Sorted on book title (not in series order)
In Just Kids, Patti Smith's first book of prose, the legendary American artist offers a never-before-seen glimpse of her remarkable relationship with photographer Robert Mapplethorpe in the epochal days of New York City and the Chelsea Hotel in the late sixties and seventies. An...Read more
In 1974, the homeless Miss Shepherd moved her broken down van into Alan Bennett's garden. Deeply eccentric and stubborn to her bones, Miss Shepherd was not an easy tenant. And Bennett, despite inviting her in the first place, was a reluctant landlord. And yet she lived there for fifteen...Read more
Career criminal John Killick was involved in the most audacious prison break in Australian history when he escaped from Sydney’s Silverwater prison after his partner in crime Lucy Dudko commandeered a scenic helicopter flight at gunpoint.
Australia’s ‘Bonnie and Clyde’ spent 45...Read more
This is the astounding true story of one of the last female special operations agents in France to get out alive after its liberation in WWII.
Born in 1921, Pippa Latour became a covert special operations agent who parachuted into a field in Nazi-occupied Normandy. Trained by the...Read more
Lenny Henry is one of the most famous faces on television — appealing to both young and old alike.
Born in Dudley, West Midlands, to Jamaican parents, the young Lenny first attracted attention amongst his school contemporaries with his uncanny abilities as a...Read more
With the Rolling Stones, Keith Richards created the riffs, the lyrics and the songs that roused the world, and over four decades he lived the original rock and roll taking the chances he wanted, speaking his mind, and making it all work in a way that no one before him had ever done.Read more
Judith Fordham has worn zebra-print shoes into a courtroom, represented transsexuals, bikies, alleged murderers and rapists, and raised four children on her own. Life, Law and Not Enough Shoes is her story, from her early life struggling on welfare to becoming a top barrister and...Read more
On October 31, 1999, schoolboy sailor Jesse Martin completed one of the last great adventures of the 20th century. At 18 years of age, and after 11 months at sea, he became the youngest person to sail solo, nonstop, and unassisted around the world. This is the story of why Jesse set himself...Read more
Matildas fever swept across the country during the 2023 World Cup campaign, filling stadiums beyond capacity, uniting communities and inspiring the next generation of world-class athletes. In one of the iconic ‘where-were-you-when’ moments in Australian sports history, the Matildas faced down the French in an epic penalty shootout that would propel them through to the semifinals for the first time ever. Standing on the collective brilliance of her teammates, it was Macca’s courage, leadership, steel-eyed focus and heroics in front of goal that won the hearts of a nation. We’ll never forget the outstretched arms, the roar of victory, green and gold flooding the pitch.Read more
A must-read biography of an enigmatic personality who helped shape early Melbourne
Madame Brussels, the most legendary brothel keeper in nineteenth-century Melbourne, is still remembered and celebrated today. But until now, little has been known about Caroline Hodgson, the...Read more
‘Arriving in Cambridge on my first day as an undergraduate, I could see nothing except a cold white October mist. At the age of twenty-four I was a complete failure, with nothing to show for my life except a few poems nobody wanted to publish in book form.’ Falling Toward England – the...Read more
Born in Ramsgate during the 1940s, Brenda Bottle was the youngest of nine in a poor but close family. She left school to work as a secretary for British Rail, where she met her husband. But by the age of twenty-seven, the marriage was over. Brenda left her job and with the little she had...Read more
I'm only in my mid-twenties, and some might think that's young to write a memoir. Who does that, right? But for me and my team it's always been important to reflect on every part of the journey, especially the end. In that context, the timing is perfect to share my story, from the first time I picked up a racquet as a 5-year-old girl in Ipswich to the night I packed up my tennis bag at Melbourne Park after winning the 2022 Australian Open. This book gives me a chance to look back at every moment of the 20 years in between, and to think carefully through the highs and lows, the work and the play, the smiles and the tears.Read more
When the hitman hiding in Roberta Williams′ roof confessed that he couldn′t kill her, she knew she had to get herself and her kids out of the bloodiest battle the Australian underworld had ever known.
Roberta′s marriage to Melbourne career criminal Carl Williams had been a...Read more
Grace Tame has never walked on middle ground.
From a young age, her life was defined by uncertainty - by trauma and strength, sadness and hope, terrible lows and wondrous highs. As a teenager she found the courage to speak up after experiencing awful and ongoing child sexual...Read more
Detective Senior Constable Lachlan McCulloch was a member of the police force for almost 16 years, working undercover and in the drug squad. During that time, he met the mad, the bad and the ugly, and his life was a never ending sequence of drama and tragedy. These are his stories.Read more
Sheila Hancock looked like she was managing old age. She had weathered and even thrived in widowhood, taking on acting roles that would have been demanding for a woman half her age. She had energy, friends, a devoted family, a lovely home. She could still remember her lines.
So...Read more
When Helen Plathe sets out along the Barwon River path for her first day at Highlands woollen mill, she is following in the footsteps of her mother, her uncle, and her grandfather.
Inside Highlands' tall black gates, Helen is initiated into an extraordinary world and discovers...Read more
As in life, Sam Dastyari’s memoir is unexpected and unorthodox. This is the man who introduced Pauline Hanson to the halal snack pack and accountability to big banks.
Named Sahand by his hippy Iranian parents, he changed his name to Sam to fit in with his schoolmates. But Sam was...Read more
Social mobility is not a train you get to board after you’ve scraped together enough for the ticket. You have to build the whole bloody engine, with nothing but a spoon and hand-me-down psychological distress.Violence, treachery and cruelty run through the generational veins of Rick Morton’...Read more
During her career in MI5, which lasted from 1969 to 1996, Stella Rimington worked in all the main fields of the Service's responsibilities—counter-subversion, counter-espionage and counter-terrorism—and became successively Director of all three branches. She was appointed Director-General...Read more
The gripping story of Australia's first female crime writer and her career-criminal son
When Mary Fortune arrived in Melbourne with her infant son in 1855, she was determined to reinvent herself. The Victorian goldfields were just the place.
After a time selling...Read more
The Pettingill crime family was almost off limits to police. Two members had been acquitted of the murder of two young policemen, with no chance of persecution. Along comes undercover cop Lachlan McCulloch. He spent months befriending the people who had killed his comrades, knowing that...Read more
"Out of the secret world I once knew, I have tried to make a theatre for the larger worlds we inhabit. First comes the imagining, then the search for reality. Then back to the imagining, and to the desk where I'm sitting now."
From his years serving in British Intelligence during...Read more
Born in Swaziland in 1957, Richard E. Grant moved to the UK to pursue his acting career, and has been a fixture on our screens since his breakout role in Withnail and I in 1987. When his beloved wife Joan died in 2021 after almost forty years together, she set him a challenge: to...Read more
In Poirot and Me, David Suchet tells the story of how he secured the part, with the blessing of Agatha Christie's daughter, and set himself the task of presenting the most authentic Poirot that had ever been filmed.
David Suchet is uniquely placed to write the ultimate companion...Read more
