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At the end of the summer holidays, Michael spends one blissful night under the stars with his much-loved wife and children.

Michael, Jenny and the three children move from the small town of Gunning to Melbourne, where Michael starts work as a school teacher.

Michael ponders the similarities between sleep and death, and relates an incident when he was robbed while he was metres away in bed - dead to the world.

Before he became a father, Michael was for many years a Catholic priest.

The arrival of baby twins, less than two years after that of their older sibling, sends Michael McGirr in search of an ancient practice for which bed is the ideal setting. It's called sleep. In this book, both a personal journey and a profound exploration of one of life's true constants, Michael muses on the many benefits of sleep, mourns its demise, and explains aspects of its strange personality. And despite their reluctance to ever all be asleep at the same time, he celebrates the three small children who came to him after a long vocation as a Catholic priest and brought him such joy and tiredness.

Years have passed and Anna has moved to Melbourne, where she has a successful career, performing and also teaching piano. But the deep bond forged during the many years she spent learning from Mrs Sivan remains.

Anna forms her chamber ensemble, Seraphim Trio, with whom she plays to this day.

With her school years about to end, Anna must decide if she wants to pursue a career in music.

Anna's playing begins to be recognised more often in competition and eisteddfods.

Under Mrs Sivan's guidance, Anna's emerging talent is recognised by the Conservatorium. But does she have what it takes to be a concert pianist?

The young Anna is struggling to make sense of all that Mrs Sivan is trying to impart to her about music.

In this remarkable memoir, Anna Goldsworthy recalls her first steps towards a life in music, from childhood lessons with a local jazz muso to international success as a concert pianist. Guided by her teacher Mrs Sivan, who inspires and challenges in equal measure, she discovers passion and ambition, confronts doubt and disappointment, and learns much more than just tone and technique. Writing with wit and affection, Anna captures the hopes and uncertainties of youth, the fear and exhilaration of performing and the complex bonds between teacher and student.

Rick talks about a book that is very close to his heart, and ponders what attracted the author to the disturbing subject matter it covers.

Long an admirer of Graham Greene's writing, Rick finds himself today involved in a case of espionage that seems stranger than anything the master could have written

Now, freed from the burden of reading the texts required to teach literature, Rick is taking great pleasure in exploring different, less academic and formal, forms of writing.

After a period spent teaching Rick decided he couldn't stick academia any more, and threw in his position at the University of Warwick to become the rare book dealer he still is now, thirty years later.

Rick is quite catholic in his tastes. Even though he has a doctorate in English from Oxford, he's open to good writing of all kinds, even that ostensibly written for children.

As a young graduate Rick was appointed to the teaching staff of the relatively new and fairly progressive Warwick University, where he found one of his fellow lecturers was quite unlike any of the dons Rick had met during his time at Oxford!

As a young student of philosophy, Rick dissects the works of David Hume through the lens of girl group The Shirelles.

Like many a teenager in his as well as the generations to follow, Rick was captivated by two of the seminal works of mid twentieth-century American literature - The Catcher in the Rye and Howl.

As a boy Rick fell for a rather charming elephant.

Despite buying a magnificent book case for his library Rick knows that books don't furnish a room, but a self.

Susan is a mother who sees motherhood as a defining charactertistic, as the act that has given her breadth, depth and richness in life: experiences that, as the title suggests, has made her, a better woman.

From one moment to the next, as people often do in life, Susan pulls herself towards 'the light', and within a situation of extreme grief finds the capacity to live and love again.

Frequently humiliated by her state, Susan struggles to deal with how her body has been ravaged and how she will approach the outside world upon leaving the hospital.

Susan suddenly becomes consumed by depression and slips into a state of being that lets the rest of the world pass her by.

Having already suffered greatly during and after the birth of her first son, Susan is understandably nervous and unsure of how the birth of her second son will go.

With a second child on the way, and still renting property -susan and her husband begin the search for a proper home, but not one that will "fence them in".

As Susan works on finishing her book, she becomes caught in a cross-fire between book, child and husband, being pulled every which way.

Susan tells of the instinctual transformation she underwent from a childless woman to mother after the birth of her son.

Despite being heavily pregnant, Susan still finds it difficult to imagine herself actually taking her child home after delivery.

At thirty-eight Susan was living in London, with a new husband and pregnant with her first child; at the precipice of a completely new journey and experience Susan began to see that her life was being controlled by a power greater than herself.