Phosphorescence: On Awe, Wonder and Things That Sustain You When the World Goes Dark by Julia Baird

$32.99 AUD

Category: Biography

A beautiful, intimate and inspiring investigation into how we can find and nurture within ourselves that essential quality of internal happiness - the 'light within' that Julia Baird calls 'phosphorescence' - which will sustain us even through the darkest times. Over the last decade, we have become bett er at knowing what brings us contentment, well-being and joy. We know, for example, that there are a few core truths to science of happiness. We know that being kind and altruistic makes us happy, that turning off devices, talking to people, forging relationships, living with meaning and delving into the concerns of others offer our best chance at achieving happiness. But how do we retain happiness? It often slips out of our hands as quickly as we find it. So, when we are exposed to, or learn, good things, how do we continue to burn with them? And more than that, when our world goes dark, when we're overwhelmed by illness or heartbreak, loss or pain, how do we survive, stay alive or even bloom? In the muck and grit of a daily existence full of disappointments and a disturbing lack of control over many of the things that matter most - finite relationships, fragile health, fraying economies, a planet in peril - how do we find, nurture and carry our own inner, living light - a light to ward off the darkness? Absorbing, achingly beautiful, inspiring and deeply moving, Julia Baird has written exactly the book we need for these times. ...Show more

Stories of Hope: Finding Inspiration in Everyday Lives 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

Far From Home: A True Story of Murder, Loss and a Mother's Courage by Rosie Ayliffe

$34.99 AUD

Category: Biography

British mother Rosie Ayliffe thought her 21-year-old daughter, Mia, would be safe travelling around Australia on a gap year. But Mia wanted to extend her visa and in order to do that needed to find 88 days of work on a farm - a requirement that would lead to catastrophic events. Four short days after Mi a moved to a hostel in Queensland to take a job on a sugarcane farm, she was brutally murdered. Faced with every parent's worst nightmare, Rosie travelled to Australia to retrieve Mia's body. From the moment she landed, however, she started to hear stories about the terrible treatment of young workers like Mia - stories of exploitation, sexual harassment, rape. Mia was Rosie's only child and she brought her up as a single parent. Her death was traumatic and life-changing. In Rosie's memoir, she describes movingly how she has found the strength to come to terms with devastating loss, drawing on inspiration from her daughter's short life. She also explains how she has become the driving force behind an international campaign to press for change to the 88 days system. Part expose of the dangers facing backpackers in Australia, part call to arms, ultimately Far from Home is an inspiring and heartfelt story of a mother's love for her daughter and her fight to protect others from suffering a similar tragedy.   ...Show more

The Beauty of Living Twice by Sharon Stone

$29.99 AUD

Category: Biography

In The Beauty of Living Twice, Sharon Stone chronicles her efforts to rebuild her life, and the slow road back to wholeness and health. In an industry that doesn't accept failure, in a world where too many voices are silenced, Stone found the power to return, the courage to speak up, and the will to mak e a difference in the lives of women and children around the globe. Over the course of these intimate pages, as candid as a personal conversation, Stone talks about her pivotal roles, her life-changing friendships, her worst disappointments and her greatest accomplishments. She reveals how she went from a childhood of trauma and violence to a business that in many ways echoed those same assaults, under cover of money and glamour. She describes the strength and meaning she found in her children and in her humanitarian efforts. And ultimately, she shares how she fought her way back to find not only her truth, but her family's reconciliation and love. ...Show more

