Just Tassie Books

J.S. Cumpston's history of the ships that visited Macquarie Island and the men who sailed them — from the earliest sealers and whalers through the Mawson expeditions and the early ANARE scientific resupply voyages. Macquarie Island, situated roughly halfway between Tasmania and Antarctica in the Southern Ocean, has been administered by Tasmania since 1900 and is now a World Heritage site.

Written during his long-term psychiatric incarceration, this 398-page softcover autobiography provides a deeply unsettling but detailed look into the life, brilliant scientific career, and mental descent of Dr Rory Jack Thompson. In 1983, while serving as a principal research scientist for the CSIRO in Hobart, Thompson was arrested for the notorious murder of his wife, later being found not guilty on the grounds of insanity.

Beth Roberts's story of Manganinnie — an Aboriginal Tasmanian woman separated from her people during the Black Drive of 1830, the coordinated colonial military operation that attempted to sweep the remaining Aboriginal population of Van Diemen's Land into the Tasman Peninsula. The story was adapted into a highly regarded Australian film in 1980, directed by John Honey and produced by the Tasmanian Film Corporation.