Walking Free: The Extraordinary True Story by Munjed Al Muderis; Patrick Weaver (As told to)

$23.00 AUD

Category: Biography

In 1999, Munjed Al Muderis was a young surgical resident working in Baghdad when a squad of Military Police marched into the operating theater and ordered the surgical team to mutilate the ears of three busloads of army deserters. When the head of surgery refused, he was executed in front of his staff. Munjed's choices were stark--comply and breach the medical oath "do no harm," refuse and face certain death, or flee. That day, Munjed's life changed forever. He escaped to Indonesia, where he boarded a filthy, overcrowded refugee boat, bound for Australia. Like his fellow passengers, he hoped for a new life, free from fear and oppression, but for 10 months he was incarcerated in what became known as the worst of the refugee camps, Curtin Detention Centre in Western Australia. There he was known only by a number, locked in solitary confinement and repeatedly told to go back to Iraq. On August 26, 2000, Munjed was finally freed. Now, 14 years later, he is one of the world's leading osseointegration surgeons, transforming the lives of amputees with a pioneering technique that allows them to walk again. Walking Free is Munjed's extraordinary account of his journey from the brutality of Saddam Hussein's Iraq to a new life in Australia and a remarkable career at the forefront of medicine. ...Show more

A Bigger Picture (Malcolm Turnbull, HB) by Malcolm Turnbull

$55.00 AUD

Category: Political

When Malcolm Turnbull took over the nation’s top job there was a sense of excitement in Australia. Sky-high opinion polls followed as the political outsider with a successful business, legal and media career took charge. The infighting that had dogged politics for the best part of a decade looked to be over. But a right-wing insurgency brutally cut down Turnbull’s time in office after three years, leaving many Australians asking, ‘Why?’ Exceptionally candid and compelling, A Bigger Picture is the definitive narrative of Malcolm Turnbull’s prime ministership. He describes how he legalised same-sex marriage, established Snowy Hydro 2.0, stood up to Donald Trump, and many more achievements – remarkable in their pace and significance, and delivered in the teeth of so much opposition. But it’s far more than just politics. Turnbull’s life has been filled with colourful characters and controversies, success and failure. From his early years in Sydney, growing up with a single father, to defending 'Spycatcher' Peter Wright against the UK government; the years representing Kerry Packer, leading the Republican Movement and making millions in business; and finally toppling Tony Abbott to become prime minister of Australia. For the first time he tells it all – in his own words. With revelatory insights on the workings of Canberra and the contentious events of Turnbull’s life, A Bigger Picture explores the strengths and vulnerabilities of one of Australia’s best-known and most dynamic business and political leaders. Lyrically written in highly readable and entertaining prose, this is a genuine page-turner that’s not just for political junkies.     ...Show more

Who Killed My Father by Édouard Louis

$25.00 AUD

Category: General

Who Killed My Father is the story of a tough guy - the story of the little boy I never was. The story of my father. In Who Killed My Father, douard Louis explores key moments in his father's life, and the tenderness and disconnects in their relationship. Told with the fire of a writer determined on soci al justice, and with the compassion of a loving son, the book urgently and brilliantly engages with issues surrounding masculinity, class, homophobia, shame and social poverty. It unflinchingly takes aim at systems that disadvantage those they seek to exclude - those who have their expectations, hopes and passions crushed by a society which gives them little thought. ...Show more

Too Much And Never Enough: How My Family Created The World's Most Dangerous Man by Mary L. Trump

$33.00 AUD

Category: Political

In this revelatory, authoritative portrait of Donald J. Trump and the toxic family that made him, Mary L. Trump, a trained clinical psychologist and Donald's only niece, shines a bright light on the dark history of their family in order to explain how her uncle became the man who now threatens the world 's health, economic security and social fabric.   Mary Trump spent much of her childhood in her grandparents' large, imposing house in New York, where Donald and his four siblings grew up. She describes a nightmare of traumas, destructive relationships and a tragic combination of neglect and abuse. She explains how specific events and general family patterns created the damaged man who currently occupies the Oval Office, including the strange and harmful relationship between Fred Trump and his two oldest sons, Fred Jr. and Donald.   A first-hand witness, Mary brings an incisive wit and unexpected humour to sometimes grim, often confounding family events. She recounts in unsparing detail everything from her uncle Donald's place in the family spotlight and Ivana's penchant for regifting to her grandmother's frequent injuries and illnesses and the appalling way Donald, Fred Trump's favourite son, dismissed and derided him when he began to succumb to Alzheimer's.   Numerous pundits, armchair psychologists and journalists have sought to explain Donald Trump's lethal flaws. Mary Trump has the education, insight and intimate familiarity needed to reveal what makes Donald, and the rest of her clan, tick. She alone can recount this fascinating, unnerving saga, not just because of her insider's perspective but also because she is the only Trump willing to tell the truth about one of the world's most powerful and dysfunctional families.     ...Show more

