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The countdown to Christmas has begun! If you’re looking for gift ideas you’ll be ‘wrapped’ with this Christmas gift guide. Maddie from NLA Publishing is sharing her recommendations for the perfect gifts this holiday season.
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For nostalgic time travellers
Our Streets
The iconography of Australia’s regional towns is familiar to many of us whether we live, work and play in these places, or just journey through. The images in this book are a snapshot of the Australian town, captured by commissioned photographers in the 1990s. The design of regional Australia can move us and make us feel at home; as Tim Ross writes in his foreword, ‘the varied architecture, some good, some bad, tells the story of us’.
Vintage Crochet
If you’re a flapper at heart, you’ll love the 1920s striped waistcoat from The Australian Woman’s Mirror. If the 60s make you want to go-go, there are mod collars, a bikini cover-up and a coat with matching pill-box hat that was, ‘the symbol of winter chic’ according to The Australian Women’s Weekly. Vintage Crochet presents classic patterns sourced from historical newspapers and magazines. Complete the set with Vintage Knits.
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For children who love an Aussie summer
Ayla’s Christmas Wish written by Pamela Jones and illustrated by Lucia Masciullo
Ayla’s family is preparing for a hot Christmas in their dry, country town. But something is missing. ‘We don’t have a snowman!’ says Ayla. How will Ayla’s family make her wish come true?
Dog Beach written by Julie Murphy and illustrated by Annie White
Do you have a STRONG dog or a loooong dog? A shaggy dog or a waggy dog?
Dogs of all shapes and sizes explore, run, sniff, paddle, dig and play at the dog beach.
Grab a frisbee and your pet pooch and join in the doggy fun!
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For the book hoarder who has read everything already
Telling Lives edited by Chris Wallace
What we now want from a biography, or autobiography, is the very thing that Virginia Woolf said that we have no right to want: art. Not only art, obviously, but art nevertheless. And we love the illumination of dark corners of the soul, having quite a few of our own, if we’re honest with ourselves.
- Robert Dessaix
From political profiles to ‘tragic poems’, this collection of the Seymour Biography Lectures investigates the philosophical scaffolding that holds up the form of biography and the deft skill required to tell the truth of a life beautifully.
If Everyone Cared Enough by Margaret Lilardia Tucker MBE
Margaret Lilardia Tucker MBE (affectionately known as Aunty Marge) was a significant Aboriginal activist and one of the first Aboriginal women to publish for mainstream audiences. Her 1977 autobiography If Everyone Cared was a landmark publication.
In that first edition, her tone and content were edited to make the book more accessible and palatable to non-Indigenous readers. Drawing on her handwritten manuscript held in our collection, If Everyone Cared Enough reclaims Aunty Marge’s original words, reinstating what was previously omitted and allowing her generous storytelling voice to be heard even more clearly.
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For the adventurous and curious middle grade reader
Marion and the Forty Thieves by Sarah Luke
The daughter of the principal, Marion is the only girl aboard a magnificent floating boys’ school, anchored permanently in Sydney Harbour in the late 1800s. Her best friend has boarded a steamship to France and now it’s just her and this ship full of ragtag schoolboys. One night, Marion discovers that a new student, Alexander Walker, is escaping the ship to meet up with his vicious gang, the Forty Thieves. Marion bravely follows Walker into the frightening Rocks neighbourhood to investigate …
Buy Marion and the Forty Thieves
Flora: Australia’s Most Curious Plants by Tania McCartney
Australia is a land of floral wonder. With around 24,000 native plant species, 90 per cent of them are unique to our island home. They are also some of the most ancient and fierce varieties on Earth, cleverly adapting, over millions of years, to drastic changes in climate and landscapes. From microscopic ferns to the mighty mountain ash, this beautifully illustrated book is a garden of curious, colourful and occasionally deadly plant life. Complete the set with Fauna: Australia’s Most Curious Creatures.
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For the armchair historian
Townsend of the Ranges by Peter Crowley
In 1831, a teenaged Thomas Scott Townsend joined the Surveyor General’s Department in New South Wales as a draftsman. By the end of his career, Townsend had become the greatest of all the surveyors who mapped the wild Australian Alps. He was the first European to identify the source of the Murray River and to traverse the Main Range of the Snowy Mountains, and in 1847 he stood on the summit of Mt Kosciuszko. Discover Townsend’s story while tracing the impact of settlement on First Nations people throughout Victoria and New South Wales.
Dear Mutzi by Tess Scholfield-Peters
Harry Peters, formerly Hermann Pollnow and known to his family as Mutzi, was born in Berlin in 1920. As a teenager he fled Nazi Germany and landed in rural Australia. Harry’s parents, Edith and Max, never saw their son again. Years later, his granddaughter Tess Scholfield-Peters discovers a box of letters written to Harry from his parents. She embarks on a journey through her family’s history just as Harry’s memories have all but faded. This impressive debut skirts the edges of fiction and non-fiction, as Scholfield-Peters weaves her research with Harry’s recollections to envision the unknown.
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For the artistic soul
Artists of the National Library of Australia
The Artists of the National Library of Australia series showcases the Library’s extensive Pictures Collection. To open the series we’ve chosen two incredible artists of the twentieth century: Ellis Rowan, one of Australia’s most-loved botanical artists, and Harold Cazneaux, a pioneer in Australian photography.
Buy Ellis Rowan Buy Harold Cazneaux
Bespoke puzzles
Piece together Rowan’s New Zealand Christmas Bush in stunning colours of red, blue and green for a challenging and rewarding puzzle experience.
Or, if you’re looking for something more contemporary, create a uniquely Australian floral collage made up of wattle, eucalyptus, grass trees, banksias and more, inspired by Tania McCartney’s Flora.
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If you need some more Christmas gifting inspiration or ideas, check the National Library Bookshop for more Australian books, unique gifts, and exclusive finds you won’t see anywhere else.