Of Gold and Dust by Wills, Samantha

$32.99 AUD

Category: Biography

All this time I thought I had a creative career and a personal life, but the truth is there is no such thing, there is only a creative life. Samantha Wills started her self-titled jewellery company at just 21-years-old on the dining room table of her share house in the Eastern Suburbs of Sydney. From Tu pperware to Times Square, Of Gold and Dust follows Samantha's journey as she launches the iconic international jewellery brand and becomes one of Australia's youngest leading businesswomen. Being thrust onto the global stage is never easy, and as Samantha continued to passionately throw herself into her work the more she struggled to find balance in her life behind the scenes. It was through her connections with the amazing people she met along the way, the lessons they taught her and the faith they had in her, that made Samantha believe she really could achieve anything. Now, Samantha wants to share this knowledge and experience with others. Of Gold and Dust is more than a business memoir, it's a funny, down-to-earth and heartfelt letter to anyone who has a passion to create and the drive to follow their dreams.   ...Show more

Handbag of Happiness: And Other Misunderstandings, Mistakes and Misadventures by Alannah Hill

$29.99 AUD

Category: Biography

Part agony aunt, part moral philosopher and irrepressibly curious, Alannah Hill shares her unique take on how to fathom life's ticking timebombs of adversity with her inimitable blend of gothic hilarity and old-fashioned wisdom. Hilarious, often outlandish and always insightful, The Handbag of Happiness is a collection of essays that flout convention and celebrate the absurd. Evoking the classic humor of Nora Ephron and the modern sensibility of Sloane Crosley, author Alannah Hill shows us that perfection isn't all it's cracked up to be, and her hard-won wisdom from a career in the fashion world will charm and delight even (and especially) the most jaded of readers. From The Bathing Costume of Calamity to The Apron Strings of Lament and The Brassiere of Lovelessness, Alannah shares, in her own imperfect way, how she overcame adversity--and sometimes didn't, despite her best intentions. A breath of fresh air in a world full of self-improvement courses, wellness retreats and oppressive rules, Alannah says what other women are thinking. In this irreverent and fearlessly frank collection of advice, she flirts with trouble and finds the black humor in modern-day chaos--and, in doing so, shows readers that being a bit wrong can sometimes be a little bit right. ...Show more

Eleven Bats: A Story of Combat, Cricket and the SAS by Anthony 'Harry' Moffitt

$34.99 AUD

Category: Biography

Anthony 'Harry' Moffitt spent more than twenty years in the SAS. His decades of service and his multiple tours in East Timor, Iraq and Afghanistan made him one of the regiment's most experienced and recognised figures.   Alongside the SAS, Harry's other lifetime love is cricket. An improvised game of cr icket was often the circuit-breaker Harry and his team needed after the tension of operations. He began a tradition of organising matches wherever he was sent, whether it was in the mountains of East Timor with a fugitive rebel leader, or on the dusty streets of Baghdad, or in exposed Forward Operating Bases in the hills of Afghanistan. Soldiers, locals and even visiting politicians played in these spontaneous yet often bridge-building games. As part of the tradition, Harry also started to take a cricket bat with him on operational tours, eleven of them in total. They'd often go outside the wire with him and end up signed by those he met or fought alongside. These eleven bats form the basis for Harry's extraordinary memoir. It's a book about combat, and what it takes to serve in one of the world's most elite formations. It's a book about the toll that war takes on soldiers and their loved ones. And it's a book about the healing power of cricket, and how a game can break down borders in even the most desperate of circumstances.     ...Show more

One Italian Summer by Pip Williams

$29.99 AUD

Category: Biography

Pip and Shannon dreamed of living the good life. They wanted to slow down, grow their own food, and spend more time with the people they love. But jobs and responsibilities got in the way: their chooks died, their fruit rotted, and Pip ended up depressed and in therapy. So they did the only reasonable t hing - they quit their jobs, pulled the children out of school and went searching for la dolce vita in Italy.One Italian Summer is a warm, funny and often poignant story of a family's search for a better way of living in the homes and on the farms of strangers. Pip sleeps in a woodshed, feasts under a Tuscan sun, works like a tractor in Calabria and, eventually, finds her dream - though it's not at all the one she expected.   ...Show more

