The result is a memoir that is at once intellectually provocative and deeply honest; the book that readers of Poppy, The Orchard and Stravinsky's Lunch have been waiting for.

    When her offence was discovered it was reported to be the biggest white-collar crime committed by a female in Victoria, and she was sentenced to seven years in a maximum-security prison, alongside the state's most notorious criminals. Being incarcerated with drug dealers and murderers, however, was not nearly as daunting as having to tell her two young daughters why she was leaving them. The shame was almost unbearable. As Kerry adjusted to life behind bars, she began to see her fellow inmates as more than simply 'murderers' and 'drug dealers' - they became real people with names and broken dreams. And as they opened up to her, she realised that many of these women had violent home lives and were not getting parole simply because they couldn't fill out the paperwork. Horrified, Kerry set about using her skills to represent them. She also began to study. Today, Kerry has a PhD, advocates for women prisoners, and has been reunited with her daughters. In her inspiring memoir, filled with fascinating stories of life behind bars and shot through with wry humour, she reveals how one woman's darkest hour can become a turning point in her life. And how, just perhaps, it can even be the making of her.

    The story takes us from Glenn's unexpected diagnosis of 'three months at best' just days before the birth of his only child, to his miraculous remission and the ironic death of his father. It is a journey that is by turns heartbreaking, painfully funny, misanthropic, loving and ultimately heroic. Rodeo In Joliet tramples the Hallmark cliches and platitudes of traditional cancer survival stories and presents in their place an experience that leaves the reader in awe and grateful for his or her every breath.

    And yet, question marks have followed him around; question marks about his goalkeeping suitability after arriving on Merseyside; question marks about his integrity after match fixing allegations were laid against him. Here, Grobbelaar takes you to Africa, where nothing is at it seems; he takes you back to an era when Liverpool ruled Europe; he takes you to the benches of the Anfield dressing room, where only the strongest personalities survived. For the first time, he takes you inside the court room, detailing the draining fight to clear his name.

    I remember moments of enlightenment that arrived with a bang, and moments born of the self-reflection only true boredom can provide. I made a few decisions while painting a fence once. Those decisions turned out to be very noisy indeed.'Comedian and radio and TV personality Meshel Laurie was once Michelle Laurie, whose story begins in Queensland. Michelle survived her Catholic schooldays but by Year Nine had morphed into Meshel, who daydreamed of moving to Melbourne - home of Dogs in Space and the back room of the Espy.Meshel's insider's perspective on the 1990s comedy scene is intimate and more than a little surprising. She paints a picture of a close-knit environment and tells before-they-were-famous stories about up-and-comers who are today's household names, and about the kindness of comic superstars she encountered along the way: Dave Hughes, Julia Morris, Rove, Wil Anderson, Wendy Harmer and others. We find out about the workings of an inner-city brothel, what it's like to be 'the girl on Rove' and how fence-painting can help save a life.The Fence-Painting Fortnight of Destiny is an honest and heartfelt look at life in all its messiness and unpredictability.

    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.

    With the help of an experienced psychologist she relives the events of 34 years ago and in doing so discovers what happened to her business partner, Fred Handford. Following EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) treatment the nightmares she has suffered since the day he disappeared - 19th March 1976 - stop competely and the truth is finally revealed.

    Cold Chisel wrote a song about her. Rupert Murdoch was so impressed by her talents, he asked her to be the editor-in-chief of both the Daily and Sunday Telegraphs – and in doing so, become the first woman ever to edit a major Australian metropolitan newspaper.In her extraordinary career, spanning over fifty years, Ita Buttrose has been involved in every aspect of the media, from newspapers and magazines to television and radio and now, electronic publishing. From her creation of a new type of women's magazine in Cleo and then ITA, to her appointment as the youngest-ever editor of The Australian Women's Weekly (a distinction she still holds today), a passionate love of journalism has driven her every step of the way.Refreshingly candid about the challenges she has faced as a professional woman, not only in her career but also in her love life and as a mother, A Passionate Life describes those ground-breaking years with Ita's trademark clarity, precision and wit.In this substantially revised and expanded edition, Ita also shares her views on current affairs and the state of the media today, including an insider's perspective on the Murdoch empire. We hear about her significant recent contribution to various health awareness campaigns, particularly Alzheimer's Australia; her coverage of the 2011 royal wedding; her new incarnation as a rap star; the making of Paper Giants and her recent venture into the new territory of electronic publishingAn appealing and lively autobiography by one of Australia's most distinguished journalists. A Passionate Life will strike a chord with working women everywhere.

    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.

    It is a dance, a cosmic strip show: a flash of spine, and then a rib cage, clean as a fish. Who is laying these bones down, one by one? Is it me who is making you, or are you making yourself?'When Anna Goldsworthy, pianist and perfectionist, falls pregnant with her first child, her excitement is tempered by the daunting journey ahead. In Welcome to Your New Life, she shares the dizzying wonder and crippling anxiety that come with creating new life. Should she indulge her craving for sausage after sixteen years of not eating meat? Will her birth plan involve Enya or hypnosis, or neither? And just how worried should she be about her baby falling into a composting toilet?This captivating memoir combines warmth and humour to reveal the love that binds families together. Welcome to Your New Life evokes the shock of plunging into a life-changing adventure and the kicking required to return to the surface.'A keen-eyed, funny, tender, wonderful book.' - Chloe Hooper'This book does what great literature should: it tries to get a grip on life - the making of it, the living-and-loving it, the leaving it. Goldsworthy's writing is so beautiful, so laser-acute and funny and moving that you feel you are living more vividly. Welcome to Your New Life seems essential to me now. I laughed and I cried and I absolutely loved it.' - Anna Funder'warm, funny and candid' - Books+PublishingAuthorAnna Goldsworthy is the author of Welcome To Your New Life andPiano Lessons.Anna's writing has appeared in the Monthly, the Age, the Adelaide Review and Best Australian Essays. She has won numerous prizes and scholarships for piano performance. In 2004, she completed a world tour performing in festivals and concert halls in Australia, Asia, Europe and North and South America. Her solo CD, Come With Us, was released in early 2008. In that same year she collaborated with her father, Peter Goldsworthy, on a theatrical adaptation of his book Maestro, which drew inspiration from her early life.

