Australian Football

A sport unlike any other in the world, football has always been Australia's bellwether. But at a time when politics is increasingly conducted like sports - full of one-eyed tribalism, captain's calls and policy dictated by the Newspoll scoreboard - football is the one institution that's more...

From prison to premiership glory; this is Marlion Pickett’s extraordinary story. It’s the third quarter in the biggest game of the season. A young man lines up for goal. The 100,000 strong crowd leaps to its feet and roars as Marlion Pickett sends the ball soaring through the goalposts for...

In 2012, Hakeem al-Araibi was a promising young player on Bahrain's national football team when he was arrested for attacking a police station during the Arab Spring, despite television footage showing him playing soccer at the time of the alleged attack. After three months of torture and wrongful imprisonment, Hakeem was released. He fled the country and made his way to Australia, where he was granted refugee status. Hakeem made a life here and was playing for the suburban Pascoe Vale Football Club, in Melbourne. He thought he was safe.

A darkly satirical novel of love, revenge, and 1950s haute couture—now a major motion picture starring Kate Winslet, Judy Davis, Liam Hemsworth, and Hugo Weaving After twenty years spent mastering the art of dressmaking at couture houses in Paris, Tilly Dunnage returns to the small...

THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW EDITORS' CHOICE From the beloved master of Australian letters Helen Garner comes a brand new work of nonfiction, exploring boyhood, football, and the quotidian joys of family life. "Inclusive and universal, curious and tender, perceptive and wise."—The New...

Travis Boak is one of the most talented and tenacious AFL players of the era. Three-time All-Australian and a former Port Adelaide captain, he's renowned for his football IQ and his physical endurance. In 2024 he played his 350th game, cementing his status as an elite champion. Travis is known...

Mary Fowler is already a global football superstar with the Matildas, but there's so much more to the person behind the headlines and highlight-reel goals. Bloom is a mix of deeply personal experiences that have shaped Mary, behind-the-scenes insights from the Matildas' World Cup run...

Johnathan Thurston is widely regarded as rugby league's greatest player. This autobiography will follow Thurston's journey from a Brisbane kid who was written off as too skinny, too slow, and too wild to play professionally, to his debut with the Canterbury Bulldogs in 2003, to State of Origin star, to Dally M and Clive Churchill Medal winner, and the fairytale premierships.

'A book about humanity as much as sport. It’s like sitting at the kitchen table with your best mate and he’s pouring his heart out – about his life, his loss, his triumphs and his faults … and the love that got him through. Honest, generous, and most of all, courageous.' Markus Zusak...

Can their new love survive the return of his past? With his first year as a pro footballer behind him, ruckman Tyson Gaspaldi meets Katie while on a holiday in a small coastal town. Everything about her intrigues him, and he wants nothing more than to spend some time with her. Once she finds out how he earns his money, though, she hesitates to take whatever it is between them any further. Katie Cassidy is still overwhelmed by the recent loss of her sister, but a chance encounter with Tyson stirs emotions and a love for life inside her again. However, when Tyson’s ex-girlfriend blindsides ...

Australian Matildas and World Cup superstar Sam Kerr teams up with Aki Fukuoka to bring young readers this fun and inspiring illustrated series about soccer, school, sport, friendship, dealing with bullies and following your dreams. Sam Kerr has only been playing soccer for a few months and...

Meet Tariq Nader, leader of ‘The Wolf Pack’ at Punchbowl Boys. He has been asked by the new principal to join a football competition with his mates in order to rehabilitate the public image of their school. But there’s a catch – half of the team is made up of high-school boys from Cronulla, also known as enemy territory – and Tariq must compete with their strongest player for the position of captain. With complications on all fronts, he must learn to control his anger, and find what it takes to be a leader.

Australian Matildas and World Cup superstar Sam Kerr teams up with Aki Fukuoka to bring young readers this fun and inspiring illustrated series about soccer, school, sport, friendship, dealing with bullies and following your dreams. The 2006 World Cup is around the corner and...

Cancer doesn't discriminate. When things were at their worst for Jarryd Roughead, his four premierships, two All-Australian gongs and a Coleman Medal counted for nothing. Being that rare footballer who was as loved by opposition fans as his own was no help either. As he spent his days vomiting...

Australian Matildas and World Cup superstar Sam Kerr teams up with Aki Fukuoka to bring young readers this fun and inspiring illustrated series about soccer, school, sport, friendship, dealing with bullies and following your dreams. Sam Kerr is an Aussie rules football fan through and through...

Shortlisted for the 2024 R.E.A.L. Awards Shortlisted for the 2024 Yabba Awards, Fiction for Younger Readers Australian Matildas and World Cup superstar Sam Kerr teams up with Aki Fukuoka to bring young readers this fun and inspiring illustrated series about soccer, school, sport, friendship...

Australian Matildas and World Cup superstar Sam Kerr teams up with Aki Fukuoka to bring young readers this fun and inspiring illustrated series about soccer, school, sport, friendship, dealing with bullies and following your dreams. It’s official! Eleven-year-old Sam Kerr is a fully-fledged...

Bachar Houli is as accomplished an AFL footballer as they come. He's been part of two Richmond Premiership sides, he was an All-Australian in 2019, and with more than 200 games to his name he remains a key part of a champion team. Picked at number 42 in the 2006 National Draft by Essendon, Houli played 26 games for the Bombers before moving in 2011 to Tigerland, where rookie Coach Damien Hardwick was assembling the team that six years later would achieve the seemingly impossible and claim Richmond's 11th Premiership.

There's another side to Australian Football League legends such as Jason Dunstall, Shane Crawford, and James Hird, not to mention Kevin Sheedy's little quirks. Have you heard the story about the time Sheeds had to play the part of one of the Three Little Pigs? Or how hysterical chickens found their way into Bomber Thompson's new car during training? Who put white powder in the Essendon doctor's bag that was then detected at the airport? And why is John Platten a 'footy-trip legend'?

A treasured son. A rare condition. A memoir of loss and joy and everything in between. My mind is racing. I'm trying to make sense of what the doctors have told us, to understand what life is going to look like now, for Levi and for us. We need to tell our families, I think to myself. But Mum is...