Farewell to Tara


Book Description

Farewell to Tara is a fictional historical novel taking place in mid-19th century, Ireland, during the Great Famine, one of the most catastrophic famines in history that set in motion great cultural changes in the British Empire, the United States, Canada and Australia. It was a time of turbulence, and this story is told through the experiences of Roberta's real-life ancestors -- two families, the Clintons (poor Irish laborers) and the Loughrans (middle-class farmers). Roberta uses these families as the protagonists in her fictionalized story of poverty, hardship, deprivation, disease and death, but also reveals birth, love, Irish lore, legends and religion, along with cattle grazing, horseracing and inheritance. The culture and history of Ireland is long, rich and complex. And the Irish people are strong and enduring. This is the story of these two families, fictionalized and told through their eyes and experiences in a way that only a natural storyteller can do!




Roberta Williams


Book Description

Roberta Williams' revealing life story, from abuse to prison, Carl to the paparazzi. Throughout this underworld saga, Roberta raised four children in a suburban home.




Supper Club


Book Description

Named a Best Book of the Year: Vogue * TIME * Real Simple * Kirkus Reviews A New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice For fans of Sally Rooney's Normal People: A sharply intelligent and intimate debut novel about a secret society of hungry young women who meet after dark and feast to reclaim their appetites--and their physical spaces--that posits the question: If you feed a starving woman, what will she grow into? Roberta spends her life trying not to take up space. At almost thirty, she is adrift and alienated from life. Stuck in a mindless job and reluctant to pursue her passion for food, she suppresses her appetite and recedes to the corners of rooms. But when she meets Stevie, a spirited and effervescent artist, their intense friendship sparks a change in Roberta, a shift in her desire for more. Together, they invent the Supper Club, a transgressive and joyous collective of women who gather to celebrate, rather than admonish, their hungers. They gather after dark and feast until they are sick; they break into private buildings and leave carnage in their wake; they embrace their changing bodies; they stop apologizing. For these women, each extraordinary yet unfulfilled, the club is a way to explore, discover, and push the boundaries of the space they take up in the world. Yet as the club expands, growing in both size and rebellion, Roberta is forced to reconcile herself to the desire and vulnerabilities of the body--and the past she has worked so hard to repress. Devastatingly perceptive and savagely funny, Supper Club is an essential coming-of-age story for our times.




Life Sentence


Book Description

In 2007 Carl Williams was convicted of three murders and sentenced to 35 years' jail. Yet his role in the Melbourne Gangland Wars went far beyond a handful of killings, however brutal, and had made him one of the most infamous names in Australian criminal history. The unlikely gang boss with a baby face and friendly grin had played a leading role in the savage long-running conflict that saw more than 30 gang-related murders on the streets of Melbourne. Williams began serving his sentence in a high-security unit at Victoria's Barwon Prison. In October 2008 he was given access to a personal computer. Confined to a tiny cell for most of the day, and having limited contact with the outside world, the computer was a godsend. As soon as he received it, Carl began a daily correspondence with his friends and family, covering his life in jail, his thoughts and hopes for the future, and his views and opinions on everyone from barristers and judges to fellow criminals and deadly rivals. Just a year and a half later, Williams was bashed to death by a trusted friend and fellow prisoner. Using his letters, Life Sentence paints a vivid picture of Carl's last eighteen months. His writing is surprising, often manipulative, frequently self-serving, and always a fascinating and revealing insight into the mind of one of Australia's most notorious criminals. 'For years, others have spoken for Carl. In these letters, Carl tells his own story for the first time. It's like meeting the man behind the myth.' - Adam Shand




Phantasmagoria


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The King's Quest Companion


Book Description




Carl Williams


Book Description

Unlikely crime boss, serial killer, prison snitch, suburban boy turned bad, cult hero – who was the real Carl Williams? When the 'baby-faced killer' met his shocking end in Barwon Prison's maximum-security unit, he left in his wake a trail of brutal murders, an underworld in flames, a police service stinking of corruption, and a broken family. How could a bogan boy from Broadmeadows, underestimated by all as lazy and stupid, have risen to the top of Melbourne's crime scene and created such widespread havoc? Bestselling author Adam Shand takes us into Carl's world: the family poverty that made him hungry for success at any cost, the shifting sands of allegiances within the rival crime factions, and the fear, greed and thirst for revenge that drove him to murder. From Williams' early forays into the drug trade, the gunshot wound to the stomach that sparked a bloody gangland war, through to the car-crash fascination of his relationship with Roberta, Shand shows us the man behind the cocky grin, and examines how and why he came to his grisly end.




Roberta Williams


Book Description

When the hitman hiding in Roberta Williams' roof confessed he could not kill her and her children, she made a promise to herself - to get her children out of the bloodiest battle the Australian underworld has known. Roberta's childhood was less than ideal; beaten by her mother and step-father, kicked out of school for fighting and made a ward of the state at eleven. After attacking a guard with a knife she entered the prison system. An early marriage to an abattoir worker with an abusive streak and some dangerous friends - the Moran brothers - produced two children. A guest at their wedding, up and coming career criminal Carl Williams would become her second husband. Carl was a welcome antidote. Content with a stable family life and flush with the spoils of criminal success, Roberta wasn't overly concerned with her husband's occupational hazards - the police charges, the drug trafficking, the payoffs - until the bodies started turning up. Williams found herself tangled in a vicious web of deceit, denial and payback as the feud erupted onto the streets. Throughout this underworld saga, Roberta raised four children in a suburban home - her devotion to them saw her emerge from the wasteland, a survivor.




Roberta Williams


Book Description

Roberta Williams' revealing life story - from abuse to prison, Carl to the paparazzi. Now, in the wake of Carl's brutal murder at the hands of a fellow inmate in Barwon Prison, Roberta is once again compelled to live her life in the public eye, all the while attending with unwavering devotion to the needs of her greatest priority - her four children. When the hitman hiding in Roberta Williams' roof confessed that he couldn't kill her, she knew she had to get herself and her kids out of the bloodiest battle the Australian underworld had ever known. Roberta's marriage to Melbourne career criminal Carl Williams had been a rollercoaster ride, but it was still a welcome antidote to her life before Carl. the youngest of seven children, her father died when she was a baby, and she was beaten by her mother and stepfather, kicked out of school for fighting and made a ward of the state at eleven. Her early romantic relationships were marked by physical abuse, including marriage to an abattoir worker with some dangerous friends, the Moran brothers. In stark contrast, Carl treated her better than any other man she'd ever known. Content with a stable family life and enjoying Carl's increasing wealth, Roberta wasn't overly concerned with her husband's occupational hazards, the police charges, the drug trafficking, the payoffs, until the bodies started turning up. She found herself tangled in a vicious web of deceit, denial and payback as the feud erupted onto the streets.