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Did you know that the Library has a huge range of free nonfiction ebooks – 16,000 and counting! – which you can either read online or download for up to seven days?
To get started, browse our latest selection of ebooks and watch this space for new additions. You can also scan the list of past Ebookshelf titles or browse for even more free ebooks ! For tips and advice, watch our video on using ebooks.
To access ebooks from home, you need to be a State Library member with a Victorian home address. (Terms and conditions of use apply.)
Your backyard birds Grainne Cleary
With a foreword by science journalist and broadcaster Robyn Williams AM, this is a beautiful, inspiring and heart-warming book about our human relationships with the birds who share our backyards.
Featuring real stories from bird-loving citizen scientists, this fascinating book offers new insights about the lives of our avian friends.
Written by a wildlife ecologist who is passionate about the vital role of citizen scientists, and with chapters dedicated to discovering extraordinary information about Australia's innovative birds, it provides a fresh and lively perspective on human interaction with birds.
Independent female filmmakers: A chronicle through interviews, profiles and manifestos Independent female filmmakers: A chronicle through interviews, profiles and manifestos Michele Meek
Independent female filmmakers collects original and previously published essays, interviews and manifestos from some of the most defining and ground-breaking independent female filmmakers of the last 40 years.
Edited by Michele Meek, the book includes material from the seminal magazine The independent film and video monthly – a leading publication for independent filmmakers for several decades – as well as new interviews conducted with the filmmakers. It presents a unique perspective into the ethnically and culturally diverse voices of women filmmakers whose films span narrative, documentary and experimental genres, and whose work remains integral to independent film history from the 1970s to the present.
The book includes a biographical profile of each filmmaker, as well as an online resource with links to additional interviews and a sample course syllabus.
Palaces of pleasure: From music halls to the seaside to football, How the Victorians invented mass entertainment Palaces of pleasure: From music halls to the seaside to football, How the Victorians invented mass entertainment Lee Jackson
Palaces of pleasure is an energetic and exhilarating account of the Victorian entertainment industry, its extraordinary success and enduring impact on today's modern industry.
The Victorians invented mass entertainment, and this vivid, captivating book charts the rise of well-known institutions such as gin palaces, music halls, seaside resorts and football clubs, as well as the more peculiar attractions of the pleasure garden and international exposition, ranging from parachuting monkeys and human zoos to theme park thrill rides.
The author explores how vibrant mass entertainment came to dominate leisure time, and how the attempts of religious groups and secular improvers to curb 'immorality' in the pub, variety theatre and dance hall faltered in the face of commercial success.
Advocating Overlord: The D-Day strategy and the atomic bomb Advocating Overlord: The D-Day strategy and the atomic bomb Philip Padgett
D-Day is viewed as one of the most successful operations of WWII, but few of us are aware of the intensive year of planning and political tension between the Allies that preceded the amphibious military landing on 6 June 1944.
Philip Padgett shows how the Allies came to agree on a liberation strategy that began with D-Day – and the difficult forging of British and American scientific cooperation that produced the atomic bomb.
At its core, his story is about how a new generation of leaders found the courage to step beyond national biases in a truly allied endeavour to carry out one of history’s most successful military operations.
Paper emperors: The rise of Australia's newspaper empires Paper emperors: The rise of Australia's newspaper empires Sally Ann Young
Before newspapers were ravaged by the digital age, they were a powerful force in Australia, a country of newspaper giants and kingmakers.
This magisterial book reveals who owned Australia’s newspapers and how they used them to wield political power. A corporate and political history spanning 140 years, Paper emperors explains how Australia’s media system came to be dominated by a handful of empires and powerful family dynasties, many of them still household names today: Murdoch, Fairfax, Syme, Packer.
With verve and insight, Sally Young shows how newspaper owners influenced policy-making, lobbied and bullied politicians, and shaped internal party politics.
Taller when prone Les Murray
Taller when prone has at its heart the late-lamented Les Murray's celebrations of the rural world in Australia and elsewhere, evoked with a deep understanding of landscapes and the seasons, working lives and languages that have shaped them.
Stories and songs, fragments of conversations, memories and satire comprise this varied, habitable world.
In Murray's vigorous and sinuous language, 'song and story are pixels / in a mirrorball', reflecting back to us endless possibilities.
The happiness fantasy Carl Cederström
In this witty new book, Carl Cederström traces our present-day conception of happiness from its roots in early-20th-century European psychiatry to the Beat generation, to Ronald Reagan and Donald Trump.
Cederström argues that happiness is now defined by a desire to be 'authentic', to experience physical pleasure and to cultivate a quirky individuality. But over the last 50 years, these once-revolutionary ideas have been co-opted by corporations and advertisers, pushing us to live lives that are increasingly unfulfilling, insecure and narcissistic.
In an age of increasing austerity and social division, the author argues that a radical new dream of happiness is gathering pace, one that promotes deeper engagement with the world and our place within it, over the individualism and hedonism of previous generations. Guided by this more egalitarian worldview, we can reinvent ourselves and our societies.
The cosmic mystery tour Nicholas Mee
The cosmic mystery tour takes us on a lightning tour of the mysteries of the universe, enlivened by brief stories of the colourful characters who created modern science.
