Richard Glover

The new book from the bestselling author of Flesh Wounds. A funny and frank look at the way Australia used to be - and just how far we have come. 'It was simpler time'. We had more fun back then'. 'Everyone could afford a house'. There's plenty of nostalgia right now for the Australia of the past, but what was it really like? In The Land Before Avocado, Richard Glover takes a journey to an almost unrecognisable Australia. It's a vivid portrait of a quite peculiar land: a place that is scary and weird, dangerous and incomprehensible, and, now and then, surprisingly appealing. It's the Australia of his childhood. The Australia of the late '60s and early '70s. Let's break the news now: they didn't have avocado. It's a place of funny clothing and food that was appalling, but amusingly so. It is also the land of staggeringly awful attitudes - often enshrined in law - towards anybody who didn't fit in. The Land Before Avocado will make you laugh and cry, feel angry and inspired. And leave you wondering how bizarre things were, not so long ago. Most of all, it will make you realise how far we've come - and how much further we can go. PRAISE 'This is vintage Glover - warm, wise and very, very funny. Brimming with excruciating insights into life in the late sixties and early seventies, The Land Before Avocado explains why this was the cultural revolution we had to have' Hugh Mackay 'Hilarious and horrifying, this is the ultimate intergenerational conversation starter' Annabel Crabb PRAISE FOR FLESH WOUNDS 'A funny, moving, very entertaining memoir' Bill Bryson, New York Times 'The best Australian memoir I've read is Richard Glover's Flesh Wounds' Greg Sheridan, The Australian

The Land Before Avocado

A mother who invented her past, a father who was often absent, a son who wondered if this could really be his family. Richard Glover's favourite dinner party game is called 'Who's Got the Weirdest Parents?'. It's a game he always thinks he'll win. There was his mother, a deluded snob, who made up large swathes of her past and who ran away with Richard's English teacher, a Tolkien devotee, nudist and stuffed-toy collector. There was his father, a distant alcoholic, who ran through a gamut of wives, yachts and failed dreams. And there was Richard himself, a confused teenager, vulnerable to strange men, trying to find a family he could belong to. As he eventually accepted, the only way to make sense of the present was to go back to the past - but beware of what you might find there. Truth can leave wounds - even if they are only flesh wounds. Part poignant family memoir, part rollicking venture into a 1970s Australia, this is a book for anyone who's wondered if their family is the oddest one on the planet. The answer: 'No'. There is always something stranger out there. 'Both poignant and wildly entertaining' - SYDNEY MORNING HERALD 'A new classic ... a breathtaking accomplishment in style and empathy' - THE AUSTRALIAN 'Heartbreaking and hilarious ... I couldn't put it down' - SUN-HERALD 'Engrossing and extremely funny' THE SATURDAY PAPER 'Not since UNRELIABLE MEMOIRS by Clive James has there been a funnier, more poignant portrait of an Australian childhood.' - AUSTRALIAN FINANCIAL REVIEW 'Richard Glover has done the miraculous he's made ordinary family life extraordinarily entertaining' - AUGUSTEN BURROUGHS 'Sad, funny, revealing, optimistic and hopeful' - Jeanette Winterson

Flesh Wounds

With the Life of the Author

Poetical Works

Lectures on the Lord's Prayer

This book, originally published in 1973 shows why Bonaparte's flotilla was no Bluff but something the British were right to take seriously. The book covers the background of the war, Britain's defence organisation, the Royal Navy's tasks, Bonaparte's preparations and how the British made ready to meet him.

Defence Against Bonaparte, 1803-14

Britain at Bay

A Poem

Leonidas

This book describes the rebirth of British military power and hence of the authority of her diplomacy. When England went to war with revolutionary France in 1793 her army was weak from ten years of neglect of discipline and training, from political interference in the selection of its officers and from the failure of her recruiting policies. To these disadvantages were added a cumbrous system of political control, divided counsels and inept strategy. The result was defeat in her attempted continental campaigns of 1793-95 and the loss of the respect of both her allies and her enemy. The work of reform began in 1795. From being the least feared of France's principal enemies, the British army became a force capable of winning the victories of the Peninsular War, of making a real and weighty contribution to the overthrow of Napoleon, and of compelling attention to Britain's voice in the Congress of Vienna which created the Europe of the nineteenth century. Professor Glover studies this transformation in detail.

The Reform of the British Army 1795-1809

Peninsular Preparation

The Forgotten Resting-place

A Tragedy

Boadicea

ADAPTED FOR THEATRICAL REPRESENTATION AS PERFORMED AT THE THEATRE-ROYAL, DRURY-LANE. REGULATED FROM THE PROMPT-BOOK, By Permission of the Managers

BOADICEA. A TRAGEDY. BY MR. GLOVER

the new book from the author of In Bed with Jocasta and the Dag's Dictionary. Meet Richard, the original desperate husband, and his partner, the fabulous but formidable Jocasta. And say hello to their teenage offspring - the teutonic Batboy and his irrepressible younger brother. Desperate Husbands lifts the lid on so-called normal family life, and reveals its soulful, hilarious absurdity. Welcome to a world where household appliances conspire against their owners, fathers practise ballet in the hallway and dead insects spell out an SOS on the kitchen floor. By turns sweet-natured yet perverse, familiar yet wildly original, Desperate Husbands may be the funniest book you read this year. 'Desperate Husbands is desperately, wickedly funny. I devoured it in one sitting, greedily checking ahead to see that I still had pages left. Richard Glover has done the miraculous - he's made ordinary family life extraordinarily entertaining. this is a must-read for anybody who's ever had a wife or a husband or a mother or a stove or a child or a pulse. Go ahead and open a page at random - you'll laugh out loud.' - Augusten Burroughs, bestselling author of Running with Scissors

