Persian Letters

$25.00 AUD

Category: Memoirs

A Bigger Picture (Malcolm Turnbull, HB) by Malcolm Turnbull

$55.00 AUD

Category: Memoirs

When Malcolm Turnbull took over the nation’s top job there was a sense of excitement in Australia. Sky-high opinion polls followed as the political outsider with a successful business, legal and media career took charge. The infighting that had dogged politics for the best part of a decade looked to be over. But a right-wing insurgency brutally cut down Turnbull’s time in office after three years, leaving many Australians asking, ‘Why?’ Exceptionally candid and compelling, A Bigger Picture is the definitive narrative of Malcolm Turnbull’s prime ministership. He describes how he legalised same-sex marriage, established Snowy Hydro 2.0, stood up to Donald Trump, and many more achievements – remarkable in their pace and significance, and delivered in the teeth of so much opposition. But it’s far more than just politics. Turnbull’s life has been filled with colourful characters and controversies, success and failure. From his early years in Sydney, growing up with a single father, to defending 'Spycatcher' Peter Wright against the UK government; the years representing Kerry Packer, leading the Republican Movement and making millions in business; and finally toppling Tony Abbott to become prime minister of Australia. For the first time he tells it all – in his own words. With revelatory insights on the workings of Canberra and the contentious events of Turnbull’s life, A Bigger Picture explores the strengths and vulnerabilities of one of Australia’s best-known and most dynamic business and political leaders. Lyrically written in highly readable and entertaining prose, this is a genuine page-turner that’s not just for political junkies.     ...Show more

Adani, Following Its Dirty Footsteps - A Personal Story by Lindsay Simpson

$24.99 AUD

Category: Memoirs

Adani's license to mine 60 million tonnes of coal for 60 years threatens Australia's precious ancient source of groundwater in the Galillee Basin, a vast underground water reservoir, part of the Great Artesian Basin, occupying more than 20% of Australia. How could a company with a globally disastrous re putation for environmental destruction along with a dubious financial status woo an Australian Prime Minister, a State Premier and a handful of regional mayors to back a project to build Australia's largest coalmine and the world's largest coal terminal only kilometres from the Great Barrier Reef? This book documents the inconceivable story of how Australian governments abrogated their responsibilities to protect this world heritage icon; bypassing environmental safeguards, thereby irrevocably damaging Australia's reputation as environmental steward of some of the world's most valuable natural assets. ...Show more

Unbowed by Billy Hedderman

$34.99 AUD

Category: Memoirs

Ellis Rowan: A Life in Pictures by Christine Morton-Evans

$34.99 AUD

Category: Memoirs

Ellis described the fungi: Growing, they look like dolls dressed up in fluted lace petticoats … Some are apple green, others mauve; one is black, and another has a scarlet cap. They stand high on long white stems, and the fungus closely resembles exquisite lace. In her 70s, artist and naturalist Ellis Rowan spent day after day painting birds, plants and flowers in the tropics of Papua New Guinea. After a young local boy brought her a beautiful toadstool one day—then another, and another—she painted no less than 72 images of various species of fungi, many of which were unknown to Australian botanists at the time. Scattered throughout Christine Morton-Evans’ new illustrated biography of the artist, Ellis Rowan’s own words offer an expressive and often amusing insight into the way Rowan saw the world. Portraying herself as an ‘intrepid lady explorer’, she not only adventured into wild and inaccessible places in search of new wildflowers and wildlife, she also wrote of these expeditions in vivid accounts for her family, and later for print in newspapers. A first-generation Australian, driven by the pioneering spirit of her parents, Rowan decided early that she would search out, collect and paint an entire collection of wild Australian flora. From the late 1870s, she exhibited works at international exhibitions, winning dozens of medals and receiving the highest honours at the 1888 Centennial International Exhibition in Melbourne. In 1895, Rowan met Queen Victoria, who purchased three of Rowan’s paintings, which she intended to have made into a fire-screen. It was but a small part of her success. Her life’s work made an important contribution to knowledge of our country’s flora and fauna. From her early life in Melbourne, through schooldays, marriage and children, to the tropical north of Australia, England and Papua New Guinea, Rowan was known for her independent, strong character. She enjoyed her own company, content to flout the conventions of the period in pursuit of activities that would satisfy her endless curiosity about people, places and nature. This is her story, told through the wonderful paintings that form part of her collection of 970 works held by the National Library of Australia. ...Show more

The School of Restoration: The Story of One Ugandan Woman Who Has Given Hope to Hundreds of Female Survivors of War and Violence by Alice Achan; Philippa Tyndale

$32.99 AUD

Category: Memoirs

The powerful and uplifting story of one Ugandan woman who has given hope to hundreds of female victims of war and violence. Alice Achan was just thirteen when the Lord's Resistance Army first terrorised her village in northern Uganda in 1987. She spent five years on the run from the brutal LRA, and the n cared for her young nieces after their mother died of AIDs, losing them one by one to the disease. Their deaths plunged her into depression, which only began to lift after she took in an unexpected guest: a pregnant teenage girl, kidnapped and assaulted by the LRA, who had escaped captivity with her toddler. Spurred on by her young friend's plight, Alice began to house and nurture survivors of the sexual violence that was a trademark of the LRA's twenty-year campaign. Out of this rose the Pader Girls Academy, which Alice saw as a 'School of Restoration'. It has helped hundreds of girls, many left with babies and HIV as a result of their enslavement. Alice recognised the humanity and potential in these girl mothers, who had been rejected or were trapped in their villages without hope. Written in Alice's powerful yet understated voice, The School of Restoration is a compelling story of hope, forgiveness, redemption and the human capacity to survive and even thrive against the backdrop of war and chaos.   ...Show more

