NEW RELEASES

Adult Non-Fiction

  • In Hidden Scars, former NSW Police Officer Justyn Backhouse shares an unflinching memoir of life on the front lines, revealing the harrowing experiences and unseen toll of a 25-year policing career. Diagnosed with PTSD in 2021, Justyn wrote this memoir during treatment—not only as a path to healing but as an honest exploration of the psychological scars that come with being a first responder.
    His journey unfolds with gripping intensity: from high-speed pursuits on highway patrol to daring rescues and body recoveries with POLAir, each experience brings him closer to the edge. It all unravels with a pivotal incident late in Justyn’s career—a traumatic
  • moment that thrust him into a mental health crisis. Vivid flashbacks pull readers into defining scenes: the adrenaline and shock of his first encounters with crime, tragic motor vehicle accidents that challenge his views on mortality, and the violent clashes during the Cronulla riots. Each experience erodes the safety of youth, replacing it with the stark realities of policing.
    As PTSD silently takes root, Justyn confronts the relentless impact of trauma on his work, family, and sense of self. He exposes private battles—panic attacks, the emotional toll on his loved ones, and the struggle to cope with the stress infiltrating every part of his life. Amidst the bleakness,
  • his journey toward recovery unfolds, revealing the support and resilience he draws on to rebuild his life and purpose.
Hidden Scars (True crime) Justyn Backhouse $34.99
  • Antarctica looms large in the Australian psyche – as a place of science, adventure and peril. Our romantic entanglement with this unique environment is deep and enduring.The Southern Frontier traces Australia’s Antarctic obsession from its origins in the nineteenth century to the creation of the Australian Antarctic Territory and a permanent national Antarctic program in the 1930s and 1940s. It reconstructs Australian ideas, beliefs and anxieties about the Antarctic and shows how Australians came to imagine their nation as having a natural right – perhaps even a destiny – to explore, exploit and control the world to their south. By examining how and why Australia
  • relentlessly pursued the acquisition of its Antarctic Territory, Rohan Howitt recovers a forgotten way of thinking about this region: as one frontier of an Australian empire stretching from the equator to the South Pole.At a time when the Australian Government is ramping up its investment in Antarctica and geopolitical tensions are on the rise, The Southern Frontier provides the historical explanation for how Australians came to see the world to their south as a natural extension of the nation’s territory.
The Southern Frontier (History) Rohan Howitt $39.99
  • In 2003, seventeen-year-old Australian exchange student Hannah Kent arrives at Keflavík Airport in the middle of the Icelandic winter. That night she sleeps off her jet lag and bewilderment in the National Archives of Iceland, unaware that, years later, she will return to the same building to write Burial Rites, the haunting story of Agnes Magnúsdóttir, the last woman executed in Iceland. The novel will go on to launch the author's stellar literary career and capture the hearts of readers across the globe. Always Home, Always Homesick is Hannah Kent's exquisite love letter to a land that has forged a nation of storytellers, her ode to the transcendent power of creativity, and her invitation to us all to join her in the realms of
  • mystery, spirit and wonder.
Always Home, Always Homesick (literary) Hannah Kent $36.99
  • Just months before the start of World War I, Winston Churchill withdrew the Royal Navy's most formidable ships from the Pacific. With powerful German cruisers in its northern waters, Australia's fledgling navy needed to step up.
    Seasoned foreign correspondent and RAN veteran Anthony Delano has uncovered surprising stories from those days and earlier. The rogue captain ready to bombard Brisbane. The quick-witted officer who snatched Germany's secret codes. The bold raid on Rabaul and the capture of German colonies across the Pacific. A dangerous marauder blockaded in an African river. The courageous volunteers who raided a U-boat
  • haven. The battle between HMAS Sydney and the cruiser Emden that might not have been quite the glorious victory it once seemed. Captain Guy Gaunt, a boy from Ballarat who became a master of intrigue and espionage. The unhappy flagship HMAS Australia and a scandalous mutiny trial.
The Tinpot Navy (Military history) Anthony Delano $34.99
  • In November 1999, Joan Didion began seeing a psychiatrist because, as she wrote to a friend, her family had had 'a rough few years'. She described the sessions in a journal she created for her husband, John Gregory Dunne.
