Pushing the Limits: Life, Marathons & Kokoda


Kurt Fearnley - 2014
    'You're going to have to be stronger than we are,' they told him, 'and we know you will be.'The boy from Carcoar was raised to believe he could do anything. At fifteen, he won his first medal. Then he conquered the world, winning three Paralympic gold medals, seven world championships and more than 35 marathons. A world-beater in and out of his wheelchair, Kurt is a true Australian champion.Inspiring, exhilarating and highly entertaining, Pushing the Limits takes us inside the mind of a kid with a disability growing up in a tiny town, a teenager finding his place in the world, and an elite sportsman who refuses to give up, no matter how extreme the challenge.

Now and Forever


Bernie Nolan - 2013
    Over the moon, Bernie set about rebuilding her life and making plans for the future.Then in the summer of 2012, she was in her bedroom getting dressed when she found a lump just above her breast. Terrified, she immediately made the hospital appointment which was to deliver the devastating news that the cancer had returned. It had spread to her brain, lungs, liver and bones and the doctors said it was incurable.

Sum It Up: 1,098 Victories, a Couple of Irrelevant Losses, and a Life in Perspective


Pat Head Summitt - 2013
    For 38 years, she has broken records, winning more games than any NCAA team in basketball history. She has coached an undefeated season, co-captained the first women's Olympic team, was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame, and has been named Sports Illustrated 'Sportswoman of the Year'.She owes her coaching success to her personal struggles and triumphs. She learned to be tough from her strict, demanding father. Motherhood taught her to balance that rigidity with communication and kindness. She is a role model for the many women she's coached; 74 of her players have become coaches.Pat's life took a shocking turn in 2011, when she was diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer's disease, an irreversible brain condition that affects 5 million Americans. Despite her devastating diagnosis, she led the Vols to win their sixteenth SEC championship in March 2012. Pat continues to be a fighter, facing this new challenge the way she's faced every other--with hard work, perseverance, and a sense of humor.From the Hardcover edition.

Outrageous!: The Fine Life and Flagrant Good Times of Basketball's Irresistible Force


Charles Barkley - 1992
    Full of his shoot-from-the-lip opinions and outlandish exploits, this book, like the man himself, can only be described as outrageous. 8 pages of photographs.

The Storm Within: The Autobiography of a Legend


Cameron Smith - 2020
    The recipient of numerous Dally M and Golden Boot awards, he has starred in the toughest league competition on the planet every season since he made his NRL debut in 2002. Captaining the Melbourne Storm to multiple premierships, Smith played in a staggering seventeen finals campaigns. An integral member of the record-breaking Queensland teams of 2006-2017, he won eleven State of Origin series. As skipper of the Australian national team for over a decade, he led the Kangaroos to two World Cups. Smith is credited with revolutionising the number nine position. He holds the State of Origin records for most appearances and most wins, as well as the NRL records for most games, goals, points scored, wins and appearances as captain.This book maps his unique journey in the game: an extraordinary look into the biggest matches and biggest moments, Smith describes his career with great colour and candour, outlining what it takes to climb to the highest level in sport. Talent aside, it is Smith's intelligence and poise that set him apart, coupled with consistency, durability and longevity that are unlikely to ever be matched. Notoriously private throughout his career, The Storm Within sets the record straight. Finally, the life behind the legend - the man behind the mystery - tells his story.Features a foreword by legendary Melbourne Storm coach Craig Bellamy.

Forever Young: The Story of Adrian Doherty, Football's Lost Genius


Oliver Kay - 2016
    For one thing, he was blessed with extraordinary talent. Those who played alongside and watched him in the Manchester United youth team in the early 1990s insist he was as good as Ryan Giggs - possibly even better. Giggs, who played on the opposite wing, says he is inclined to agree.Doherty was also an eccentric - by football standards, at least. When his colleagues went to Old Trafford to watch the first team on Saturday afternoons, he preferred to take the bus into Manchester to go busking. He wore second-hand clothes, worshipped Bob Dylan, read about theology and French existentialism and wrote songs and poems. One team-mate says "it was like having Bob Dylan in a No 7 shirt".On his 17th birthday, Doherty was offered a five-year contract - unprecedented for a United youngster at that time - and told by Alex Ferguson that he was destined for stardom. But what followed over the next decade is a tale so mysterious, so shocking, so unusual, so amusing but ultimately so tragic, that you are left wondering how on earth it has been untold for so long.The stories of Doherty's contemporaries, that group of Manchester United youngsters who became known as the "Class of '92", are well known. Giggs ended up as the most decorated player in United's history; David Beckham became the most recognisable footballer on the planet; Gary Neville, Paul Scholes and others are household names. The story you don't know is about the player who, having had the world at his feet, died the day before his 27th birthday following an accident in a canal in Holland.