Top End Girl by Miranda Tapsell

$32.99 AUD

Category: Memoirs

'Ever since I was thirteen years old, all I wanted to do was perform. It was an unusual dream for a kid from the Northern Territory to have ... what I wanted for my life was a world away from what people knew and loved about the "Top End". Even though I've moved south to become an actor, the Territory h as never left me. It's the place I go to when I want to feel whole again.' From Kakadu to Cannes, Miranda Tapsell is one of Australia's favourite actors. A proud Larrikia woman, she built a stellar career on stage, and shot to fame in The Sapphires and then in Love Child and Doctor, Doctor. Growing up, Miranda often looked for faces like hers on our screens. There weren't many. And too often there was a negative narrative around Indigenous lives, and Aboriginal women especially. Now an award-winning actor, she decided to change things herself. Combining her love of romantic comedies with her love of Darwin, the Tiwi Islands and the Top End, Miranda wrote, produced and starred in the box office hit Top End Wedding. But who the hell co-writes, produces and acts in a film about a wedding in the same year they're having their own? Miranda Tapsell does! In this engaging and thought-provoking memoir, Top End Girl, Miranda shares the path she took to create a moving film about re-connection to family and culture at the same time as she was planning her own wedding. And, like all good story-tellers, she holds a mirror up to the society we live in to show the prejudice that too often surfaces. Miranda knows that the key to change is to understand and through the power of storytelling she is changing attitudes and expectations to unite us all. ...Show more

Touched by the Sun: My Friendship with Jackie by Carly Simon

$32.99 AUD

Category: Memoirs

A New York Times Bestselling AuthorA chance encounter at Martha's Vineyard party blossomed into an enduring friendship. Carly Simon and Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis made an unlikely pair -- Carly, a free and artistic spirit; and Jackie, one of the most celebrated and unknowable women in American history. Nonetheless, over the next decade they forged a connection deeper than either could have foreseen. Their shared time brought a welcome lightness and comfort to their days, but their conversations often veered into more profound territory as they helped each other navigate the shifting waters of a life lived, publicly, in the wake of great love and great loss. ...Show more

A Dog Called Harry by Jill Baker

$32.99 AUD

Category: Memoirs

You want a friend, get a dog - Gordon Gekko 'Jeez, look at you, my friend blurted. 'You hardly smile. You used to be hilarious but you haven't laughed in weeks.'She listed the things she thought might help: a bottle of wine, six months at the beach, a year overseas. I was having none of it. Finally, sh e said: 'Jill, you need something to love.' She was right. I needed someone who cuddled me at night and was still excited to see me in the morning. I just hadn't met him yet. Newspaper editor Jill Baker arrived home to find her husband dead on the bedroom floor. Within weeks, still in shock, she was diagnosed with breast cancer and told her chances of surviving. Surgery, chemotherapy and radiation treatment followed in a year from hell. At her lowest ebb, Jill took a chance. She needed something or somebody to make life worth living again. But could it really be a crazy, howling, snoring, digging, chewing, barking orange pup? Turns out Harry and Jill were made to be together. They are an unlikely duo. Jill is quiet, Harry is loud as hell. Jill meticulously plans the day while Harry says let's wing it. She sips pinot while he's an espresso martini guy. Theirs is a beautiful friendship, an unbreakable bond. A DOG CALLED HARRY is the moving story of a dog dubbed Dirty Harry who helped Jill love life again.   ...Show more

A Lasting Conversation: Stories on Ageing by Susan Ogle (Editor); Melanie Joosten (Editor)

$29.95 AUD

Category: Memoirs

A Lasting Conversation, Stories on Ageing explores many a spec ts o f ageing including resilience and defeat, satisfaction and reg ret, excitement and fear, love, loss and laughter. These stories are written from various perspectives, including older women and men, their daughters and sons, grandchildre n and observers. They present a fascinating picture of what it is to grow old as an Australian. Each story is infused with acute observations and wry humour. A Lasting Conversation includes the work of some of Australia’s best story tellers, Jon Bauer, Tony Birch, Gillian Bouras, Helen Garner, Sonya Hartnett, Kate Grenville, Cate Kennedy, Michael Meehan, Mandy Sayer, Amy Witting and Michelle Wright as well as stories by health care professionals. This collection will be a resource for thebaby-boomers who are approaching old age, older people,their families, carers, doctors and students. ...Show more

An Alice Girl by Tanya Heaslip

$32.99 AUD

Category: Memoirs

For fans of Tony Tapp Coutts' A Sunburnt Childhood and Mary Groves' An Outback Life, comes Tanya Heaslip's extraordinary story of growing up with her sister and brothers in the late 1960s and early 70s on the outback cattle property just north of Alice Springs.

Cattlemen in Pearls - Celebrating Women in Agriculture by Ian and Anne Galloway (Concept by)

$40.00 AUD

Category: Memoirs

Cattlemen in Pearls introduces us to 28 remarkable Australian women, spanning three generations, whose love for the land and livestock is ingrained in their genetic profile. These powerful, surprising and moving mini-biographies recount tales of gritty determination, direst tragedy and glorious courage. We are given rare insight into how and what it's like to start a cattle business from scratch; to run a successful stud enterprise; to manage a vast cattle station; to head a pastoral industry group and corporation.The tough physical and emotional terrain of the bush, and strong family ties, play a role in each of these diverse, down-to-earth and sometimes heartbreaking stories. There are droughts, floods, emergencies, times of despair and loss, as well as hilarious antics, joyous gatherings and extraordinary stories of success. For each of these thoroughly capable, warm-hearted women there is simply no other lifestyle choice. Cattlemen in Pearls is a compelling tribute to women in agriculture, specifically Australia's beef industry. ...Show more