    For several months, Didion recorded conversations with the psychiatrist in meticulous detail. The initial sessions focused on alcoholism, adoption, depression, anxiety, guilt, and the heartbreaking complexities of her relationship with her daughter, Quintana. The subjects evolved to include her work, which she was finding difficult to maintain for sustained periods. There were discussions
  • about her own childhood – misunderstandings and lack of communication with her mother and father, her early tendency to anticipate catastrophe – and the question of legacy, or, as she put it, 'what it’s been worth'. The analysis would continue for more than a decade.
    Didion’s journal was crafted with the singular intelligence, precision, and elegance that characterize all of her writing. It is an unprecedently intimate account that reveals sides of her that were unknown, but the voice is unmistakably hers – questioning, courageous, and clear in the face of a wrenchingly painful journey.
Notes To John (Miscellaneous items) Joan Didion $34.99
  • A treasured son. A rare condition. A memoir of loss and joy and everything in between.

    My mind is racing. I'm trying to make sense of what the doctors have told us, to understand what life is going to look like now, for Levi and for us.
    We need to tell our families, I think to myself. But Mum is so unwell - how are we going to tell Mum?
    On a Melbourne afternoon in the eerie early days of the pandemic, young parents Jordan and Gary Ablett finally learned why their beautiful baby boy, Levi, had not been hitting the
  • milestones that most new parents celebrate and are reassured by.
    After months of concern and worry, the specialists' diagnosis gave them clarity, but with it came an overwhelming sorrow at the loss of the life they had imagined for their son, and for themselves as a family.
    In One Day at a Time, Jordan bravely shares how she struggled to come to terms with Levi's condition and the new, unexpected path her life had taken raising a child with a disability, while helping to care for her beloved mother as she lived through the final stages of cancer.
One Day At A Time (Memoirs) Jordan Ablett $35.99
  • As a criminal defence lawyer, Jahan Kalantar has helped people in their most desperate hour, from hardened jailbirds to accidental offenders, disadvantaged delinquents to undeserving scapegoats. Along the way, Jahan has learned that it's not always the smartest person in the room who wins the day. There are other, more important skills: like being able to ask for help, stick to your values, listen without judgement, know when to be sceptical, and apologise like you mean it. In Talk Your Way Out of Trouble, Jahan shares his insights through laugh-out-loud funny stories of his own triumphs and blunders, as well as those of his clients. Full of humour and heart, this is an insider's look at how the law really works - and why its
  • lessons are vital for everyone, in and out of the courtroom.
Talk Your Way Out Of Trouble (Memoirs) Jahan Kalantar $36.99
  • Tennis is not short on history. When Nadal arrived on the scene in 2005, the record for men's singles titles at the French Open stood at six, held by Bjorn Borg. Almost twenty years later, Nadal has more than doubled Borg's total with a mind-boggling fourteen titles. His record will undoubtedly remain his signature achievement - the stat that will define him in memory twenty, fifty, even a hundred years from now. Fourteen certainly looks like the only major tennis record that will never be broken even if Nadal, a modest champion despite his flashy resume, rejects that kind of definitive thinking.Nadal has won big and won often on any of tennis's surfaces, securing two Wimbledon titles on grass and four U.S. Opens on
  • acrylic hardcourts. But clay, the slowest and grittiest of the game's playgrounds, is where it all comes together best for his explosive movement and warrior mindset. Clay is the canvas on which he has mastered his choreography, underlining the precision, speed, and raw power required to accomplish one of the most impressive sporting achievements of the 21st century - it is the essential stuff of his life and success.
The Warrior (Biography) Rafael Nadal $34.99
  • For almost five decades after the Second World War, Europe was divided by the longest and most heavily guarded border on earth. The Iron Curtain, a near-impenetrable barrier of wire and wall, tank traps, minefields, watchtowers and men with dogs, stretched for 4,300 miles from the Arctic to the Black Sea. No physical combat would take place along this frontier: the risk of nuclear annihilation was too high for that. Instead, the conflict would be fought in the psychological sphere. It was a battle for hearts, minds and intellects.