Fatso: Football When Men Were Really Men


Arthur J. Donavan - 1987
    A bright, witty assessment of football in the 1950s.

Lost and Found: My Story


Lynda Bellingham - 2010
    Fear of failure, fear of other people - but mostly fear of myself. It has taken many years to discover who I really am. It's never too late to find yourself, however lost you may be ...'In Lynda Bellingham's blisteringly honest autobiography, the much-loved actress and Loose Women panellist reveals the truth about her life, including her search for her birth mother, only to lose her again to Alzheimer's, and her many years married to an abusive man while playing the 'nation's mum' in the Oxo adverts.But Lynda never lost her sense of humour, and among the darker moments she recalls hilarious anecdotes from her time on stage and screen. Lost and Found is an inspiring story of getting through the tough times with the strong spirit of a survivor, and finally finding true love.

A Genesis in My Bed: The Autobiography


Steve Hackett - 2020
    As with his music, Steve has written a highly detailed, entertaining and embracing tome that charts his life in full, but with a firm emphasis on his years with Genesis that saw the band’s meteoric rise to become one of the most successful British bands of all time.Steve talks candidly about his early life, his time with Genesis, and his personal relationships with the other four band members, with great insight into the daily goings on of this major rock band.Naturally A Genesis In My Bed also regales stories of Steve’s career since leaving Genesis and the many different journeys that it has taken him on. With his flair for the creative, and a great deal of levity, A Genesis In My Bed is a riveting read. Indispensable for Genesis fans but also essential for general music lovers and avid readers of autobiographies full of heartfelt and emotive tales.

Lulu: I Don't Want to Fight


Lulu - 2002
    At the age of 15, in 1964, Lulu - born Marie Lawrie in Glasgow - was already a star with her international hit song 'Shout'. At 18 she stole hearts as an English schoolgirl to Sidney Poitier's teacher with the movie hit 'To Sir With Love'. At 21, she married a Bee Gee, Maurice Gibb, and tied as winner of the Eurovision Song Contest with 'Boom-Bang-a-Bang'. Yet in 1993 she reached No.1 with 'Relight My Fire' (with Take That). Nearly forty years at the top of the showbiz tree, Lulu has never been afraid to experiment with new trends, and her book reflects the daring that took a girl from a Glasgow tenement to international stardom - as 'To Sir With Love' says, 'from crayons to perfume'.I DON’T WANT TO FIGHT (the title of a song Lulu wrote and Tina Turner recorded) is the devastatingly candid autobiography of a singer who has never shirked from facing anything.

Standing My Ground


Matthew Hayden - 2010
    A devout Catholic, and a ruthless on-field sledger. A brutal enforcer, and a soft-hearted family man. The Australian record-holder for highest score in Tests and One Day Internationals, who was plagued by insecurities. In STANDING MY GROUND Hayden confronts these contradictions head-on. He talks frankly about the forces that shaped his journey from fringe international to a giant of the game. He dissects Australia's tactic of verbal warfare and his own role as a key aggressor, taking us on a privileged tour inside the sporting machine that dominated all comers in a golden age of Australian cricket. This isn't a predictable ball-by-ball account of a stellar career. Instead, Hayden delivers a characteristically direct assessment of the matches and the people that mattered most. He pays homage to great role models like Allan Border and explains his deep connection to controversial Andrew Symonds, but also reveals colourful clashes along the way. He opens up on umpires, the media, superstitions, teammates and opponents with disarming honesty and humour. The country boy from Kingaroy rose to greatness in the cricket world. Here is the superstar batsman, the surfer, fisherman and chef in a book as bold and powerful as the man himself.

