The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire

Edward Gibbon

Edward Gibbon's six-volume History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1776-88) is among the most magnificent and ambitious narratives in European literature. Its subject is the fate of one of the world's greatest civilizations over thirteen centuries - its rulers, wars and society, and the eve...

The Consolation of Philosophy

Boethius

Boethius was an eminent public figure under the Gothic emperor Theodoric, and an exceptional Greek scholar. When he became involved in a conspiracy and was imprisoned in Pavia, it was to the Greek philosophers that he turned. "The Consolation" was written in the period leading up to his brutal execution...

The Bush Telegraph

Fiona McArthur

'Small towns and gossip go together like trees and birds.'It's been more than ten years since Maddy Locke left Spinifex, the small outback town where she gave birth to her daughter, Bridget. Now she's back to prove she's got what it takes to run the medical centre and face the memories of that challengi...

Eliot’s Book of Bookish Lists: A Sparkling Miscellany of Literary Lists

Henry Eliot

A sparkling miscellany of literary triviaWho had birds called Death, Wigs and Spinach? How do you spell the noise of a door slamming? Whose working title was The Chronic Argonauts? Henry Eliot - author, editor and insatiable bookworm - has ransacked the libraries and archives of world literature, compil...