Access Must-Have Full Audiobooks in History, Australia & Oceania

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/416796 to listen full audiobooks.

Title: Captain Cook’s Epic Voyage

Author: Geoffrey Blainey

Narrator: John Gregg

Format: Unabridged Audiobook

Length: 12 hours 51 minutes

Release date: March 31, 2020

Ratings: Ratings of Book: 3 of Total 3

Ratings of Narrator: 4 of Total 1

Genres: Australia & Oceania

Publisher's Summary:

In 1768 Captain James Cook and his crew set out on a small British naval vessel in search of a missing continent. 2020 marks the 250th anniversary of that voyage, and Cook's 'discovery' of Australia. Captain Cook's Epic Voyage reveals the hardships and adventure of this remarkable quest, and the euphoria of discovering new lands. Drawing from his previous book, Sea of Dangers, in Captain Cook's Epic Voyage Professor Geoffrey Blainey takes readers once again on a vivid journey through history, challenging accepted views and the intersection of myth, science and exploration.

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/404964 to listen full audiobooks.

Title: Convict Colony: The remarkable story of the fledgling settlement that survived against the odds

Author: David A. Hill

Narrator: Conrad Coleby

Format: Unabridged Audiobook

Length: 9 hours 13 minutes

Release date: January 1, 2020

Ratings: Ratings of Book: 3.5 of Total 8

Ratings of Narrator: 4.33 of Total 3

Genres: Australia & Oceania

Publisher's Summary:

From the bestselling author of 1788. The remarkable story of the fledgling settlement that survived against the odds. Bestselling historian David Hill tells the story of the first three decades of Britain's earliest colony in Australia in a fresh and compelling way. The British plan to settle Australia was a high-risk venture. We now take it for granted that the first colony was the basis of one of the most successful nations in the world today. But in truth, the New World of the 18th century was dotted with failed colonies, and New South Wales nearly joined them. The motley crew of unruly marines and bedraggled convicts who arrived at Botany Bay in 1788 in leaky boats nearly starved to death. They could easily have been murdered by hostile locals, been overwhelmed by an attack from French or Spanish expeditions, or brought undone by the Castle Hill uprising of 1804. Yet through fortunate decisions, a few remarkably good leaders, and most of all good luck, Sydney survived and thrived. “David Hill captures Australia's past in a very readable way.” THE WEEKLY TIMES

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/545028 to listen full audiobooks.

Title: Where Soldiers Lie

Author: Ian McPhedran

Narrator: Peter Byrne

Format: Unabridged Audiobook

Length: 9 hours 25 minutes

Release date: September 24, 2019

Genres: Australia & Oceania

Publisher's Summary:

What drives veterans, military experts and forensic investigators to dedicate years to search for and identify the remains of fallen warriors? What does it mean to the families of the dead to be able to lay them to rest? Over thirty five thousand Australian soldiers and airmen are still listed as Missing In Action from the wars of the 20th Century. Telling the moving story of the determination and skill of the searchers who apply old-fashioned detective work and cutting-edge science to solve the mysteries of the missing and bring peace of mind and solace to their families and to all those who serve, Where Soldiers Lie follows these investigators and scientists on their mission to locate and identify unrecovered war casualties and to unlock their secrets. From the jungles of Vietnam, where one man led a decade-long battle to recover and bring home the final six, to Korea, Papua New Guinea and the fields of the Somme, Flanders and Fromelles, Where Soldiers Lie is a deeply human story of perseverance, luck and resolution, a story of incredible determination against difficult odds, of exacting forensic analysis and painstaking detective work, to uncover and identify the remains of Australian soldiers, in battlefield over the decades, and to bring their remains home. Powerful, moving and compelling reading. 'At times it is a heartbreaking story. At other times, it's a detective story. On a deeper level, a book such as Where Soldiers Lie, which honours and commemorates these lost heroes, offers a form of grief and acceptance in its own right.' Herald Sun

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/374868 to listen full audiobooks.

Title: The Diggers of Colditz: The classic Australian POW story about escape from the inescapable

Author: Colin Burgess, Jack Champ

Narrator: Steve Shanahan

Format: Unabridged Audiobook

Length: 9 hours 32 minutes

Release date: June 17, 2019

Genres: Australia & Oceania

Publisher's Summary:

Colditz Castle was Nazi Germany’s infamous ‘escape-proof’ wartime prison, where hundreds of the most determined and resourceful Allied prisoners were sent. Despite having more guards than inmates, Australian Lieutenant Jack Champ and other prisoners tirelessly carried out their campaign to escape from the massive floodlit stronghold, by any means necessary.   In this riveting account – by turns humorous, heartfelt and tragic – historian Colin Burgess and Lieutenant Jack Champ, from the point of view of the prisoners themselves, tell the story of the twenty Australians who made this castle their ‘home’, and the plans they made that were so crazy that some even achieved the seemingly impossible – escape!   ‘A stirring testimony of mateship . . . We are often on tenterhooks, always impressed by their determination, industry and courage’ Australian Book Review

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/383569 to listen full audiobooks.

