Item category 1: Biographies & Memoirs

In this memoir, Anna Goldsworthy recalls her first steps towards a life in music, from childhood piano lessons with a local jazz muso to international success as a concert pianist. As she discovers passion and ambition, and confronts doubt and disappointment, she learns about much more than tone ...

In this wise and engrossing dual memoir, Sue Kidd and her daughter, Ann, chronicle their travels together through Greece and France at a time when each was on a quest to redefine herself and rediscover each other.

BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY. A powerful and moving guide to the art of losing and redeeming a mentally ill mother. In this brave and lyrically composed tribute to her mother, Minrose Gwin accomplishes something rare in the craft of the memoir: not merely a record of a devastating mother-daughter re...

From Shakespearean actress to 'M' in the James Bond films, from popular sitcoms like "As time goes by" to classic serials such as "Cranford", Judi Dench's professional life has been non-stop acting, leading to numerous awards, including an Oscar for "Shakespeare in love" -- Back cover.

Damien Brown is a twenty-nine-year-old Australian doctor, inexperienced but motivated by a strong desire to help, when he arrives in Angola - an impoverished, war-torn country in south west Africa - for a six-month posting with Medecins Sans Frontieres. It's his first stint with the organisation,...

Raising him in a comfortable middle-class home, Nicky Campbell's Scottish Protestant family cared for him and nurtured him as their own, while remaining open about the fact that he'd been adopted. His father - an ex-army man - and his mother helped him to a good school and a good university. Nick...

The genius behind such classic songs as "Suzanne", "Bird on the Wire" and "Hallelujah", Leonard Cohen has been one of the most important and influential songwriters of our time, a man of spirituality, emotion, and intelligence whose work has explored the definitive issues of human life - sex, rel...

Alan Root is one of Africa's most bitten. In the course of his adventures he has been mauled by a leopard, a silverback gorilla and a hippo, and almost lost his life to a deadly puff-adder, which claimed one of his fingers. Root's unmatched experience of East African wildlife and his appetite for...

This is the story of gutsy Nick Vujicic, an amazing 27-year-old Aussie, born without arms or legs, who is now an internationally successful motivational speaker. Nick encourages everyone to find their life purpose and, whatever their obstacles, go for it.

Martin Clunes has been a familiar face on television for almost two decades. During that period he has starred in some of the best-loved shows of modern times, including Doc Martin, William and Mary, and of course he phenomenally successful Men Behaving Badly. This in-depth and affectionate biogr...

HISTORICAL FIGURES & BIOGRAPHIES. This series of historical accounts profiles strong women who took extraordinary measures to achieve and maintain power--including murder, deception, and black magic--examining the women's reputations in the context of their eras. Just how wicked were they? The bo...

For nearly fifty years, Hoover was the most powerful man in the USA. The creator of the FBI and its Director until his death in 1972, he played a key role in nearly every major tragedy and scandal in America during the twentieth Century. When he died, Hoover was lauded as an American hero.

From time to time a remarkable man comes along, with a rare power and strength of mind. Balanced yet predictable, he commands the respect of smart and dangerous men. Stellakis Stylianou, known to his friends - and his enemies - as Stilks, is one such man. From a background of poverty and hardship...

BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY: ROYALTY. An updated edition of Ben Pimlott's classic biography of the Queen: 'There is no better biography of Elizabeth II.' PETER HENNESSY, Independent on Sunday The royal family have been through a tumultuous decade, but with the wedding of Prince William to Kate Mid...

Zhu Xiao-Mei was born into a middle-class family in 1969 in Beijing. She was a child prodigy on the piano, taught by her mother, and she immersed herself in the classical masters. This book tells Zhu's story through her difficult early years, longing for the comfort of playing piano, through to h...

When James Bowen found an injured, ginger street cat curled up in the hallway of his sheltered accommodation, he had no idea just how much his life was about to change. James was living hand to mouth on the streets of London and the last thing he needed was a pet. Yet James couldn't resist the st...

A unique look at the history, adventures, myths and realities of this most legendary and powerful of bands, it is a labour of love based on hours of first-hand and original interviews. What emerges is a compelling portrait of the four musicians themselves, as well as a fresh insight into the clos...

Set in and around Hyderabad at the beginning of the nineteenth century, White Mughals tells the story of the romantic love affair and marriage between James Achilles Kirkpatrick, a rising star in the East India Company, and Khair-un-Nisa, a Hyderabadi princess. Pursuing Kirkpatrick's passionate a...

MUSICAL SCORES, LYRICS & LIBRETTI. Whitney Houston's voice. A voice of raw power and angelic sweetness, tremendous range, and incredible control. When the world first heard it back in 1984, a new chapter was written in the annals of popular music. Author Narada Michael Walden sat in the cockpit a...

In 1985 Jeanette Winterson's first novel, Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit, was published. It tells the story of a young girl adopted by Pentecostal parents. The girl is supposed to grow up and be a missionary. Instead she falls in love with a woman. Disaster. This is that book's silent twin. When ...

In his autobiography, Long Walk to Freedom , Nelson Mandela describes his house at 8115 Vilikazi Street, Soweto, as ' identical to hundreds of others it had the same standard tin roof, the same cement floor, a narrow kitchen, and a bucket toilet at the back.' Little did Mandela know when he first...

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.

Edna O'Brien, the author of "The Country Girls" trilogy, "The Light of Evening," and "Byron in Love," portrays the events, people, emotions, and landscape that contributed to her rich and heady life. She is the recipient of the James Joyce Ulysses Medal, and an honorary member of the American Aca...

MEMOIRS. Growing up as a muslim in the monocultural landscape of 1970s suburban Perth, Rabia Siddique knew what it was like to be different. She became a lawyer, moved to the UK and joined the British army as a military lawyer. She served in Iraq and was taken as a hostage by Islamic insurgents...

This is the true crime account of Eugenia Falleni, a woman who in 1920 was charged with the murder of her wife. Eugenia had lived in Australia for twenty two years as a man and during that time officially married twice. The book traces Eugenia's history: from her early years in an Italian immigra...

A Taiwanese American rebel restaurateur chronicles his rise to success from his difficult childhood in the American South to his decision to embrace all he had learned about food in his father's restaurants and his mother's kitchen to create his own culinary identity.

January 1988. Martin Pistorius, aged twelve, fell inexplicably sick. First he lost his voice and stopped eating. Then he slept constantly and shunned human contact. Doctors were mystified. Within eighteen months he was mute and wheelchair-bound. Martin's parents were told an unknown degenerative ...

From the author of the bestselling memoirs The Middle Place and Lift comes a compelling new memoir about the true meaning of motherhood. One of the things you should know about Kelly Corrigan is that she is the daughter of Mary Corrigan, a woman of conviction and grit who taught her kids that No ...

On a November afternoon in 2010, Gurrumul sat in a studio in Sydney to be photographed for the cover of Rolling Stone. The studio was 3000 kilometres from where he was born on Echo Island off the coast of East Arnhem Land. A bare three years had passed since the release of Gurrumul, his criticall...

The great Oglala Sioux chief Red Cloud was the only Plains Indian to defeat the United States Army in a war, forcing the American government to sue for peace in a conflict named for him. At the peak of their chief's powers, the Sioux could claim control of one-fifth of the contiguous United State...