    No one understood this more clearly than George Minden, the head of a covert intelligence operation known as the ‘CIA
  • books programme’, which aimed to win the Cold War with literature.
    From its Manhattan headquarters, Minden’s global CIA ‘book club’ would infiltrate millions of banned titles into the Eastern Bloc, written by a vast and eclectic list of authors, including Hannah Arendt and Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, George Orwell and Agatha Christie. Volumes were smuggled on trucks and aboard yachts, dropped from balloons, and hidden in the luggage of hundreds of thousands of individual travellers. Once inside Soviet bloc, each book would circulate secretly among dozens of like-minded readers, quietly turning them into dissidents. Latterly, underground print
  • shops began to reproduce the books, too. By the late 1980s, illicit literature in Poland was so pervasive that the system of communist censorship broke down, and the Iron Curtain soon followed.
The CIA Book Club ( Criminal investigation & detection) Charlie English $34.99
  • Life as a paramedic, writes Sally Gould in this candid, witty memoir, can be traumatic, gross, dull, hilarious, magical. To make the cut, you need to be able to think outside the square, keep calm in the midst of chaos, be in possession of a strong stomach, and simply brush it off when patients die. That’s on top of having a profound understanding of the human body, plus the skills to counter its failings. It also helps to have a highly developed and oftentimes dark sense of humour.
    But behind the sirens and the life-or-death scenes, and the absurdity of non-urgent callouts, a paramedic’s career is very different to how most people imagine it.
  • Based on years of meticulously kept journals, Frog is an intimate look at the human cost of the job and the cumulative effect of trauma. Sally shares a personal story that is searingly honest and truly inspiring, one which offers a heartfelt tribute to the resilience, courage and camaraderie that define the high-stakes world of emergency medicine.
Frog (Trade paperback) Sally Gould $36.99
  • In 1943, German SS officers in charge of Auschwitz-Birkenau ordered that an orchestra should be formed among the female prisoners. Almost fifty women and girls from eleven nations were assembled to play marching music to other inmates - forced labourers who left each morning and returned, exhausted and often broken, at the end of the day - and give weekly concerts for Nazi officers. Individual members were sometimes summoned to give solo performances of an officer's favourite piece of music. It was the only entirely female orchestra in any of the Nazi prison camps and, for almost all of the musicians chosen to take part, being in the orchestra was to save their lives. In The Women's Orchestra of
  • Auschwitz, award-winning historian Anne Sebba tells their astonishing story with sensitivity and care.
The Women's Orchestra of Auschwitz (The Holocaust) Anne Sebba $34.99
  • Joan Lindsay's Picnic at Hanging Rock has captivated and perplexed generations. But the woman behind the novel is as much an enigma as the disappearance of the fictitious schoolgirls and their teacher.
    Joan Lindsay, wife of painter, art entrepreneur and National Gallery of Victoria director Daryl Lindsay, sacrificed her own artistic talent in deference to her husband, as was the order of the day. She painted landscapes with skill, but gave it up; wrote plays and novels of little merit; took routine journalism commissions for much-needed funds; and happily played hostess to guests including Dame Nellie Melba, Robert Helpman, Laurence Olivier and Vivien Leigh,
  • as well as Keith and Elisabeth Murdoch and Robert Menzies, at the Lindsay country house on the Mornington Peninsula-all the while giving no indication of the literary brilliance that would emerge late in her life. There were clues, though, as Brenda Niall reveals in this fascinating biography. Joan's unconventional attitude towards time-she allowed no clocks in the house and never wore a watch-and her deep reverence for the Australian landscape hint at the mystical centre of her masterpiece.
    Was Joan really the dutiful wife, or was she patiently waiting her chance? Was Picnic at Hanging Rock a burst of creativity in response to a life held in check? Or did
  • something happen behind the carefully curated scenes that gave rise to her extraordinary novel? Joan Lindsay- The Hidden Life of the Woman who Wrote Picnic at Hanging Rock explores these questions and more in an engaging and surprising portrait of a fascinating Australian woman.
