In this lyrical, bittersweet debut memoir & already an award- winning bestseller when it was published in Australia & Alice grows up straddling two worlds, East and West, her insular family and the Australia outside. With wisdom beyond her years and a keen eye for comedy in everyday life, she writes of the trials of assimilation and cultural misunderstanding, and of the tender but fraught relationships between three generations of women trying to live the Australian dream without losing themselves. Unpolished Gem is a moving, vivid journey about identity and the ultimate search for acceptance and healing, delivered by a writer possessed of rare empathy, penetrating insight, and undeniable narrative gifts.

    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.

    I made my way to the remotest islands, the hottest deserts and the coldest of climates. I was robbed, suffered injuries, got sick and depressed. I covered around 320,000 kilometres by plane, train, boat, bus and car and ran just over 2300 race kilometres. It proved to me that you can do whatever you want to – just find the starting line, believe in yourself, and Run Like Crazy!When Tristan Miller lost his job as a result of the global economic crisis, he set himself a huge personal challenge. He would spend a year seeing the world, each week running an official marathon in a different country. This is the story of an ordinary man who chased his dream, 42.2 kilometres at a time.

    Born with a severe facial deformity, David's life has been anything but easy. Still, over time, he's learned to accept his gifts as well as his flaws, and to see that, sometimes, they are one and the same. In this compelling book, he shares his hard-earned lessons, providing an irresistible and unforgettable glimpse of his (and everyone's) inner beauty and offering profound encouragement in dealing with whatever life brings.

    Since the age of eleven, Daniel has been the face of Harry Potter, bringing the beloved character and his hair- raising adventures to life on the big screen. Though sometimes it might seem like Daniel and Harry are one and the same, when Daniel takes off those famous round glasses he has a style that is entirely his own. From his favourite bands to his favourite cartoon, find out everything you ever wanted to know about this young star: how Dan got cast as Harry, what life is like on the set, and how he spends his time when he's not battling the dark arts.

    A remarkable memoir from Leon Leyson, one of the youngest children to survive the Holocaust on Oskar Schindler’s list.Leon Leyson (born Leib Lezjon) was only ten years old when the Nazis invaded Poland and his family was forced to relocate to the Krakow ghetto. With incredible luck, perseverance, and grit, Leyson was able to survive the sadism of the Nazis, including that of the demonic Amon Goeth, commandant of Plaszow, the concentration camp outside Krakow. Ultimately, it was the generosity and cunning of one man, a man named Oskar Schindler, who saved Leon Leyson’s life, and the lives of his mother, his father, and two of his four siblings, by adding their names to his list of workers in his factory—a list that became world renowned: Schindler’s List.This, the only memoir published by a former Schindler’s List child, perfectly captures the innocence of a small boy who goes through the unthinkable. Most notable is the lack of rancor, the lack of venom, and the abundance of dignity in Mr. Leyson’s telling. The Boy on the Wooden Box is a legacy of hope, a memoir unlike anything you’ve ever read.

    Trapped in desperate poverty and confronted with unthinkable tragedies, all Andrew ever wanted was to be with his mom. But as her mental health steadily declined, and with no one else left to care for him, authorities arrived and tore Andrew from his screaming mother's arms. In that moment, the life he knew came crashing down around him. He was only seven years old. Hope was institutionalized, and Andrew was placed in what would be his devastating reality for the next eleven years--foster care. After surviving one of our country's most notorious children's facilities, Andrew was thrust into a savagely loveless foster family that refused to accept him as one of their own. Deprived of the nurturing he needed, Andrew clung to academics and the kindness of teachers. All the while, he refused to surrender the love he held for his mother in his heart. Ultimately, Andrew earned a scholarship to Wesleyan, went on to Harvard Law School, and became a Fulbright Scholar. Andrew has dedicated his life's work to helping children living in poverty and in the foster care system. He defied the staggering odds set against him, and here in this heartwrenching, brutally honest, and inspirational memoir, he reveals who Hope's boy really is.

    While in prison, Nosair helped plan the bombing of the World Trade Center in 1993. In one of his infamous video messages, Osama bin Laden urged the world to “Remember El-Sayyid Nosair.”For Zak Ebrahim, a childhood amongst terrorism was all he knew. After his father’s incarceration, his family moved often, and as the perpetual new kid in class, he faced constant teasing and exclusion. Yet, though his radicalized father and uncles modeled fanatical beliefs, to Ebrahim something never felt right. To the shy, awkward boy, something about the hateful feelings just felt unnatural.In this book, Ebrahim dispels the myth that terrorism is a foregone conclusion for people trained to hate. Based on his own remarkable journey, he shows that hate is always a choice—but so is tolerance. Though Ebrahim was subjected to a violent, intolerant ideology throughout his childhood, he did not become radicalized. Ebrahim argues that people conditioned to be terrorists are actually well positioned to combat terrorism, because of their ability to bring seemingly incompatible ideologies together in conversation and advocate in the fight for peace. Ebrahim argues that everyone, regardless of their upbringing or circumstances, can learn to tap into their inherent empathy and embrace tolerance over hatred. His original, urgent message is fresh, groundbreaking, and essential to the current discussion about terrorism.

