Polymoth Books

Sorry, if the Australian language TinyURL brought you here. That link is not playing nicely, but this should get you there.

On the other hand, maybe you want to know what else I have been up to in the past couple of decades: if that is the case, read on. Or do both.

When my former ISP decided to get out of hosting web sites, they shut my sprawling web of sites down. This treacherous action was taken unilaterally, without either warning or consultation. Now, I must rebuild, and this is the start, commenced 1 October 2023.

The task has proved more onerous than I expected. One of my major contributions to scholarship, an analysis of early uses of Australian words has now been rescued. So has a template for playing with paper aeroplanes, and also a master sheet for messing with Möbius strips.

And if you want to know about the awards I have won for my work, they are at the end of this entry.

Note that all of these awards were for writing for children. The late Martin Amis once infamously commented that he would only write for children if he were brain-damaged, whereon many children’s authors said through gritted teeth that they would be happy to prepare him for his new career, but Amis was plain wrong. Writing for youngsters takes a lot more effort than writing for adults, because you have to catch kids’ interest and hold it. Those who write for the young have no problems reaching anybody up to advanced middle age.

Some 48 years back, I developed a “slow learner” writing style to be used for kids with reading or language problems. A few years on, I was an official, riding in the ranks and making decent policies happen, and when I tried this style on senior bureaucrats, I got immediate and positive responses, so I have used it on adults ever since (but please don’t tell them!)

Needless to say, it works for kids as well, and yes, “slow learner” is no longer PC, but it was fine in those days, and my writing got a lot of 1970s refugee kids into the main stream. So, I also write for adults, OK?

So what's a polymoth?

Me, that's what, over there on the right. Some of my friends are kind enough to call me a polymath, because I write about all sorts of things, but seriously, I just flit from thing to thing. I truly believe that if I were in school today, I would be diagnosed as ADHD, but I'm highly productive in lots of areas, and publishers with the minds of grocers get terrified by that mutability, which is why some of the books listed here were self-published, because I saw a need and plugged it, then got tired of talking to slow-witted publishers, fearful of this strange, flitting author. Other works are books that were commercially published but not reprinted, even when they had won assorted awards, and I did my own improved versions. So I'm a polymoth, and that's a word that usually only turns up on the web as a typo.

My sort of polymoth chases temporary obsessions into corners, bales them up, calms them down, and squeezes them until the juices flow. The juices make a rich ink in which words grow until they form a conga line, and march across the page. This is how books are created in the real world, and don't believe anybody who says otherwise.

Over time, there will be links to pages devoted to each title but here is a list of the works on offer here, both as ebooks and also as Print on Demand.  In due course, each of these will be a link to an entry for that book.

The double ISBNs below refer to the original edition and the current Amazon edition (the ISBNs are for the print edition, but there is also an ebook edition for each one). One book is also on Google Play.

Late May 2024

The ebook version of what was called The Big Book of Australian History is out now. It is now called Australia, a Social History, and it is three times as long as the original, lots of pics. I doubt it will ever go into dead-tree format.

This link will take you there: https://www.amazon.com.au/dp/B0D2VH34RY Please use copy and paste until I sort out my HTML editor.

May 2024, the most polymothish book of them all: 

You won't be the same after reading these

Australian Backyard Explorer (for kids) ISBN Amazon, 9798481633664, NLA, 9780642276841

Australian Backyard Naturalist (for kids) ISBN  Amazon, 9798495706415, NLA, 978064227

Australia's Hidden Heroes (all ages up to 99) ISBN Amazon, 979-8695940701

Australia's Pioneers, Heroes and Fools (older readers) ISBN Amazon, 9798782772017, Pier 9, 9781741960488

Curious Minds (for older readers) ISBN NLA, 9780642277541. Amazon, 9798352827123

Kokoda Track: 101 Days (for teenagers and up) ISBN Amazon, 9798773321583, Black Dog, 9781876372965

Looking at Small Things (for kids) ISBN Amazon, 9798554636875

Mistaken for Granite (for older readers) ISBN Amazon, 9798620093632

Mr Darwin's Incredible Shrinking World (for older readers)ISBN Amazon, 9798471053212, Pier 9. 9781741962796

Not Your Usual Australian Villains (for older readers) ISBN Amazon, 9781520917023

Not Your Usual Bushrangers (for older readers) ISBN Amazon, 9781728936932, Five Mile, 9781760065690

Not Your Usual Clever Ideas (for older readers) ISBN Amazon, 9798554540233

Not Your Usual Gold Stories (for older readers) ISBN Amazon, 9781983092077, Five Mile, 9781760065706

Not Your Usual Treatments (for older readers) ISBN Amazon, 9781973560531

Old Grandpa's Book of Practical Poems (for kids of all ages up to 99) ISBN Amazon, 9798583706266

Playwiths (for kids of all ages up to 99) ISBN Amazon, 9798630095190

The Lawn: a social history (for older readers) ISBN Amazon, 9798548866714, Pier 9, 9781741960396

The Monster Maintenance Manual (for kids of all ages up to 99) ISBN Amazon, 9798769371530, Pier 9, 9781741968088

The Nature of North Head (for everybody) ISBN Amazon, 9798554660238, Google, 9780642279514

The Nature of North Head, (special phone and tablet version, revised 2024

The Speed of Nearly Everything (for older readers) ISBN Amazon, 9798461321918, Pier 9, 9781741961362

They saw the difference (history of science for older readers) ISBN Amazon, 9798520324102

You Missed a Bit (history of Australia for older readers) ISBN Amazon, 9798552065523

Awards.

I have had a few of those in my time...

• Seven CBCA long listings (notables), two CBCA short listings, one Honour Book and one Book of the Year;
• One Short Listing in the NSW Premier's History Awards, Young People's History Prize ;
• Two Australian Awards for Excellence in Educational Publishing;
• One WA Premier's Book Award for Children's Literature;
• One international White Ravens List entry (Germany);
• One Wilderness Society Short List entry, and
• Two Whitley awards.

In other words, there's some serious intellectual merit here.