Joan Lindsay (Biography: literary) Brenda Niall $36.99
  • Dame Nellie Melba is, arguably, the most famous of all Australian women and her portrait graces Australia's highest denomination banknote. Blessed with an exceptionally fine voice, Melba forged a spectacular career for herself in the rarified world of grand opera and was acknowledged as a 'Queen of Song'. Triumph after triumph crowned her 44-year-long career and her admirers included numerous famous composers and the monarchs of many countries. Melba also provided a role model for other Australians who followed in her footsteps onto the stages of the world's great opera houses. Melba's private life was almost as colourful as the plots of
  • the operas in which she sang. A turbulent marriage that ended in acrimonious divorce, custody battles, a doomed love affair with a member of the French royal family, health problems and a press campaign of criticism about her character taxed Melba's stamina and her courage.
Nellie Melba (Biography: arts & entertainment) Richard Davis $49.95
  • Shari Franke’s childhood was a constant battle for survival. Her mother, Ruby Franke, enforced a severe moral code while maintaining a façade of a picture-perfect family for their wildly popular YouTube channel 8 Passengers, which documented the day-to-day life of raising six children for a staggering 2.5 million subscribers. But a darker truth lurked beneath the surface – Ruby’s wholesome online persona masked a more tyrannical parenting style than anyone could have imagined.
    As the family’s YouTube notoriety grew, so too did Ruby’s delusions of righteousness. Fueled by the sadistic influence of relationship coach Jodi Hildebrandt,
  • together they implemented an inhumane and merciless disciplinary regime.
    Ruby and Jodi were arrested in Utah in 2023 on multiple charges of aggravated child abuse. On that fateful day, Shari shared a photo online of a police car outside their home. Her caption had one word: 'Finally'.For the first time, Shari will reveal the disturbing truth behind 8 Passengers and her family’s devastating involvement with Jodi Hildebrandt’s cultish life coaching program, 'ConneXions'. No stone is left unturned as Shari exposes the perils of influencer culture and shares for the first time her battle for truth and survival in the face of her mother’s cruelty.
The House of my Mother (Memoirs) Shari Franke $34.99
  • Celebrate the legacy of Bruce Williss career in a book the Los Angeles Times calls "a thoughtful guide." On a nondescript Wednesday morning in the waning days of March 2023, one of the biggest movie stars on the planet called it quits. No press conference had been organized, the Hollywood trades received no advance notice, and there was a conspicuous lack of the fanfare that usually accompanies such bombshell announcements. Instead, the news that Bruce Willis was retiring from acting came in a simple statement on his ex-wife Demi Moore’s Instagram page—along with the tragic news that Willis was suffering from aphasia, a cognitive disorder that subsequently worsened to become
  • frontotemporal dementia. It was a sad conclusion to the storied career of a man who had at one point been the highest-paid actor in Hollywood. That career is the subject of Sean O’Connell’s definitive survey of Bruce Willis the actor, the cultural icon, and the man. Here, O’Connell compiles exclusive, original interviews with directors who have worked with Willis, as well as film critics and journalists who have analyzed his career, into a celebratory compendium. It also features the author’s analysis of Willis’s films, his career arc, and the industry that made him a star. And it includes capsule reviews of every Bruce Willis film, making this a complete
  • handbook to a true American original.
Bruce Willis (Biography: arts & entertainment) Sean O'Connell $67.99
  • The incredible true story of how a street-fighting petty criminal, who was kicked out of school at fourteen, became one of Australia's most celebrated and successful portrait artists.
    Raised amid poverty and violence on the poor streets of Melbourne, Vincent Fantauzzo was just a boy when he accepted he would either die very young, become a gangster or end up behind bars. Tormented by a troubled home life and dismissed as a simpleton at school where he struggled to read and write, Vincent projected a violent and frightening persona as a means of self-protection. Inside that tough exterior, however, lived a thoughtful, sensitive and
  • creative boy whose only wish was to be loved - and to one day break free of the intergenerational dysfunction he seemed doomed to inherit. He could never have imagined how far his dream of a better life - and an uncanny knack for drawing - would take him.
