Book picks similar to
Fearless: My Life My Way by Gina Liano


memoirs
aussie-authors
australia
autobiography-read

Unbroken


Beverley Callard - 2010
    But behind the scenes her rollercoaster life has been even more colourful than her character’s.She has suffered from crippling depression, been divorced three times, and has had to start from scratch following infidelity and bankruptcy. But every time she’s been knocked down, Beverley has struggled through and steadfastly rebuilt her life. And it is that determination to cope with whatever life throws at her that has made Beverley’s story one of inspiration to women everywhere. She’s now ready to tell it for the first time.From growing up in Leeds, coping with family tragedy, and marrying for the first time just after her seventeenth birthday, Beverley’s childhood was at times tough. But she was always surrounded by the love and laughter of her family. Beverley talks candidly about the devastating impact of her three broken marriages and describes the happiness she has now found with her wonderful partner Jon.In this intimate and moving autobiography Beverley reveals a life of extraordinary highs – the wonderful times she’s had wearing the shortest skirts on the Street! - and devastating lows - including the she suffered last year.Heartfelt, funny and shockingly honest, Unbroken is the gripping story of a truly remarkable woman.

Diamonds and Dust


Sheryl McCorry - 2008
    When she was 18 her family moved to Broome, and it was the first time she'd ever used a telephone or seen a television.A year later, only hours after being railroaded into marriage by a fast-talking Yank, Sheryl locked eyes with Bob McCorry, a drover and buffalo shooter. When her marriage ended after only a few months, they began a love affair that would last a lifetime and take them to the Kimberley's harshest frontiers.Sheryl became the only woman in a team of stockmen. She soon learned how to run rogue bulls and to outsmart the neighbours in the toughest game of all – mustering cattle. The playing field was a million acres of unfenced, unmarked boundaries.Sheryl went on to become the first woman in the Kimberley to run two million-acre cattle stations, but her life was not without its share of tragedy. Her story is an epic saga of life in one of the toughest and most beautiful terrains in Australia – a story of hardship, drought, joy and triumph.

Dirt Classroom: An inspiring true adventure through the Australian Outback


Matt Chadwick - 2016
    Over the next 2 years, I was attacked by a few wild animals, experienced unexplained phenomenon, had a massive learning curve and truly experienced the Australian outback. If you are after a story that was written to appeal to the masses and that mainstream publishers love, then this probably isn't for you. If you are after a lighthearted read that provides the raw truth about life out bush and my experience of it, then click away. I hope you enjoy. Note - mature themes.

Bought and Sold (Part 2 of 3)


Megan Stephens - 2015
    British girl Megan Stephens tells the true story of how an idyllic Mediterranean holiday turned into an unimaginable nightmare when she was tricked into becoming a victim of human trafficking and held captive for six years by deception, threats and violence.While on holiday with her mother at a popular Mediterranean coastal resort, Megan fell in love. Just 14 years old, naïve and vulnerable, she had no reason to suspect that the man who said he loved her would commit the ultimate betrayal of her trust.When her mother returned to England, Megan stayed with Jak, who said he would find her a job as a waitress and promised they would be together forever. But when Megan travelled to the city with Jak, his attitude quickly changed and instead of finding her work as a waitress, he allowed her to be raped and then sold her to a human trafficker.Abandoned by Jak but still unable to accept that everything he’d told her had been a lie, Megan was coerced by threats and violence into working as a prostitute in private homes and brothels. Then the trafficker threatened her mother’s life and it was Megan’s turn to lie: sending her mother the staged photographs that had been taken of her apparently working as a waitress in a cafe, she told her she was happy.Too frightened and bewildered to trust or reach out to anyone, Megan remained locked in a world of brutality and abuse for six years. In the end, there only seemed to be one way out.Megan’s powerful story reveals the devastating realities of human trafficking and the fear that imprisons its victims more effectively than any cage could ever do.