Title: Huia Come Home

Author: J. Ruka

Narrator: J. Ruka

Format: Unabridged Audiobook

Length: 5 hours 35 minutes

Release date: May 22, 2019

Ratings: Ratings of Book: 5 of Total 2

Ratings of Narrator: 5 of Total 1

Genres: Australia & Oceania

Publisher's Summary:

Once the sacred guardian of New Zealand's native forests, the huia was a symbol of the land's unique beauty and spirituality. The rare bird's tragic extinction in the early 1900s represents a shot to the heart of Aotearoa (New Zealand) and is a potent metaphor for a country's conflicted history. Using the story of the untimely extinction of the huia, J. Ruka offers a fresh perspective on the narrative of Aotearoa; a tale of two cultures, warring worldviews, and the things we lost in translation. Revisiting the early missionaries, the transformative message of the gospel and the cultural missteps of the Treaty of Waitangi, Huia Come Home invites us to reconnect with the unique story offered by the indigenous M?ori lens. In relearning our history, we might just find a shared hope for the future and a recovery of national treasures once thought to be extinct. Audio Production by Te Umu Nui. Music by J. Ruka. Re-creation of the huia call by Henare H?mana (Te Aitanga-a-M?haki, Ng?ti Porou) Recorded by the New Zealand Broadcasting Service 1949. Copyright Ng? Taonga Sound & Vision.

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/360563 to listen full audiobooks.

Title: Sea People: In Search of the Ancient Navigators of the Pacific

Author: Christina Thompson

Narrator: Susan Lyons

Format: Unabridged Audiobook

Length: 11 hours 40 minutes

Release date: March 12, 2019

Ratings: Ratings of Book: 5 of Total 1

Genres: Australia & Oceania

Publisher's Summary:

Winner of the 2020 Australian Prime Minister’s Literary Award for nonfiction and the 2019 NSW Premier's History Awards for general history ‘Wonderfully researched and beautifully written’ Philip Hoare, author of Leviathan ‘Succeeds in conjuring a lost world’ Dava Sobel, author of Longitude For more than a millennium, Polynesians have occupied the remotest islands in the Pacific Ocean, a vast triangle stretching from Hawaii to New Zealand to Easter Island. Until the arrival of European explorers they were the only people to have ever lived there. Both the most closely related and the most widely dispersed people in the world before the era of mass migration, Polynesians can trace their roots to a group of epic voyagers who ventured out into the unknown in one of the greatest adventures in human history. How did the earliest Polynesians find and colonise these far-flung islands? How did a people without writing or metal tools conquer the largest ocean in the world? This conundrum, which came to be known as the Problem of Polynesian Origins, emerged in the eighteenth century as one of the great geographical mysteries of mankind. For Christina Thompson, this mystery is personal: her Maori husband and their sons descend directly from these ancient navigators. In Sea People, Thompson explores the fascinating story of these ancestors, as well as those of the many sailors, linguists, archaeologists, folklorists, biologists and geographers who have puzzled over this history for three hundred years. A masterful mix of history, geography, anthropology, and the science of navigation, Sea People is a vivid tour of one of the most captivating regions in the world.

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/345511 to listen full audiobooks.

Title: Sea People: The Puzzle of Polynesia

Author: Christina Thompson

Narrator: Susan Lyons

Format: Unabridged Audiobook

Length: 11 hours 41 minutes

Release date: March 12, 2019

Ratings: Ratings of Book: 3.88 of Total 16

Ratings of Narrator: 5 of Total 2

Genres: Australia & Oceania

Publisher's Summary:

A blend of Jared Diamond’s Guns, Germs, and Steel and Simon Winchester’s Pacific, a thrilling intellectual detective story that looks deep into the past to uncover who first settled the islands of the remote Pacific, where they came from, how they got there, and how we know. For more than a millennium, Polynesians have occupied the remotest islands in the Pacific Ocean, a vast triangle stretching from Hawaii to New Zealand to Easter Island. Until the arrival of European explorers they were the only people to have ever lived there. Both the most closely related and the most widely dispersed people in the world before the era of mass migration, Polynesians can trace their roots to a group of epic voyagers who ventured out into the unknown in one of the greatest adventures in human history. How did the earliest Polynesians find and colonize these far-flung islands? How did a people without writing or metal tools conquer the largest ocean in the world? This conundrum, which came to be known as the Problem of Polynesian Origins, emerged in the eighteenth century as one of the great geographical mysteries of mankind. For Christina Thompson, this mystery is personal: her Maori husband and their sons descend directly from these ancient navigators. In Sea People, Thompson explores the fascinating story of these ancestors, as well as those of the many sailors, linguists, archaeologists, folklorists, biologists, and geographers who have puzzled over this history for three hundred years. A masterful mix of history, geography, anthropology, and the science of navigation, Sea People combines the thrill of exploration with the drama of discovery in a vivid tour of one of the most captivating regions in the world.

