Item category 1: Biographies & Memoirs

Rome, 1964. As 13-year-old André stands at the foot of the gangway to the ship, his mother fusses over their luggage - 32 suitcases, trunks and tea chests that contain their world. The ship will refuel and return to Alexandria, the home where they have left their father, as the Aciman family begi...

'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...

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...

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...

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...

From larger-than-life adventures to vivid and poignant tales of the imagination, Highways and Byways is a collection of 30 stories taking listeners on an enthralling tour (complete with the odd detour) through the raucous, well-lived life of one of this country's most successful and beloved artis...

Traveling full circle to attend her dying father, Brooks stumbles on the old letters in her parents' basement. She embarks on a human treasure hunt to find her pen friends, and to retrieve her own lost memories of the shy Sydney girl who wrote to them. One by one, she finds men and women whose li...

After spending their early years together in conflict zones as foreign correspondents, and living in Sydney, Geraldine Brooks and Tony Horwitz settled down to raise two boys on Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts. The life they built was one of meaningful work, good humour, and tenderness, as they s...

After spending their early years together in conflict zones as foreign correspondents, and living in Sydney, Geraldine Brooks and Tony Horwitz settled down to raise two boys on Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts. The life they built was one of meaningful work, good humour, and tenderness, as they s...

This beautifully illustrated full-colour hardback explores the life and work of one of the leading lights of Post-Impressionism, Paul Gauguin, alongside a selection of his incredible artwork. Paul Gauguin's mature oil paintings, with their brilliant hues and strong outlines, are among the most be...

This book explores Timothée's most daring looks, with over 100 photographs of every iconic ensemble accompanied by in-depth analysis diving into each outfit. By embracing technical tailoring, bright colours and bold accessories -- from sequin harnesses to his signature black stomper boots -- Timo...

I'm always asked questions - by fans, by other actors and friends, by my grandchildren. They want to know how I've lasted so long, how I handle fame, why I chose to do some of my films, which films and actors I like best and so forth. They also want to know what makes me tick, what makes me get u...

Recovery is the longest road toward a better future. So says Joe Calendino, former full-patch Hells Angel and now youth community leader. In The Longest Road, Calendino remembers his journey to rock bottom, when he spiralled out of control, consumed by drugs and alcohol, ending up strung out and ...

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...

Submariners are a special breed. Not for them a life on the ocean wave, the fresh air and sunshine of other naval sailors. With stealth and daring they go deep and dark, alone and unseen, in often dangerous waters. They sometimes call themselves the Silent Service, with good reason. Australian su...

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...

Several years ago, a treasure trove containing some 6,000 original Bob Dylan manuscripts was revealed to exist. Their destination? Tulsa, Oklahoma. The documents, as essential as they are intriguing -- draft lyrics, notebooks, and diverse ephemera -- comprise one of the most important cultural ar...

Robert Dessaix's testament to a wonderful life is funny, incisive and literary. His voice is completely distinctive and utterly compelling. Robert Dessaix's Chameleon is about everything that matters, a book of memories that flow so freely they seem to happen as we read. Cartwheeling from story t...

This is a story of Jelena Dokic's survival. How she survived as a refugee, twice. How she survived on the tennis court to become world No. 4. But, most importantly, how she survived her father, Damir Dokic, the tennis dad from hell.

Scion of the great Quaker chocolate dynasty, Adrian Cadbury (1929-2015) was educated at Eton and Cambridge, yet never quite fitted into the mould of the British establishment. As one of the most influential business personalities of the later 20th-century, he was a committed capitalist, but champ...

In 1939, when John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath was published, it became an instant bestseller and a prevailing narrative in the nation's collective imagination of the era. But it also stopped the publication of another important novel, silencing a gifted writer who was more intimately connect...

'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...

The island of Corfu, where the Durrell family live in agreeable chaos, is paradise for aspiring naturalist Gerald. His battalion of creatures has grown to include eleven puppies, a toad named Deirdre and an unwelcome infestation of scorpions. Yet the human visitors to their sun-drenched villa are...

'Living in Corfu was rather like living in one of the more flamboyant and slapstick comic operas.' It is 1935 and the Durrells have escaped the leaden summer skies of Bournemouth to arrive 'like a troupe of medieval tumblers' on the sun-drenched island of Corfu for a new life. Gerald Durrell's be...

Alan Edwards, the godfather of British music PR, has worked with some of the most legendary artists of our time, from David Bowie to the Spice Girls via the Rolling Stones, the Stranglers, Prince and Amy Winehouse. A raucous, funny and deeply insightful memoir from the godfather of modern music P...

The daughter of Iraqi-Jewish refugees, Samantha grew up surrounded by the noisy, vivid, hot sounds of Judeo-Iraqi Arabic. A language that's now on the verge of extinction. The realisation that she won't be able to tell her son he's 'living in the days of the aubergines' or 'chopping onions on my ...

"Early in her radio career Susie Ferguson became a war correspondent. The only woman among hundreds of soldiers, in a helmet and flak jacket she was one of the boys. None of them knew she was taking fifteen painkillers a day and relying on opioids to stem the burning and stabbing pain in her uter...

Intelligencer tells the extraordinary story of Australia's greatest spymaster, Walter Cawthorn. Trained as a teacher in Melbourne, he served at Gallipoli before joining the British Indian Army on the Western Front. From the Middle East to Vietnam, Cawthorn spied for four countries: Britain, India...

Learn about the world of Steph Curry - one of the best point guards in basketball for the Golden State Warriors and master of the 3-point shot!

Sir Hubert Wilkins is truly one of the most remarkable Australians who ever lived. His life was so jam-packed with adventure and achievement it's as though he crammed several lifetimes into one. The son of pioneer pastoralists in South Australia, Hubert studied engineering before moving on to pho...