Girt cover art

Girt

The Unauthorised History of Australia, Volume 1

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Girt

By: David Hunt
Narrated by: David Hunt
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About this listen

Girt. No word could better capture the essence of Australia....

In this hilarious history, David Hunt reveals the truth of Australia's past, from megafauna to Macquarie - the cock-ups and curiosities, the forgotten eccentrics and Eureka moments that have made us who we are.

Girt introduces forgotten heroes like Mary McLoghlin, transported for the crime of "felony of sock", and Trim the cat, who beat a French monkey to become the first animal to circumnavigate Australia.

It recounts the misfortunes of the escaped Irish convicts who set out to walk from Sydney to China, guided only by a hand-drawn paper compass, and explains the role of the coconut in Australia's only military coup.

Our nation's beginnings are steeped in the strange, the ridiculous, and the frankly bizarre. Girt proudly reclaims these stories for all of us.

Not to listen to it would be un-Australian.

©2013 David Hunt (P)2015 Audible, Ltd Australia, New Zealand & Oceania Oceania World Funny Witty United Kingdom Australian History

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Critic reviews

"A sneaky, sometimes shocking peek under the dirty rug of Australian history." (John Birmingham)
"Hilarious and insightful - Hunt has found the deep wells of humour in Australia's history." (Chris Taylor, The Chaser)
All stars
Most relevant  
A jokey canter through what is presented as Australia's early colonial history replete with racial stereotyping and delivered in a jokey manner which makes you doubt the reliability of the stories being related. The Scots are miserly, the Irish are stupid and untrustworthy, the English are all upper class bigots. The racial stereotyping is compounded by the awful attempts at Scottish Irish and English accents which are mostly well wide of the mark.

Unreliable history

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this is the one book youMUST have in your library this year. Funny, sarcastic history of thr ' land down under ' performed by the author with much humour and wit. This will have you laughing out loud when you least expect it. Cannot wait for the sequel.

must have book of the year !!

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First book I have listened to, enjoyed it and learning a bit about Auz worth listening to.

Enjoyable

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Would you listen to Girt again? Why?

Absolutely , the book was short and I gave me a great insight into very early Australian history. I wasn't expecting it to only be about this early period and that later periods would e in subsequent books so that I will listen again when the promised Girt II: True Girt comes out.

Who was your favorite character and why?

Not appropriate to this book but I would have to say the Bastard himself William Bligh every time it came to one of his interludes.

What about David Hunt’s performance did you like?

Yes but I found the accent very thick, I don't mean his natural Australian accent but whenever he tried British accents the book became more than a little incomprehensible

If you made a film of this book, what would be the tag line be?

About as Australian as History can get!

Any additional comments?

Don't take it all to seriously, there are things wrong here that I know of British history so I am sure there is some wrong for Australia's history to but the whole thing taught me much I never knew about Australia and the book presented it all in a very fun way that made it all the more memorable

Silly history

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This was a very entertaining and informative overview of the early days of the Colony of NSW. Great fun.

Entertaining Overview of Sydney’s Colonial Past

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Witty history - if only they'd had this when I was at school- laugh out loud at times

Very Witty

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I have an Aussie girlfriend and am about to move there so I thought I'd better learn something. This was entertaining and informative. If Bill Bryson did a book on Australia, it probably wouldn't be as good as this one!

A breeze through Aussie history

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The book is an entertaining mix of fact and comedy, but the choice to have a whip crack sound every few minutes is annoying. I’ll decide when I’ll laugh TYVM.

Good but with annoying sound effects

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The book had promise but I abandoned it before the end as the whip cracking noises were beyond repetitive and annoying.

Irritating sound effects

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