Books by Thomas Keneally

Offers insight into the life of the Civil War president, including his early poverty and ambitions; the impact of religion, slavery, and business on his political views; his election; and his day-to-day conduct of the war.

“Spellbinding. . . . Riveting. . . . Mesmerizing.” —The New York Times Book Review

“Brilliant. . . . Rollicking, captivating. . . . Engrossing, entertaining. . . . Keneally brings Sickles back to life in every colorful and scandalous detail.” —Chicago Sun-Times

“Panoramic. . . . For anybody who savors ripely old-fashioned storytelling with a side of modern hindsight.” —San Francisco Chronicle

“Lively and evocative. . . . Keneally’s prose, as usual, is vivid and his research is thorough; he displays an impressive command of the minutiae of 19th-century American politics.” —The Washington Post

“Entertaining. . . . Fast-paced.” –The Wall Street Journal

“An especially lively and compelling account of an extraordinary life.” –The Seattle Times

“Provocative. . . . [Keneally] shows himself . . . adept at biography. . . . [He] breathes full and controversial life into a famous military engagement.” –The Economist

“Engaging. . . . Keneally deftly conveys the atmosphere of fervent in pre—civil war Washington. . . . [He] has the advantage of a novelist’s sense of pace, a mellifluous prose style and a profound sympathy for both his main characters.” –Sunday Times (London)

“A fascinating look at a time when powerful men could get away with virtually anything.” –Houston Chronicle

“A memorable account of Sickles’ life, and the political, social and military world in which he lived. Keneally has given us an engaging biography.” –The Oregonian

“Keneally’s writing is flawless. . . . He tells Sickles’ story in a rich voice that is perfectly pitched for this tale of 19th-century excess.” –San Antonio Express-News

“Keneally is joyfully inquisitive. . . . He deserves real praise. He enters naturally and sympathetically into the hearts of his protagonists–his own prose takes on the flavour of the period he invokes.” –The Times Literary Supplement

“Fast-paced, smooth-as-silk. . . . Remarkable and colorful. . . . Keneally is a gifted writer who captures the mood and manner of an age in succinct verbal portraits.” –BookPage

“[An] ambitious work encompassing nearly a full century of American political, financial, cultural and social life. . . . [Sickles’s is] a life Keneally nails with sureness and scholarship.” –Daily News (New York)

Stationed at an Australian penal colony in the 1790s, Corporal Halloran and his secret bride, Ann Rush, face ostracism and a tragic end.

Half aborigine and half white, Jimmie Blacksmith is unable to fit into either culture and, after abuse and betrayal by whites, revolts in a spree of violence.

Half aborigine and half white, Jimmie Blacksmith is unable to fit into either culture and, after abuse and betrayal by whites, revolts in a spree of violence.

Thomas Keneally has written about Australia in THE GREAT SHAME, his history of the Irish diaspora. This time, in A COMMONWEALTH OF THIEVES, Keneally examines the earliest chapter of modern Australian history in his account of the arrival of boatloads of prisoners to New South Wales as it was called, and their struggles to survive in a stark landscape, which was peopled with an indigenous group, the Aborigines, who had been there for thousands of years and whom they could never understand. Keneally conveys a sense of the teeming London of the 1780s, explains the genesis of the plan to depopulate England's overflowing prisons by establishing offshore penal colonies, and chronicles the efforts of Arthur Phillip to govern the colony of New South Wales. Over time, the prisoners eventually became farmers and citizens who later became Australians; New South Wales merged into the Commonwealth of Australia. And the Aborigines remained Aborigines.

Thomas Keneally has written about Australia in THE GREAT SHAME, his history of the Irish diaspora. This time, in A COMMONWEALTH OF THIEVES, Keneally examines the earliest chapter of modern Australian history in his account of the arrival of boatloads of prisoners to New South Wales as it was called, and their struggles to survive in a stark landscape, which was peopled with an indigenous group, the Aborigines, who had been there for thousands of years and whom they could never understand. Keneally conveys a sense of the teeming London of the 1780s, explains the genesis of the plan to depopulate England's overflowing prisons by establishing offshore penal colonies, and chronicles the efforts of Arthur Phillip to govern the colony of New South Wales. Over time, the prisoners eventually became farmers and citizens who later became Australians; New South Wales merged into the Commonwealth of Australia. And the Aborigines remained Aborigines.

