These were the starting point for One Life, the story of a woman whose life spanned a century of tumult and change. In many ways Nance’s story echoes that of many mothers and grandmothers, for whom the spectacular shifts of the twentieth century offered a path to new freedoms and choices. In other ways Nance was exceptional. In an era when women were expected to have no ambitions beyond the domestic, she ran successful businesses as a registered pharmacist, laid the bricks for the family home, and discovered her husband’s secret life as a revolutionary.One Life is an act of great imaginative sympathy, a daughter’s intimate account of the patterns in her mother’s life. It is a deeply moving homage by one of Australia’s finest writers.

    But, while it can look perfect on paper, Lisa admits her life hasn’t always been that way. Blending advice from mentors and role models, together with lessons she’s learned the hard way, Lisa’s personal journey is proof that no mistake is undoable, no relationship is unfixable and no failure is in vain if you have the right attitude and an abundance of gratitude.“In the short time I have known Lisa, she’s had an infectious spark, and a crazy, fun, anything’s possible, entrepreneurial attitude. She’s a woman to watch.”- SIR RICHARD BRANSON

    He is the voice of ABC Radio’s leading current affairs program PM; he was a founding broadcaster for the groundbreaking youth station Double J; he initiated The World Today program; and he’s one of the most popular and influential journalists in the twittersphere. Mark has been covering local and global events for more than four decades. He has reported on wars, royal weddings and everything in between. In the midst of all this he discovered that his father was an MI6 spy. Light and Shadow is the incredible story of a father waging a secret war against communism during the Cold War, while his son comes of age as a journalist during the tumultuous Whitlam and Fraser years and embarks on the risky career of a foreign correspondent. Mark was witness to some of the most world-changing events, including the Iranian hostage crisis, the buildup to the first Gulf War in Iraq and the direct aftermath of the shocking genocide in Rwanda. But when he contracted a life-threatening illness while working in the field, his life changed forever. Mark Colvin’s engrossing memoir takes you inside the coverage of major news events and gently navigates the complexity of his father’s double life.

    True to her Bohemian dream where love can coexist with sexual freedom, she decided to experiment with an open marriage . despite the fact that her previous non-monogamous relationship ended in disaster.Our cultural mores suggest that love without monogamy is impossible, but Lee hoped she could do better the second time round and embarked on a personal exploration to find out whether she could save her marriage while being non-monogamous in an ethical way. For several months she talked to swingers, polyamorists, cross-dressers, suburban families, artists and migrants—in short, to anyone who has ever been involved in an unconventional relationship.Set during Lee's first years in Australia, it is also the story of migration, and an exploration of the eternal conflict between our desire for security, but also for foreign places—in love and elsewhere. The Dangerous Bride tells the story of her quest.

    The surgery to remove it was successful, but left Dylan a paraplegic. Part of an average Aussie family in Melbourne, Dylan experienced his fair share of bullying and loneliness growing up. By early high school he was feeling pretty low - depressed, overweight and fearful for his future. Then, somehow, he discovered sport - swimming, basketball and tennis. Fast forwards 10 years or so and the Order of Australia recipient has climbed to the top of not just one sport but two, winning gold and silver at two Olympics and in two sports. Now the four-time winner of the Australian Open, is not only a sports star, but a motivational speaker, triple j radio host, music fan, keynote presenter, business owner, and youth mentor with his own youth foundation. In Game Changer, Dylan Alcott at last tells his story.

    Best known as the lead singer and enigmatic front man, songwriter, bassist of The Church, Steve has experienced both amazing international success and all the excesses that go with it, as well as a well known heroin addiction that delivered some very dark times. The Church has been a significant and constant influence on the Australian music industry and readers will be keen to hear from one of the industry's most successful, creative and long-standing key protagonists. Kilbey is Australian rock and roll royalty and for the first time this is his story. Come inside the world of Steve Kilbey singer songwriter and bassist of one of Australia's best loved bands, The Church. From his migrant ten pound pom childhood through his adolescence growing up during the advent of The Beatles, Dylan and The Stones to his early adventures in garage bands and neighbourhood jams. His misadventures with a full time job and a 9 to 5 life and wild adventures with The Church as they conquer Australia and then the world. The tours. The records. The women. And then the heroin addiction which enslaved him for ten long years. Then the two sets of twins he fathers along the way and branching off into acting, painting and writing. From snowy Sweden to a cell in New York City, from Ipanema beach to Bondi, Kilbey stumbles through his surrrealistic life as an idiot savant that will make you smile as well as want to kick him up the arse. After coming out the other side his tale is simply too good not to be told. Narrated with unusual and often pristine clarity we and with much focus on his considerable musical talent.

    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.

     Last King of the Cross lays bare Australia's most notorious underworld figure.In the mongrel tongue of the streets, John writes of fleeing war-torn Tripoli with his family and growing up in Sydney's rough and tumble west - before establishing himself as a tough guy and teen delinquent, then a bouncer, enforcer and nightclub king on the Golden Mile.Bullets fly, blades flash and bodies fall. In a city of shadows, John builds his army and empire - partying like a playboy prince of darkness while staying one step ahead of the cops, the outlaw gangs and hungry triggermen, plotting to take him and his family down.Crazier than Goodfellas, more compelling than The Godfather, Last King of the Cross is a colourful crime saga like no other and powerful proof that truth is always stranger than fiction.

