Shack: In Praise of an Australian Icon

In Australia, shacks have become our protest against the brick veneer, the place where we unwind on holiday, the workshop that feeds our soul. Photographer Simon Griffiths has traveled the countryside, from Jericho in Tasmania to the remote coast of Broome, to bring us images of shacks that are both familiar and exotic. We meet the shack dwellers—a mix of artists, environmentalists, fishermen, home builders, and socialites—and experience the pleasure of inhabiting spaces that are at once monuments to self-expression and symbols of old-fashioned common sense. Beautifully put-together, Shack is a book that takes us back in history, out into the remote reaches of the famous Australian landscape and inwards to connect with our common desire for retreat and renewal.

Simon Griffiths is a leading photographer of food, interiors, and gardens. His photography appears frequently in the major lifestyle magazines and in books such as Kylie Kwong: My China and Stephanie Alexander's Kitchen Garden Companion. In the field of gardening and landscape design he has collaborated with Rick Eckersley and Lisa Stafford on their book Outside, with Jenna Reed Burns on Australian Gardens for a Changing Climate, and with noted rosarian Susan Irvine on The Garden at Forest Hall. He has also worked closely with leading Australian garden designer Paul Bangay on all his books, most recently Garden at Stonefields and Paul Bangay's Garden Design Handbook.