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/376491 to listen full audiobooks.

Title: Murder, Misadventure and Miserable Ends

Author: Dr Catie Gilchrist

Narrator: Emma Grant Williams

Format: Unabridged Audiobook

Length: 12 hours 40 minutes

Release date: February 18, 2019

Genres: Australia & Oceania

Publisher's Summary:

Murder, manslaughter, suicide, mishap - the very public business of determining death in colonial Sydney. Murder in colonial Sydney was a surprisingly rare occurrence, so when it did happen it caused a great sensation. People flocked to the scene of the crime, to the coroner's court and to the criminal courts to catch a glimpse of the accused. Most of us today rarely see a dead body. In nineteenth century Sydney, when health was precarious and workplaces and the busy city streets were often dangerous, witnessing a death was rather common. And any death that was sudden or suspicious would be investigated by the coroner. Henry Shiell was the Sydney City Coroner from 1866 to 1889. In the course of his unusually long career he delved into the lives, loves, crimes, homes and workplaces of colonial Sydneysiders. He learnt of envies, infidelities, passions, and loyalties, and just how short, sad and violent some lives were. But his court was also, at times, instrumental in calling for new laws and regulations to make life safer. Catie Gilchrist explores the nineteenth century city as a precarious place of bustling streets and rowdy hotels, harbourside wharves and dangerous industries. With few safety regulations, the colourful city was also a place of frequent inquests, silent morgues and solemn graveyards. This is the story of life and death in colonial Sydney. PRAISE 'Catie Gilchrist draws back the veil on death in nineteenth-century Sydney to reveal life - ordinary, tragic and hopeful' David Hunt, author of Girt and True Girt

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/358507 to listen full audiobooks.

Title: The Pacific: In The Wake of Captain Cook

Author: Meaghan Wilson Anastasios

Narrator: Alan King

Format: Unabridged Audiobook

Length: 13 hours 31 minutes

Release date: November 1, 2018

Ratings: Ratings of Book: 2 of Total 2

Ratings of Narrator: 5 of Total 1

Genres: Australia & Oceania

Publisher's Summary:

A rich, complex and engaging account of Cook's voyages across the Pacific, from actor and raconteur Sam Neill. Captain James Cook first set sail to the Pacific in 1768, just over 250 years ago. These vast waters, one third of the earth's surface, were uncharted but not unknown. A rich diversity of people and cultures navigated, traded, lived and fought here for thousands of years. Before Cook, the Pacific was disconnected from the power and ideas of Europe, Asia and America. In the wake of Cook, everything changed. The Pacific with Sam Neill is the companion book to the Foxtel documentary series of the same name, in which actor and raconteur Sam Neill takes a deeply personal, present-day voyage to map his own understanding of James Cook, Europe's greatest navigator, and the immense Pacific Ocean itself. Voyaging on a wide variety on vessels, from container ships to fishing trawlers and sailing boats, Sam crosses the length and breadth of the largest ocean in the world to experience for himself a contemporary journey in Cook's footsteps, engaging the past and present in both modern and ancient cultural practice and peoples. Fascinating, engaging, fresh and vital - this is history ... but not as you know it.

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/357035 to listen full audiobooks.

Title: Black Snake: Thief, Thug, Killer: The Real Story of Ned Kelly

Author: Leo Kennedy, Mic Looby

Narrator: Gareth Rickards

Format: Unabridged Audiobook

Length: 8 hours 13 minutes

Release date: October 26, 2018

Ratings: Ratings of Book: 4 of Total 6

Ratings of Narrator: 4.75 of Total 4

Genres: Australia & Oceania

Publisher's Summary:

Leo Kennedy is the great-grandson of Sergeant Michael Kennedy, slain by Ned Kelly at Stringybark Creek. Raised in the shadow of his great-grandfather's murder, Leo witnessed the deep psychological wounds inflicted on successive generations of his family – and the families of other victims – as the Ned Kelly myth grew around them and the sacrifice of their loved ones was forgotten. Leo himself was nicknamed ‘Red Ned' at school and taunted for being on the wrong side of Australian history. Instead of celebrating a heroic man of the people, Leo gives voice to the victims of a merciless gang of outlaws. Through meticulous research and family history he tells the captivating true story of two men from similar backgrounds whose legacies were distorted by history.