    WORSE THINGS HAPPEN AT SEA does the same for family life in 2000s; written by William and Sarah in a way that many Australians can relate to and enjoy. This book celebrates the wonderful, messy, haphazard things in life - bringing home babies from hospital, being a friend, a parent, son or daughter, and dog obedience classes. It's about living for twenty years in the family home, raising children there, chasing angry rabbits around the backyard, renovations that never end. It is also about understanding that sometimes you have to say goodbye; that is part of life too. Illustrated throughout with Sarah Watt's photographs of family life and beautiful but everyday objects.

    Inside turned the terrible wheel of drug addiction, part family curse, part legacy of the footloose surf culture he'd done so much to legitimise. Tom's family and friends struggled with him, kept his secrets, and looked on in anger and fear as the wheel began to grind him down.

    First comes the mates, then the ute, then his hat, dogs, horses and last of all the girlfriend. Get that right and you might just stick around. Try to jump the queue and you′re history." The lips smiled at me, but his eyes meant business.′Well then, I′ll just have to be his mate.′′Girls can′t be mates, Alice.′′We′ll see.′A footloose city backpacker who couldn′t tell a bull from a cow was hardly the ideal candidate to answer an ad for a governess on a Mackay cattle station. But Alice Greenup was game for anything, until she was bowled over by a handsome young jackeroo with a devastating smile. It was the start of a whole new way of life as Alice gave up her city-chick persona to embrace the bush and all that came with it: horses, cattle, the obsession with rain - and the correct way to wear a hat.After overcoming more than a few obstacles, the unlikely couple eventually married, moving to Rick′s family farm near Kingaroy. Determined to make their own future, they gambled their dreams on a vast property called ′Jumma′. It was a huge risk but with a lot of love, blood, sweat and tears, they were on their way.But one morning they almost lost it all. When Alice′s horse bucked her out of the saddle in remote bushland, she was gravely injured. Rick was forced to leave her lying alone, drifting in and out of consciousness, to gallop home for help. Flown by emergency helicopter to Brisbane, Alice had serious liver and brain damage. What followed would test their love to the limit.

    Woog lifts the lid on a world that's part jungle, part nursery, a place both sweet and feral, where the rule of law is tenuous at best and primitive desires hold sway over order and discipline. And wait till you see the children!We're talking about primary school, that special place where little kids turn into big kids, where letters turn into words, numbers turn into more confusing numbers and lunchboxes turn into bacterial breeding grounds. Where teachers rule (mostly) and parents realise primary school's not just for children - that they.re back at school too, just in different roles.Having been a student during the Smurf, Swatch and Strawberry Shortcake Era, and then a teacher in tough-as-nails South London and a back-of-Woop Woop country school, Mrs Woog knew her way around a primary school and thought nothing could surprise or intimidate her . until she became a primary school parent!You'll laugh till lemonade comes out of your nose in this irreverent, hilarious, no-holds-barred and loving homage to primary school and all who dwell in it. Therapy for former teachers, a revelation to prospective parents, a trip down memory lane for us all, Primary School Confidential is a joy to read and essential homework for anyone interested in what really happens beyond the school gate.

     Around the dining room table of her 100 year old farmhouse Micki Peluso's six children along with three of their friends eagerly gulp down a chicken dinner. As soon as the last morsel is ravished, the lot of them is off in different directions. Except for the one whose turn it is to do the dishes. After offering her mother a buck if she’ll do them, with an impish grin, the child rushes out the front door, too excited for a hug, calling out, "Bye Mom," as the door slams shut. For the Peluso’s the nightmare begins. Micki and Butch face the horror every parent fears—awaiting the fate of one of their children. While sitting vigil in the ICU waiting room, Micki traverses the past, as a way of dealing with an inconceivable future. From the bizarre teenage elopement with her high school sweetheart, Butch, in a double wedding with her own mother, to comical family trips across country in an antiquated camper with six kids and a dog, they leave a path of chaos, antics and destruction in their wake. Micki relives the happy times of raising six children while living in a haunted house, as the young parents grow up with their kids. She bravely attempts to be the man of the house while her husband, Butch is working out of town. Hearing strange noises, which all the younger kids are sure is the ghosts, Micki tiptoes down to the cellar, shotgun in hand and nearly shoots an Idaho potato that has fallen from the pantry and thumped down the stairs. Of course her children feel obligated to tell the world. Just when their lives are nearly perfect, tragedy strikes—and the laughter dies. A terrible accident takes place in the placid valley nestled within the Susquehanna Mountains in the town of Williamsport, Pennsylvania. On a country lane just blocks from the family’s hundred year old haunted farmhouse, lives are changed forever. In a state of shock, Micki muses through their delightful past to avoid confronting an uncertain future—as the family copes with fear and apprehension. One of her six children is fighting for life in Intensive Care. Both parents are pressured by doctors to disconnect Noelle, their fourteen-year-old daughter. Her beautiful girl, funny and bright, who breathes life into every moment, who does cartwheels in piles of Autumn leaves, who loves to sing and dance down country roads, and above all loves her family with all her soul. How can Micki let this child go? The family embarks upon yet another journey, to the other side of sorrow and grasps the poignant gift of life as they begin. . .to weep. . .to laugh. . .to grieve. . .to dance—and forgive.