Phosphorescence: On Awe, Wonder and Things That Sustain You When the World Goes Dark by Julia Baird

$33.00 AUD

Category: General

A beautiful, intimate and inspiring investigation into how we can find and nurture within ourselves that essential quality of internal happiness - the 'light within' that Julia Baird calls 'phosphorescence' - which will sustain us even through the darkest times. Over the last decade, we have become bet ter at knowing what brings us contentment, well-being and joy. 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. ...Show more

Life At The Palace: A Necklace of Anecdotes by Joy Jobbins

$24.95 AUD

Category: Australian

The Gospel of the Eels by Patrik Svensson

$35.00 AUD

Category: General

'I can't recall us ever talking about anything other than eels and how to best catch them, down there by the stream. Actually, I can't remember us speaking at all. Maybe because we never did.' The European eel, Anguilla anguilla, is one of the strangest creatures nature ever created. Remarkably little is known about the eel, even today. What we do know is that it's born as a tiny willow-leaf shaped larva in the Sargasso Sea, travels on the ocean currents toward the coasts of Europe - a journey of about four thousand miles that takes at least two years. Upon arrival, it transforms itself into a glass eel and then into a yellow eel before it wanders up into fresh water. It lives a solitary life, hiding from light and science both, for ten, twenty, fifty years, before migrating back to the sea in the autumn, morphing into a silver eel and swimming all the way back to the Sargasso Sea, where it breeds and dies. And yet . . . There is still so much we don't know about eels. No human has ever seen eels reproduce; no one can give a complete account of the eel's metamorphoses or say why they are born and die in the Sargasso Sea; no human has even seen a mature eel in the Sargasso Sea. Ever. And now the eel is disappearing, and we don't know exactly why. What we do know is that eels and their mysterious lives captivate us. This is the basis for Patrik Svensson's quite unique natural science memoir; his ongoing fascination with this secretive fish, but also the equally perplexing and often murky relationship he shared with his father, whose only passion in life was fishing for this obscure creature. Through the exploration of eels in literature (Günter Grass and Graham Swift feature, amongst others) in the history of science (we learn about Aristotle's and Sigmund Freud's complicated relationships with eels) as well as modern marine biology (Rachel Carson and others) we get to know this peculiar animal, and in this exploration, also learn about the human condition, life and death, through natural science and nature writing at its very best. As Patrik Svensson concludes: 'by writing about eels, I have in some ways found my way home again.' ...Show more

Paul Kelly: His Life and Times by Stuart Coupe

$35.00 AUD

Category: Australian

Renowned music journalist Stuart Coupe examines the life of an Australian music icon - honest, revealing and a must-read for Paul Kelly fans and music lovers alike. He's been called Australia's Bob Dylan and likened to Springsteen and Neil Young, but Paul Kelly stands alone as a chronicler of his and o ur times. He is Australia's best-loved singer, songwriter, author and poetic observer and though he has written his own stories, no one has captured the broader life and times of Paul Kelly - until now. Renowned music journalist, author and for many years Kelly's manager, Stuart Coupe takes us from Kelly's family life as the sixth of nine children in Adelaide to his life today. With Paul's blessing and access to friends, family, band mates and musical collaborators, Coupe shows Paul's evolution from a young man who only really picked up a guitar in his late teens, to an Australian music icon. Through hundreds of interviews, Coupe details the way Paul juggled the demands, temptations and excesses of rock'n'roll with real life. Revealing Paul Kelly's personal relationships, his friendships, his generosity and support of other artists, such as Archie Roach, Kasey Chambers, Kev Carmody, Vika and Linda Bull and Courtney Barnett, the force of Kelly's powerful storytelling, his musical creativity, his activism and his work ethic also shines through. ...Show more

