Gulpilil (HB) by Derek Rielly

$29.99 AUD

Category: Biography | Reading Level: 3 Biography

It's been almost fifty years since a teenage David Gulpilil illuminated screens worldwide with his breakout role in Walkabout. It was the first time we'd seen an Aboriginal cast in a significant role and only four years after Holt's referendum to alter the constitution and give Aboriginal people citizen ship and, subsequently, the right to vote. Gulpilil quickly became the face of the Indigenous world to white Australian audiences. Charisma. Good looks. A competent, strong, mysterious man starring in films ranging from Rabbit-Proof Fence to Crocodile Dundee.But what has marked Gulpilil, despite his fame and popularity, is the feeling that he's been forever stuck between two worlds: a Yolngu man, a hunter, a tracker, who grew up in the bush in Arnhem Land outside any white influence; and a movie star flitting from sets to festivals. Able to exist in both worlds, but never truly home. From the author of the bestselling Wednesdays with Bob, Derek Reilly attempts to encapsulate the most beguiling and unconventional of Australian entertainers, observing Gulpilil's own attempt to find a place in the world. With interviews from icons and friends - such as Jack Thompson, Paul Hogan, Craig Ruddy, George Gittoes, Gary Sweet and Damon Gameau - this unriddles a famous enigma at last. ...Show more

Truganini: Journey through the Apocalypse by Cassandra Pybus

$32.99 AUD

Category: Biography

The haunting story of the extraordinary Aboriginal woman behind the myth of 'the last Tasmanian Aborigine'. 'A compelling story, beautifully told' - JULIA BAIRD, author and broadcaster 'At last, a book to give Truganini the proper attention she deserves.' - GAYE SCULTHORPE, Curator of Oceania, The Bri tish Museum Cassandra Pybus's ancestors told a story of an old Aboriginal woman who would wander across their farm on Bruny Island, in south-east Tasmania, in the 1850s and 1860s. As a child, Cassandra didn't know this woman was Truganini, and that Truganini was walking over the country of her clan, the Nuenonne. For nearly seven decades, Truganini lived through a psychological and cultural shift more extreme than we can imagine. But her life was much more than a regrettable tragedy. Now Cassandra has examined the original eyewitness accounts to write Truganini's extraordinary story in full. Hardly more than a child, Truganini managed to survive the devastation of the 1820s, when the clans of south-eastern Tasmania were all but extinguished. She spent five years on a journey around Tasmania, across rugged highlands and through barely penetrable forests, with George Augustus Robinson, the self-styled missionary who was collecting the survivors to send them into exile on Flinders Island. She has become an international icon for a monumental tragedy - the so-called extinction of the original people of Tasmania. Truganini's story is inspiring and haunting - a journey through the apocalypse. 'For the first time a biographer who treats her with the insight and empathy she deserves. The result is a book of unquestionable national importance.' - PROFESSOR HENRY REYNOLDS, University of Tasmania ...Show more

Some Days - A Tale of Friendship, Cancer and Margherita: a Memoir: a Memoir by Lucy Moffatt; Nicola Matthews (Cover Design by); Ashleigh Meikle (Editor); Jennifer Leslie (Prepared for Publication by)

$20.00 AUD

Category: Biography

In the Shadow of Greatness: Five Remarkable Women and the Men of Genius They Served by Michael Menager

$39.99 AUD

Category: Biography

This book features the lives of five strong, creative, intelligent women who dedicated their lives to serving the genius of others. Among fascinating friends, dramatic historic events and transcendent achievements, these women chose saintly self-effacement, emotional suffering, loneliness, and personal privation. WHY? -- Why choose to live in the shadow of greatness? -- What did each sacrifice? What did each gain? Because each woman's shadow efforts influenced the public persona of her partner, the author believes the key is in the opaqueness or transparency of the genius being served. Some geniuses are so obsessed-opaque- they are open to nothing outside themselves. Others are transparent to the work of their own genius -- a witness, not a slave. How this affects the shadow women is the focus of this book. ...Show more

Wild Wild Guru by Subhuti Anand Waight

$29.99 AUD

Category: Biography

This is the story of a Englishman who gave up a job in journalism to spend fourteen years with the controversial Indian mystic Osho, also known as Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh and frequently referred to as 'the sex guru'. His guru was always controversial with his teachings on sex and spirituality, rumours o f orgies and because he owned ninety-three Rolls Royces. Early in 1976, Subhuti travelled to India to meet Rajneesh in his ashram in Pune, became initiated as his disciple and immediately began to have mystical experiences, which he attributed to the powerful energy field surrounding the guru. He stayed for six months, participating in the ashram's notorious Encounter Group and other therapies designed to release suppressed emotions and awaken sexual energy Subhuti would stay to live and work on his master's ashrams for fourteen years, first as his press officer in Pune, India, then as editor of the community's weekly newspaper when Bhagwan and his followers shifted to Oregon, USA, and built a whole new town on the massive Big Muddy Ranch. There Subhuti was a first-hand witness to the scandals and hullabaloo that accompanied the guru, including tales of broken bones in no-holds-barred therapy groups and Tantra groups that encouraged total sexual freedom, and the increasing hostility with the locals which would lead to Bhagwan's attempt to flee America, his arrest and imprisonment. . He was on the Oregon Ranch when Rajneesh's secretary, Ma Anand Sheela, plotted against rival cliques within the ashram as well as a range of murderous crimes against state and federal officials which feature in hit Netflix series Wild Wild Country. Yet, amidst it all, Subhuti could see the profound revolution in spirituality that Bhagwan was creating, leaving a lasting impact on our ideas about society, religion, meditation and personal transformation. According to the author's understanding, it was the controversy itself, plus Bhagwan's refusal to tread the path of a spiritual saint, that became the stepping stone to a new vision of what it means to be a spiritual seeker. ...Show more

Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl (70th Anniversary Edition) by Anne Frank

$19.99 AUD

Category: Biography

Anne Franks The Diary of a Young Girl is not just a true story but also a piece of history. Written by Anne Frank for herself, at the age of 13, the diary contains candid and intimate details of Annes thoughts and feelings during the two years of the Second World War she and her family and friends staye d hidden. Anne and her family were eventually arrested and sent to the concentration camps,but her diary remains a testament of youthful experiences in times of war. ...Show more

Falling Out Of Love with Ivan Southall by GABRIELLE. CAREY

$29.95 AUD

Category: Biography

At the age of nine, Gabrielle Carey fell in love with her favourite author. She wasn't alone. Hundreds of thousands of other young readers also fell in love with Ivan Southall and many wrote him adoring fan mail. But Ivan Southall - warm and tender in his letters to children - is not, she finds, so love able in real life. In fact, he is not the man that Gabrielle remembered at all. Part memoir, part literary biography, this intimate book explores what happens when we reach back in time to recover our first loves. What will we find when we stop believing in the ideas and the people that made us who we are? What's left over? ...Show more

Perfect Stranger: A True Story by Kay Schubach

$22.99 AUD

Category: Biography

Kay Schubach almost has it all - a great job, a beautiful apartment, a life of champagne and mixing it with Sydney's A-list, and a steady relationship. By chance she meets handsome and charismatic Simon. He sweeps her off her feet with promises the one thing her younger boyfriend won't give her - a baby . She takes the biggest risk of her life, leaving all certainties behind for love. All too quickly, the romance turns sour, and Simon goes from charming to controlling, from magnetic to threatening. By the time Kay uncovers his violent past, Simon has decided he will not let her go - and he's not a man to be argued with. Trapped in a terrifying relationship, isolated from friends and family, Kay must decided what she values most, and fight for it. A brutally honest cautionary tale, this is a true story of obsession and desire. ...Show more

The Story of Beatrix Potter by Sarah Gristwood

$35.00 AUD

Category: Biography | Series: National Trust History & Heritage

To this day, Beatrix Potter's tales delight children and grown-ups around the world. But few people realise how extraordinary her own story is. She was a woman of contradictions. A sheltered Victorian daughter who grew into an astute modern businesswoman. A talented artist who became a scientific expert . A famous author who gave it all up to become a farmer. Bestselling biographer Sarah Gristwood follows the twists and turns of Beatrix Potter's life and its key turning points - including her tragically brief first engagement and happy second marriage late in life. She traces the creation of Beatrix's most famous characters - including the naughty Peter Rabbit, confused Jemima Puddleduck and cheeky Squirrel Nutkin - revealing how she drew on her unusual childhood pets and locations in her beloved Lake District. She explores too Beatrix's role as a pioneering conservationist, whose work with the National Trust helped to save thousands of acres of the Lake District - a legacy that, like her books, continues to enrich our lives today. Main text: 30,000 words. Approx 3,000 words for captions and index. ...Show more

Dickens' Artistic Daughter Katey by Lucinda Hawksley

$39.99 AUD

Category: Biography

Katey Dickens was born into a house of turbulent celebrity and grew up surrounded by fascinating, famous, and infamous people. From a very young age, she knew her vocation was to be an artist. Lucinda Hawksley charts the life of a celebrated portrait painter, who redefines our preconceptions about Victo rian women. Living to be almost ninety, Katey survived an unconventional marriage, love affairs, heartbreak, depression, and the challenges of being a female artist in a male-dominated era. Compelling and illuminating, Katey tells the story of a spirited woman who found fame at the centre of the first celebrity phenomenon; it also uncovers the reality of what it was like to be a child of Charles and Catherine Dickens. This biography of Katey, celebrating her artistic prestige - which saw her compared to Millais - is long overdue. The details of her fascinating life await rediscovery. ...Show more

The Watermill by Arnold Zable

$32.99 AUD

Category: Biography

Ranging from remote provinces in China and Cambodia to pre- and post-war Yiddish Poland, Kurdish Iraq and Iran, and Indigenous and present-day Melbourne, Arnold Zable's quartet of stories depicts the ebbs and flows of trauma and healing, memory and forgetting, the ancient and the contemporary. And ever- recurring journeys in search of belonging. Arnold Zable is a highly acclaimed novelist, storyteller and human rights advocate. His works include Cafe Scheherazade, Scraps of Heaven, Violin Lessonsand The Fighter, which was shortlisted for a Victorian Premier's Literary Award and a New South Wales Premier's Literary Award. Zable lives in Melbourne. 'Zable elevates history into near mythical tales of wonder.' Australian 'This is a man who truly believes in the power of stories.' Age ...Show more

The Stranger Artist - A Life at the Edge of Kimberley Painting by Quentin Sprague

$32.99 AUD

Category: Biography

At a hinge-point in his life, artist and ex-gallerist Tony Oliver travelled to the East Kimberley, where he plunged into the crosscurrents and eddies of the Aboriginal art world. He would stay for almost a decade, working alongside a group of senior Gija artists, including acclaimed figures Paddy Bedfor d and Freddie Timms, to establish Jirrawun Arts, briefly one of the country's most successful and controversial Aboriginal painting collectives.  The Stranger Artist follows Oliver's journey and the deep relationships he formed, an experience that forever altered his life's trajectory. His story will draw readers close to what he came to know of Kimberley life: the immersion of culture and spirituality in the everyday, the importance of Law, the deep and abiding connection to country, and the humour and tragedy that pervade the Aboriginal world. Evocative and absorbing in equal measure, The Stranger Artist tells not only of the connections that can be formed through the sharing of mutual interests and experiences, but of what it takes to live between cultures.     ...Show more