Thomas Keneally has written about Australia in THE GREAT SHAME, his history of the Irish diaspora. This time, in A COMMONWEALTH OF THIEVES, Keneally examines the earliest chapter of modern Australian history in his account of the arrival of boatloads of prisoners to New South Wales as it was called, and their struggles to survive in a stark landscape, which was peopled with an indigenous group, the Aborigines, who had been there for thousands of years and whom they could never understand. Keneally conveys a sense of the teeming London of the 1780s, explains the genesis of the plan to depopulate England's overflowing prisons by establishing offshore penal colonies, and chronicles the efforts of Arthur Phillip to govern the colony of New South Wales. Over time, the prisoners eventually became farmers and citizens who later became Australians; New South Wales merged into the Commonwealth of Australia. And the Aborigines remained Aborigines.

A colorful history of the European settlement of Australia tells the story of Captain Arthur Phillip, the Commodore of the First Fleet, who was empowered to govern a colony comprised primarily of unskilled criminals and petty thieves, disgruntled military men, and a sometimes hostile native population. Reprint. 25,000 first printing.

Set in 1862, this panoramic novel interweaves the lives of four Confederates--the Shenandoah Volunteer, Usaph, and his faithless wife, Epheptha, the widow, Dora, dedicated to nursing and spying, and the intrepid Stonewall Jackson.

The bizarre history of a family, imprisoned on their mountain farm and within their own beings by a freak reversal of nature.

A prosperous and paranoid businessman, self-exiled to Australia, whose parents were Nazi collaborators, tries to shield his children from the evils of society. When a young married man falls in love with one of his over-protected daughters and tries to take her away, the entire family, consumed with guilt rooted in the past, commits suicide. This novel is based on an incident that took place in Sydney in 1984.

En route to Frankfurt, Frank McCloud--the manager of the black Barramatjara Dance Troupe--finds himself picked out for "special punishment" by the group of Arabs who have hijacked the plane. By the author of To Asmara. Reprint.

In November, 1918, the representatives of France, Britain, and defeated Germany meet in the forest of Compiegne and, panoplied with their prejudices and preoccupations, go through the motions of negotiating an armistice.

This epic narrative concerns the struggle of the Irish emigrants who left as a result of the famine of 1845. It focuses on those who were sent to Australia as well as those who found a new life and success in America and the rest of the New World. A New York Times Notable Book of 1999.

Provides an incisive analysis of the influence the Irish had on the world in the nineteenth century, when Ireland lost half of its population, to famine, emigration, and transportation to Australia.

Covering 200 years in all genres, a volume of 500 top-selected writings reflects Australia's most distinctive and significant works of literature and includes writing by Aboriginal and contemporary authors, in an anthology that is complemented by essays that set each piece in a historical context.

As Ned Kelly lies in the hospital with appendicitis, the last thing he expects is to have a bee offer him a gold liquid that shrinks him to apian dimensions. Together with Nancy Clancy (who speaks only in irritating rhymes), Ned rides off on the bee's back to live in the hive, where he is enchanted by his new friends: Romeo the lovesick drone, Basil the activist and the haughty Queen Selma.

The author of Schindler's List and To Asmara returns to the land of his ancestors to present Ireland as it is today, describing the ironies of the Troubles, the grim reality of the struggles in the north, and more.

Marshalling the vast powers of narrative and historical re-creation that he brought to his international bestseller Schindler’s List, Thomas Keneally has created a moving and provocative novel about a headstrong young Catholic priest in World War II Australia. As Sydney braces itself for a Japanese invasion, Father Frank Darragh finds his pastoral duties becoming increasingly challenging. How should he counsel an AWOL black American soldier who may face death for his involvement with a white woman? And what should he say to another woman—the distressingly beguiling Kate Heggarty—who impresses him with her virtue even as she edges toward sin?

