Australian Humor

Nanny Piggins, the world's most glamorous flying pig, runs away from the circus and goes to live with the Greens as their nanny. The Green children, Derrick, Samantha and Michael, fall in love with her instantly. Who could not fall in love with a Nanny whose only job qualifications are her astonishing ability to be fired out of a cannon and her amazing ability to make chocolate cake, sometimes both at the same time?

The life of 79-year-old pensioner Peggy Smart is as beige as the décor in her retirement village. Her week revolves around aqua aerobics and appointments with her doctor. Following a very minor traffic accident, things have turned frosty with her grown-up children, and she is afraid they are trying to take away her independence. Noticing her memory isn't what it used to be, Peggy is taking ever more inventive steps to cover up her dwindling faculties.

Could you be happier? When Hugh van Cuylenburg went to India on a teaching trip he met a joyful 10-year-old student who taught him lessons that changed his life. Since setting up The Resilience Project, Hugh has shared what he learned with over a million Australians through his show GEM, a series of comical anecdotes, moving stories and practical methods for leading a happier and more resilient life.

Lenny Marks is excellent at not having a life. She bikes home from work at exactly 4pm each day, buys the same groceries for the same meals every week, and owns thirty-six copies of The Hobbit (currently arranged by height). The closest thing she has to a friendship is playing Scrabble against an imaginary Monica Gellar while watching Friends reruns. And Lenny Marks is very, very good at not remembering what happened the day her mother and stepfather disappeared when she was still a child. The day a voice in the back of her mind started whispering, You did this.

A burnt-out media executive. A chance to leave it all behind. Can she take that leap into the unknown, or is she doomed to fail? Alison was stuck going nowhere. Her shiny career had well and truly lost its lustre, despite the money her TV bosses were offering. Nothing would make up for the sacrifices she’d made these past fifteen years. When she spotted an opportunity for her other half Down Under, could she leave behind a well-paid job and all that was familiar to up sticks? When the restoration on the couple's dream home became unaffordable, they were off once again, crisscrossing the ...

In the ancient South Pacific world of Oceania, Moana, a born navigator, sets sail in search of a fabled island. During her incredible journey, she teams up with her hero, the legendary demi-god Maui, to traverse the open ocean on an action-packed voyage. They encounter enormous sea creatures, breathtaking underworlds, and ancient folklore.

“You heard me. That old Dutchman has a gold mine on Sulawesi, what else do we need to know?” Clyde exclaimed. “Are you crazy? The Japanese control that island. We don’t have a ship, a crew or any money!” Neville responded. With those words Clyde and Neville, our Coast Watcher duo, several cards short of a full deck are off on another adventure behind enemy lines in the South Pacific. Cunning and devious, they are rarely deterred at having to work outside the law. Their ability to come into the possession of large sums of money quickly is only equaled by their ability to lose it. ...

Justice served with extra chocolate sauce.

Should he be hanged or transported? The Artful Dodger is the best pick-pocket in England, a one-person crime wave. Although only a child, he seems certain to face the noose. But, to everyone’s surprise but his own, he escapes this fate and is transported to Australia. There he falls prey to Fred Crimp, a disfigured and vicious criminal who Dodger thinks vaguely familiar. His quick wits save him, and life begins to look better as he discovers there are easier ways to get rich than by picking pockets. But back in London, the peril becomes more deadly and his life at risk. In order to elude ...

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 20 years spent mastering the art of dressmaking at couture houses in Paris, Tilly Dunnage returns to the small Australian town she was banished from as a child. She plans only to check on her ailing mother and leave. But Tilly decides to stay, and though she is still an outcast, her lush, exquisite dresses prove irresistible to the prim women of Dungatar.

When a father leaves his three English daughters a vineyard estate in his will, they travel to the beautiful Blue Penguin Bay, New Zealand, to start a new life, and discover happiness and love waiting for them… Book 1: As Deep as the Ocean When Mac asks Fred to marry him, he tells her it’s strictly business, just a way to access her father’s inheritance so they can save the vineyard. But what happens when they fall in love? Book 2: As Beautiful as the Bay Sam has come home to Blue Penguin Bay to help his father in the family bakery. He longs to escape, and when a freak storm hits the ...

