Summer Reading: Biographies
A Figure Of Speech: A Political Memoir
$44.95$14.95 (Hardcover book / Wiley )
As a young boy growing up in Brisbane to his time as a speech writer from Calwell to Carr, this book will look at those legendary people; friends and foes he has inluenced. From his campaigns working on speeches for Goug... More »
Candy Girl: A Year In The Life Of An Unlikely Stripper
$24.95 (Paperback book / Black Inc )
The international bestseller from the Oscar-winning author of Juno . . .
Diablo Cody was twenty-four years old when she decided there had to be more to life than typing copy at an ad agency. On a whim, she signed up for ... More »
Dog Man: An Uncommon Life On A Faraway Mountain
$32.95 (Trade paperback / Scribe Publications )
This is the story of how one man's consuming passion for dogs saved a legendary breed from extinction and led him to a difficult, more soulful way of life in the wilds of Japan's remote snow country
As Dog Man opens, Mar... More »
Andrew Fisher
$49.95$39.95 (Hardcover book / Harper Collins )
Prime Minister Andrew Fisher was one of Australia's great nation–builders, yet his story is largely unknown. He left school early to work in the coalmines of Scotland, educating himself at night. In 1885, at the age of 2... More »
Dear Fatty: My Autobiography Of Me
$34.95$29.95 (Trade paperback / Century )
Dawn French is one of the greatest comedy actresses of our time, wtih a career that has spanned nearly three decades, encompassing a vast and brilliant array of characters. Loved for her irreverant humour, Dawn has achie... More »
Doing Life: A Biography Of Elizabeth Jolley
$34.95 (Paperback book / Univ. West Aust Press )
Although she started writing early in life it was not until her fifties that Elizabeth Jolley received the recognition her talent deserved. She won The Age Book of the Year Award on three occasions as well as the Miles F... More »
Bert And Ned: The Correspondence Of Albert Tucker And Sidney Nolan
$49.95$16.95 (Hardcover book / Melb Univ Press )
Albert Tucker and Sidney Nolan were friends and rivals but never antagonists for the whole of their working lives as artists. Together they participated in the struggle to establish modern art in Australia in the 1940s. ... More »
Diaries 1969-1979: The Python Years
$35.00$14.95 (Paperback book / Phoenix House )
Michael Palin has kept a diary since newly married in the late 1960s, when he was beginning to make a name for himself as a TV scriptwriter (for the Two Ronnies, David Frost etc). Monty Python was just around the corner.... More »
Entirely Up To You, Darling
$34.95$29.95 (Trade paperback / Hutchinson )
RICHARD ATTENBOROUGH and Diana Hawkins have been friends and colleagues for nearly 50 years. Now they are teaming up to write a frank, funny and revelatory account of their unlikely partnership and his extraordinary life... More »
The Gods Of Freud: Sigmund Freud's Art Collection
$49.95$24.95 (Hardcover book / Alfred A Knopf )
Janine Burke, award-winning author and art historian, reveals an intriguing new perspective on sigmund Freud - as an obsessive art collector; a passionate and reckless man intent on surrounding himself with beautiful obj... More »
Manning Clark A Life
$59.95$49.95 (Hardcover book / Allen & Unwin )
Charles Manning Hope Clark was born in Burwood, Sydney, on 3 March 1915, the second son of the Reverend Charles Clark. When he was six his family moved to Phillip Island, Western Port, Victoria, and then in 1924 they set... More »
Gough Whitlam: A Moment in History
$59.99 (Hardcover book / Melb Univ Press )
This moment was not his alone, nor could it ever have come about without him . . . Gough Whitlam turned to Graham Freudenberg, touched him lightly on the shoulder, saying, 'It's been a long road, Comrade, but we're there... More »
Led Zeppelin: When Giants Walked The Earth
$35.00 (Trade paperback / Orion )
Respected rock writer Mick Wall tells the story of the last great band of the 1960s – and the first great band of the 1970s. For the first time, he reveals the true extent of Jimmy Page’s longstanding interest in the occ... More »
Me Cheeta: The Autobiography
$33.00 (Trade paperback / Fourth Estate )
The greatest Hollywood Tarzan, Johnny Weissmuller, died in 1984. His coffin was lowered into the ground to the recorded sounds of his famous jungle call. Maureen O'Sullivan, his Jane, died in 1998. Weissmuller's son, who... More »
Leo 'Rumpole' McKern: The Accidental Actor
$39.95 (Paperback book / )
This long-awaited biography tells the story of a working-class Sydney boy who left Australian shores in the 1940s and went on to an extraordinary and renowned acting career. In England he become a major Shakespearean act... More »
Miracles Of Life
$24.99 (Paperback book / Harper Collins )
Ballard creates a memoir that is both an enthralling narrative and a detailed examination of the events which would profoundly influence his work. Beginning with his early childhood spent exploring the vibrant surroundin... More »
My Judy Garland Life
$29.99 (Trade paperback / Virago )
Fascinating and extraordinary, thrilling and poignant, My Judy Garland Life will speak to anyone who has ever nursed an obsession or held a candle to a star.