The Autobiography


Paula Yates - 1995
    

Dear Fran, Love Dulcie: Life and Death in the Hills and Hollows of Bygone Australia


Victoria Twead - 2021
    Both are newly-weds; Dulcie has a baby girl and Fran is expecting a baby. But there the similarities end.Fran is a Detroit city girl enjoying modern conveniences. Dulcie is a pineapple farmer’s wife enduring the extremes of Australia. Bushfires, floods, cyclones, droughts, dingo attacks and accidents are all too common. Regardless, Dulcie’s optimism shines through, revealing her love of the land and fascination for the wild creatures that share her corner of Queensland.Each book purchased will help support Careflight, an Australian aero-medical charity that attends emergencies, however remote.

For a Girl: A true story of secrets, motherhood and hope


Mary-Rose MacColl - 2017
    Secrets are different from privacy. They are things you are forced to keep to yourself, by family, friends, by your own shame. Secrets like these come to the surface one day and demand an airing.Emerging from an unconventional, boisterously happy childhood, Mary-Rose MacColl was a rebellious teenager. And when, at the age of fifteen, her high-school teacher and her husband started inviting Mary-Rose to spend time with them, her parents were pleased that she now had the guidance she needed to take her safely into young adulthood.It wasn't too long, though, before the teacher and her husband changed the nature of the relationship with overwhelming consequences for Mary-Rose. Consequences that kept her silent and ashamed through much of her adult life. Many years later, safe within a loving relationship, all of the long-hidden secrets and betrayals crashed down upon her and she came close to losing everything.In this poignant and brave true story, Mary-Rose brings these secrets to the surface and, in doing so, is finally able to watch them float away.

Survivor: From childhood abuse to a life of crime and prostitution


Tara O’Shaughnessey - 2019
    Prostitute. Gangster’s Wife. Survivor. Tara grew up in squalor on the island of Alderney. When she was only four, she was sexually abused by one of her mother’s many lovers, a horror that continued for five long years. As a teenager, desperate to escape the toxic environment at home, she fled to London – but was swiftly drawn into working as a prostitute. She became involved with some of London’s most notorious gangsters – even marrying one – but when she realised the danger she was inflicting on her children, she knew she had to find a way to get out. This is the inspiring story of one woman’s will to survive, and to fight for a better life.

Johnathan Thurston: The Autobiography


Johnathan Thurston - 2018
    This autobiography will follow Thurston's journey from a Brisbane kid who was written off as too skinny, too slow and too wild to play professionally, to his debut with the Canterbury Bulldogs in 2003, to State of Origin star, to Dally M and Clive Churchill Medal winner, and the fairytale premierships.

Tex


Tex Perkins - 2017
    Songwriter. Swamp child. Soul man. Tex Perkins is a true rock'n'roll animal. In this loud, uncut, no-holds-barred, laugh-out-loud and take-no-prisoners memoir, the enigmatic king of the Australian music underground lays bare an extraordinary life lived on the road, on the stage and on the edge.Raised a bible-thumping Catholic and beaten bloody on the streets of Brisbane for being a "cow-punk", skinny Gregory Perkins flees to Sydney and mutates into "Tex", rogue leader of the Dums Dums, Thug and Salamander Jim before finding a strange kind of success, celebrity, sex symboldom and icon status as Tex Perkins, snake-hipped, honey-voiced, often bloodied frontman of influential Aussie bands the Cruel Sea, Beasts of Bourbon and Tex, Don & Charlie... and inventor of "Zoneball".Gigs. Albums. Tours. Fights. Feuds. Arrests. Drugs. High times. Low roads. This is a wild ride of a life written loudly, proudly and full of punk energy.

