Item category 1: Biographies & Memoirs

One of the things small town librarian Amanda Jones values most about books is how they can affirm a young person's sense of self. So in 2022, when she caught wind of a local public hearing that would discuss "book content," she knew what was at stake. Schools and libraries nationwide have been b...

150,000 adoptions took place in Australia between 1950 and 1975. It is estimated that one in 15 was forced. Proud Dhunghutti woman, lawyer, human rights advocate and former midwife Lynda Holden tells her own heartbreaking story and of her fight for justice. In 1970, Lynda was eighteen, unmarried ...

Victoria Vanstone grew up in 1980s England in a happy home full of laughter, booze and a disturbing amount of fancy-dress parties. From her youthful days downing cheap wine at the local park to dodging disastrous relationships and a messy run-in with a firework, her reliable mate alcohol was neve...

What happens when the Zusaks open their family home to three big, wild, pound-hardened dogs - Reuben, a wolf at your door with a hacksaw; Archer, blond, beautiful, deadly; and the rancorously smiling Frosty, who walks like a rolling thunderstorm? The answer can only be chaos - there are street fi...

Rarely does a trauma therapist disclose their own trauma history ... yet it's the untold, brutally honest, incredibly heartbreaking story of Dr. Frank Anderson that made him the world-renowned trauma expert he is today. Known for his magnetic and radiant personality, Frank spends his time trainin...

Against the backdrop of the Soviet Union's invasion of Afghanistan, the 1980 Moscow Olympics was always going to be political. Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser wanted Australia's Olympic athletes to boycott the Games, in line with the USA, but many of the athletes had a different view and...

While for generations Polly Toynbee's ancestors have been committed left-wing rabble-rousers railing against injustice, they could never claim to be working class, settling instead for the prosperous life of academia or journalism enjoyed by their own forebears. So where does that leave their ide...

Over one million British Empire soldiers were killed during the First World War. More than a century later, more than half a million still have no known grave. The scale of the fighting, the destructive power of high explosive, and the combination of relentless military engagement and glutinous m...

Darren Hayes was always a storyteller. Growing up in suburban Queensland in the 1970s, his vivid imagination offered an escape from the realities of his daily life. Among childhood trauma, domestic violence and relentless bullying, he told himself he was going to be a pop star and he did it. But ...

"Snezana Wood might look like she has it all - a loving husband and four children, a degree in molecular genetics and one of the biggest influencer profiles in Australia - she's had her share of tough times. In this frank, inspiring memoir, Snezana reveals the good and the bad in her life and how...

Learn about the incredible life of Usain Bolt, the heroic runner famous for being as fast as a bolt of lightning. Growing up in a rural town in Jamaica, Usain was a standout cricketer and sprinter from a young age. His speed was noticed by coaches, and by the age of 14, he was wowing fans with hi...

Five years after he graduated as a lawyer, aged 28, Peter Duncan entered the South Australian Parliament as the member for Elizabeth. In just his first year in parliament, the young reformer introduced a Private Members' Bill, which later prompted former Chief Justice Michael Kirby to describe hi...

Little Vincent was a quiet child. He loved spending time in nature and playing with his brother Theo. After leaving school, he began working as an art dealer. Vincent showed promise, but he found it more and more difficult to control his emotions and eventually had to leave. He had a go at many d...

From a childhood in London and Melbourne through to pop stardom in the 1960s, the critical success enjoyed with the release of the highest-selling Australian album of all time, Whispering Jack, and a decades-long touring career, the John Farnham story is, at first glance, one filled with remarkab...

From day one of her wildly unconventional childhood, Gina Chick blazed her own trail, which led her to dance through the hidden world of '90s Sydney nightlife into the arms of a conman. She fled to the wilderness to find healing, began a wondrous love affair with the deepest lessons life - and de...

"I'm here to tell you my story, which is also the story of my people and the story of this forest." Born into the Waorani tribe of Ecuador's Amazon rainforest, Nemonte Nenquimo was taught about plant medicines, foraging, oral storytelling, and shamanism by her elders. Age 14, she left the forest ...

From the beloved, bestselling, Oscar-nominated author of Taste: What I Ate in One Year is a funny, poignant, heartfelt and deeply satisfying serving of memories and meals and an irresistible celebration of the profound role that food plays in all our lives. 'Sharing food is one of the purest huma...

Jackie Henderson, known to most as 'Jackie O', has graced Australia's airwaves since 1993. Through hard work and openness with her listeners, she rose from minor on-air roles to form one half the country's biggest radio programs alongside controversial co-hosts Kyle Sandilands and 'Ugly Phil' O'N...

'Always remember you're as good as anybody else,' Vince's mother, Kate, often told him. And he was, becoming a champion footballer and premiership-winning coach. But change was in the air, and Vince wanted to help make life better for his people too. At every step, Vince found light in the darkne...

David Day's biography of the young Bob Hawke takes readers on a journey through the first fifty years of one of Australia's most charismatic leaders. From his humble beginnings in South Australia to his time as a Sunday School teacher, from his rise as the country's most powerful union leader to ...

The extraordinary life story of Australia's beloved Julie Goodwin, first winner of MasterChef and bestselling cookbook author.

The message from the free world to Russian President Putin has always been clear: Leave Ukraine alone... What Russia thought would be a three-day hit-and-run mission to oust the Ukraine government of Volodymyr Zelensky was an abject failure. The Russians even took with them their dress uniforms r...

The gut-wrenching, heroic story of how one of Australia's finest surfers overcame brain injury and despair to win an Olympic medal.

In 2003, seventeen-year-old Australian exchange student Hannah Kent arrives at Keflavík Airport in the middle of the Icelandic winter. That night she sleeps off her jet lag and bewilderment in the National Archives of Iceland, unaware that, years later, she will return to the same building to wri...

Ella Fitzgerald (1917-1996) possessed one of the twentieth century's most astonishing voices. In this first major biography since Fitzgerald's death, historian Judith Tick offers a sublime portrait of this ambitious risk-taker whose exceptional musical spontaneity made her a transformational arti...

Bennelong and Phillip were leaders of their two sides in the first encounters between Britain and Indigenous Australians, Phillip the colony's first governor, and Bennelong the Yiyura leader. The pair have come to represent the conflict that flared and has never settled. Fullagar's account is als...

From her Destiny's Child days through to her Renaissance era and the arrival of Cowboy Carter, Queen Bey's destiny was always to be fashion royalty. Through stunning photographs and expert text, Icons of Style captures Beyonce's most iconic and defining looks from the Met Gala to the Super Bowl a...

A father presents as an English gentleman and war hero to his wife and subsequent children who catch up with the truth of the impoverished Welsh beginnings only after his death. His daughter ponders this singular life in the context of a changing Britain in the 20th century. Major Bill Probert em...

'It was as though England had never really existed'. Budding zoologist Gerald continues to explore the natural wonders around him, enjoying a night fishing trip, receiving a donkey as a birthday present and accidentally bringing a bear home for tea. Here too are more stories of the eccentric crea...

It is daunting to grow old in a time and place that does not value old people, but the age group known as Boomers should not be so easily dismissed. They marched against the Vietnam War and were the first generation to be liberated by the contraceptive pill from the fear of unwanted pregnancy. Th...