They're A Weird Mob: Text Classics

Introduced by Jacinta Tynan

Who the hell's Nino Culotta. That's what you asked yourself when you first picked up this book, wasn't it? Well I'm Nino Culotta. My father baptised me Giovanni—John—well Giovannino is like Johnny, and Nino is an easier way of saying it. Or a lazier way, if you like.

Just off the boat from Italy—the north—Nino Culotta arrives in Sydney. He thought he spoke English but he's never heard anything like the language these Australians are speaking.

They're a Weird Mob is an hilarious snapshot of the immigrant experience in Menzies-era Australia, by a writer with a brilliant ear for the Australian way with words.

‘A riotous comedy.’ Age

‘A rollicking comedy about an Italian journalist in Fifties Australia trying to get his head around the natives' vernacular. Anybody who has the subtitles on for Kath & Kim will get the joke.' Telegraph