Follow the antics of Clyde & Neville as they annoy friends and battle enemies, on water, in the air and deep in the jungles of the South Pacific during W.W. II, where they never lose their sense of humor- fighting the enemy or searching for the perfect beer. They are simple plantation owners on a South Seas Island before being chased off by the Japanese. They volunteer as Coast Watchers, working behind enemy lines. Problems occur, many of their own making and dog them as they confound both the Japanese and the Allies. Never having learned to put up with bureaucrats they go about their work,...

Danny Armstrong and Cassie Quilty had been best friends forever, and there was a time Danny would have said he knew Cassie better than he knew himself. That was until she pulled the rug right out from under him, starting with the slightly drunken kiss she’d laid on him. Of course, he had way too much respect for her to take advantage and he’d figured once Cassie sobered up she would thank him, they’d laugh it off and never speak of it again. Instead, she had walked out on him and the business they’d built together, and then proceeded to completely cut him out of her life. He was ...

Rafe isn't exactly considered a winner in Hills Village Middle School, to say the least, but everything's about to change: He's won a school-wide art competition, and the fabulous prize is getting to jet-set off to Australia for a whirlwind adventure! But Rafe soon finds that living in the Land Down Under is harder than he could've ever imagined.

Derrick, Samantha and Michael should be in school. Instead they find themselves in NASA's space shuttle, which Nanny Piggins manages to accidentally launch, blasting them all into outer space. This time she has gone too far! In this thrilling fourth instalment of her adventures, Nanny Piggins wrestles with a crocodile, bungy jumps off the roof using the elastic from Mr Green's underpants, staples chicken wire over their chimney to keep out Santa, captures an apricot danish-loving jewel thief and rescues her brother, Boris, from an onslaught of professional wrestlers.

When Mr Green announces his diabolical plan - he has decided to get married - his children (Derrick, Samantha and Michael) are horrified. Especially when they discover his real motive - he wants to get married so he can sack their beloved nanny, Nanny Piggins. Obviously their father has to be stopped, and Nanny Piggins is just the pig to do it. Because you should never ever cross a flying pig. And so, in the process of ruining Mr Green's matrimonial prospects, Nanny Piggins and the children have many exciting adventures.

The Once and Future King returns in this modern day young adult action and adventure novel. If you are familiar with the legends and have seen the excellent movie "Excalibur," then this is the sequel to those events. Sixteen year-old Brian Braddock is having visions of a time long lost, a time and place that he feels somehow strangely connected to. As he strives to figure out what is happening to him he meets a man who reveals himself to be the legendary sorcerer Merlin, he who was the mentor and advisor to one of the greatest leaders the world has ever known. Merlin informs Brian that he ...

Being a kid can really stink. And no one knows this better than Greg Heffley, who finds himself thrust into high school, where undersized weaklings share the hallways with kids who are taller, meaner and already shaving. Luckily Greg has his best friend and sidekick, Rowley. But when Rowley's popularity starts to rise, it kicks off a chain of events that will test their friendship in hilarious fashion.

Don't book your next vacation until you've read this and saved yourself a boatload of money! Hilarious advice of an otherwise inept, budget-minded traveler on cruising in luxury at bargain prices - with a panoply of quirky, highly original stories and information along the way. If you enjoy the travel books of Bill Bryson and others, you’ll definitely enjoy this second volume bringing you yet more adventures of the bungling Rupert Flange and his frustrated Editor, as they cruise to places as varied Mediterranean, the Caribbean, Asia, Australia, Polynesia, Alaska, California and Vancouver ...

With a runaway lion loose in the neighbourhood, Derrick, Samantha and Michael feel scared. Nanny Piggins feels like a slice of cake. And Boris feels like that lion looks strangely familiar. In this third action-packed book of adventures, Nanny Piggins tames a lion and a lion tamer. She revolutionises the sport of ski jumping, introduces hot-pink leotards to the local Neighbourhood Watch, demonstrates trapeze skills on a moving bus, plays badminton with a wok and teaches Shakespeare a thing or two about how to write a play.