Truganini: Journey Through 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

Stories of Hope by Heather Morris

$29.99 AUD

Category: Biography

Heather Morris, author of the internationally bestselling novels The Tattooist of Auschwitz and Cilka's Journey, grew up on a farm in rural New Zealand. On her way back across the paddocks from school, Heather would visit her great-grandfather and listen to his experiences of war - stories he told only Heather. From a young age Heather discovered that people would tell her their stories if she stopped and listened. In Stories of Hope, Heather Morris will explore the art of listening - a skill she employed when she met Lale Sokolov, the Tattooist of Auschwitz. It was her ability to listen that led him to entrust her with his story. Stories of Hope will examine Heather's extraordinary journey, in the form of a series of beautifully rendered tales of the people she has met, the remarkable stories they have shared with her, and the lessons they hold for us all.   ...Show more

Lowitja: The Authorised Biography of Lowitja O'Donoghue by Stuart Rintoul; Lowitja O'Donoghue

$45.00 AUD

Category: Biography

The profoundly moving biography of a truly great Australian who, against the greatest of odds, became one of Australia's most respected and recognisable Indigenous leaders. 'I am sometimes identified as one of the "success stories" of the policies of removal of Aboriginal children. But for much of my c hildhood I was deeply unhappy. I feel I had been deprived of love and the ability to love in return. Like Lily, my mother, I felt totally powerless. And I think this is where the seeds of my commitment to human rights and social justice were sown.' - Lowitja O'Donoghue Lowitja O'Donoghue is a truly great Australian. She is arguably our nation's most recognised Indigenous woman. A powerful and unrelenting advocate for her people, an inspiration for many, a former Australian of the Year, she sat opposite Prime Minister Paul Keating in the first negotiations between an Australian government and Aboriginal people and changed the course of the nation. But when Lowitja was born in 1932 to an Aboriginal mother and a white father in the harsh and uncompromising landscape of Central Australia the expectations for her life could not have been more different. At the age of two, she was handed over to the missionaries of the Colebrook Home for Half-Caste Children and cut off completely from her people and her culture. She would not see her mother again for another thirty years and would have no memory of her father. In 2001 a bitter controversy arose over whether Lowitja was 'stolen' as a child. In search of a past she did not remember, Lowitja went back to Central Australia accompanied by journalist Stuart Rintoul. This ground-breaking and long-awaited biography completes that journey into Lowitja's life and the challenging history of her times. It is a remarkable work about an extraordinary woman. 'A remarkable Australian leader. A leader whose unfailing instinct for enlargement marks her out as unique.' - Paul Keating 'If there is one woman that you would identify as being someone that inspires you, that terrifies you, that is a symbol of possibility, it would be Lowitja. The dignity, I think, is the thing that you remember the most.' - Linda Burney, first Aboriginal woman to be elected to the House of Representatives 'The greatest Aboriginal leader of the modern era . . . the rock who steadied us in the storm. Resolute, scolding, warm and generous, courageous, steely, gracious and fair. She held the hardest leadership brief in the nation and performed it bravely and with distinction.' - Noel Pearson 'She changed the course of Australian history. She literally seized the day.' - Robert Tickner, Minister for Aboriginal Affairs 1990-96 ...Show more

Guiding Lights: The Extraordinary Lives of Lighthouse Women by Shona Riddell

$39.99 AUD

Category: Biography

Women have a long history of keeping the lights burning, from tending ancient altar flames or bonfires to modern-day lighthouse keeping. Yet most of their stories are little-known. Guiding Lights includes stories from around the world, such as the dramatic torching of Puysegur Point, one of New Zealand 's most inhospitable lighthouses; the two caretakers living alone on Tasmania's wild Maatsuyker Island; the female keeper in charge of Cape Beale on Canada's Vancouver Island (the station receives visits from bears, cougars and wolves); several 'haunted' lighthouses in various US states with tragic tales; the despotic keeper on Clipperton Island, a tiny atoll far off the coast of Mexico; lighthouse accidents and emergencies around the world; and two of the world's most legendary lighthouse women: Ida Lewis (US) and Grace Darling (UK), who risked their lives to save others. The book also explores our dual perception of lighthouses: are they comforting and romantic beacons symbolising hope and trust, or storm-lashed and forbidding towers with echoes of lonely, mad keepers? Whatever our perception, stories of women's courage and dedication in minding the lights -- then and now -- continue to capture the public's imagination and inspire us. ...Show more

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

The Haunting of Alma Fielding: A True Ghost Story by Kate Summerscale

$29.99 AUD

Category: Biography

'A page-turner with the authority of history' PHILIPPA GREGORY'As gripping as a novel. An engaging, unsettling, deeply satisfying read' SARAH WATERSLondon, 1938. Alma Fielding, an ordinary young woman, begins to experience supernatural events in her suburban home. Nandor Fodor - a Jewish-Hungarian refug ee and chief ghost hunter for the International Institute for Psychical research - begins to investigate. In doing so he discovers a different and darker type of haunting: trauma, alienation, loss - and the foreshadowing of a nation's worst fears. As the spectre of Fascism lengthens over Europe, and as Fodor's obsession with the case deepens, Alma becomes ever more disturbed. With rigour, daring and insight, the award-winning pioneer of historical narrative non-fiction Kate Summerscale shadows Fodor's enquiry, delving into long-hidden archives to find the human story behind a very modern haunting.   ...Show more

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

Radio Girl: The Story of the Extraordinary Mrs Mac, Pioneering Engineer and Wartime Legend by David Dufty

$29.99 AUD

Category: Biography

All around Australia, former WRANs and navy men regard the woman they know as Mrs Mac with a level of reverence usually reserved for saints. Yet today no-one has any idea of who she was and how she rescued Australia's communication systems in World War II.

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

Elizabeth Revealed - 500 Facts about the Queen and Her World by Lucinda Hawksley

$44.99 AUD

Category: Biography

- A lively and affectionate celebration of Queen Elizabeth II's long and eventful life - Archive images and new photography combine to create a beautiful visual record of her reign - A fascinating glimpse into the private life of the monarchy - The wealth of information is presented in the successful, b ite-sized '500 Facts' format and conveyed in an engaging tone Elizabeth Revealed is a lively and affectionate celebration of The Queen's long and eventful life. This gorgeously illustrated book blends personal and public, frivolous and factual in a tribute to an extraordinary woman and the sweeping social changes she has lived through. The enjoyable '500 Facts' format highlights surprising aspects of The Queen's intimate life, the good and the bad years. It offers illuminating glimpses into a changing monarchy and royal family life as an elegant young princess developed into the most famous woman in the world. ...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