Natural Born Keller


Amanda Keller - 2015
    By turns hilarious and moving, Amanda Keller takes us on a nostalgia filled journey through her life. From her childhood in sunny Brisbane to her daggy teen years in suburban Sydney. Then onto heady college days in Bathurst, where wine was called 'claret' and came in a box, and finally to establishing a stellar career in TV and radio.Along the way she falls in love with 'a nice Kiwi boy' who becomes her husband and she tells the story of the arrival of their two hard-won sons. But without too many icky bits.Amanda also takes us behind the scenes of her TV career - from the challenge of turning on a typewriter at Simon Townsend's Wonder World! to the fun of travelling the globe for Beyond 2000, despite having no scientific background and absolutely no sense of direction. More recently she was able to officially represent an entire generation on Talkin' 'Bout Your Generation and share a couch with three blokes and the odd snake on The Living Room.Amanda loves 'the wireless' and looks back on twenty years of radio. From sharing a mic with Andrew Denton on Triple M to topping the breakfast show ratings with Jonesy on WSFM.Vivid, funny and hugely entertaining, Natural Born Keller will have you laughing out loud, nodding in recognition and occasionally bawling uncontrollably - in a cathartic sort of way.

Barefoot in the Bindis


Angela Wales - 2019
    What he lacked in experience and expertise, he made up for in enthusiasm. Or so he hoped.When the family arrived on a lonely hill in northern New South Wales, they had no electricity, no running water, no telephone and no choice but to make that tangle of bush their home. From Angela Wales, eldest of the five kids, comes this extraordinarily vivid and evocative account of the next ten years as they tried to tame six thousand acres and navigate the challenges of country life.Filled with drama and hilarity, joy and back-breaking toil, Barefoot in the Bindis portrays a childhood spent in the bush, and is a sensational picture of Australia past.

Never Say Die: RPA's Favourite Surgeon on his Life from Doctor to Patient


Chris O'Brien - 2008
    As he knew, few sufferers survive past 12 months. Nevertheless, he was determined to beat the odds.With the support of his close family, O'Brien took the option of radical brain surgery under the supervision of well-known neurosurgeon Dr. Charlie Teo. His health and relative youth - he was 54 when diagnosed - have helped him make the painful transition from doctor to patient, and renewed his faith in the importance of an optomistic outlook as the cornerstone of recovery.Here, in his warm and lively memoir, Chris O'Brien takes a look back over his life and the forces that have shaped him - from his modest beginnings and early years as a doctor, to becoming the popular face of RPA and his crusade for the establishment of cancer centres, through to the shocking news that literally changed his life.

Daughter of the River Country


Dianne O’Brien - 2021
    Raised in the era of the White Australia policy, Dianne grows up believing her adoptive Irish mother, Val, is her birth mother. Val promises Dianne that one day they will take a trip and she will 'tell her a secret'. But before they get the chance, Val tragically dies.Abandoned by her adoptive father, Dianne is raped at the age of 15, sentenced to Parramatta Girls Home and later forced to marry her rapist in order to keep her baby. She goes on to endure horrific domestic violence at the hands of different partners, alcohol addiction and cruel betrayal by those closest to her. But amazingly her fighting spirit is not extinguished.At the age of 36, while raising six kids on her own, Dianne learns she is Aboriginal and that her great-grandfather was William Cooper, a famous Aboriginal activist. Miraculously she finds a way to forgive her traumatic past and becomes a leader in her own right, vowing to help other stolen people just like her.

The Mud House


Richard Glover - 2009
    Like a house. We could just buy a block of land, you know, the four of us, and have a go.' It was just an idea. then it started to take shape. In this frank, funny and thought-provoking memoir, Richard Glover describes how he and his friend Philip and their partners built a house in the bush on weekends. It was a huge and exhausting undertaking ... not least because they decided to use mudbricks. 'Imagine this - with mudbrick you have a building that is made out of the very earth it stands on ... there is another thing: the stuff is free. Once we buy the land we'll have no money left. this way we can get started as soon as we have the block.' In the end it took three years simply to make the bricks. As for the house itself ... But the process gave Richard the opportunity to examine things he had never quite reconciled to himself - big things like what it means to be a man, the nature of male relationships, fatherhood - and to challenge himself in the kind of blokey environment he had rejected. Above all, the mud house proved that even if it 'wasn't the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel' there is nothing like the satisfaction of making something with your own hands.