    Through years of hard work and determination, she has relied on her faith and family to stay focused and positive, while having fun competing at the highest level and doing what she loves. Here, in her own words, Simone takes you through the events, challenges, and trials that carried her from an early childhood in foster care to a coveted spot on the 2016 Olympic team.Along the way, Simone shares the details of her inspiring personal story—one filled with the kinds of daily acts of courage that led her, and can lead you, to even the most unlikely of dreams.

    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.

    It was also a land withered by drought and hunger, and a place where hope and opportunity were hard to find. But William had read about windmills in a book called Using Energy, and he dreamed of building one that would bring electricity and water to his village and change his life and the lives of those around him. His neighbors may have mocked him and called him misala—crazy—but William was determined to show them what a little grit and ingenuity could do.Enchanted by the workings of electricity as a boy, William had a goal to study science in Malawi's top boarding schools. But in 2002, his country was stricken with a famine that left his family's farm devastated and his parents destitute. Unable to pay the eighty-dollar-a-year tuition for his education, William was forced to drop out and help his family forage for food as thousands across the country starved and died.Yet William refused to let go of his dreams. With nothing more than a fistful of cornmeal in his stomach, a small pile of once-forgotten science textbooks, and an armory of curiosity and determination, he embarked on a daring plan to bring his family a set of luxuries that only two percent of Malawians could afford and what the West considers a necessity—electricity and running water. Using scrap metal, tractor parts, and bicycle halves, William forged a crude yet operable windmill, an unlikely contraption and small miracle that eventually powered four lights, complete with homemade switches and a circuit breaker made from nails and wire. A second machine turned a water pump that could battle the drought and famine that loomed with every season.Soon, news of William's magetsi a mphepo—his "electric wind"—spread beyond the borders of his home, and the boy who was once called crazy became an inspiration to those around the world.Here is the remarkable story about human inventiveness and its power to overcome crippling adversity. The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind will inspire anyone who doubts the power of one individual's ability to change his community and better the lives of those around him.

    This biography traces his life from a classic Australian childhood in the suburbs of Brisbane to the glory of captaining the World Cup winning Wallabies.

     A powerful true story revealing a remarkable relationship between a dying son - and a mother that refuses to let him go. At the age of 10, Deryn was diagnosed with Leukaemia. Then 18 months later he developed another rare form of cancer called Langerhan’s cell sarcoma. Only five other people in the world have it. He is the youngest of them all and the only person in the world known to be fighting it alongside another cancer, making him one in seven billion. Told there was no hope of survival, after four years of intensive treatment, exhausted by his fight and with just days left to live, Deryn planned his own funeral. But, Deryn’s desperate mother, Callie would not let him give in. Battling medical errors, impossible odds and years of hardship as the cancer consumed his body and their world, they looked for more answers. After making some startling discoveries and taking massive chances - something began to change… Would their lives as a family ever be the same again?

    Not long after, she also became mute. Her tenacious struggle to overcome these handicaps-with the help of her inspired teacher, Anne Sullivan-is one of the great stories of human courage and dedication. In this classic autobiography, first published in 1903, Miss Keller recounts the first 22 years of her life, including the magical moment at the water pump when, recognizing the connection between the word "water" and the cold liquid flowing over her hand, she realized that objects had names. Subsequent experiences were equally noteworthy: her joy at eventually learning to speak, her friendships with Oliver Wendell Holmes, Edward Everett Hale and other notables, her education at Radcliffe (from which she graduated cum laude), and-underlying all-her extraordinary relationship with Miss Sullivan, who showed a remarkable genius for communicating with her eager and quick-to-learn pupil.

    All of the laughs, the scraps, the yarns and the characters: they all left a mark on me. And I wouldn’t change any of it."Bob Murphy has never been a typical footballer.Music buff, Age columnist and Winnebago driver, he is as comfortable in a Fitzroy café or the front bar of a grungy pub as he is in the locker room.In this unique memoir, Murphy takes the reader inside his seventeen-year career, including his three years as captain of the Western Bulldogs, exploring the people, places and events that shaped him. From playing backyard cricket in 1980s Warragul to Community Cup with Paul Kelly in the 2000s, and from the joy of marrying his high school crush to the agony of a season-ending ACL rupture: the man described as the spirit of the Bulldogs has soul, and it’s made of leather.How did the country kid with a gypsy’s heart become an All-Australian captain? What’s it like to have your club reach the AFL Grand Final for the first time in sixty-two years, and have to cheer from the sidelines? How does it feel to realise you can no longer do the things that made you great?The great Australian football bard Martin Flanagan has long insisted Bob Murphy has a book in him like no footballer has written. Leather Soul proves him right.