In a time when desperate people were seizing with both hands the chance for freedom, refugees from more than 70 nations gathered beneath the Southern Cross to forge a new national identity. They came from all over war-torn Europe to the mountains of Australia to help realise one man's dream: the mighty Snowy Mountains Hydro-Electric Scheme, one of the greatest engineering feats of the 20th century.

Van Diemen's Land was an island of stark contrasts; a harsh penal colony, an English idyll for its landed gentry, and an island so rich in natural resources it was a profiteer's paradise. Its capital Hobart Town had its contrasts too; the wealthy elite in their sandstone mansions, the exploited poor in the notorious slum known as Wapping, and the criminals and villains who haunted the dockside taverns and brothels of Sullivan's Cove.

Territory is the story of Henrietta Southern, a young Englishwoman who trades her war-torn homeland for a place of wild tropical storms and searing heat, crocodile-infested rivers and barren red wilderness. Six months after the bombing of Darwin, she joins her new husband, Spitfire pilot Terence Galloway, for a new life on his Northern Territory cattle station. It is also the story of their sons. Of Malcolm and Kit, two brothers who grow up in the harsh but beautiful environment and share a baptism of fire as young men in the jungles of Vietnam.

In Sweden there is a kind of decluttering called döstädning, dö meaning "death" and städning meaning "cleaning." This surprising and invigorating process of clearing out unnecessary belongings can be undertaken at any age or life stage but should be done sooner rather than later, before others have to do it for you. In The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning, artist Margareta Magnusson, with Scandinavian humor and wisdom, instructs listeners to embrace minimalism.

When Lily is called to a lawyer’s office in London, she has no idea that her life is about to change forever. There, she is told that her grandmother was born at Hope House, a home for unmarried mothers, and is given a box containing the only clues to her true heritage. Peeling back the delicate layers of paper she finds an Italian recipe and a theatre program.

Gemma Hayden has returned to her hometown of Alice Springs for a new job as a primary school teacher. It's been six years since her family broke apart following the disappearance of her twin brother. And the scars still run deep. Hard on the heels of her homecoming, Saul Pearce, the man she once loved, is reposted from Parks and Wildlife in Darwin back to Alice. When an old car wreck is uncovered, washed down the river to Ruby Gap, Saul investigates only to find that the wreck belonged to Ethan, Gemma's twin—and there's a coded note for her in the glovebox.

When Elizabeth's husband dies, leaving her with crippling debt, the only person she can turn to is her friend, Jo. Soon Jo has called in her daughter, Lucy, to help save Elizabeth from bankruptcy. Leaving her old life behind, Lucy is determined to make the most of her fresh start. As life slowly begins to return to normal, these three women, thrown together by circumstance, become fast friends. But then Jo's world is turned upside down when she receives some shocking news. In search of solace, Jo and Elizabeth find themselves enjoying midnight dips in the freezing Irish Sea.

After her family suffers a tragedy, nine-year-old Alice Hart is forced to leave her idyllic seaside home. She is taken in by her grandmother, June, a flower farmer who raises Alice on the language of Australian native flowers, a way to say the things that are too hard to speak. Under the watchful eye of June and the women who run the farm, Alice settles, but grows up increasingly frustrated by how little she knows of her family’s story.

When Georgie, Iris and Nola's mother died and their father disappeared into his grief, the sisters made a pact: they would always be there for one another, no matter what. Now, decades later, they haven't spoken for years and can barely stand to be in the same room. As his health declines, their father comes up with a plan. In his will, he states that before they can claim their inheritance, they must spend six months living together in their childhood home in the village of Ballycove, Ireland, and try to repair their broken relationships.

My husband is a doctor. He’s smart and charming, and everybody trusts him. Except me. On the surface, it looks like I have it all–the perfect marriage, the perfect husband, the perfect life. But it’s far from the truth. Doctor Drew Devlin is not the respectable figure he makes out to be. The reason we moved to this beautiful, old property with a gorgeous view of the sea was because we needed to put our past behind us. It should’ve been a fresh start for us both.

