Showing results by narrator "James Saunders" in All Categories

An old witch is losing her power, her husband is in a living death and a criminal mastermind is dying: what if the immense life force in one very special girl could save them all? It’s the mid-1970s, and when young Lía Munro moves into a big country house in Australia after moving from Hong Kong with her father, Paul, things start to happen that make her question who she is and what she might really be. The old house has ghosts; her father, Paul, has a past that links him to both this rural hideaway and the ancient Italian witch named Adelina Russo who once held sway....

Stories from when life was so bad it was funny. We've all had days when if we didn't laugh, we'd cry. Whether it's a domestic drama, a career cock-up or just a run-of-the-mill disaster, we've all been there - no matter who we are. In this hilarious and moving collection, well-known Australians from all walks of life share their stories as a kind of mass therapy: a feel-good tonic for when the proverbial s--t hits the fan.

At the Australian war crimes trials that followed World War II, one prosecution witness stood out: Warrant Officer Bill Sticpewich. During his three years in the infamous Sandakan POW camp, Sticpewich had seen hundreds of fellow prisoners die of starvation, sickness and overwork. Of more than 2400 Allied prisoners at Sandakan at the start of 1945, only six survived. It was Sticpewich's meticulous evidence that sent Sandakan's commandant and his murderous henchmen to the gallows. But to his fellow prisoners Sticpewich was not a war hero.

On 11 August 1914, just days after war had been declared, Australian Captain J.T. Richardson boarded a German merchant vessel fleeing Melbourne's Port Phillip and audaciously seized a top-secret naval codebook. The fledgling Australian Navy had an opportunity to immediately change the course of the war. But what exactly had they found? Enter the Australian code breakers ...