Brutally honest and inspiring, this narrative tells the story of a well-known writer's life as an alcoholic and his struggle to become-and stay-sober. Beginning with his first drink at the age of 14, this unique account traces the author's relationship with alcohol, taking readers on a journey from substance abuse and despair to hope and courage. Both heart-wrenching and enlightening, this chronicle is a strong personal story of triumph over substance abuse that will grip readers from the start.
The reality is that if I hadn't stopped drinking and drugging at twenty-five years of age, I wouldn't have made twenty-six." This is Ross Fitzgerald's 42nd book, an updated edition of his 2010 book My Name is Ross. Although he has now succeeded in not drinking alcohol or using drugs for 50 years, in this revised edition the author still calls himself an alcoholic, and pays extended tribute to the role of Alcoholics Anonymous in keeping him on the wagon. His involvement in AA has become a way of life; he still attends two or three meetings a week. A key aspect of AA's therapeutic process involves what can be termed the mechanism of surrender. Instead of telling alcoholics to use their willpower, control their drinking or pull up their socks, AA suggests that a much more efficacious strategy is to admit that, at least in relation to alcohol, they are beaten. With his insight into the scourge of numerous kinds of addiction, Fitzgerald traces the journey of many alcoholics and drug addicts. In this brutally honest and intimate portrayal of his fascinating life - his struggles as well as his successes - Fitzgerald doesn't shy away from his difficult times and regrets, but ultimately has written an uplifting and inspiring book. With the prevalence of alcohol in our daily lives for every celebration or sad occasion, a book like this is needed more than ever.
Professor Dr Grafton Everest's latest outrageous entertainment takes us to London and New York after a series of hilarious meanderings in the land of Oz. So Far, So Good centres on our hapless professor's obsession with food and fame; his relationship with his increasingly independent wife Janet; their wayward (and soon to be married) daughter Lee-Anne; and his much-loved terrier Maddie. This cleverly plotted satire exposes the sad state of universities and of what now passes for politics in the West. Our obsession with technology, our fear of outsiders and our distrust of elites also come in for a pasting. Caught in a series of concentric conspiracies, Grafton manages to save the day, save the world and even launch Australia on the road to a republic. Well-known author and commentator, Professor Ross Fitzgerald, and Antony Funnell, of ABC Radio National's "Future Tense" fame, have produced the funniest Grafton Everest novel yet. The previous Grafton adventure, Going Out Backwards, was shortlisted for the 2017 Russell Prize for Humour Writing.
Published in 1865, this is a narrative of the travels of Fitzgerald Ross through the Southern states during the Civil War, with a few chapters on a short sojourn to the Northern states and Canada. Includes Gettysburg, General Pickett, Hagerstown, Longstreet, Fort Sumter, General Lee, Petersburg, Charleston and more.
A visit to the cities and camps of the Confederate States is [FitzGerald Ross's] own record of what he saw and learned of the South at war. As an honest (though over-sympathetic) picture of the Confederacy during the latter half of 1863 and the early months of 1864, it is one of the ... most informative of the relative few inclusive records left by outside observers of the Confederacy in its own time.
The bumbling and eternally famished Grafton Everest appointed as the first Australian Secretary-General of the United Nations? A secret game of Australian Rules football skilfully played by Tutsis and Dinkas in a tiny African state? In this novel our hapless hero reaches the culmination of his haphazard career. Despite Grafton’s fervent hope that it will be a purely honorary position, he finds himself forced to actively head an organisation not only made ineffective by its Byzantine organisation, but threatened by a deadly conspiracy within its own ranks. Our woebegone world leader not only endures attempted kidnappings and assassination but finds that a mysterious young woman who has been assigned to write his biography is possibly not who or what she seems. On top of this unwanted intrigue, Grafton discovers that, despite having no desire to save the world, or anything else, he is an essential part of a plan, implemented by a rough-edged Australian diplomat, to avert a looming global disaster – a plan which, strangely, seems to involve Australian Rules football. ‘Pandemonium is a work of comic brilliance, a perfect consummation of the uproarious Grafton Everest series’ – Nigel Marsh, Smart, Stupid Sixty ‘Grafton Everest is a wonderful creation whom I would place without question in the ranks of Phillip Roth’s Portnoy and Kingsley Amis’s Lucky Jim.’ – Barry Humphries
The eighth book in the Grafton Everest series sees the hapless ex-President of the Republic of Australia, Dr Professor Grafton Everest, caught up in a web of international espionage and intrigue that he is hopelessly ill-equipped to handle. Abandoned to his own inadequate devices when his wife Janet departs on a world tour, with his home invaded by his now broke daughter and son-in-law, Grafton accepts an assignment with the United Nations to investigate electoral fraud in Russia. The reason is not only to get out of the house; an old letter from his mother, addressed to someone in the Soviet Union fifty years ago, suggests that Grafton may not be the only child that he always thought he was. Grafton’s mission to Moscow and his search for this mysterious sibling take him far from the Russian capital, deep into the icy wastes of Siberia and even deeper in a tangled conspiracy whose roots extend back to the Cold War and even as far back as the Russian Revolution.
