'One of the most revealing stories yet written about rural life in Australia.'—Geoffrey Blainey Richard Lane was one of three brothers who founded Penguin Books in 1935.But like all great stories, his life didn't start there.After sailing to Adelaide in 1922, Richard began work as a boy migrant – a farm apprentice living in rural South Australia as part of the 'Barwell Boys' scheme.In Australia, he deepened his appreciation for literature, and understood how important it was to make good writing widely accessible. Richard's diaries – the honest and moving words of a teenager, so very far away from home – capture vividly his life and loves; the characters he met; the land he worked; the families he depended on; and his coming of age in a new land.A remarkable social record and one of the best first-hand accounts of the child migrant experience, the diaries also capture the ideas and the entrepreneurship that led to...

Libraries are filled with magic. From the Bodleian, the Folger and the Smithsonian to the fabled libraries of middle earth, Umberto Eco's mediaeval library labyrinth and libraries dreamed up by John Donne, Jorge Luis Borges and Carlos Ruiz Zafón, Stuart Kells explores the bookish places, real and fictitious, that continue to capture our imaginations.The Library: A Catalogue of Wonders is a fascinating and engaging exploration of libraries as places of beauty and wonder. It's a celebration of books as objects and an account of the deeply personal nature of these hallowed spaces by one of Australia's leading bibliophiles.Stuart Kells is an author and book-trade historian. His 2015 book, Penguin and the Lane Brothers, won the Ashurst Business Literature Prize. An authority on rare books, he has written and published on many aspects of print culture and the book world. Stuart lives in Melbourne with his family. He is writing a book about...