Award-winning Books by Howard Gray
ABROLHOS: Keep Your Eyes Open! An introduction and guide to the natural and human history of the Houtman Abrolhos Islands of Western Australia
NEW RELEASE DECEMBER 2024!
This stunning book captures for the first time the remarkable history of this remote Australian archipelago, famous for its Batavia and Zeewijk Dutch shipwrecks and so much more, as well as the unique ecological environment created in a tropical-temperate overlap zone, reefs bathed in both warm and cold currents, beautiful coral reefs and astonishing seabird nesting colonies, the Houtman Abrolhos Islands themselves remnants of the mainland, shaped by staggering changes in sea level .
280 pages lavishly illustrated with over 800 charts, lithographs, artworks and images from the centuries ago to the present-day.
An absolutely essential companion for anyone visiting the Abrolhos!
What readers say:
This book is amazing. Absolute best overview and reference for the Abrolhos ever. [Kim Cramer]
What a book, what huge effort with so much information... [Warren Kalazich]
It boggles my mind to think how you manage to express. so much info in such as creative way. Beautiful photography and there is a personal warmth in your writing. [Evelyn Simpson]
What can I say? Gob-smackingly impressed! Not just breadth of content and photography but you have such a gift of expression. [Mark]
… a comprehensive and beautiful work [John Koivisto]
What a fantastic and comprehensive look at the Abrolhos islands and can’t imagine the effort it must have taken to put it all together. [Robbert Westerdyk]
Congratulations on a magnificent publication. I can’t believe the detail on the natural and historical aspects of Abrolhos. A true gem…. A great contribution to the history of WA. [Mike Scott]
Spice at Any Price - the life and times of Frederick de Houtman 1571-1627
What Readers Say!
I cannot exaggerate how much I enjoyed ‘Spice at Any Price’. The clarity with which you set out the history of the spice trade into Europe and how that evolved with the development of European exploration on the high seas was impressive. My congratulations! [Alannah MacTiernan MLC]
Gray is a historian and story-teller, with an ability to zoom out to give perspective and zoom in to add fascinating details. The beautiful charts, plates and photographs literally show the world being discovered and mapped. An extraordinary story![Anthony Willinge, Netherlands Hon. Consul to WA]
Congratulations on the pictorial excellence of the book, it is lavishly illustrated. [Phillip Adams, Late Night Live 22 January 2020]. Listen: https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/latenightlive/the-life-and-times-of-frederick-houtman/11885950
Only a few copies left!
Lucretia's Batavia Diary
The one Batavia book you must read!!
Lucretia van der Mijlen's account of living through the most astonishing saga of shipwreck, massacre, survival, rescue and retribution in maritime history.
The 1629 wreck of the Batavia on the Houtman Abrolhos Islands of Western Australia has been told many times, but what was it like to actually live through it as a beautiful woman amidst hundreds of men, crowded aboard a sailing ship with a feverish Commander, a pride-wounded skipper, a charismatic psychopath, a dozen chests of silver plus one of fabulous jewels sailing largely uncharted waters?
Disaster does not begin to describe how things unfold.
This historical reconstruction is true to the facts and the setting - unlike some other accounts.
What readers say:
… I’ve read just about everything that has ever been written on the subject of the Batavia and honestly found your book to be the most absorbing of them all. Simon Johnson, Lesmurdie, WA.
… voted the favourite book for the year at our Book Club; … and we had some good books! Helen Hunt, Coorow, WA
I have read it TWICE now and have relished every word. … the most clear and compelling of all the Batavia texts I have read - amazing work. I’m so in awe! Kate Mulvany, Actor, Playwright, Screenwriter
I can’t put it down. It is so horrific but compelling. I knew the story but never in detail. This is just brilliant. Christian Fletcher, Dunsborough.
Jambinbirri-Champion Bay - Geraldton Western Australia - a narrative and pictorial history
For hundreds if not thousands of years, Jambinbirri - Champion Bay has been the centre of activity for the first Australians and for Europeans established their settlement of Geraldton in 1849. Through 99 stories woven around over 300 old charts, rare paintings, drawings and historical and modern photographs this history is superbly illustrated.
Winner of the Royal Western Australian Historical Society prize for the best history book of 2019!
What readers say:
Loved every word of it …anyone who has lived in Geraldton or Western Australia or who has any interest in our colonial past should read this book. It is a wonderful depiction of the history, beautifully illustrated. [Peter Walster].
Wonderful, amazing, huge amount of research, a magnificent production. [Jim Trevaskis OAM];
A perfect historical account. [Dr Ray George].
The Western Rock Lobster Panulirus cygnus: Book One - A Natural History
The Western Rock Lobster, Panulirus cygnus (or crayfish to local folk) is a most remarkable creature, inhabiting the reefs of the south-west coast of Australia in prodigious numbers and the basis of one of Australia's most lucrative fishing industries. This book reveals what a remarkable creature it is, it adaptations in form and behaviour through a remarkable lifecycle, and the research that has uncovered its detail.
The best natural history book!
Superbly told and illustrated it was the winner of the Whitley Medal of the Royal Zoological Society of NSW as the best natural history book in the year of publication, its highest award. This was the first time a book about anything other than a mammal or bird had won the Whitley Medal!
The Western Rock Lobster Panulirus cynus: Book 2 - A History of the Fishery
A lucrative fishery with a rich history!
One of the world's most successful and lucrative fisheries is based on the Western Rock Lobster, panulirus cygnus. This book traces its history back nearly two centuries to the beginnings of European settlement of Western Australia, comprehensively telling the course of this fishery, its highs and lows and what has shaped its course.
Winner of the WA Fishing Industry Council‘s Fred Connell Award for contributions to the fishing industry!