Desperate Husbands

A deluded mother who invented her past, an alcoholic father who couldn't deal with the present, a son who wondered if this could really be his family. Richard Glover's favourite dinner party game is called 'Who's Got the Weirdest Parents?'. It's a game he always thinks he'll win. There was his mother, a deluded snob, who made up large swathes of her past and who ran away with Richard's English teacher, a Tolkien devotee, nudist and stuffed-toy collector. There was his father, a distant alcoholic, who ran through a gamut of wives, yachts and failed dreams. And there was Richard himself, a confused teenager, vulnerable to strange men, trying to find a family he could belong to. As he eventually accepted, the only way to make sense of the present was to go back to the past - but beware of what you might find there. Truth can leave wounds - even if they are only flesh wounds. Part poignant family memoir, part hopeful search for the truth, this is a book for anyone who's wondered if their family is the oddest one on the planet. The answer: 'No'. There is always something stranger out there. PRAISE FOR FLESH WOUNDS 'Both poignant and wildly entertaining' - Sydney Morning Herald 'A new classic ... a breathtaking accomplishment in style and empathy' - The Australian 'Heartbreaking and hilarious ... I couldn't put it down' - Sun Herald 'Engrossing and extremely funny'- The Saturday Paper 'Not since Unreliable Memoirs by Clive James has there been a funnier, more poignant portrait of an Australian childhood.' - Australian Financial Review 'Sad, funny, revealing, optimistic and hopeful' - Jeanette Winterson

When the family finds it hilarious that you've been talked into buying a pair of women's jeans and you're a bloke; when the bathroom floor you've laboured over starts to rise and the toilet begins to talk; when the mystery of keeping children's shoelaces tied becomes too much, turn to Richard Glover, a bloke who's given a lot of thought to life's eternal dilemmas. In Bed with Jocasta is laugh-out-loud funny and presents an insider's view into the family and life in the suburbs.

In Bed with Jocasta

Heartfelt and hilarious, this is a book for anyone who has tried to imagine what their dog was thinking. Human beings often write about their dogs, but the dogs don't usually get a right of reply. In Love, Clancy, Richard Glover has collated the letters sent by Clancy to his parents in the bush. They are full of a young dog's musings about the oddities of human behaviour, life in the big city, and his own attempts to fit in. You'll meet Clancy as a puppy, making his first attempt to train his humans, then see him grow into a mature activist, demanding more attention be paid to a dog's view of the world. Along the way, there are adventures aplenty, involving robotic vacuum cleaners, songs about cheese, trips to the country and stolen legs of ham - all told with a dog's deep wisdom when it comes to what's important in life. With delightful illustrations by cartoonist Cathy Wilcox. PRAISE FOR RICHARD GLOVER The Land Before Avocado 'This is vintage Glover - warm, wise and very, very funny. Brimming with excruciating insights into life in the late sixties and early seventies, The Land Before Avocado explains why this was the cultural revolution we had to have' Hugh Mackay 'Hilarious and horrifying, this is the ultimate intergenerational conversation starter' Annabel Crabb Richard Glover's just-published The Land Before Avocado is a wonderful and witty journey back in time to life in the early 1970s' Richard Wakelin, Australian Financial Review Flesh Wounds 'A funny, moving, very entertaining memoir' Bill Bryson, New York Times 'The best Australian memoir I've read is Richard Glover's Flesh Wounds' Greg Sheridan, The Australian

A dog's letters home, edited and debated by Richard Glover

Love, Clancy

Adorned with Plates

Leonidas, a Poem,2

The Poems of Richard Glover

A mother who invented her past, a father who was often absent, a son who wondered if this could really be his family. Richard Glover's favourite dinner party game is called 'Who's Got the Weirdest Parents?'. It's a game he always thinks he'll win. There was his mother, a deluded snob, who made up large swathes of her past and who ran away with Richard's English teacher, a Tolkien devotee, nudist and stuffed-toy collector. There was his father, a distant alcoholic, who ran through a gamut of wives, yachts and failed dreams. And there was Richard himself, a confused teenager, vulnerable to strange men, trying to find a family he could belong to. As he eventually accepted, the only way to make sense of the present was to go back to the past - but beware of what you might find there. Truth can leave wounds - even if they are only flesh wounds. Part poignant family memoir, part rollicking venture into a 1970s Australia, this is a book for anyone who's wondered if their family is the oddest one on the planet. The answer: 'No'. There is always something stranger out there. PRAISE FOR FLESH WOUNDS 'Both poignant and wildly entertaining' - SYDNEY MORNING HERALD 'A new classic ... a breathtaking accomplishment in style and empathy' - THE AUSTRALIAN 'Heartbreaking and hilarious ... I couldn't put it down' - SUN-HERALD 'Engrossing and extremely funny' THE SATURDAY PAPER 'Not since UNRELIABLE MEMOIRS by Clive James has there been a funnier, more poignant portrait of an Australian childhood.' - AUSTRALIAN FINANCIAL REVIEW 'Richard Glover has done the miraculous he's made ordinary family life extraordinarily entertaining' - AUGUSTEN BURROUGHS 'Sad, funny, revealing, optimistic and hopeful' - Jeanette Winterson

Richard Glover

About

Books

Join the club