Wild Australia: Nature & Wildlife Bargain Book Box

Wild Australia: Nature & Wildlife

This is serious natural history — much of it from CSIRO Publishing, with prices to match. The pollination ecology of Australian rainforests at $140. A survey of the world’s extinct and endangered parrots at $150. Coral reefs of Australia examined from the shoreline inward. Drought as the force that shaped the continent and everything living on it.

The Christmas Island pipistrelle was last heard calling in August 2009. Nobody has detected one since. John Woinarski’s account of how a species disappears while people are watching is one of the most sobering books in this box.

Alongside those: a beachcombing guide for the Southern Hemisphere, walking trails through Queensland’s tropics, a book about mountains, and a clear-eyed look at shark attacks that deals in evidence rather than fear.

A box of reference-grade natural history, at a fraction of what these titles normally cost.

1. Weather: A Force of Nature — The Royal Meteorological Society | ISBN: 9781486315727 | RRP: $49.99
   A beautifully produced survey of weather systems and the forces that drive them, from the Royal Meteorological Society. Authoritative, richly illustrated, and genuinely explanatory rather than merely spectacular.
2. Coral Reefs of Australia: Perspectives from Beyond the Water’s Edge — Sarah M Hamylton | ISBN: 9781486315482 | RRP: $99.99
   A comprehensive scientific account of Australia’s reef systems — their formation, their ecology, their management, and the pressures now bearing on them. A major reference work for anyone serious about marine science.
3. Beachcombing: A Guide to Seashores of the Southern Hemisphere — Ceridwen Fraser | ISBN: 9781486314898 | RRP: $27.99
   A field guide to what washes up and why — shells, kelp, driftwood, bones, and the ocean currents that deliver them. Turns any beach walk into something considerably more interesting.
4. The Flowering of Australia’s Rainforests: Pollination Ecology and Plant Evolution (Second Edition) — Geoff Williams | ISBN: 9781486314270 | RRP: $140.00
   A substantial scientific treatment of how Australian rainforest plants reproduce — the insects, birds, and bats involved, and the evolutionary relationships behind them. A standard reference, thoroughly revised.
5. Drought Country: The Dry Times That Have Shaped Australia — Robert Godfree | ISBN: 9781486314041 | RRP: $74.99
   A rigorous account of Australian drought across deep time and recorded history — what causes it, how ecosystems and societies have responded, and what the record suggests about what’s coming.
6. Extinct: Artistic Impressions of Our Lost Wildlife — Benjamin Gray | ISBN: 9781486313716 | RRP: $59.99
   Australian species we no longer have, rendered by contemporary artists alongside the scientific record of their disappearance. A striking and genuinely affecting combination of art and natural history.
7. A Bat’s End: The Christmas Island Pipistrelle and Extinction in Australia — John Woinarski | ISBN: 9781486308637 | RRP: $59.99
   The detailed account of a species that went extinct in 2009 while conservation authorities debated what to do. One of Australia’s leading extinction scientists on exactly how institutional failure plays out.
8. Shark Attacks: Myths, Misunderstandings and Human Fear — Blake Chapman | ISBN: 9781486307357 | RRP: $39.95
   A shark neuroscientist examines what the evidence actually shows about shark behaviour, attack statistics, and why human fear so comprehensively outruns the risk. Balanced, measured, and quietly corrective.
9. Walks, Tracks and Trails of Queensland’s Tropics — Derrick Stone | ISBN: 9781486303076 | RRP: $39.95
   A comprehensive practical guide to walking routes through tropical Queensland — rainforest paths, coastal tracks, mountain trails, and national park circuits. Essential for exploring one of Australia’s most biodiverse regions on foot.
10. Vanished and Vanishing Parrots: Profiling Extinct and Endangered Species — Joseph M Forshaw | ISBN: 9780643096325 | RRP: $150.00
    From the world’s leading authority on parrots comes a magnificent profile of the species already lost and those currently at risk. Exhaustively researched and beautifully illustrated — a landmark ornithological work.
11. Mountains: Over Australia’s Blue Horizon — Alasdair McGregor | ISBN: 9780642279644 | RRP: $34.99
    A beautifully written and illustrated account of Australia’s mountain country — the geology, the ecology, and the human history layered across ranges that are older and stranger than they first appear.
12. Crocodile Undone: The Domestication of Australia’s Fauna — Marcus Baynes-Rock | ISBN: 9780271086194 | RRP: $37.99
    An anthropologist examines what happens when Australian wildlife is farmed, managed, and commercialised — crocodiles especially. A provocative look at the shifting line between wild animal and economic resource.