    Virtually illiterate, Vincent used forged papers to hustle his way into art school where dark secrets threatened to sink his brilliant career before it even began. Today his work hangs in galleries around the world including the National Portrait Gallery and Federal Parliament House in Canberra. He's sold out international exhibitions, won the Archibald Prize People's Choice Award more
  • times than any artist and taken out the Doug Moran Portrait Prize. Twice.
    Arguably Vincent's most impressive and important achievement is his survival and the remarkable, sometimes ridiculous and occasionally glamorous, life he willed into existence despite severe and undiagnosed dyslexia that left him with no formal education and debilitating memory problems. Sometimes tragic, often hilarious but always deeply moving, Unveiled is a paint-spattered, star-studded, white-knuckle ride from the Housing Commission ghettos of Australia to the art galleries of Hong Kong, through the back roads of India and into the nightclubs of New York as Vincent
  • chases his dream with humility, humour and a boundless love for people and a life better lived.
Unveiled (Autobiography: arts & entertainment) Vincent Fantauzzo $36.99
  • In Nation, Memory, Myth, Steve Vizard brings an original perspective to the foundational myth of Gallipoli as a sacred bearer of Australian national values and identity. In this scrupulously researched close reading of the Gallipoli mythology, Vizard dissects the elements common to all national myths that transform them into compelling symbolic performances of cultural memory and kinship, unpicking the tensions and explaining the ambiguities embodied within.Nation, Memory, Myth offers the reader a challenging new look at the extraordinary vitality of myth as a unifying force that generates meaning for a nation and its citizens. Only by understanding myth's
  • evolution across time and by disentangling it from history, memory and forgetting, can we begin to sense what an Australia in the twenty-first century may mean.
Nation, Memory, Myth, Steve Vizard $39.99
  • From the moment she was born in 1886, Annette Kellerman was a force of nature. After a diagnosis of rickets as a young girl she took up swimming, and her extraordinary tenacity and bravery made her an Australian champion, beating boys, breaking records, and astonishing huge crowds by diving from great heights.
    At eighteen, Annette had her sights set on swimming the English Channel and challenging endurance records in the Thames, and late in the Seine, Boston Harbour and the Danube - and famously scandalized the public with her one-piece swimming costume, which changed fashion forever and drew legions of women into the
  • water, allowing them to swim freely.
    Thrilling audiences on both sides of the Atlantic with her breathtaking vaudeville act, beauty and athleticism, she became famous as 'The Perfect Woman', and Hollywood swiftly embraced her. By 1914 she was a silent film superstar and sex symbol thanks for her risque costumes - and sometimes no costume at all.
    Annette's appetite for excitement and thrills was legendary - once flinging herself into a pool of live crocodiles for one film and jumping from the wings of a biplane for another. But she also had a shrewd business mind, lecturing and publishing books about
  • fitness and designing her clothing range, all to help women become healthier, stronger and more beautiful.
    Kellerman was one of the highest-paid entertainers of her time and a world-wide celebrity, but despite her fame she saw her promotion of health, fitness and independence for women as her greatest achievement, and her influence and spirit changed the lives of millions.
Annette Kellerman Australian Mermaid (sport) Grantlee Kieza $35.99
  • Kate Grenville is no stranger to the past. Her success and fame as a writer exploded when she published The Secret River in 2005, a bestseller based on the story of her convict ancestor, an early settler on the Hawkesbury River.
    More than two decades on, and following the defeat of the Voice referendum, Grenville is still grappling with what it means to descend from people who were, as she puts it, "on the sharp edge of the moving blade that was colonisation".
    So she decides to go on a kind of pilgrimage, back through the places her family stories happened, and put the stories and the First
  • People back into the same frame, on the same country, to try to think about those questions. This gripping book is the result of that journey.
Unsettled (History) Kate Grenville $36.99
  • When an unassuming young Melbourne woman bumped into a handsome naval lieutenant in a Colombo hotel swimming pool in 1926 she would never have dreamed of one day being the wife of an English duke with three castles.
    Demure but feisty Nell Stead and Alexander 'Mandy' Drogo Montagu, son of the ninth Duke of Manchester, fell in love that day and were married within months in a union that surprised English society. Together, the unlikely couple set out to rescue the family's fortunes that had been crippled by taxes and financial mismanagement.
