Views From Thornhill

Essays describe the author's experiences raising a family on a farm outside of Baltimore, Maryland

‘The Hideaway by Pam Smy is a work of art. Smy is the genius writer and illustrator of the stunning Thornhill. Smy takes children’s books to another level. Highly recommend.’ - David Walliams The wonderful long-awaited second novel from Pam Smy, celebrated author and illustrator of Thornhill. The Hideaway tells the story of a boy, Billy McKenna, who runs away from a difficult situation at home and takes refuge in an overgrown graveyard. While hiding there he meets an elderly man who is tending the graves in preparation for a day in November when something magical is set to happen. The book is written in two alternating narratives, both different aspects of the same story. One thread tells of Billy's experience of hiding away in the graveyard, his mixed-up feelings and emotions, and the supernatural events he eventually witnesses. The other tells of his mother's situation at home and the police search for Billy. Covering themes of family, childhood, separation and reunion, domestic violence and doing the right thing, this is an important and beautiful book for middle grade readers right up to adults. Billy's story is illustrated throughout with tonal and textured black and white drawings, until the event on All Souls' Eve, when the text gives way to a series of double page images of the supernatural happening. The Hideaway is a compelling, exciting and emotional story that will stay with you long after you finish the last page.

This is the story of an old country house and how it grew young again, and of the family that has grown with it during the last thirty years. Built in 1843 in the Worthington Valley of Maryland, Thornhill Farm was a sorry derelict when Dee Hardie and her husband first saw it. Today it is sometimes featured in Dee's monthly column for House Beautiful. Its presence and character have molded the Hardies, even as they have molded Thornhill into something far more than a house surrounded by land. "Hollyhocks, Lambs and Other Passions" shows how a house can embrace a family's joy and provide shelter in sorrow. It tells of the ups and downs of raising four children and forty sheep, of the importance of celebrating everything from christenings to Christmas, of stenciling pineapples on the dining room floor and keeping a piano in the kitchen, of digging a rose garden and painting hollyhocks on the barn wall, of Tom Hardie's Sunday cooking, and tea parties for small grandchildren. Dee's determination to keep-- and make-- traditions runs throughout the book. Dee Hardie herself is the heart of Thornhill Farm. The absolute passion she brings to everything she does, the grace and care with which she lives her life, her infectious delight in the world around her, have made her accounts of Thornhill memorable. With her commitment to living life deliberately, she slows us down, for a time, in a world that moves at breakneck speed.

The Orange Prize–Winning author of The Secret River delivers “brilliant fiction and illuminating personal history” in the finale of her Australian trilogy (The Independent). With The Secret River, Kate Grenville dug into her own family’s history to create an unflinching tale of frontier violence in early Australia. She continued her bold exploration of Australia’s beginnings in The Lieutenant. Now Sarah Thornhill brings this acclaimed trilogy to an emotionally explosive conclusion. Sarah is the youngest daughter of William Thornhill, an ex-convict from London. Unknown to Sarah, her father has built his fortune on the blood of Aboriginal people. With a fine stone house and plenty of money, Thornhill has reinvented himself, teaching his daughter to never look back or ask about the past. Instead, Sarah fixes her eyes on handsome Jack Langland, whom she’s loved since she was a child. Their romance seems idyllic, but the ugly secret in Sarah’s family is poised to ambush them both. Driven by the captivating voice of the illiterate Sarah—at once headstrong, sympathetic, curious, and refreshingly honest—this is an unforgettable portrait of a passionate woman caught up in a historical moment that’s left an indelible mark on the present.

As a public speaker, this book was written in response to an ever growing chorus of requests for my 'notes'. I have never had notes as the presentations I make are based on 40 years experience in the financial services industry both here and abroad. After so many years, I had begun to question more and more of the assumed wisdom of much of the financial services industry. I left the industry in 2000 to free myself from the shackles of being paid to present a message I no longer believed in and to write this book. I now believe that behavioural finance is more important than economics and as a result, share markets are guided by forces beyond reason. Their short term ups and downs can be linked to collective human behavior, not a logical continuum of cause and effect. In this book, you will learn that history repeats itself; you'll find our why there's no such thing as a market "crash"; why investing for the long term is the surest way to tap the market's riches; why market volatility is not a measure of risk; and why looking backwards "can damage your wealth."

'Winner of the Commonwealth Writers Prize and Australian Book Industry Awards, Book of the Year. After a childhood of poverty and petty crime in the slums of London, William Thornhill is transported to New South Wales for the term of his natural life. With his wife Sal and children in tow, he arrives in a harsh land that feels at first like a de...