When mystery author D. B. Ziegler is late delivering her book, Abi Schore steps in to help. Surely she can give her favorite author moral support over the holiday break and get the manuscript to her boss at Tea & Sympathy Publishing in time for the new year. When Abi shows up on Ms. Ziegler’s doorstep bearing holiday treats, she’s met by the author’s handsome grandson Dov, who reveals a startling plot twist. His grandmother isn’t able to finish the book and Dov promised he’d complete it so fans won’t be disappointed—a task that’s harder than he ever imagined.

It’s 1984, and life has changed beyond recognition. Airstrip One, formerly known as Great Britain, is a place where Big Brother is always watching, and nobody can hide. Except, perhaps, for Winston Smith. Whilst working at the Ministry of Truth, rewriting history, he secretly dreams of freedom. And in a world where love and sex are forbidden, where it’s hard to distinguish between friend and foe, he meets Julia and O’Brien and vows to rebel.

When Heather McKinley dreamed of becoming a doctor, she imagined curing sick kids and sporting pink stethoscopes. She never anticipated the sleepless nights, grueling exams, and endless labs. And she certainly never knew that her medical school earned the nickname Dead Med thanks to the tragic history of students overdosing on illegal drugs. But Heather would never consider doing anything like that. That is, until her longtime boyfriend dumps her, she finds herself failing anatomy, and her world starts to crumble.

Tilly Farriday isn’t feeling very jolly this season. Recently divorced and broke, she’s squatting in one of her rental agency’s properties until her new home is ready. The sprinkles on top of the burnt Christmas cookie that is her life? The new owner shows up early, forcing Tilly to hide in the attic to save her job…and what remains of her dignity.

The 13 chapters of The Art of War, each devoted to one aspect of warfare, were compiled by the high-ranking Chinese military general, strategist, and philosopher Sun-Tzu. In spite of its battlefield specificity, The Art of War has found new life in the modern age, with leaders in fields as wide and far-reaching as world politics, human psychology, and corporate strategy finding valuable insight in its timeworn words.

Oakland-bred LaVeesha “Vee” Gilliam (Coco Jones) is a determined single mother of an autistic son and a gifted aspiring coder. When Vee loses her job as a food-services worker at the onsite restaurant at Grapengine, a large Silicon Valley tech company, she’s unable to pay for her son’s much-needed specialized education. By a twist of fate, mistaken identity, and her tech skills, Vee meets Troy Wilson (Keith Powers), the company’s wealthy founder and CEO and a wunderkind in the tech industry, who believes that Vee is a college-educated techie who works at his company.

As the days grow shorter and the temperature drops, Halloween approaches. Come, brave listener, pull up a chair, and spend some time with master storyteller Stephen Fry as he tells us some of his favourite ghost stories of all time, in truly terrifying spatial audio. From the headless horseman of Sleepy Hollow to the tortured spirits of M.R. James, from Edgar Allan Poe’s terrifying tale of a doppelganger to Charlotte Riddell’s Open Door that should definitely stay shut, join Stephen as he tells you some truly terrifying tales.

Guy Montag is a fireman. In his world, where television rules and literature is on the brink of extinction, firemen start fires rather than put them out. His job is to destroy the most illegal of commodities, the printed book, along with the houses in which they are hidden. Montag never questions the destruction and ruin his actions produce, returning each day to his bland life and wife, Mildred, who spends all day with her television "family."

As Charly struggles to recover from her brain injury, she begins to realize that the events of that fateful night are trapped in the damaged right side of her brain. Now, she must put the jigsaw pieces together to discover the identity of the man who tried to kill her...before he finishes the job he started.

Johnnie Rico never really intended to join up—and definitely not the infantry. But now that he’s in the thick of it, trying to get through combat training harder than anything he could have imagined, he knows everyone in his unit is one bad move away from buying the farm in the interstellar war the Terran Federation is waging against the Arachnids. Because everyone in the Mobile Infantry fights. And if the training doesn’t kill you, the Bugs are more than ready to finish the job.