    In a world of contrasts, they battle the
  • excesses and eccentricities of dubious relatives under the threat of war to revive a dying estate, including a castle in which Catherine of Aragon spent her final days.
    Nell's story is page-turning. The only Australian woman to ever join the British aristocracy as a duchess, her life is a wild ride through England, America and Kenya as the House of Montagu crumbles through four generations.
Nell (Biography) Robert Wainwright $34.99
  • The Dalai Lama has had to contend with the People’s Republic of China his entire life. He was 15 years old when communist China invaded Tibet in 1950, only 19 when he had his first meeting with Chairman Mao in Beijing, and 24 when he was forced to escape to India and became a leader in exile. Almost 75 years after China’s initial invasion of Tibet, the Dalai Lama has faced communist China’s leaders – Mao Zedong, Deng Xiaoping, Jiang Zemin, Hu Jintao and Xi Jinping – in his effort to protect Tibet and its people.
    In Voice for the Voiceless, the Dalai Lama reminds the world of Tibet’s unresolved struggle for freedom and the hardship his
  • people continue to face in their homeland. The book captures his extraordinary life, uncovering what it means to lose your home to a repressive invader and build a life in exile; dealing with the existential crisis of a nation, its people, and its culture and religion; and envisioning the path forward.
Voice For The Voiceless (Buddhism) Dalai Lama $32.99
  • It is difficult to take myself back to the beginning, and even more difficult to share such a private time in my life. But I will. It's how I will find meaning from the loss, from the universe robbing the kids and me of an extraordinary father and husband, by paying it forward to you.
    In this deeply personal and heartfelt memoir, Lauren Zonfrillo details her journey through grief after the sudden and public loss of her husband, Jock - chef, restaurateur and, of course, beloved MasterChef Australia judge. Thrust into the role of a solo parent, with the overwhelming task of guiding her young children through their grief while managing her own, Lauren has also had to navigate the
  • weight of public expectations and intense media scrutiny.
    Lauren shares her path through this devastating time, including missteps, moments of despair and eventual steps towards healing. More than just a compelling read and a look behind the headlines, this book will provide solace to others trying to find their way through loss. And from the first page to the last, Jock is there.
Till Death Do Us Part (Memoirs) Lauren Zonfrillo $36.99
  • The Bookseller at the End of the World described the first part of Ruth Shaw's tumultuous life, touching readers in powerful ways. It became an international bestseller, translated into eleven languages.
    Three Wee Bookshops at the End of the World picks up Ruth's story with more charming, heartbreaking, brave and funny tales. Having found the love of her life, Lance, she tells of their sailing adventures together, world travels, conservation efforts and their wee bookshops.
    Life has never been easy for Ruth but, despite that, her book is chock full of extraordinary people and situations, many of
  • them laugh-out-loud funny. Tales from the bookshops are interwoven with Ruth's story, along with expert book recommendations.
    Written in Ruth's characteristic style, this absorbing memoir traverses the highs and lows of a life lived to the full, creating another deeply satisfying read.
At The End of The World (Memoirs) Ruth Shaw $34.99
  • It is daunting to grow old in a time and place that does not value old people, but the age group known as Boomers should not be so easily dismissed. They marched against the Vietnam War and were the first generation to be liberated by the contraceptive pill from the fear of unwanted pregnancy. Their teenage years were fuelled by protest songs and peace-and-love idealism, and many are still engaged in forms of activism.Framed by the turning of the seasons in her small suburban garden, Carol Lefevre's Bloomer documents the year in which she turned seventy. Memoir threads through meditations on aspects of ageing, from its hidden grief and potential for loneliness to our relationship with the past and with our own mortality.
Bloomer (Maturation & ageing) Carol Lefevre $34.99
  • Have you ever felt like you're hurtling through life, unable to slow down or take a breath? Things might look good from the outside, but you're running on empty with no time to reflect on what it's all for.
    Greatness is the antidote to this helpless, discontented feeling: it is about self-knowledge and taking control of your life; finding meaning and joy beyond the noise of the modern world. Greatness is within us all. But daily demands, the weight of expectations and the opinions of others can pull us away from who we truly are, leaving us feeling lost. This book is a guide to cutting through the chaos, reconnecting with yourself and reclaiming the greatness that
  • was always yours.
