Book picks similar to
Playing With Water by Kate Llewellyn
australia
australiana
biographies
dnf
Macquarie
Grantlee Kieza - 2019
An egalitarian at heart, Macquarie saw boundless potential in Britain's refuse, and under his rule many former convicts went on to become successful administrators, land owners and business people.However, the governor's ambitions for the colony (which he lobbied to have renamed 'Australia') brought him into conflict with the continent's original landowners, and he was responsible for the deaths of Aboriginal men, women and children, brutally killed in a military operation intended to create terror among local Indigenous people.So, was Macquarie the man who sowed the seeds of a great nation, or a tyrant who destroyed Aboriginal resistance?In this, the most comprehensive biography yet of this fascinating colonial governor, acclaimed biographer Grantlee Kieza draws on Macquarie's rich and detailed journals. He chronicles the life and times of a poor Scottish farm boy who joined the British army to make his fortune, saw wars on five continents and clawed his way to the top. Ultimately, Macquarie laid the foundations for a new nation, but, in the process, he played a part in the dispossession of the continent's original people.Lover, fighter, egalitarian, autocrat - Lachlan Macquarie is a complex and engaging character who first envisaged the nation we call Australia.
The Making of Martin Sparrow
Peter Cochrane - 2018
He can buckle down and set about his agricultural recovery, or he can heed the whispers of an earthly paradise on the far side of the mountains – a place where men are truly free – and strike out for a new life. But what chance does a ditherer such as Sparrow have of renewal, either in the brutal colony or in the forbidding wilderness?The decision he makes triggers a harrowing chain of events and draws in a cast of extraordinary characters, including Alister Mackie, the chief constable on the river; his deputy, Thaddeus Cuff; the vicious hunter, Griffin Pinney; the Romany girl, Bea Faa; and the young Aboriginal men, Caleb and Moowut’tin, caught between war and peace.Rich, raw, strangely beautiful and utterly convincing, The Making of Martin Sparrow reveals Peter Cochrane – already one of our leading historians – as one of our most compelling novelists.
Underneath the Southern Cross
Michael Hussey - 2013
This is THE cricket biography of 2013. Michael Hussey's huge popularity does not rest solely on his incredible playing record. Popularly known as Mr Cricket, he made his Test debut against the West Indies in Brisbane in November 2005, and has scored 6,183 Test runs over 78 Tests in his career. But to his fans, it is the way he plays the game rather than simply the sum of his achievements that marks him out as one of the best-loved cricketers of his generation. He is a middle-order maestro with a batting average of 51.52, but he has always played cricket with an integrity and sense of values that is the epitome of what cricket stands for. His autobiography takes you behind the scenes to his world of cricket. From his lengthy struggle to break into the Australian side, through to his masterly achievements in the Australian team, in ODI and Indian Premier League - this book follows his extraordinary cricket career., with plenty of surprisingly frank admissions & behind the scenes dramas.
We All Live In a Perry Groves World: My Story
Perry Groves - 2006
Perry Groves spent over a decade in the footballing spotlight. Sometimes he was at the top, often he was at the bottom and that's half the reason the fans loved him so much--and still do. This is the most truthful and hilarious book about professional football you will ever read. Perry Groves was the first signing by the legendary Arsenal manager George Graham, and that unmistakeable figure with his Tin-Tin haircut and cheeky grin was a player in one of the Gunners' greatest sides. Now he has decided to tell all about his rollercoaster years of booze binges, girl-chasing and gambling sprees. He's a nonstop fund of of hilarious anecdotes, recounting top-flight games played with a hangover, 125 mph motorway chases with international stars, visits to a brothel with an England World Cup hero and revealing how one drunken escapade ended with a group of internationals beting questioned over an attempted murder charge. This is a unique chance to find out what top-flight footballers really get up to off the field and how they behave when the dressing room door is closed.
Phosphorescence: On Awe, Wonder and Things That Sustain You When the World Goes Dark
Julia Baird - 2020
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.
The Call of the High Country
Tony Parsons - 1999
As a young married couple, Andrew and Anne work together to make the very best of their property, High Peaks, but at what cost to their happiness? In time, the property will pass to their son, David. Handsome and hardworking, David is determined to become the best sheepdog handler in the land. Nothing is going to stand in his way-not even the beautiful Catriona Campbell, daughter of the wealthy graziers next door. The Call Of The High Country is an inspiring and heartwarming saga of a family battling through hard times, of a love that defies all odds, and of dreams that won't be broken.
Turn Right at Machu Picchu: Rediscovering the Lost City One Step at a Time
Mark Adams - 2011
For on that rainy morning, the young Yale professor Hiram Bingham III climbed into the Andes Mountains of Peru and encountered an ancient city in the clouds: the now famous citadel of Machu Picchu. Nearly a century later, news reports have recast the hero explorer as a villain who smuggled out priceless artifacts and stole credit for finding one of the world's greatest archaeological sites. Mark Adams has spent his career editing adventure and travel magazines, so his plan to investigate the allegations against Bingham by retracing the explorer's perilous path to Machu Picchu isn't completely far- fetched, even if it does require him to sleep in a tent for the first time. With a crusty, antisocial Australian survivalist and several Quechua-speaking, coca-chewing mule tenders as his guides, Adams takes readers through some of the most gorgeous and historic landscapes in Peru, from the ancient Inca capital of Cusco to the enigmatic ruins of Vitcos and Vilcabamba. Along the way he finds a still-undiscovered country populated with brilliant and eccentric characters, as well as an answer to the question that has nagged scientists since Hiram Bingham's time: Just what was Machu Picchu?
