Teens
Ranga Plays Australia
It’s only four years after the end of World War 2, during which there were no great cricket matches. But now things are getting back to normal: the Australians have thrashed the Poms in England (which is always, and will always be, a good thing); India has played its first Test series in Australia; and ‘the Don’ has retired.
In a small Bangalore village, young Ranganathan Rao is musing about life in general and cricket in particular. The weather’s been hot and dry for ever – everyone’s eyes are skywards, looking for the monsoon.
Except for Ranga’s, whose spinning fingers begin to itch.
Kumar, Ranga’s English/Geography/History teacher, as part of a discourse on the strangeness of the English language, introduces his pupils to an especially strange word - that he heard an Australian say during the war – and invites them to try to pronounce it and identify its meaning.
After many unsuccessful attempts, Kumar reveals both the word’s pronunciation and it's meaning, and suggests that everyone might like to remember this, as one day they might go to Australia.
This starts Ranga thinking.
Lissie Pendle
Lissie Pendle is about trouble. But not trouble with a capital T. It's trouble which just...well, it just happens. Usually with the help of her little brother, or Scratcher and his friends, or just....things.
Lissie is busy, pre-occupied, if you like, coping with events and trying to sort them out and put them in their proper place (ie beside and slightly in awe of her), with the various "eligible" boys of the town.
She succeeds quite gloriously in these endeavours, though she's actually the only person who understands this.
In the course of telling us about a number of pretty unusual events, such as the case of the killer koala, or what happened in old-fashioned trains' toilets, or when she met a lady who inserted capital letters into her conversation, or when there was blood instead of ink in the inkwell, or....well, a pile of other things, we discover an Australia of another time.
When things were clear, including the air, and life was simpler and, yes, funnier.
Scratcher
Have you ever wondered why clocks have hours, and minutes, and seconds…but not firsts?You will not find the answer to this question in this book, but Scratcher will tell you what happens if your dog goes wild in a butcher’s shop, or if an eel gets up your trouser leg when you’re standing in the middle of the creek in the rain, or if you fall in love with your teacher.
And he’ll tell you about the McPhees, and his friends, and about the cat whose feet never touch the floor, and what happened when a swan’s EGG learnt to fly, and about the world’s only fat butter of a dog, and…and…and, well, about one or two other things as well…
The Day and Night Machine
It’s Jess’s thirteenth birthday. She’s been in bed for nearly a year, the result of a car accident that killed her father.
Surprisingly, she finds a birthday present from her father, an unusual gift for a girl and one which she, her grandfather, and her mother, puzzle over.
In the course of playing with it, she discovers that it has some highly-unexpected properties.
But then, purely by accident, she discovers perhaps its most amazing feature.
She wonders how she can use this for the benefit of the world, but is foiled by Miss Sturzen, a villainous redhead, who steals the ‘machine’ for her own enrichment and evil ends.
When she captures and imprisons Jess, she has a clear run, but Jess is able to circumvent her difficulties and come up with a particularly appropriate counter strategy, aided by a phlegmatic police sergeant and his retinue of puppies.
Miss Sturzen is arrested - with the help of a massive flying dog - and taken away, but escapes and returns to wreak mortal revenge on Jess, using a day and night machine.
Unfortunately for her, however, things don’t quite go to plan.
And then we discover the real reason for her father’s gift.
Also as a screenplay.
Cover design: Sophie Sirninger Rankin
The Package on the Tram
The world's largest dog, that vanishes or re-appears out of nowhere, with hairs larger than trees.
Creatures larger than mammoths that can help the tiniest.
A cobweb that changes colour according to whether...
Where Jess can be killed at any moment by anyone she loves, and who love her.
And a decision that leads to a desperate loss.
A mystery story involving a thirteen-year old girl, her unwanted visitor, her mother and grandfather, three detectives, a man of two tribes, and a bunch of Labradors with colour-coded collars.
Oh, and a father who may not be really there…
Cover design: Sophie Sirninger Rankin
The Alone Man
The Alone Man draws on the concept of Aboriginal ‘dreamtime’, the Australian aboriginal mythology of creation and relationships to and custodianship of the land.
It is a ‘double love story’, about a man’s love for his wife and family and his love of the land and nature.
Set in outback Australia around 100 years ago, the story is of a simple man in a simpler time creating a micro-world, as many early European settlers did.
He carves a farm out of the bush, courts and weds a girl from even farther out back, and raises a family.
Although he doesn’t realise it, his life is a kind of poetry, with the beauty of love, of nature, of sorrow, as the themes.
The book affirms all of these, and the continuity of life.
A ‘prose poem’, poetic about something as ordinary (or common) as building a life – marriage, birth, death, livelihood.
The style is gentle and poetic, and the story is, at the same time, humorous and sad, touching and poignant, affirming and happy, dreamy and warm.
'The Alone Man is a simple story full of understated insights that will have deep emotional resonance with readers – male and female, old and young – all over the world.'
Purchase this book 
Listen to the author reading the story - music composed by Bruce Rowland
The Wisdom of Harkishen Singh
Little is known about Sardarji Harkishen Singh, other than that he left the Punjab at the time of what he called The Troubles. He eventually found himself in Akkithimmanalli, where he befriended young Ranganathan Rao.
The sayings recorded in these pages would undoubtedly have been lost if it hadn’t been for a series of accidents – all cricket related – whereby the guru’s young companion became a close friend of the compiler of this volume.
To this day, long after his village turned into the great city of Bengaluru, and his guru pyred into the infinite tomorrow, Ranga still has not confidently resolved the meanings of all these pieces of fondly-remembered wisdom.
But, as he said in his biography: Wisdom, to be wise, is not always of the understandable kind.
A compilation of sayings – sometimes wise, sometimes inscrutable, sometimes humorous – of an Indian guru in post-WW2 India, as spoken to and recalled by his young protégé.
Cover design: Sophie Sirninger Rankin
About Living - Conversations With My Guru
Ranga, the man, wept as Ranga the boy inside him watched the orange and green and brown, then black, flames crackle through the funeral pyre, flickering into the deep blue Punjabi sky, lifting their flimsy burden, then dropping it down into the river; home.
Some people are like drums, Ranga. They are only heard when you strike them. Do not be like a drum, Ranga, be heard when thou has something to say, and let the world decide.
Ranga, the boy, wept as Ranga the man inside him recalled these words – and so many more – that they both - man and boy - didn’t really understand...
The two became exceedingly close, their conversations extending over many years and clearly making a deep and lasting impression.
Ranganathan Ananda Rao is approaching old age, and, as is so common in aging, his thoughts begin to tumble back over the years.
Generally about cricket. And why not?
Cover design: Sophie Sirninger Rankin
Chapter art: Pat Sirninger