Still Whispering After All These Years: My Autobiography


Bob Harris - 2015
    He continues to be a household name today and his velvety voice can be heard on Radio 2's The Bob Harris Show and Bob Harris Country. In this fully revised and updated autobiography, with a forward by Robert Plant, Bob tells his story of over 40 years of broadcasting with the BBC, from the young, passionate music fan who moved to London determined to make music his life, to being presented with an OBE for his services to music broadcasting. Much like his musical heroes, Bob's personal life has had somewhat of a rock 'n' roll vibe: he has been married three times, gone bankrupt, fought cancer, weathered a very public spat with a fellow DJ and has had to revamp his career four times. Throughout all these times, however, his love of music and talent for broadcasting has endured. The Whispering Years is a frank, vibrant and inspiring tale of one of the most influential names on the radio and reveals the story of the man behind the voice.

Kerry Stokes: The Boy from Nowhere


Andrew Rule - 2014
    Kerry Stokes is a remarkable Australian. Not because he is one of this country's wealthiest and most powerful people but because of what he overcame to get there and because he has endured when others didn't. He is the last mogul. His rise has intrigued the business world for decades but there is so much more to him than takeover targets and balance sheets. Behind the laconic front is a human story as tough and touching as a Dickens tale: Oliver Twist with great self-expectations. It is the story of a poor boy who stared down poverty, ignorance and the stigma of his birth to achieve great wealth and fulfilment. A compelling story that, until now, he has not told. Now he oversees a multi-billion dollar media, machinery and property empire. He is renowned for his art collection and for philanthropy, spending millions of dollars to buy Victoria Crosses from soldiers' families to donate to the Australian War Memorial. But he's a private man. A man apart. He made his name in the West but kept his distance from the buccaneering band of entrepreneurs who forged fabulous fortunes in Perth from the 1960s until the 1987 crash. Bond went to jail, Holmes a Court died; Connell did both. Lesser lights flickered and faded but Stokes grew stronger, becoming a player alongside Murdoch, Packer and Lowy. His story fascinates all the more because he has spent most of his life guarding it. But now he's telling it, to one of Australia's great storytellers. This book will tell his story, scars and all.

Gabby: Confessions of a Hockey Lifer


Bruce Boudreau - 2009
    After more than three decades in the minor leagues as a player and coach, he was promoted to head coach of the Washington Capitals in 2007. Boudreau revived the Caps, written off as dead, to a division championship and received the Jack Adams award as the National Hockey League’s Coach of the Year in June 2008. His story is an entertaining odyssey of triumph, disappointment, and perseverance, stretching from Toronto to Washington. As a pro rookie, Boudreau had a cameo appearance in Slap Shot with star Paul Newman. Today Boudreau coaches superstar Alexander Ovechkin and a young Washington club poised to become an elite NHL team vying for the Stanley Cup. Boudreau stole the limelight at the 2008 NHL Awards Show with his self-deprecating and folksy manner, which has made him a popular personality at every stop he’s made. Hockey fans know there’s only one Boudreau.

Inside Out: How Corporate America Destroyed Professional Wrestling


Ole Anderson - 2003
    The people who know him, know that Ole is never hesitant to speak his mind — and this book is no exception. Combining facts and opinion, Ole's biography is a straightforward look at the many phases of his career in the wild, if somewhat seedy, world of professional wrestling. From his days in amateur wrestling, to the time when he hooked up with Gene and Lars Anderson as the Minnesota Wrecking Crew, Ole relates 30-plus years of never-before-told stories. Ole tells of his feuds, both inside the ring and out, with people like Ric Flair, Wahoo McDaniel, Mr. Wrestling, Dusty Rhodes, and Bill Watts. However, his biggest feuds took places behind the scenes in the halls and offices of corporate giant, Superstation WTBS. The matches in the ring were nothing compared to his battles with The Suits, corporate executives like Vince McMahon, Jim Barnett, Bill Shaw, Jim Herd, and Eric Bischoff. In Ole's own words, "The wrestling matches may have been staged and scripted, but there was nothing `fake' about the corporate and legal battles." As a former wrestler, booker, promoter, owner, and executive producer, Ole goes deeper in the inner workings of professional wrestling than anyone ever has. He tells the stories about financial, legal, and drug problems that plagued the wrestling business. It doesn't matter whether you hate wrestling or love it. This is a powerful story about a man who stood up to the establishment. His insight, humor, and colorful use of the English language makes this a "no-holds barred" book that you won't be able to put down.