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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.)
Travels with Bertha: Two years exploring Australia in a 1978 Ford station wagon Travels with Bertha: Two years exploring Australia in a 1978 Ford station wagon Paul Martin
Paul Martin arrived in Sydney on a one-year working holiday visa with a backpack and a hefty bank loan. Over the next two and a half years, he shared four flats in Sydney and travelled 30,000 kilometres across Australia in Bertha, his trusty 1978 Ford Falcon wagon.
During his travels, Martin gave lifts to travellers from more than a dozen countries and encountered many funny and intriguing individuals along the way.
Travels with Bertha is for those interested in the dark history, the colourful characters and the startling beauty of this most fascinating of continents.
Use your words: A myth-busting, no-fear approach to writing Use your words: A myth-busting, no-fear approach to writing Catherine Deveny
Have you got a memoir, novel, screenplay or blog in your back drawer, and need to get 'unstuck'? This is the magic pill you've been looking for.
In Use your words , writer and comedian Catherine Deveny reveals the secrets that have made her 'Gunnas' Writing Masterclasses sell-out successes around the country. With humour and passion, she explains the struggles all writers face and reveals how to overcome them.
Whether you're already published or just starting out, the tips, tricks, techniques and honest truths in this book by the author of The happiness show , Free to a good home , Say when and It's not my fault they print them will get you writing.
The Chamberlain case: The legal saga that transfixed the nation The Chamberlain case: The legal saga that transfixed the nation Ken Crispin
A baby disappears from a tent near Uluru. The Aboriginal trackers say she has been taken by a dingo. But, amidst a mélange of sinister rumours, suspicion falls on the parents, Lindy and Michael Chamberlain.
There are no eyewitnesses, no body, no confession, no motive and, apparently, credible evidence of their innocence. Yet, Lindy is convicted of murder; her husband, of concealing her crime.
Against a backdrop of Aboriginal spirituality and the Chamberlains' own religious beliefs, Crispin's authoritative account examines this famous 1980 case, and asks: Why were so many convinced that the Chamberlains were guilty? How could the Australian legal system have failed so severely?
Primary school confidential: Confessions from the classroom Primary school confidential: Confessions from the classroom Mrs Woog
Primary school confidential lifts the lid on a world that's part jungle, part nursery.
Having been a teacher in tough-as-nails South London and a back-of-Woop Woop country school, popular columnist and blogger Mrs Woog knew her way around a primary school and thought nothing could surprise or intimidate her – until she became a primary school parent!
Her irreverent, hilarious, no-holds-barred homage to primary school is therapy for former teachers, a revelation to prospective parents and a trip down memory lane for us all.
The accidental entrepreneur: The juicy bits The accidental entrepreneur: The juicy bits Janine Allis
In The accidental entrepreneur , Janine Allis, the founder of Boost Juice, shares the skills that took her from housewife to head of a multinational corporation with over 400 stores in 12 countries.
Her book recounts the long road she travelled, including some quirky stops along the way, and provides valuable insight into taking the alternative route in business.
Janine Allis is living proof that such alternative paths are valid, and that attendance at business school is not a prerequisite for success.
The bridge Enza Gandolfo
In 1970, Italian migrant Antonello is newly married and working as a rigger on the West Gate Bridge, a gleaming monument to a modern city. When the bridge collapses one October morning, killing 35 of his workmates, Antonello's world crashes down on him.
In 2009, Jo and her best friend, Ashleigh, are on the verge of finishing high school and flush with the possibilities for their future. But one terrible mistake sets Jo's life on a radically different course.
Drawing on the true events of Australia's worst industrial accident, The bridge is a profoundly moving novel that examines class, guilt and moral culpability, and is a testament to the resilience of the human spirit.
Six square metres: Reflections from a small garden Six square metres: Reflections from a small garden Margaret Simons
In this thoughtful and beautifully observed book, journalist and gardening enthusiast Margaret Simons takes readers on a journey through the seasons, through her life and through the tiny patch of inner-urban earth that is her garden.
Over the course of a year, within the garden and without, there are life lessons from the ground up: births to celebrate and deaths to mourn; periods of great happiness and light, and times of quiet reflection.
In Simons' garden, and in her book, there is all the chaos, joy, sorrow and splendour of being alive.
An Australian band of brothers: Don Company, Second 43rd Battalion, 9th Division An Australian band of brothers: Don Company, Second 43rd Battalion, 9th Division Mark Johnston
This riveting book follows a small group of Australian front-line soldiers from their enlistment in 1940 to the end of WWII.
No ordinary soldiers, they were part of the famous 9th Australian Division, which fought campaigns in Tobruk, El Alamein, New Guinea and Borneo, and sustained more casualties and won more medals than any other Australian division.
Using the frank and detailed personal letters, diaries and memoirs of three Australian soldiers, historian Mark Johnston provides a powerful account of the everyday experiences of Australian soldiers on the front line.
Hegel's owl: The life of Bernard Smith Hegel's owl: The life of Bernard Smith Sheridan Palmer
Bernard Smith (1916–2011) began life as a ward of the state; he would go on to become the father of Australian art history.
