Item category 1: Biographies & Memoirs

Maya Angelou's seven volumes of autobiography, beginning with I know why the caged bird sings, are a testament to the talents and resilience of this extraordinary writer. Though she fiercely loves the world, as a black woman, she also knows its cruelty. Angelou has known discrimination and extrem...

In 1932, Hazel Ying Lee, a nineteen-year-old American daughter of Chinese immigrants, sat in on a friend's flight lesson. It changed her life. In less than a year, a girl with a wicked sense of humor, a newfound love of flying, and a tough can-do attitude earned her pilot's license and headed for...

A moving, confronting and ultimately uplifting story about a young girl's escape, with her family, from war-torn South Sudan to Kakuma Refugee Camp in Kenya, and then to Australia.

When Silverchair shuddered suddenly to a halt in 2011, there was no swansong, no farewell tour, just a brief statement and then they were gone, after 15 years of brilliant music, five hit albums, legions of fans, millions of record sales, scores of ARIAs and the odd controversy. Three teenagers f...

Don't Dream It's Over is the first biography to focus exclusively on Neil Finn, the man who wrote the timeless hits of Split Enz and Crowded House. In early 1980, 21-year-old Neil Mullane Finn wrote 'I Got You', which became the signature song and biggest hit for the Kiwi band Split Enz, co-found...

George's journey began with the trailblazing Easybeats and continued, alongside Harry, as producer/songwriter for hire with John Paul Young, The Angels, Rose Tattoo, Cheetah, Ted Mulry, Stevie Wright and, most crucially, AC/DC. George and Harry also struck gold with Flash and the Pan, almost by a...

Angus Young, the co-founder and the last remaining original member of AC/DC, has for more than 40 years been the face, sound and sometimes the exposed backside of the trailblazing rock band. In his trademark schoolboy outfit, guitar in hand, Angus has given his signature sound to songs such as ‘A...

A comprehensive biography that documents how Keith Urban lived out his childhood dream and the price he's had to pay to reach the top.

Malcolm Young was the founder and the driving force of AC/DC, a man who possessed what many have called 'the greatest right hand in rock and roll'. That riff-producing mitt provided the muscle behind such signature songs as 'Highway to Hell', 'Back in Black', 'A Long Way to the Top' and many othe...

'The sun is shining through the bars of my window on what must be a glorious summer day. I've been incarcerated in a cell five paces by three for twelve and a half hours, and will not be let out again until midday; eighteen and a half hours of solitary confinement. There is a child of seventeen i...

A fresh account of Charles Darwin's rich personal and professional lives, well beyond On the Origin of Species. In 1859 Charles Darwin published On the Origin of Species. With this bedrock of biology books, Darwin carved a new origin-story for all life: evolution rather than creation. But this si...

What if we could redefine leadership? What if kindness came first? Jacinda Ardern grew up the daughter of a police officer in small-town New Zealand, but as the 40th Prime Minister of her country, she commanded global respect for her empathetic leadership that put people first. This is the remark...

Where can a tin of tuna buy you clean clothes? Which British education system struggles with 50% illiteracy? Where do teetotal Muslims attend AA meetings? Where is it easier to get 'spice' than paracetamol? Where does self-harm barely raise an eyebrow? Welcome to Her Majesty's Prison Service, a c...

Arriving in 1790, Elizabeth and John Macarthur, both aged 23, were the first married couple to travel voluntarily from Europe to Australia, within three years of the initial settlement. John Macarthur soon became famous in New South Wales and beyond as a wool pioneer, a politician, and a builder ...

An important tribute to the work and life of an extraordinary Aboriginal activist. William Cooper's passionate struggle against the dispossession of Aboriginal people and the denial of their rights and his heroic fight for them to become citizens in their own country has been widely commemorated ...

By carefully reconstructing the historical losses his Yorta Yorta people suffered and endured, William Cooper: an Aboriginal life story reveals how the first seventy years of Cooper's life inspired the remarkable political work he undertook in the 1930s. Focusing on Cooper's most important campai...

Television industry journalist Michael Ausiello tells the story of his final year with his partner of thirteen years, Kit Cowan diagnosed with a rare and very aggressive form of neuroendocrine cancer while revisiting the many memories that preceded it, and describes how their undeniably powerful ...

"Biography of a strong and complicated woman, Elisabeth Elliot, whose life was deeply, fundamentally informed by love for Jesus and obedience to his commands"-- Provided by publisher.

In "Strangers on a Pier", acclaimed author Tash Aw explores the panoramic cultural vitality of modern Asia through his own complicated family story of migration and adaptation, which is reflected in his own face.

This great detective story tells of a doctor unprepared to accept conventional medical wisdom when he was fit only for palliation, and tenacious enough to search for answers elsewhere. This was the nastiest form of leukaemia, one so rare and unresponsive to conventional treatments that many are e...

Written by bestselling author Alan Axelrod, The Disruptors presents engaging profiles, accompanied by original line drawings, of 50 visionaries who upended cultural, technical, spiritual, or scientific paradigms. Their innovations range from the printing press (Johannes Gutenberg) to the fight fo...

British mother Rosie Ayliffe thought her 21-year-old daughter, Mia, would be safe travelling around Australia on a gap year. But Mia wanted to extend her visa and in order to do that needed to find 88 days of work on a farm - a requirement that would lead to catastrophic events. Four short days a...

In 1993, Michael Azerrad published Come as you are: the story of Nirvana, which stands as the definitive biography of Nirvana, the legendary band that upended the pop cultural landscape with Nevermind, the landmark album that became the soundtrack of Generation X, capturing its confusion, frustra...

A descendant of Afghan nobles, Tareq Azim's family was forced to flee their homeland in 1979. He assimilated in the United States through his love of sports but when he returned to his home country in 2004, he discovered countless children living on the streets, waiting for the inevitable recruit...

American-born Larissa Babij is at home in Kyiv when Russia launches its full-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022. Her grandparents left Ukraine amidst the violence of World War II, and nearly 80 years later, she is fleeing the advancing Russian army. A Kind of Refugee chronicles the fi...

"Harry Styles' giant leap from popular boy band singer to superstar solo sensation took place in a blur of breathtaking brilliance that took much of the music industry by surprise. The talented teen flourished from the get-go, unbothered and untouched by issues that often stall or derail careers ...

Bill Bailey always had dogs, including a Patterdale terrier called Rocky who would travel with him in the van to his first shows and occasionally join him on stage. Fast forward a few decades and Bill has shared his home with a variety of birds, dogs, frogs, chameleons, and an armadillo called To...

From a National Book Award-winning biographer, the first complete life of legendary gangster Al Capone to be produced with the cooperation of his family, who provided the author with exclusive access to personal testimony and archival documents. Born in 1899 in Brooklyn, New York, to poor, Itali...

This is the iconic Josephine Baker in her own words. Funny, candid and unconventional- the wildly famous but elusive Josephine Baker tells her own story in this enchanting memoir. Baker took Paris by storm in the 1920s, dazzling audiences with her humour, beauty and effervescence on stage. She be...

On 10th August 2021, Lionel Messi's beautiful Barcelona fairy tale came to an end as he completed a dramatic move to Paris Saint-Germain. Despite flourishing in the blue and white of the national side, delivering Argentina their first silverware in twenty-eight years, beating Brazil on their home...