Down Under

A Dingo Ate My Math Book presents ingenious, unusual, and beautiful nuggets of mathematics with a distinctly Australian flavor. It focuses, for example, on Australians' love of sports and gambling, and on Melbourne's iconic, mathematically inspired architecture. Written in a playful and humorous style, the book offers mathematical entertainment as well as a glimpse of Australian culture for the mathematically curious of all ages. This collection of engaging stories was extracted from the Maths Masters column that ran from 2007 to 2014 in Australia's Age newspaper. The maths masters in question are Burkard Polster and Marty Ross, two (immigrant) Aussie mathematicians, who each week would write about math in the news, providing a new look at old favorites, mathematical history, quirks of school mathematics—whatever took their fancy. All articles were written for a very general audience, with the intention of being as inviting as possible and assuming a minimum of mathematical background.

There’s lots of fun to be had up on the beach pier, but it’s down underneath where the true—and totally free—magic happens There’s lots of fun to be had up on the pier—the Ferris wheel, the rollercoaster, Skee-Ball and Whac-A-Mole, cotton candy, copper coins, the carousel. But it’s down under the pier, at low tide, where the real magic can be found. The best part? It’s free. Nell Beckerman’s poetic text and deep love of the intertidal zone, and Rachell Sumpter’s dreamy, “endless summer” art make this the perfect beach book.

Kira helps out at an animal sanctuary in Australia.

A stunning work of memoir and an unforgettable depiction of the brilliance and madness by one of Surrealism's most compelling figures In 1937 Leonora Carrington—later to become one of the twentieth century’s great painters of the weird, the alarming, and the wild—was a nineteen-year-old art student in London, beautiful and unapologetically rebellious. At a dinner party, she met the artist Max Ernst. The two fell in love and soon departed to live and paint together in a farmhouse in Provence. In 1940, the invading German army arrested Ernst and sent him to a concentration camp. Carrington suffered a psychotic break. She wept for hours. Her stomach became “the mirror of the earth”—of all worlds in a hostile universe—and she tried to purify the evil by compulsively vomiting. As the Germans neared the south of France, a friend persuaded Carrington to flee to Spain. Facing the approach “of robots, of thoughtless, fleshless beings,” she packed a suitcase that bore on a brass plate the word Revelation. This was only the beginning of a journey into madness that was to end with Carrington confined in a mental institution, overwhelmed not only by her own terrible imaginings but by her doctor’s sadistic course of treatment. In Down Below she describes her ordeal—in which the agonizing and the marvelous were equally combined—with a startling, almost impersonal precision and without a trace of self-pity. Like Daniel Paul Schreber’s Memoirs of My Nervous Illness, Down Below brings the hallucinatory logic of madness home.

In this "New York Times" bestseller, Morgan leads readers on the fictional spiritual odyssey of an American woman in the Australian outback.

What country holds the title as the world's smallest continent and yet the world's largest island? I stands for island, but one that's not too small. Our island is enormous. Just try to see it all! There's no place else quite like it; that is clearly true. Australia is a continent, but it's an island, too. Originally founded as a penal colony, Australia has long been known for its contrasts (think: wild outback and sophisticated Sydney Opera House). Accompanied by vibrant colorful artwork, D is for Down Under: An Australia Alphabet captures the spirit of this proud country and its many treasures, natural and man-made. Visit spectacular Sydney Harbor, try your hand as a jackaroo working a sheep station, or just sit back and enjoy a Vegemite sandwich. Below the starry night glitter of the Southern Cross constellation, Australia's "down under" wonders shine brightly. Devin Scillian is an award-winning author and Emmy-award-winning broadcast journalist. His books with Sleeping Bear Press include the national bestseller A is for America: An American Alphabet. Devin lives in Michigan and anchors the news for WDIV-TV in Detroit. Geoff Cook has been illustrating for 35 years. His career began as a graphic designer, after graduating from Prahran College in Melbourne. Soon realizing he wanted to be an illustrator, he became a partner in the illustration studio All Australian Graffiti. He lives in Australia.

The Very Best of Australian Speculative Fiction! Russell Blackford Paul Brandon Damien Broderick Simon Brown Isobelle Carmody Paul Collins Stephen Dedman Sara Douglass Terry Dowling Andrew Enstice Kerry Greenwood Robert Hood David J. Lake Chris Lawson Rowena Cory Lindquist Rosaleen Love Sean McMullen Ian Nichols Steven Paulsen Jane Routley Cecily Scutt Aaron Sterns Dirk Strasser Lucy Sussex Norman Talbot George Turner Wynne Whiteford Cherry Wilder Sean Williams Tess Williams