Colleen McCullough: Morgan's Run

(Random House $49.95)

Review: Gilbert Wong

The always intelligent McCullough brings another sprawling story to life in this 600-page doorstop of a book that recounts the early years of her home country, Australia.

Protagonist Richard Morgan is one of the thousands transported in the First Fleet to a land that no Briton except Captain Cook had sighted.

It's the story that preoccupies Australians and writers from Robert Hughes to Thomas Kenneally have told it. Now it's McCullough's turn. Stirring stuff.