In 2008 he invited writer and art historian Dr Sheridan Palmer to write his biography. Through years of interviews and exclusive access to Bernard Smith's papers and library, Palmer reveals the unique character of an exceptional man.
Hegel's owl offers a rich exploration of the life of Australia's foremost art historian and founding director of the Power Institute.
Great Australian journeys: Gripping stories of intrepid explorers, dramatic escapes and foolhardy adventures Great Australian journeys: Gripping stories of intrepid explorers, dramatic escapes and foolhardy adventures Graham Seal
Australia's history is one of epic journeys, intrepid explorers and mysterious disappearances in far-flung places. From perilous sea voyages to forays across vast deserts on horseback, they are stories of endurance and misadventure, survival and loss.
Master storyteller Graham Seal has gathered together a gripping collection of famous and lesser-known journeys by land, sea and air in the 19th and early 20th centuries.
From the comfort and safety of your armchair, join some of Australia's bravest and also some of its most foolhardy men and women in their adventures.
What a plant knows: A field guide to the senses What a plant knows: A field guide to the senses Daniel Chamovitz
Take a captivating journey into the hidden lives of plants – from the colours they see to the schedules they keep.
Combining cutting-edge research with lively storytelling, renowned biologist Daniel Chamovitz explains the intimate details of plant behaviour, from how a willow tree knows that its neighbours have been invaded by ravenous beetles to why an avocado ripens when you place it with a banana in a paper bag. And he settles the debate over whether the basil on your kitchen windowsill cares whether you play Led Zeppelin or Bach.
Thoroughly updated from root to leaf, this revised edition includes new revelations to surprise and delight green thumbs, science buffs, vegetarians and nature lovers.
The sisters' song Louise Allan
When their father dies in 1926, Ida and her younger sister, Nora, move in with their grandmother, who is particularly encouraging of Nora's musical talent. Nora eventually follows her dream of a brilliant musical career, while Ida takes a job as a nanny and their lives become quite separate.
The two sisters are reunited when Nora finds herself, embittered and resentful, isolated in the Tasmanian bush with a husband and children. In Ida's eyes, it seems that Nora possesses everything in life that could possibly matter, yet she values none of it.
Set in rural Tasmania and covering a span of 70 years, The sisters' song speaks of dreams, children and family, entwined with a musical thread that binds the mercurial relationship of these two very different sisters together.
Reading the landscape: A celebration of Australian writing Reading the landscape: A celebration of Australian writing University of Queensland Press, 2018
Featuring 25 of the greatest Australian writing names from UQP's past and present, this unique publishing project showcases specially commissioned fiction, non-fiction and poetry on themes such as legacy, country, vision and hope.
The collection includes pieces by some of Australia's finest authors, including Larissa Behrendt, Lily Brett, Peter Carey, Steven Herrick, Sarah Holland-Batt, Nicholas Jose, Mireille Juchau, Julie Koh, Melissa Lucashenko, Josephine Rowe and Ellen van Neerven.
The book's introduction by Bernadette Brennan reminds us of UQP's significant contribution to our cultural landscape and the firm's landmark publishing of Indigenous writing.
The secret code-breakers of Central Bureau The secret code-breakers of Central Bureau David Dufty
A ground-breaking work of Australian military history, this book tells the story of the country's significant code-breaking and signals-intelligence achievements during WWII.
Subtitled How Australia's signals-intelligence network helped win the Pacific War , it reveals how Australian code-breakers cracked Japanese army and air force codes, and played a vital role in the battles of Midway, Milne Bay, the Coral Sea, Hollandia and Leyte.
A rich historical account of a secret and little-understood side of WWII, the book is interwoven with lively personalities and the personal stories of the talented and dedicated individuals who significantly influenced the course of the Pacific War.
We that are left Lisa Bigelow
In 1941, headstrong young Mae meets and marries Harry Parker, a dashing naval engineer. Mae is heavily pregnant when she hears that Harry has just received his dream posting to HMAS Sydney . Just after Mae becomes a mother, she learns that Harry's ship is missing.
Meanwhile, Grace Fowler is battling prejudice to become a reporter on the afternoon daily newspaper, the Tribune , while waiting for word on whether her journalist boyfriend, Phil Taylor, captured during the fall of Singapore, is still alive.
Set in inner Melbourne and rural Victoria, this moving novel about love and war explores the thin line between happiness and tragedy, and how servicemen and women are not the only lives lost when tragedy strikes during war.
The May beetles: My first twenty years The May beetles: My first twenty years Baba Schwartz
Before the Holocaust, as a spirited girl in a warm and loving Jewish family, Baba Schwartz lived a normal life in a small town in eastern Hungary.
In her memoir, Baba describes the innocence of her childhood, followed by the horror of WWII, when the Germans transported the 3000 Jews of her town to Auschwitz. She lost her father to the gas chambers, yet she, her mother and her two sisters survived both several concentration camps and the final death march, and were liberated by the advancing Russian army.
Despite the suffering, Baba writes about this period with the same directness, freshness and honesty as she writes about her childhood, interweaving love amid hatred, hope amid despair.
