The Arsonist

The Arsonist
Author: Chloe Hooper
Publisher: Seven Stories Press
Total Pages: 195
Release: 2020-09-29
Genre: True Crime
ISBN: 1644210010

The true story of one of the most devastating wildfires in Australian history and the search for the man who started it. On the scorching February day in 2009, a man lit two fires in the Australian state of Victoria, then sat on the roof of his house to watch the inferno. What came to be known as the Black Saturday bushfires killed 173 people and injured hundreds more, making them among the deadliest and most destructive wildfires in Australian history. As communities reeling from unspeakable loss demanded answers, detectives scrambled to piece together what really happened. They soon began to suspect the fires had been deliverately set by an arsonist. The Arsonist takes readers on the hunt for this man, and inside the puzzle of his mind. But this book is also the story of fire in the Anthropocene. The command of fire has defined and sustained us as a species, and now, as climate change normalizes devastating wildfires worldwide, we must contend with the forces of inequality, and desperate yearning for power, that can lead to such destruction. Written with Chloe Hooper’s trademark lyric detail and nuance, The Arsonist is a reminder that in the age of fire, all of us are gatekeepers.


Black Saturday

Black Saturday
Author: Peg Fraser
Publisher:
Total Pages: 266
Release: 2018
Genre: Disaster relief
ISBN: 9781925523683

One hundred and seventy-three people lost their lives in the Victorian bushfires of February 2009, the greatest number from any bushfire event in this nation's history. The memories and thoughts that Peg Fraser heard from the survivors complicate much of what we thought we knew about the experience of catastrophic natural events. Beginning each chapter with an object from the bushfires, Fraser reveals how each person's identity, including as a man or a woman with a particular social position in the town, impacted upon experiences and understandings of loss.


Black Saturday at Steels Creek

Black Saturday at Steels Creek
Author: Peter Stanley
Publisher: Scribe Publications
Total Pages: 241
Release: 2013
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1922070335

The Black Saturday bushfires killed 173 people - wreaking a greater human toll than any other fire in Australia's history. Ten of those people died in Steels Creek, a small community on Melbourne's outskirts. It was a beautiful place, which its residents had long treasured and loved. By the evening of 7 February 2009, it looked like a battlefield.Prize-winning historian Peter Stanley tells the dramatic stories of this small town on that one terrifying evening - of epic fights to save houses, of escapes, and of deaths. But Black Saturday at Steels Creek also tells the tale of a community - of people's attachments to the valley and to each other - and how, over the weeks and years that followed, they lived with the aftermath of the fire.The most detailed account of any one community to emerge from the fire, Black Saturday at Steels Creek shows what Black Saturday means not only for Steels Creek, but also for Australia as a whole.'The most significant topic in this warming world of ours. An important and deeply moving book.' Adrian Hyland, Author of Kinglake-350'Insightful and comprehensive ... what sets it apart is the coverage of the diverse range of experiences.' Dr Kevin Tolhurst, Senior Bushfire Researcher


Worst of Days

Worst of Days
Author: Karen Kissane (Aus)
Publisher: Hachette Australia
Total Pages: 292
Release: 2010-11-01
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0733626637

Saturday, 7 February 2009. Truly the worst of days... From dawn, the bush was tinder dry, and hot winds grew and fed off the baked landscape, sucking out every last drop of moisture, whipping sparks from power lines, and stirring up menace and danger. WORST OF DAYS is the behind-the-scenes story of the people who were inside Black Saturday's most deadly firestorm, the Kilmore blaze. It is a powerful and gripping narrative of disaster and resilience, of men and women and children facing the ultimate stress. This is the story of what we do at the very worst of times: from the man who braved the flames to help a mate, to another who refused even to cover the face of a dead man, saying, 'No mate, not my job.' It is the story of officials' bungles and best efforts, towns and their heroes, of survivors, saviours and lost souls.


Samoa mo Samoa

Samoa mo Samoa
Author: Michael Field
Publisher: Bridget Williams Books
Total Pages: 42
Release: 2014-11-27
Genre: History
ISBN: 1927277884

A large and peaceful pro-independence march along Beach Road in Apia, Samoa. Amidst panic and confusion, New Zealand police open fire with rifles and a machine-gun, killing nine people and wounding fifty. In this BWB Text, Michael Field describes what happened on Black Saturday, 28 December 1929, a day that is largely forgotten in New Zealand history but is vividly recalled in Samoa.


Bushfire

Bushfire
Author: Sally Murphy
Publisher: Scholastic Australia
Total Pages: 137
Release: 2019-02-01
Genre: Juvenile Fiction
ISBN: 1760272973

Amy is staying in Marysville with her grandmother, and helping in the garden and cleaning out her gutters. It is, after all, bushfire season. As summer arrives, so do the fires, and Dad is busy helping control the flames in bushfires that have started burning in Victoria. But it is early February 2009, and the Black Saturday bushfire is about to encircle Amy and her family, and teach Amy first-hand about tragedy and survival.


The House on the Mountain

The House on the Mountain
Author: Ella Holcombe
Publisher: Allen & Unwin
Total Pages: 32
Release: 2019-02-04
Genre: Juvenile Fiction
ISBN: 176087048X

REMEMBERING BLACK SATURDAY There is a fire coming, and we need to move quickly. Mum and Dad start packing bags, grabbing woollen blankets, the first-aid kit, torches, and then the photo albums. Dad puts Ruby on her lead and ties her up near the back door. My chest feels hollow, like a birdcage. Atmospheric and intensely moving, this is the story of a family experiencing a bushfire, its devastating aftermath, and the long process of healing and rebuilding.


Between Cross and Resurrection

Between Cross and Resurrection
Author: Alan E. Lewis
Publisher: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing
Total Pages: 496
Release: 2003-06-20
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 9780802826787

For much of Christian history the church has given no place to Holy Saturday in its liturgy or worship. Yet the space dividing Calvary and the Garden may be the best place from which to reflect on the meaning of Christ's death and resurrection. This superb work by the late Alan Lewis develops on a grand scale and in great detail a theology of Holy Saturday.The first comprehensive theology of Holy Saturday ever written, Between Cross and Resurrectionshows that at the center of the biblical story and the church's creed lies a three-day narrative. Lewis explores the meaning of Holy Saturday -- the restless day of burial and waiting -- from the perspectives of narrative (hearing the story), doctrine (thinking the story), and ethics (living the story). Along the way he visits as many spiritual themes as possible in order to demonstrate the range of topics that take on fresh meaning when viewed from the vantage point of Holy Saturday.Between Cross and Resurrection is not only incisive and elegantly written, but it is also a uniquely moving work deeply rooted in Christian experience. While writing this book Lewis experienced his own Holy Saturday in suffering from and finally succumbing to cancer. He considered Between Cross and Resurrection to be the culmination of his life's work.


Black Saturday

Black Saturday
Author: Michael Field
Publisher: Raupo
Total Pages: 228
Release: 2006-01-01
Genre: Mandates
ISBN: 9780790011035

New Zealand ruled Samoa from 1914 to 1962 and during this time managed to kill 25 percent of the population in the space of a couple of weeks through the careless introduction of Spanish influenza. Faced with growing Samoan calls for independence New Zealand responded violently, gunning down eight people in the streets of Apia, including high chief Tupua Tamasese, in 1929. The working title comes from a line in a speech given two years ago by Prime Minister Helen Clark when she went to Samoa and offered a formal apology for the events above. The book relates the story of New Zealand's rule, from the invasion by soldiers from Wellington to Auckland, up to Helen Clark's apology.