In order to get more accurate results, our search has the following Google-Type search functionality:
If you use '+' in front of a word, then that word will be present in the search results.
ex: Harry +Potter will return results with the word 'Potter'.
If you use '-' in front of a word, then that word will be absent in the search results.
ex: Harry -Potter will return results without the word 'Potter'.
If you use 'AND' between two words, then both of those words will be present in the search results.
ex: Harry AND Potter will return results with both 'Harry' and 'Potter'.
If you use 'OR' between two words, then bth of those words may or may not be present in the search results.
ex: Harry OR Potter will return results with just 'Harry', results with just 'Potter' and results with both 'Harry' and 'Potter'.
If you use 'NOT' before a word, then that word will be absent in the search results.
ex: Harry NOT Potter will return results without the word 'Potter'.
Placing '""' around words will perform a phrase search. The search results will contain those words in that order.
ex: "Harry Potter" will return any results with 'Harry Potter' in them, but not 'Potter Harry'.
Using '*' in a word will perform a wildcard search. The '*' signifies any number of characters. Searches can not start with a wildcard.
ex: Pot*er will return results with words starting with 'Pot' and ending in 'er'. In this case, 'Potter' will be a match.
'Les Carlyon has died, and Australia has lost one of its greatest wordsmiths.' Greg Baum, The Age
'He's been called Australia's Damon Runyon, but that tag is far too limiting to do him justice. Certainly his turf stories are usually character-driven gems. But read him on Anzac Cove, or Bradman, or Ted Whitten, or any part of the essence of this country. He writes with gritty elegance.' Harry Gordon
Les Carlyon was one of Australia's greatest journalists and writers. His career in newspapers was stellar - he became editor of The Age at 33, and went on to become editor in chief of The Herald & Weekly Times. But he was always much more about the written word than about management, winning two Walkley Awards and the coveted Graham Perkin Journalist of the Year Award in a career where he covered everything from politics to horse racing.
Yet most Australians will know him as an author, writing books that gave us the very essence of our history and our culture - as though he was in the trenches of the Western Front, or in the betting ring at Flemington. His epic account of the first ANZAC campaign, Gallipoli (2001), was truly ground-breaking, combining incredible research and an ability to capture the human essence with a style that was distinctively his own. Gallipoli went on to become an international bestseller, and his sequel, The Great War (2006), won the Prime Minister's Prize for Australian History, and was the 2007 Australian Book Industry Book of the Year. The Master (2012), an intimate portrait of Bart Cummings, cemented Les's place as Australia's greatest-ever horse racing writer.
From Don Bradman to Paul Keating, from Flemington to Flanders, from Henry Lawson to Clive James, A Life in Words is a collection of Les's very best writing, taken from across his career.