drawing images on the ground to convey knowledge. In Sand Talk, he provides a new model for our everyday lives. Rich in ideas and inspiration, it explains how lines and symbols and shapes can help us make sense of the world. It’s about how we learn and how we remember. It’s about talking to everyone and listening carefully. It’s about finding different ways to look at things. Most of all it’s about a very special way of thinking, of learning to see from a native perspective, one that is spiritually and physically tied to the earth around us, and how it can save our world. Sand Talk include 22 black-and-white illustrations that add depth to the text.

Painful Yarns

Author: G. Lorimer Moseley
Publisher: Painful Yarns.
ISBN: 0980358809
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 114

Book Description
This much anticipated collection of stories, written by Oxford University Fellow and Pain Scientist, Dr GL Moseley, provides an entertaining and informative way to understand modern pain biology. Described by critics as 'a gem' and by clinicians as 'entertaining and educative', Painful Yarns is a unique book. The stories, some of his travels in outback Australia, some of experiences growing up, are great yarns. At the end of each story, there is a section "so what has this got to do with pain?" in which Lorimer uses the story as a metaphor for some aspect of pain biology. The level of the pain education is appropriate for patients and health professionals. The entertainment is good for everyone. You don't have to be interested in pain to get something from this book and a laugh or two!

Condemned

Author: Graham Seal
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300256221
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 309

Book Description
A powerful account of how coerced migration built the British Empire In the early seventeenth century, Britain took ruthless steps to deal with its unwanted citizens, forcibly removing men, women, and children from their homelands and sending them to far-flung corners of the empire to be sold off to colonial masters. This oppressive regime grew into a brutal system of human bondage which would continue into the twentieth century. Drawing on firsthand accounts, letters, and official documents, Graham Seal uncovers the traumatic struggles of those shipped around the empire. He shows how the earliest large-scale kidnapping and transportation of children to the American colonies were quickly bolstered with shipments of the poor, criminal, and rebellious to different continents, including Australia. From Asia to Africa, this global trade in forced labor allowed Britain to build its colonies while turning a considerable profit. Incisive and moving, this account brings to light the true extent of a cruel strand in the history of the British Empire.