Book picks similar to
The Prince and the Premier by David Hickie
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home-libary
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The Myth of Hindu Terror: Insider account of Ministry of Home Affairs 2006-2010
R.V.S. Mani - 2018
In his insider account, author RVS Mani discloses how the country’s internal security establishment functioned in the period of 2004-2014 when India faced some of the bloodiest terrorist carnages. This former Home Ministry official posted in the Internal Security Division between 2006-2010 also poses several questions that the nation should seek answers to.
What a Time to be Alive
Mark Di Stefano - 2016
A poll fought between two wildly ambitious men who want to win their first election, whatever it takes. Mark Di Stefano finds out what is happening behind the scenes and how the two campaigns manufacture, massage and manipulate their parties, policies and principles. What a time to be alive documents the daily ride of an historic election campaign, week by long week, taking you into the bizarre world of staged photo ops, booze-drenched regrets and dirty direct messages. The exposure of the unscripted moments with political leaders, their over-worked staff and secretive minders, shows how the sausage that is this Australian election, is made and reveals what is really inside.
Me of the Never Never
Fiona O'Loughlin - 2011
Fiona has also had successful shows at the Edinburgh and Adelaide fringe festivals, the Just for Laughs Festival in Montreal and the Melbourne International Comedy Festival.This book contains her stories - funny and sometimes sad stories about her upbringing as part of a large Irish-Catholic family on a wheat farm in South Australia, her chaotic and disorganised family life ever since, living in Alice Springs and making it as a stand-up comedian. She also talks of a darker side of the life of many performers - alcohol.This book is for anyone who likes to laugh (and cry), who wants to read about a woman living her life on her terms.
The Picture Predator: The True Story of One Mans Brutal Campaign of Terror
Robert Brown - 2020
Mister Fluffy Bunny
Peter Cawdron - 2018
Dana was found wandering alone in the Mexican desert in the midst of a drug war. Sheriff Garcia takes her to the Silver Plains orphanage, having her declared a ward of the state temporarily so he can focus on searching for her parents. When the sheriff is killed, Dana has to face the prospect she's never getting out of Silver Plains. Dejected and downcast, her only hope lies in the comfort of a stuffed toy—Mister Fluffy Bunny.
Black Teeth
Zane Lovitt - 2016
Partly because of the anxiety, mainly because he works at home. Researching people on the internet. Job candidates doing bucket bongs on Instagram accounts they thought they’d deleted; the prospective new head of sales stripping for a hens’ night…He’s been searching for something on his own time, too.Now he’s found it: the phone number of the man he believes to be his father.Which is how he gets mixed up with Rudy Alamein. They’ve been looking for the same man.Difference being, Rudy wants to kill him.Black Teeth is a witty, dynamic contemporary thriller by an emerging master of the form. Beautifully written and darkly funny, it’s both a literary triumph and an irresistible read.
The Good Teacher
P.J. Kelly - 2017
A cloudy autumn sky. The day started with 362 students and seventeen teachers. It ended with three people missing. Lisa and Jacob Johnstone had suffered a well-documented childhood of neglect and abuse. Everyone agreed that it needed to end. Jessica Bell was a kind and well-respected teacher. A strong and motivated woman, she only wanted the best for her students. Her own history of damage and pain had her believing that running away was the solution they had all been searching for. And so ensued a battle between right and wrong, good and evil, and common sense and the law. Miss Bell was not a bad woman. She was a good teacher. This is her story.
The Hope Flower
Joy Dettman - 2021
Or they were a family, until their father took his own life to escape his bed-bound wife, too obese to leave her room.But for Lori and the remaining brothers, there is no escape from their volatile, mentally unstable mother. They raise themselves away from the gaze of the authorities, realising that though abandoned, they are now in charge. They can control everything, including their mother's food intake.In time, their mother emerges, after losing two-thirds of her body weight. But does she bring with her the seed of hope for a better future, or will all hell break loose?'The texture of the writing as well as the mind-boggling plots give her books a fatally addictive attraction' Saturday Age
Yellow and black: A season with Richmond
Konrad Marshall - 2017
With unprecedented access to club officials, players and coaches, author Konrad Marshall takes the reader inside the rooms at the key moments the campaign, chronicling the Tigers' journey towards premiership contention. This is not just a book of wins and losses, it's the story of a professional football club and how it operates at every level: from the fitness staff, to the coaching panel, the players, and the Board. Football has changed enormously since Richmond's last flag, in 1980, and Marshall explains in great detail the enormous amount of work and thought that goes into every decision made-on and off the field. Whether the Tigers make it to the last Saturday in September or not, their story is rich and explosive. A Season with Richmond is full of unparalleled access to all the key moments, including frank and occasionally emotional interviews with all the key figures. A Season with Richmond is a compulsory read for all football fans.
