Item category 1: Biographies & Memoirs

Famous for his radical new vision of Darwinism, Richard Dawkins paints a colorful, richly textured canvas of his early life from innocent child to charismatic world-famous scientist.

In this candid and often hilarious memoir, the celebrated director, comedian, writer, and actor offers a comprehensive, personal look at his tumultuous life. Beginning with his Brooklyn childhood and his stint as a writer for the Sid Caesar variety show in the early days of television, working al...

Thailand, July 2018. Twelve boys and their football coach vanish into Tham Luang caves. Rick Stanton, a retired Midlands firefighter, races to save them. The boys have been missing for days. Each hour, their chance of escape shrinks. Rick must swim, crawl and squeeze through treacherously tight s...

Arnold Schwarzenegger - a bodybuilder-turned-real-estate mogul who turned an undefeated streak at the Mr Olympia contest into an astonishing film career and eight years as the governor of California - is, for many people, the embodiment of the American Dream. From humble beginnings in a small vil...

He's climbed Everest not long after a heart bypass operation, he's run seven marathons on seven continents, he's hauled loaded sledges across both polar ice caps and he's circumnavigated the Earth - Ran Fiennes truly is the world's greatest explorer, and this book celebrates his 80th birthday by ...

When poet Amy Key was growing up, she looked forward to a life shaped by romance, fuelled by desire, longing and the conventional markers of success that come when you share a life with another person. But that didn't happen for her. Now in her forties, she sets out to explore the realities of a ...

Based on interviews with more than one hundred people in five countries, The Art of Her Deal: The Untold Story of Melania Trump draws an unprecedented portrait of the first lady.

Novelist, comics writer, scriptwriter, poet, and occasional artist, there are few creative avenues Neil Gaiman hasn't ventured down-from unforgettable books like The Ocean at the End of the Lane and American Gods to groundbreaking comics and graphic novels like The Sandman and Violent Cases; from...

Professor Arthur Schüller (1874-1957) was a distinguished pioneer in the field of neuroradiology. His research rapidly made him the pre-eminent authority on the radiology of the skull and brain in the German-speaking world, particularly after the publication of his two books, including a monogra...

How do we relate to -- and hold -- our family's past? Is it through technology? Through spirit? Art, poetry, music? Or is it through the resonances we look for in ourselves? In Artificial, we meet the Kurzweils, a family of creators who are preserving their history through unusual means. At the c...

Michael Peppiatt has encountered many European modern artists over more than fifty years. This selection of some of his best biographical writing covers a wide spectrum of modern art, from Van Gogh and Pierre Bonnard, to personal conversations with painter Sonia Delaunay, artist Dora Maar, who wa...

Confronted by the realities of adulthood, Romesh Ranganathan must face an uncomfortable truth - this is not quite how he imagined it. Watching his friends descend into middle age, his waistline thicken and his finances dwindle to fund his family's middle class aspirations, Romesh reflects on the ...

In 'As It Turns Out', Alice Sedgwick Wohl writes to her brother Bobby, who died in a motorcycle accident in 1965, just before their sister Edie Sedgwick met Andy Warhol. After unexpectedly coming across Edie's image in a clip from Warhol's extraordinary film Outer and Inner Space, Wohl was moved ...

There are few historical figures more integral to South Asian history than Emperor Ashoka, a third-century BCE king who ruled over a larger area of the Indian subcontinent than anyone else before British colonial rule. Ashoka sought not only to rule his territory but also to give it a unity of pu...

A collection of 31 powerful stories of displaced people, asylum seekers and those volunteering on the frontline of the refugee crisis, told in their own words and accompanied by beautiful photography and collage art.

Barack Obama's success in becoming President-Elect of the United States means he will dramatically change the face that his country presents to the world. In this bestselling book Obama discusses the importance of empathy in politics, his hopes for a different America with different policies, and...

Falling in love with the city at a young age, Audrey returned to Paris again and again in some of her most celebrated films (Sabrina, Funny Face, How to Steal a Million, Charade) wearing outfits from her favourite Parisian couturier, Hubert de Givenchy, and creating some of the most significant f...

The great modern biography of Augustus, founder of the Roman Empire. Born to a plebeian family in 63 BC, Octavian was a young solder training abroad when he heard news of Julius Caesar's brutal assassination - and discovered that he was the dictator's sole political heir. With the opportunism and...

A portrait of one of the most charismatic, but unknown, world leaders Aung San Suu Kyi, Nobel Peace Prize laureate and crusader for democracy in Myanmar, is once again behind bars. Her resounding victory at the polls, and re-election to office as civilian head of state, were overturned by the Feb...

When Germany invaded Wilhelm Brasse's native Poland in 1939, he was asked to swear allegiance to Hitler and join the Wehrmacht. He refused. He was deported to Auschwitz concentration camp as political prisoner number 3444. A trained portrait photographer, he was ordered by the SS to record the in...

The twelfth of January 2021 was the 70th anniversary of Susan Bardy's arrival in Melbourne - when she first stepped on Australian soil. Her years in Australia have been a '70-year love affair'. In this book she explains why. This is an honest but loving story of how, after losing her Hungarian na...

This revised and updated edition of Australian Prime Ministers reveals the stories behind those men - and one woman - who have attained Australia's highest public office.

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was born in western India in 1869. He was educated in London and later travelled to South Africa, where he experienced racism and took up the rights of Indians, instituting his first campaign of passive resistance. In 1915 he returned to British-controlled India, bringi...

Paramhansa Yogananda was the first great master of India to live in the West for an extended period. Sent to America in 1920, he introduced tens of thousands of Americans to yoga. This is his autobiography. This edition includes a final chapter on the closing years of Yogananda's life. Includes b...

Bachar Houli is as accomplished an AFL footballer as they come. He has been part of two Richmond Premiership sides, he was an All-Australian in 2019, and with over 200 games to his name he remains a key part of a champion team. Picked at number 42 in the 2006 National Draft by Essendon, Houli pla...

He was the King of Pop, a superstar without equal, the idol of millions of young people around the world. But was Michael Jackson also a sexual predator without equal, someone who preyed on the very fans who adored him? In the wake of the controversial two-part documentary Leaving Neverland, whic...

It was supposed to be a place where teenagers would learn resilience, confidence and independence, where long hikes and runs in the bush would make their bodies strong and foster a connection with the natural world. Living in bare wooden huts, cut off from the outside world, the students would ex...

Sage brings alive her childhood in post-war provincial Britain.

Bon Scott was once asked if he was AC or DC. 'Neither,' he grinned, 'I'm the lightning flash in the middle.' And that's how he lived his life. No one had the same skill with lyrics as Bon, who called his words 'toilet poetry', his 'dirty ditties'. He could also vividly depict life on the road, be...

Heather was born and bred Mormon. Growing up in Utah, not even the snow-capped mountains could draw attention from the state's most prominent resident: the Mormon Church. Between attending orthodox services, embarking on an eighteen-month mission, attending Brigham Young University, and marrying ...