E. G. Theodore, one of Australia's most enterprising and unusual political figures, was Treasurer and Premier of Queensland and later Federal Treasurer and Deputy Prime Minister of Australia in the Scullin Labor government.
In this 7th book of the highly acclaimed Grafton Everest Series, our indolent hero, Professor Dr Everest (former lecturer in Lifestyles and Wellbeing at the University of Mangoland) is surprised to find himself President of the newly minted Republic of Australia. Luckily he manages to avoid any actual work or duties, save heading the newly created Department of Wellbeing, and leaves on a goodwill tour of the US. Here, he is courted by both Democrats and Republicans as a possible US Presidential candidate. After further discoveries, including a secret society of retired spies and bionic clones, he returns to Australia to find that the Department of Wellbeing has become a ruthless dictatorship that has brought the nation to a stop. It is now up to Professor Dr Everest to save the country … This is slapstick that tickles the funny bone while the satirical barbs penetrate the shifty shibboleths of today’s progressive orthodoxies!
Powerfully written by controversial author-broadcaster Ross Fitzgerald and comedy writer Rick Murphy, Austen Tayshus: Merchant of Menace is a no holds-barred biography of Australia’s edgiest comedian; a man rightly regarded as the nation’s most dangerous and subversive performer. Austen Tayshus is the creation of Sandy Gutman, a shy, intelligent, highly cultured and observant son of Judaism; an actor and award-winning filmmaker, strict vegetarian and father. He retains a loyal following within the arts community and his fans include international film stars, world famous artists and a former Australian prime minister. He is also the great outsider of Australian show business; a raging intellectual punk who seeks out apathy, hypocrisy and mediocrity, and stomps on them until they are dead. This brilliantly written biography uncovers the complicated personality of a stand-up comedian driven to perform, a man who lives in the shadow of a great tragedy.
A contemporary novel. In three parts, it moves between Brisbane, Melbourne and Ireland, as three misfits voice their respective searches for love and passion. The three characters are a hang glider and erotica businessman, a 19-year-old alcoholic and a maverick motor cycling priest, and the themes are betrayal, death and metamorphosis. The author, an academic historian, has written 15 books.
Arguably Australia's most influential political journalist, Alan 'The Red Fox' Reid covered Australian politics from the 1930s to the 1980s. During his career he was both a chronicler of, and a player in, Australian politics. In this book Ross Fitzgerald and Stephen Holt take us into a Machiavellian behind-the-scenes world of recurrent plots, crises and leadership challenges, and show how it was possible for a skilled journalist to help shape both public perceptions and actual outcomes of political power plays.
A unique look at Australian history as seen through the perspective of the influence of alcohol In reading UNDER tHE INFLUENCE, I have not only discovered that alcohol has been integral to major events in Australian history, I have also found - as will many other readers - that it has also been integral to major events in the history of my own family. It's intoxicating to read the story of our country through the bottom of a glass. (from the Foreword by Mandy Sayer) UNDER tHE INFLUENCE is a unique look at Australian history as seen through the perspective of the influence of alcohol. Extremely readable and well researched, this book shows how the patterns for alcohol use (and abuse) can be traced back to the very early days of white settlement in Australia, taking us all the way up to the present day and our ongoing concerns about teenage drinking and alcohol-fuelled violence, as well as the role of the industry players in the promotion and packaging of an increasingly dizzying array of alcoholic products. Along the way we learn of the social, political and cultural facets of alcohol and it makes fascinating reading discovering what our attitude to alcohol says about who we are, who we care about, and what we care about.
Wake up, Australia! Grafton Everest exhorts viewers every morning on Australia-wide breakfast television. This does not please those he attacks like wily former premier Hoogstraden, whose biography Grafton is forced into writing. Grafton's day job as Professor of LifeSkills and Hospitality is under threat from the economically and sexually rapacious Vice-Chancellor Deirdre Morrow. And Lee Horton, head of Australia's newly privatised Secret Service trading as Spyforce Australia is worried, too. He knows that Grafton has trouble lying. And nothing is more dangerous than a man who habitually tells the truth.
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