It Wasn't Meant to Be Like This
Lisa Wilkinson - 2021
One of Australia's most admired and respected journalists and media personalities, her warm, intelligent and elegant presence has graced our television screens for many years, where she has shared and shaped many important national conversations. Australians of all ages love and respect her warmth, empathy, humour, integrity and fighting spirit. But it all could have been so different... When she was at school, Lisa found herself wishing she could just disappear. Subjected to horrific bullying as a teenager, she survived by making herself as small as possible, but she swore when she left school that no one was ever again going to determine who she was - or limit what she was capable of. That determination and drive led to Lisa blazing an unprecedented and enormously successful trail through the Australian media and cultural landscape for more than four decades. She was only twenty-one when she became the editor of Dolly - the youngest ever appointed to a national women's magazine - and four years later, after almost tripling the circulation, Lisa was head-hunted by the late Kerry Packer, who offered her the editorship of the iconic Cleo magazine. which she transformed into the number-one bestselling women's lifestyle magazine per capita in the world. Moving to television, first on Channel Ten's Beauty and the Beast, then as host of the Seven Network's Weekend Sunrise, she went on to spend almost eleven years as co-host of the Nine Network's Today Show, becoming its longest-serving female co-host, and where her talents took the program to the number-one spot in breakfast television. Lisa then caused a media storm in Australia and the world when she moved to the Ten Network as co-host of its prime-time award-winning program The Project. Lisa's interviews with everyone from George Clooney to Lady Gaga to Sophia Loren to Kim Kardashian, to every one of the country's last eight prime ministers, always create headlines. But it is her most recent work and the leading role she took in uncovering the misogyny in Parliament House, with her powerful, exclusive interview with Brittany Higgins, of which Lisa says she is most proud. A fierce campaigner for women and gender equality, Lisa has fought her own personal battles on this front, and continues to lead the way. It Wasn't Meant to Be Like This, the story of how a young girl from Campbelltown came to be such a force in Australian cultural life, is honest, warm, funny, engaging - and powerfully inspirational.
To Romania with Love
Tessa Dunlop - 2012
Once there she didn't want to leave and ended up staying for nearly a year. She returned the following summer, but this time chose a big industrial city where she taught English and befriended a student and his family. The youngest son, 'Vlad', was only twelve, shy and very intelligent. Once more Tessa was emotionally hooked. Back home in the Scottish Highlands, she organised for Vlad to be sponsored by her old boarding school. He aced his classes, but, conflicted in the wake of his extraordinary experience, turned down a full-time place. They lost touch; however, the pull of Romania eventually proved too much and, five years on, Tessa returned. Life would never be the same again.
Ten Hail Marys
Kate Howarth - 2010
Abandoned by her mother as a baby and by her volatile grandmother as a young girl, Kate Howarth was shunted between Aboriginal relatives and expected to grow up fast. It was a childhood beset by hardship, abuse, profound grief, and poverty, but buoyed with the hope that one day she would make a better life for herself and her child. Incredibly moving, this is the compelling true story of a childhood lost and a young woman’s hard-won self-possession.
What's it all About?
Cilla Black - 2003
Generations have grown up with Cilla's music, TV shows, and performances. But how much do we really know about 'the girl with the bright red hair and the jet black voice'? What's It All About? is Cilla's own story, told for the first time ever. It's the story of a woman who has worked ceaselessly to stay at the top for forty years despite setbacks and personal tragedy; a life of incredible highs and terrible lows. In this deeply personal autobiography she tells her unique story in intimate and vivid detail for the very first time. This is the real Cilla Black.
He Died with a Felafel in His Hand
John Birmingham - 1994
These are the memoirs of 29 year old John Birmingham, who has shared houses and apartments with 89 people and kept notes on all of them.
Tracks: A Woman's Solo Trek Across 1700 Miles of Australian Outback
Robyn Davidson - 1980
NOW A MAJOR MOTION PICTURERobyn Davidson's opens the memoir of her perilous journey across 1,700 miles of hostile Australian desert to the sea with only four camels and a dog for company with the following words: “I experienced that sinking feeling you get when you know you have conned yourself into doing something difficult and there's no going back." Enduring sweltering heat, fending off poisonous snakes and lecherous men, chasing her camels when they get skittish and nursing them when they are injured, Davidson emerges as an extraordinarily courageous heroine driven by a love of Australia's landscape, an empathy for its indigenous people, and a willingness to cast away the trappings of her former identity. Tracks is the compelling, candid story of her odyssey of discovery and transformation. “An unforgettably powerful book.”—Cheryl Strayed, author of WildNow with a new postscript by Robyn Davidson.
We Bought a Zoo
Benjamin Mee - 2008
In the tradition of "Marley & Me" comes an unforgettable memoir about the mysteries of the animal kingdom, the power of family, and the triumph of hope over tragedy in this chronicle of the Mee family's purchase of the Dartmoor Wildlife Park, a dilapidated zoo in the English countryside.Weinstein Books