    The book also detailed his early work as a pioneering orthopaedic surgeon at the cutting edge of world medicine. In Going Back, Munjed shares the extraordinary journey that his life-changing new surgical technique has taken him on. Through osseointegration, he implants titanium rods into the human skeleton and attaches robotic limbs, allowing patients genuine, effective and permanent mobility. Munjed has performed this operation on hundreds of Australian civilians, wounded British soldiers who've lost legs in Iraq and Afghanistan, and a survivor of the Christchurch earthquake in New Zealand. But nothing has been as extraordinary as his return to Iraq after eighteen years, at the invitation of the Iraqi government, to operate on soldiers, police and civilian amputees wounded in the horrific war against ISIS. These stories are both heartbreaking and full of hope, and are told from the unique perspective of a refugee returning to the place of his birth as a celebrated international surgeon.

    One school. One year.Brendan James Murray has been a high school teacher for more than ten years. In that time he has seen hundreds of kids move through the same hallways and classrooms - boisterous, angry, shy, big-hearted, awkward - all of them on the journey to adulthood.In The School, he paints an astonishingly vivid portrait of a single school year, perfectly capturing the highs and lows of being a teenager, as well as the fire, passion and occasional heartbreak of being their teacher. Hilarious, heartfelt and true, it is a timeless story of a teacher and his classes, a must-read for any parent, and a tribute to the art of teaching.ck

    Everything's rattling, crashing down. I'm choking on dust. I can't breathe... I'm coughing, choking. Sal's screaming ..." On the night of July 30th 1997 a landslide shattered the tranquility of Thredbo Village, sweeping away two ski lodges and burying 19 people beneath tonnes of concrete and mud. In the days that followed, the world mourned as rescuers dragged body after body from the rubble. But out of tragedy sprang an amazing story of survival. Stuart Diver, whose young wife Sally died beside him in the first moments of the slide, had clung to life buried beneath a concrete slab for 65 freezing hours. This is Stuart Diver's story. The story of how one man found the mental and physical strength to live through tragedy and survive against impossible odds. Stuart relives the event that changed his world forever and talks honestly about what went through his mind during his long hours alone beneath the rubble, his painful recovery, and his inspirational attitude to life and the future. And he reveals how the lessons he learned at Thredbo can help each of us find the inner strength to become a survivor. This special edition includes four bonus chapters that covers Stuart's life in the more than ten years since the original publication of Survival.

    a tiger running alone in the night ...Mimi Kwa ignored the letter for days. When she finally opened it, the news was so shocking her hair turned grey. Why would a father sue his own daughter?The collision was over the estate of Mimi's beloved Aunt Theresa, but its seed had been sown long ago. In an attempt to understand how it had come to this, Mimi unspools her rich family history in House of Kwa.One of a wealthy silk merchant's 32 children, Mimi's father, Francis, was just a little boy when the Kwa family became caught up in the brutal and devastating Japanese occupation of Hong Kong during World War II. Years later, he was sent to study in Australia by his now independent and successful older sister Theresa. There he met and married Mimi's mother, a nineteen-year-old with an undiagnosed, chronic mental illness. Soon after, 'tiger' Mimi arrived, and her struggle with the past - and the dragon - began ...Riveting, colourful and often darkly humorous, House of Kwa is an epic family drama spanning four generations, and an unforgettable story about how one woman finds the courage to stand up for her freedom and independence, squaring off against the ghosts of the past and finally putting them to rest. Throughout, her inspiration is Francis's late older sister, the jet-setting, free-spirited Aunt Theresa, whose extraordinary life is a beacon of hope in the darkness.

    But they passed and passed and still the doorway remained empty of his deep voice, calling out her name. Blending the intimacy of memoir with an artist's vision, Toyo is the story of a remarkable woman, a vivid picture of Japan before and after war, and an unpredictable tale of courage and change in today's Australia. Born into the traditional world of pre-war Osaka, Toyo must always protect the secret of her parents' true relationship. Her father lives in China with his wife; her unmarried mother runs a caf . Toyo and her mother are beautiful and polite, keeping themselves in society's good graces. Then comes the rain of American bombs. Toyo's life is uprooted again and again. With each sharp change and painful loss, she becomes more herself and more aware of where she has come from. She finds family and belief, but still clings to her parents' secret. In Toyo, Lily Chan has pieced together the unconventional shape of her grandmother's story. Vibrant and ultimately heart-rending, Toyo is the chronicle of an extraordinary life, infused with a granddaughter's love.

    Especially having been through the same rigmarole when he was 11! Needless to say, Luke Ryan is eyeing off 33 warily.There's only one course of action to take after you've fought off cancer twice – stand-up comedy. Growing out of a sell-out show at the Melbourne Comedy Festival, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Chemo is a warm-hearted and hilarious memoir from someone who has laughed in the face of more adversity than most of us would face in a lifetime.Luke's is a life marked by cancer, not defined by it. These are stories of growing up, getting sick, getting better, getting sick again, dating while bald, keeping your semen in the freezer and living life to the full.

    Even non-gardeners will find this book of essays a source of profound pleasure, for Raver is a writer who transcends her subject even as she illuminates it, writing with such passion, wisdom and stylishmess that her book will enchant anyone who reads it.