The book explores hot topics in physics and astronomy, including the recent discovery of gravitational waves; the quest for the origin of dark matter; the study of the supermassive black hole at the centre of the galaxy; the ongoing search for Earth-like exoplanets; the search for signals from extraterrestrials; and the development of technologies to send spacecraft to the stars.
From looking at the laws that govern the universe, to its history and geography, the book explores the cosmos from the outer fringes of science fiction to the ongoing search for alien civilisations.
Spotify teardown: Inside the black box of streaming music Spotify teardown: Inside the black box of streaming music Maria Eriksson, Rasmus Fleischer, Anna Johansson, Pelle Snickars and Patrick Vonderau
Spotify was originally praised as an innovative digital platform that disrupted the world of music. Increasingly, it resembles a media company in need of regulation, raising questions about the ways in which cultural content is now typically made available online.
In Spotify teardown , five researchers disassemble this innovative digital platform and contest the claim that digital culture thrives on disruption. They reveal how they engaged in a series of interventions, which included establishing a record label for research purposes and earned them a stern letter from Spotify accusing them of violating its terms of use.
Thus, this fascinating book itself became an intervention into the ethics and legal frameworks of corporate behaviour.
Mental: Everything you ever knew you needed to know about mental health Mental: Everything you ever knew you needed to know about mental health Steve Ellen and Catherine Deveny
In Mental , practitioner and professor of psychiatry Dr Steve Ellen and popular comedian Catherine Deveny combine forces to demystify the world of mental health.
Sharing their personal experiences of mental illness and an insider perspective on psychiatry, they unpack the current knowledge about conditions and treatments. Punctuated with anecdotes and real-life stories, the book covers everything from depression and anxiety to schizophrenia, personality disorders and substance abuse.
Whether you have a mental illness or support someone who does, Mental offers clear practical help, empowering you with an arsenal of tips and techniques to help build your resilience.
Australian animation: An international history Australian animation: An international history Dan Torre and Lienors Torre
This book provides the most comprehensive history and analysis of Australian animation published to date.
Spanning the 1910s to the present day, it explores both independent animation and large-scale commercial productions.
Presented within a uniquely international context, the book details the frequent links between Australian animation and overseas productions, drawing on extensive archival research and original interviews to illuminate for the first time the breadth and richness of Australia's animation history.
George Hurrell's Hollywood: Glamour portraits 1925–1992 George Hurrell's Hollywood: Glamour portraits 1925–1992 Mark A Vieira
The creator of the Hollywood glamour portrait, featuring his signature use of bold contrast and seductive poses, George Hurrell (1904–92) was a maverick artist who photographed movie stars during Hollywood's most exalted era.
This lavishly illustrated book spans Hurrell's career, from his beginnings as a society photographer to his finale as the celebrity photographer who was himself a living legend.
The ultimate work on this trailblazing artist, the book presents a fabulous montage of fact and anecdote, light and shadow, and includes more than 400 portraits of stars such as Marlene Dietrich, Joan Crawford, Clark Gable and Gary Cooper.
Uberworked and underpaid: How workers are disrupting the digital economy Uberworked and underpaid: How workers are disrupting the digital economy Trebor Scholz
In this rich, accessible and provocative book, one of network culture's toughest critics chronicles the role of workers in the 'sharing economy' in the age of digital labour.
Scholz exposes the uncaring reality of contingent digital work, which is thriving at the expense of employment and worker rights, inspiring readers to rethink unions and build a better future of work.
A call to action, Scholz argues that it is time to stop wage theft and 'crowd fleecing', to rethink wealth distribution, and address the urgent question of how digital labour should be regulated and how workers can act in solidarity to defend their rights.
The history of landscape design in 100 gardens The history of landscape design in 100 gardens Linda A Chisholm
Through profiles of 100 of the most influential gardens, Linda Chisholm explores the defining moments in garden design, and looks at how social, political and economic influences shaped landscaping principles.
Organised chronologically and by theme, her book starts with the medieval Alhambra in Granada, Spain, and ends with the modern naturalism of Chicago's Lurie Garden.
Sumptuously illustrated, the book is a comprehensive resource for garden designers and landscape architects, design students and garden history enthusiasts.
Solar system maps: From antiquity to the Space Age Solar system maps: From antiquity to the Space Age Nick Kanas
Accompanied by maps, diagrams and images, this book tells the exciting story of how we have conceptualised and mapped our Solar System from antiquity to modern times.
In one generation, our place in the heavens has been challenged by the launching of giant orbiting telescopes and space probes, the discovery of new planetary moons and heavenly bodies that orbit the sun, and the demotion of Pluto as a planet.
Broad in scope and rich in imagery, this book will draw the reader into the story of our Solar System and how it has been mapped since the beginning of recorded time.
Conspiracy and populism: The politics of misinformation Conspiracy and populism: The politics of misinformation Eirikur Bergmann
The rapid rise of populist political parties across the globe in the early 2000s coincided with the simultaneous increased spread of conspiracy theories.
Such tales told by populist political actors include the theory that Angela Merkel is the secret daughter of Adolf Hitler, Barack Obama was illegitimate, George W Bush was in on the 9/11 attacks and that members of Pussy Riot are agents of the West.
This book entangles the tropes, and maps how right-wing populists apply conspiracy theories to advance their politics and support for their parties.