The Trafficantes, Godfathers from Tampa, Florida: The Mafia, the CIA and the JFK Assassination
Ron Chepesiuk - 2006
For nearly seven decades, Santo Trafficante, Sr. and his son, Santo, Jr. were prominent gangsters on the Tampa crime scene. Santo, Sr. arrived in Tampa in 1902 and settled in the Ybor City area where he slowly began his climb to the top of the Tampa mob scene. Along the way, he became a clever and ruthless gangster who preferred to operate in the shadows. By the mid 1920s, Santo, Sr. had become a powerful force in the Tampa mafia. Two decades later, the U.S. government reported that he was “strongly suspected of having financed important narcotics transactions.” During Tampa’s “Era of Blood” from 1930 through the 1950s, in which several local gangsters were murdered, Santo, Sr. emerged as Tampa’s most powerful mobster. He would remain so until his death in 1954.His successor, Santo, Jr., lead the Tampa mob for more than three decades and became involved in some of history’s most seminal events. They include mob dominance of the gambling scene in pre-Castro Cuba, the CIA plots to kill Castro, the spectacular mob hit of godfather Albert Anastasia in 1957, the famous mob meeting at Apalachin in upstate New York that followed shortly after, the John F. Kennedy assassination, and the development of narcotics networks in Latin America and Southeast Asia, among others. Unlike most other godfathers, Santo, Jr. never spent more than a night in an American jail. When he died in 1987, organized crime expert Ralph Salerno described Santo, Jr.’s death as “the end of an era” and the godfather as “the last of the old time (gangland) leaders.” In vivid prose and concise detail, Chepesiuk weaves the fascinating story of the legendary gangsters, the Trafficantes.“Ron Chepesiuk’s book on the Trafficantes takes the reader behind the headlines to the real story, uncensored and without filters. The book is fast-paced with fascinating factual details told in Chepesiuk's trademark tell-it-as-it-is writing style. A must read for true crime aficionados.”--Elle Andra-Warner, author of several best-selling books, including Edmund Fitzgerald: The Legendary Great Lakes Shipwreck and The Mounties; Robert Service.
Fit Not Healthy
Vanessa Alford - 2015
She soon discovers she has a talent for long-distance running and trains for her first marathon. . She loves it – and soon sets her sights on the 2005 Melbourne Marathon. When she finishes in under three hours and in third place, Vanessa is offered commercial sponsorships and attracts the attentions of elite coaches. Instead of enjoying her win however, she is driven to improve her performance. She pushes her body harder and further, determined to become the best runner she can be. Despite her increasing success and her own training as a physiotherapist she soon finds herself trapped in a spiral of extreme dieting and exercise in order to improve her performances and maintain her ‘fit and healthy’ look.Ignoring the growing concern of her family and friends, Vanessa denies there is anything unhealthy about her fitness training, until the day she finds her body has started rebelling against her …A compelling story about the dangers of overexercising and chasing perfection in a society that rewards and applauds the fastest and the fittest.
Mr Stuart's Track
John Bailey - 2006
The Australian continent stretched for another 2,000 kilometres to the north and 2,500 to the west and no white man had the slightest idea of what was there. It was to be the first of six expeditions mounted by Stuart, then aged 42, as he sought to uncover the mysteries of the interior and forge a path to the north.Ultimately he was to become part of a race across the continent, his rivals being the Burke and Wills expedition. In the end Stuart was to be the first European to cross Australia from south to north and return again, as the cumbersome expedition of Burke and Wills turned from farce to tragedy. Yet his hero's homecoming was to be shortlived.
Mr Stuart's Track
is a fascinating study of a loner, an explorer of no fixed abode, who battled alcoholism and ill-health to push himself to the limits of endurance in crossing straight through the red centre to the northern seas.
Three's a Crowd
Dianne Blacklock - 2009
I'm not sure how we'll go now without Annie. She was like Carrie, you know, in Sex and the City. Annie was our Carrie."Without Annie, friends Catherine, Lexie and Rachel are lost. What will things be like now? How will they fill the void? Will their friendship survive? These questions are soon overshadowed by the complexities of their own lives. Catherine is excelling in her high-flying career but struggling in her relationships, especially with her unfathomable teenage daughter. Lexie is juggling the demands of her young family and the ego of her hardworking husband, while taking the first steps to achieving her own dreams. And finally Rachel, the one who can't seem to settle down, is experiencing the heady euphoria of a new relationship. But when the truth comes out about who she has fallen in love with, fragile friendships will be put to the test all over again...
Michael Clarke: My Story
Michael Clarke - 2016
And the batting prodigy they nicknamed 'Pup' certainly fulfilled his destiny in a stellar 11-year international career of 115 Tests, 8643 runs and 28 centuries.Clarke's rollercoaster four-year reign as Test captain was marked as much by bravery as brilliance - a 5-0 whitewash of England in 2013-14, the 2015 World Cup triumph, and a ten-hour unbeaten 161, batting with a broken shoulder to lead Australia back to the #1 world ranking in 2014.Yet Michael Clarke also sparked fiercer debate than any other Australian sports star.For a decade his personal life, career fortunes and controversies - real or imagined - were splashed across front pages and scrutinised. Was he simply a hard-working, western suburbs kid living every Aussie boy's dream? Or a 21st century cricketer mired in all the trappings of celebrity?In the echo chamber of social media, the truth about Michael Clarke was warped, then lost. Clarke's enigma deepened but he kept his mouth shut and his dignity intact, knowing the chance to tell his extraordinary story would finally come. And now it has.My Story is the real Michael Clarke, standing up and speaking out for the first time.Bucking the conventions of traditional biography to go hard at the big issues, Clarke speaks fearlessly and poignantly about the scandals, rumours and explosive moments of his life; revealing the amazing truths, private pain and personal triumphs that no one realised.It's the incredible story of a remarkable Australian you never really knew. Until now.
My Island Homicide
Catherine Titasey - 2013
Arriving with visions of enjoying a laid back, idyllic island lifestyle, What Thea finds instead is a close-knit community divided by a brutal crime.Rich in colour, texture and culture, My Island Homicide will take readers on a tropical adventure bursting with characters, crimes to be solved, courtroom drama, island humour, and romance.