    Sarah Grynberg shares the steps she took to transform her life after experiencing burnout in a high-profile, high-pressure job-and realising how unfulfilled she truly was. Drawing from her own life stories, her work as a mindset coach and her in-depth interviews with global thought leaders, celebrities and authors on her podcast A Life of Greatness, Sarah candidly reveals the simple, everyday practices that can set us firmly back on our own paths to greatness.
Living a Life of Greatness (Self-help & personal development) Sarah Grynberg $34.99
  • While the 'nerdy white man' stereotype of Autism dominates in media and popular culture, other Autistic people miss out on seeing themselves, their unique experiences, their hardships and their triumphs.
    In Someone Like Me, edited by Clem Bastow and Jo Case, twenty-five Autistic gender-diverse and women writers explore their experiences - and explode stereotypes. This groundbreaking anthology ranges from sex, living room dance parties and the natural world to eating disorders, all-encompassing passions and religion. Autistic people of all kinds are invited to find company in these pages - and maybe even see themselves, too.
Someone Like Me (Gender studies: transsexuals & hermaphroditism) Clem Bastow and Jo Case $36.99
  • The 1950s. Boring?
    Hardly.
    An influx of European refugees, stirrings of feminism, and the threat of a third world war were remaking Australia. As the Cold War chilled, inside a Melbourne house a young girl was caught in the crossfire of domestic conflict amid the clashing political and social values of her autocratic grandmother, her self-denying mother, and her glamorous aunt; three women who presented very different models of womanhood.
Cold War in a Hot Kitchen (Memoirs) Margaret Ann Spence $34.95
  • Packed with humor, warmth, and all-too-relatable anecdotes, this comic memoir explores the (often invisible) labor of modern motherhood that leaves so many moms feeling like they are losing themselves—and their minds! Whether you’re navigating a hellish sleep regression, wiping sweet potato off the walls, seething with spousal resentment (deserved and undeserved), or simply hoping to pee without a toddler watching, this candid and irreverent account perfectly captures what every mom knows in her heart to be true: motherhood is @#$% hard (and also really amazing)!
    Filled with Starr’s signature wit, warmth, and observational humor, Mama Needs a
  • Minute! tackles all the absurdities of mom life and will make you laugh, cry, and feel seen in a way only a true mom-friend can offer.
Mama Needs a minute! (Family & health) Mary Catherine Starr $37.99
  • In April 1942, the Imperial Japanese Army captured Burma, closing the only ground route from India to China. Supplies now had to be flown over the foothills of the treacherous Himalayas, on the most dangerous air route in the world.
    Delving into memoirs, diaries, and official records, Caroline Alexander tells the story of the airmen who braved this perilous journey, flying unreliable aircraft through monsoons and enemy fire, with primitive navigation tools. The result is a litany of both deadly crashes and astonishing feats of survival.
    Highlighting the efforts of units like the Chindits and Merrill's Marauders, and
  • examining the political tensions between Roosevelt, Churchill, and Chiang Kai-shek, this book also exposes the fractures between the Allies and the impact of their decisions on post-war relations.
Skies of Thunder (Military history) Caroline Alexander $36.99
  • This is a wild, raw and hilarious memoir that charts Dylan's first year of transitioning - which was extensively documented through her viral TikTok series 'Days of Girlhood' - and the chaos that ensued. Written in true and authentic Dylan style in a combination of journal-style entries and essays, the book tackles mental health struggles, feminism, religion, internet trolls and more. It's 100% honest and 100% Dylan.'The thing that my videos lack is backstory. Granular moments or revelations that deserve to be enjoyed in a more personal way. As a trans human sharing my vulnerabilities, I have to be very sure that I am ready to disclose sensitive topics. My videos have free range for anyone, including
  • the haters, to enjoy. This book would be a safety blanket to invite my true allies under, to share the personal and scary truth of my life as a trans influencer with the right crowd.'
