Xavier Herbert: 4 books

Xavier Herbert considers himself the Disturbing Element in the family he claimed never wanted him. Born in 1901 in Western Australia, Herbert grew up amid confusing and sometimes contradictory family legends. Often comic, often tragic, Disturbing Element traces Herbert's life as he changes...

A pilot dueling with an eagle; an old woman refusing to flee from bomb-ravaged Darwin; Kaijak the Songman - these are some of the many people that Xavier Herbert brings to life in his tales of Australia's North, from Cairns to Cape York. Ranging in time from early pioneer days to the present, Larger Than Life is a masterly and compelling collection.

For the soldiers' women in Sydney, life takes on a brittle gaiety as their husbands and lovers leave for the war and transient G.I.s take their place. The American troops are the centre of glamour and excitement in this Australian city in the 1940s and Ida, Rosa, Fay and Patricia are determined to...

Seven Emus Station lies in the wild, red sandstone country back of the north-west port of Dampier. It is the prized property of Bronco Jones, his wife Possum and their bright, honey-coloured brood. The wealth of the property lures Appleby Gaunt, 'The Baron' who sweeps Bronco into a series of...