Judy Garland has been an important figure in Susie Boyt’s life... More »
Stella Miles Franklin: A Biography
$59.95$49.95 (Hardcover book / Harper Collins )
Stella Miles Franklin was born in the Australian bush and‚ at the age of twenty−one‚ became an international publishing sensation with My Brilliant Career. The book struck a chord with women and girls all over the countr... More »
One Flew Into The Cuckoo's Egg
$35.00 (Paperback book / Hodder Headline )
Whose first records were produced by George Martin, and who had two singles banned by the BBC? Who earned rare reviews on Broadway for his dancing? Who rode on the back seat of the Goodies' trandem? Who has been called '... More »
Robert Helpmann: A Servant Of Art
$49.95 (Hardcover book / Univ Queensland Pr )
The definitive career biography of one of our greatest performing artists, published to coincide with the centenary of his birth in early 2009.
Ballet dancer; mime artist; make-up artist; musicals performer; choreographe... More »
The Sum Of Our Days
$32.95$13.95 (Trade paperback / Harper Collins )
Isabel Allende has sold more than 50 million copies of her books worldwide. The most beloved and successful of her books, The House of the Spirits, was based on her Chilean childhood, and other autobiographical works inc... More »
Paris To The Moon
$22.95$13.95 (Paperback book / Quercus )
In 1995, Adam Gopnik, his wife and their infant son left the familiar comforts and hassles of New York for the urbane glamour of Paris. Charmed by the beauties of the city, Gopnik set out to experience for himself the sp... More »
Through The Childrens Gate: A Home In New York
$29.95$13.95 (Paperback book / Quercus )
The bestselling author of Paris to the Moon delivers another charming collection of outsider-looking-in tales of one of the world’s great cities. This time, it’s New York, which he falls in love with all over again as he... More »
The Same Man: George Orwell And Evelyn Waugh In Love And War
$29.95 (Paperback book / Scribe Publications )
For literature buffs and history enthusiasts, this is the first biography to compare George Orwell and Evelyn Waugh - two of the greatest 20th century English writers.
Both authors need little introduction. Orwell and Wa... More »
Things I Didn't Know
$55.00$18.95 (Hardcover book / Random Century )
There have been, in the past 20 years or so, several memoirs that have struck a crucial intellectual and emotional chord. William Styron's DARKNESS VISIBLE is one. Frank McCourt's ANGELA'S ASHES is another. In many ways,... More »
The Two Kinds Of Decay
$27.95 (Hardcover book / Hunter )
At twenty-one, just starting to comprehend the puzzles of adulthood, Sarah Manguso was faced with another: a wildly unpredictable disease that appeared suddenly and tore through her twenties, vanishing and then returning... More »
Review
Two Lives: Gertrude And Alice
$32.95$14.95 (Hardcover book / Melb Univ Press )
Staff review This book is a real treat. Written by one of the world’s great writers, about two of the twentieth century’s most intriguing literary fi gures, (modernist master Gertrude Stein and ‘worker bee’ Alice B. Tokl... More »
What I Talk About When I Talk About Running
$29.95 (Hardcover book / Harvill )
In 1982, having sold his jazz bar to devote himself to writing, Murakami began running to keep fit. A year later, he'd completed a solo course from Athens to Marathon, and now, after dozens of such races, not to mention ... More »
Review
The Widow Clicquot:: The History Of A Champagne Empire And The Woman Who Ruled It
$32.99 (Trade paperback / Harper Collins )
The story of the visionary young widow who built a champagne empire, showed the world how to live with style, and emerged a legend
Veuve Clicquot champagne epitomizes glamour, style, and luxury. But who was this young wi... More »