Penguin Books Australia

Compiled by Fred McDonald, this new book traces the origins and explains the meanings of approximately 15,000 words. Words with similar ancestry or semantic development are cross-referenced or subsumed into one entry, making comparisons easier for the reader. There is also a short introduction explaining the book's purpose and layout, and giving a very short account of the English language and the...

'MCC insists Iceland ashes must remain at Lords.'
'Turnbull resigns, will stay on as PM in his mind.'
'Wife becomes first to beat Tiger Woods with golf club.'

The best Chaser Annual yet!

Despite the demands of successful ventures in stage, screen and their own richly rewarding fantasy lives, the Chaser team have found time to put together a new Annual.

As always, it will cause controversy. Critics will certainly wonder how grown men can continue to churn out offensive undergraduate claptrap at their age. But, as millions have discovered over the years, no one can really understand...

Among this year's headlines: Dannii Minogue diagnosed with fake breast cancer; Tony Abbott's softer, human side actually...

Part game book, part trivia book and part information, The Complete Idiot's Guide to Fun FAQs includes over 1,000 amusing, interesting...

See Earth in ten times more detail than ever before

From Antarctica to Zambia, discover the Earth continent by continent with the Complete Atlas of the World.

Cross the globe from your armchair with 330 maps including 100 city plans showing the world's political and physical geography in the clearest way possible. Landscapes are brought to life through detailed terrain models and colour schemes giving...

'Addictively browsable'   Independent , Books of the Year  

'Splendid . . . This is a book that brings the underground to the surface, be it in the form of psychedelic rock clubs, suffragettes and political radicals, or the secret tunnels that link buildings across the capital in case of war'   Daily Telegraph

Faster than a speeding bullet, more useless than ever before.

The #1 New York Times bestselling series reaches new heights of irrelevance with this powerfully pointless, all-new collection of the things you never need to know.

Do you actually care that . . .

From The New York Times comes the world's most authoritative almanac-exhaustively updated for 2010.

German-born artist Vic Guhrs came to Africa at the age of twenty-two to fulfil his boyhood dream of a life in wild places among wild animals.  He lived for twenty-five years in an isolated bush camp in the Luangwa Valley in Zambia and knows that, despite its paradoxes and it mysteries, he can never live Africa.

This collection illuminates the uniquely fascinating era between 1820 and 1950 in French poetry - a time in which diverse aesthetic ideas conflicted and converged as poetic forms evolved at an astonishing pace. It includes generous selections from all the established giants - among them Baudelaire, Verlaine, Rimbaud and Breton - as well as works from a wide variety of less well-known poets such as...

Recalling the important stories ('World Trade Centre Janitor Declares: Best Sickie Ever' and 'Bali trial mix-up: Vanessa Amorosi...

Highly acclaimed sports writer Gideon Haigh has turned his talents to compiling a most extraordinary book of miscellaneous fact. Now, at last...