Particular Woman by Ashley Dawson-Damer

$33.00 AUD

Category: Australian

Embracing the excitement and turbulence of sixties Sydney, Ashley is set to make her mark amid uni classes filled with ambitious young males. She imagines her future with a successful career, husband, and a house full of children.  But life is never quite that easy. In this compelling memoir, Ashle y shares the incomparable heartache of multiple miscarriages, the challenges of single-motherhood, her surprise entry into modeling and the joy of a second chance at love. And when her world is unexpectedly torn apart, Ashley pushes through her grief to find solace in the arts. Laced with humour and moments of thoughtful reflection, A Particular Woman takes you from the back roads of Peron's Argentina and the mystique of the Far East, to the old country home and garden Ashley painstakingly restores. From the glamour of modeling to the politics of the boardroom, Ashley touches the heart of what it truly means to be a particular woman of our times.   ...Show more

Enid: The Compelling Story of an Australian Socialite Who Fascinated the World by Robert Wainwright

$33.00 AUD

Category: Australian

From the bestselling author of Sheila comes the story of an Australian socialite who fascinated the world. Enid Lindeman stood almost six feet tall, with silver hair and flashing turquoise eyes. The girl from Strathfield in Sydney stopped traffic in Manhattan, silenced gamblers in Monte Carlo and dared walk a pet cheetah on a diamond collar through Hyde Park in London.In early twentieth-century society, when women were expected to be demure and obedient, the granddaughter of Hunter Valley wine pioneer Henry Lindeman waltzed through life to the beat of her own drum. She drove an ambulance in World War I and hid escaped Allied airmen behind enemy lines in World War II, played bridge with Somerset Maugham and entertained Hollywood royalty in the world's most expensive private home on the Riviera, allegedly paid for by her winnings in a game of cards. Enid captivated men with her beauty, outlived four husbands-two shipping magnates, a war hero and a larger-than-life Irish earl-spent two great fortunes and earned the nickname 'Lady Killmore'. From Sydney to New York, London to Paris and Cairo to Kenya, Robert Wainwright tells the fascinating story of a life lived large on the world stage.  ...Show more

Women, Men and the Whole Damn Thing by David Leser

$30.00 AUD

Category: Australian

One of the most talked-about and widely praised articles of our time becomes the water-cooler book of the #MeToo era.

The Ride of a Lifetime - Lessons Learned from 15 Years as CEO of the Walt Disney Company by Robert Iger

$35.00 AUD

Category: Entertainment

A grand vision defined: The CEO of Disney, one of Time's most influential people of 2019, shares the ideas and values he embraced to reinvent one of the most beloved companies in the world and inspire the people who bring the magic to life. Robert Iger became CEO of The Walt Disney Company in 2005, during a difficult time. Competition was more intense than ever and technology was changing faster than at any time in the company's history. His vision came down to three clear ideas: Recommit to the concept that quality matters, embrace technology instead of fighting it, and think bigger--think global--and turn Disney into a stronger brand in international markets. Twelve years later, Disney is the largest, most respected media company in the world, counting Pixar, Marvel, Lucasfilm, and 21st Century Fox among its properties. Its value is nearly five times what it was when Iger took over, and he is recognized as one of the most innovative and successful CEOs of our era. In The Ride of a Lifetime, Robert Iger shares the lessons he's learned while running Disney and leading its 200,000 employees, and he explores the principles that are necessary for true leadership, including: * Optimism. Even in the face of difficulty, an optimistic leader will find the path toward the best possible outcome and focus on that, rather than give in to pessimism and blaming. * Courage. Leaders have to be willing to take risks and place big bets. Fear of failure destroys creativity. * Decisiveness. All decisions, no matter how difficult, can be made on a timely basis. Indecisiveness is both wasteful and destructive to morale. * Fairness. Treat people decently, with empathy, and be accessible to them. This book is about the relentless curiosity that has driven Iger for forty-five years, since the day he started as the lowliest studio grunt at ABC. It's also about thoughtfulness and respect, and a decency-over-dollars approach that has become the bedrock of every project and partnership Iger pursues, from a deep friendship with Steve Jobs in his final years to an abiding love of the Star Wars mythology.   "The ideas in this book strike me as universal" Iger writes. "Not just to the aspiring CEOs of the world, but to anyone wanting to feel less fearful, more confidently themselves, as they navigate their professional and even personal lives." ...Show more