When Kate is found murdered, Darragh falls under suspicion. And even if the police clear him, his superiors—and his own conscience—may not. Office of Innocence is a book that’s impossible to put down, dense with moral complexity and alive with period detail.

Depicts the way of life of the people who live in the harsh back country of Australia.

The Booker Prize-winning author of Schindler's List journeys to the American Southwest to chronicle the people and landscape of the region and profiles the characters, past and present, who have played a key role in the history of the Old West.

Keneally's magnificent story of a young officer in a penal colony during the founding days of Australia transports readers through layer after layer of life in Sydney Cove, Australia. Advertising in New York Review of Books and Village Voice Literary Supplement.

Fleeing to Australia to escape the repressive life of British-controlled Ireland, Tim Shea is alarmed by his new home's equally stifling social order and its inclination towards prejudice. By the author of Schindler's List.

In a new hardcover edition, here is the story of how Oskar Schindler, a German-Catholic industrialist, came to save more Jews from the gas chambers than any other single person during WWII. It is the story that Steven Spielberg turned into a seven Academy Award-winning film, and a milestone of Holocaust literature that touches the hearts and provokes the mind of all who read it. Photos throughout.

The best-selling author of the Booker Prize-winning Schindler's List describes the unlikely encounter that led to the writing of the book, his engrossing investigation into one of history's most fascinating and paradoxical heroes, Steven Spielberg's film adaptation of his book, and the impact of the book on his own life and on others. 40,000 first printing.

A young doctor struggles to run a hospital on a small island off the Dalmatian coast under the devastating and barbarous conditions of World War II and has a passionate, necessarily clandestine affair with a partisan heroine.

Depicts the conflicts between the new generation and the Establishment within the Church, concentrating on a young priest whose strong beliefs cause chaos.

An Australian reporter travels to Ethiopia to investigate the civil war there and finds himself siding with the Eritrean rebels against the duplicitous communist government, and at the same time comes to a truer self-understanding.

Sometime in the future, at a detention camp for the political enemies of an unnamed state run by a man known as "Great Uncle," a writer named Alan Sheriff--once famous and successful--is now the leader's ghostwriter. This novel by the author of SCHINDLER'S LIST is about the lust for power in a world frighteningly close to our own, and one man's struggle to survive and tell the truth. Thomas Keneally got the idea for the book from a magazine article about Saddam Hussein, who--like Sherif's boss--wrote trashy novels during his reign of terror. A New York Times Notable Book for 2004.

On the verge of its drive for the South Pole in 1910 the twenty-five-man Antarctic expedition of Sir Eugene Stewart is unnerved by the savage murder of one of its members.

In the epic tradition, Patrick White's VOSS is a story of travel, emotional bonds, spirituality, community, and hardship. The novel, written in White's uniquely poetic style that won him the Nobel Prize for Literature, is based on the life of German explorer Ludwig Leichhardt. It follows Johann Voss, the vainglorious leader of an expedition from Sydney across Australia to Darwin. The journey is, not insignificantly, a westward one, and the team's psychological and physical challenges traversing the coast, bush, and interior propel the story. White also drives his narrative with the remarkable connection between Voss and Laura Trevelyan, a woman in Sydney. Through letters and an unexplained, almost psychic bond that shoots past boundaries of distance and time, Voss stays in contact with Laura throughout his journey. Laura's perspective takes the reader into the changing urban social dynamics of this colonial nation. This is a novel that could only be written about Australia and only by Patrick White.

WOMAN OF THE INNER SEA is Thomas Keneally's strongest, most compelling work since his Booker Prize winning SCHINDLER'S LIST. Like that book, the story of WOMAN OF THE INNER SEA arises from a true incident, and once more the imagining of it is utterly convincing.