We've given the publishers of each book, where available, in the United Kingdom (UK), the United States (US), and Australia (Aus); many Australian-published books are only available there. The Gleebooks website ( www.gleebooks.com.au ) has a host of recent reviews of Australian literature and is well worth checking out; specific titles can be ordered via email ( books@gleebooks.com.au ). O/p signifies an out-of-print - but still highly recommended - book which you should be able to find in a library. University Press is abbreviated as UP.

History and politics
John Birmingham   Leviathan: the Unauthorised Biography of Sydney (Random House, Aus). Birmingham's 1999 tome casts a contemporary eye on the dark side of Sydney's history, from nauseating accounts of Rocks' slum life and the 1900 plague...
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Biography
John Dale   Huckstepp: a Dangerous Life (Allen & Unwin, Aus). The still-unsolved 1986 murder of Sallie-Anne Huckstepp, herself steeped in Sydney's criminal underworld of drugs and prostitution, continues to capture the public...
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Travel and specialist guides
Bill Bryson   Down Under (Doubleday, UK; Random House, Aus; published in the US as In a Sunburnt Country , Broadway Books). Famously funny travel writer Bill Bryson devotes a chapter of his Australia book, published in 2000, to...
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Sydney in fiction
Maggie Alderson   Pants on Fire (Penguin, Aus). Sydney Morning Herald fashion journalist Alderson originally hails from England and her hilarious first novel follows the fortunes of Londoner Georgia Abott, a women's magazine...
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Art and architecture
Wally Caruana   Aboriginal Art (Thames & Hudson, UK and US). An excellent illustrated paperback introduction to all styles of Aboriginal art. Philip Drewe and Jørn Utzon   Sydney Opera House (Phaidon...
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