The Soul of a Woman by Isabel Allende

$22.99 AUD

Category: Biography

The wise, warm, defiant new book from literary legend Isabel Allende a meditation on power, feminism and what it means to be a woman. 'When I say that I was a feminist in kindergarten, I am not exaggerating.' As a child, Isabel Allende watched her mother, abandoned by her husband, provide for her three small children. As a young woman coming of age in the late 1960s, she rode the first wave of feminism. She has seen what has been accomplished by the movement in the course of her lifetime. And over the course of three marriages, she has learned how to grow as a woman while having a partner, when to step away, and the rewards of embracing one's sexuality. So what do women want? To be safe, to be valued, to live in peace, to have their own resources, to be connected, to have control over their bodies and lives, and above all, to be loved. On all these fronts, there is much work to be done, and this book, Allende hopes, will 'light the torch of our daughters and granddaughters with mine. They will have to live for us, as we lived for our mothers, and carry on with the work still left to be finished.'   ...Show more

Joe Biden American Dreamer by Evan Osnos

$29.99 AUD

Category: Biography

A concise, brilliant and incisive examination of Democratic nominee Joe Biden and his lifelong quest for the presidency This definitive history of Joe Biden tells the poignant story of the man – both his life in politics and the series of personal tragedies that have marked him – drawing on extensive co nversations with Biden himself from his time at the Whitehouse to his home during the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as interviews with President Barack Obama, Cory Booker, Amy Klobuchar and some of the biggest names in American politics. Blending up-close journalism with broader context, award-winning New Yorker journalist Evan Osnos illuminates the life of Joe Biden and captures the characters and meaning of an extraordinary presidential election. In his nuanced portrait, Biden emerges as flawed, yet resolute, and tempered by the flame of tragedy – a man who just may be uncannily suited for his moment in history… ...Show more

The Believer: Encounters with Love, Death and Faith by Sarah Krasnostein

$34.99 AUD

Category: Biography

This book is about ghosts and gods and flying saucers and certainty in the absence of knowledge. From award-winning author Sarah Krasnostein comes an exploration of the power of belief. Weaving together the stories of six extraordinary ordinary people, The Believer looks at the stories we tell ourselve s to deal with the distance between the world as it is, and the world as we’d like it to be. How they can stunt us – or save us. Some of the people you will meet believe in things most people don’t. Ghosts. UFOs. Heaven and the Devil. The literal creation of the universe in six days. Others believe in things most people would like to. Dying with autonomy. Facing one’s own transgressions with an open heart. In this intensely personal and gorgeously written new book Krasnostein talks with her characteristic compassion and empathy to these believers – and finds out what happens when their beliefs crash into her own. ...Show more

Growing up Fisher - Musings, Memories, and Misadventures by Joely Fisher

$5.99 AUD

$29.99 (80% off)

Category: Biography

Actress, director, entertainer Joely Fisher invites readers backstage, into the intimate world of her career and family with this touching, down-to-earth memoir filled with incredible, candid stories about her life, her famous parents, and how the loss of her unlikely hero, sister Carrie Fisher, ignited the writer in her.Growing up in an iconic Hollywood Dynasty, Joely Fisher knew a show business career was her destiny. The product of world-famous crooner Eddie Fisher and '60s sex kitten Connie Stevens, she struggled with her own identity and place in the world on the way to a decades-long career as an acclaimed actress, singer, and director.Now, Joely shares her unconventional coming of age and stories of the family members and co-stars dearest to her heart, while stripping bare her own misadventures. In Growing Up Fisher, she recalls the beautifully bizarre twist of fate by which she spent a good part of her childhood next door to Debbie Reynolds. She speaks frankly about the realities of Hollywood--the fame and fortune, the constant scrutiny. Throughout, she celebrates the anomaly of a two-decade marriage in the entertainment industry, and the joys and challenges of parenting five children, while dishing on what it takes to survive and thrive in the unrelenting glow of celebrity. She speaks frankly about how the loss of her sister Carrie Fisher became a source of artistic inspiration.Fisher's memoir, with never-before-seen photos, will break and warm your heart. ...Show more