Paper Doll (Memoirs) Dylan Mulvaney $34.99
  • Many cultural and religious traditions expect those who are grieving to step away from the world. In contemporary life, we are more often met with red tape and to-do lists. This is exactly what happened to Geraldine Brooks when her partner of more than three decades, Tony Horwitz - just sixty years old and, to her knowledge, vigorous and healthy - collapsed and died on a Washington, DC street.After spending their early years together in conflict zones as foreign correspondents, and living in Sydney, Geraldine and Tony settled down to raise two boys on Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts. The life they built was one of meaningful work, good humour, and tenderness, as they spent their days
  • writing and their evenings cooking family dinners or watching the sun set with friends. But all of this came to an abrupt end when, on the US Memorial Day public holiday of 2019, Geraldine received the phone call we all dread. The demands were immediate and many. Without space to grieve, the sudden loss became a yawning gulf.Three years later, she booked a flight to remote Flinders Island off the coast of Tasmania with the intention of finally giving herself the time to mourn. In a shack on the island's pristine, rugged coast she often went days without seeing another person. There, she pondered the various ways in which cultures grieve, and what rituals of her own might help to rebuild a life around the .
  • void of Tony's death
Memorial Days (Memoirs) Geraldine Brooks $32.99
  • From the icy seas of our poles to remote coral islands, David Attenborough has filmed in every ocean habitat on planet earth. Now, with long-term collaborator Colin Butfield, he shares the story of our last great wilderness - the one which shapes the land we live on, regulates our climate and creates the air we breathe.Dive into eight unique saltwater habitats, swim through kelp forests, mangroves and coral reefs and down almost 11,000 feet to the deepest corners of the most unexplored ecosystem on our planet.Experience a journey of wonder and discovery, populated by green turtles and blue whales; clownfish and bioluminescent
  • jellyfish; the vampire squid and the 'head-less chicken monster' - a strange form of sea cucumber that lives at the very bottom of the ocean.With the warmth, intelligence and awe that characterises all of David Attenborough's landmark series, Ocean shows us a world which is both desperately fragile yet astonishingly resilient, with an extraordinary capacity to repair itself. It's not too late to restore our most vital habitat. If we treat it with respect, our marine world will be even richer and more spectacular than we can imagine.
Ocean (Oceanography) David Attenborough & Colin Butfield $34.99
  • In this honest and revealing memoir, Erin candidly looks back at her astonishing playing journey and life so far. As the daughter of Aussie Rules legend and Hall of Famer Greg Phillips, Erin's first sporting love was Australian Rules football, but at 13 years old she was forced to give up the sport she loved because there was no further pathway for girls to play the game. Devasted but not deterred, she switched codes, taking up basketball to fill the void that footy left behind. Over the next 18 years, Erin reached the highest level of international basketball, including careers with the Australian Opals, in the WNBA and in Europe. Her achievements included a gold medal at the World Championships, two Olympic Games,
  • two WNBA Championships and serving as an assistant coach for the WNBA's Dallas Wings.
    Then, in 2017, Erin's lifelong dream of playing professional football finally came true when she was invited to join the inaugural AFLW competition. She was named co-captain of the Adelaide Crows and went on to win three premierships in six seasons before moving to her dad's former club, Port Adelaide, when Port entered the league in 2022, as their inaugural captain. The newly formed women's league changed the Australian sport industry forever, and Erin Phillips was the face of that change, leading by example and gaining the support
  • of the nation throughout her impressive career. Erin left the game with a remarkable list of achievements, including multiple All-Australian as well as league and club best and fairest awards, retiring in 2023 as the most decorated player to date.
    Beyond the field and court, Erin reveals the challenges she has faced from all sides, from dealing with body image issues to discovering her sexuality, and starting a family with the love of her life.
Inside And Out (Autobiography) Erin Phillips $36.99
  • Tuberculosis has been entwined with hu-manity for millennia. Once romanticized as a malady of poets, today tuberculosis is seen as a disease of poverty that walks the trails of injustice and inequity we blazed for it.
    In 2019, author John Green met Henry Reider, a young tuberculosis patient at Lakka Government Hospital in Sierra Leone. John be-came fast friends with Henry, a boy with spindly legs and a big, goofy smile. In the years since that first visit to Lakka, Green has become a vocal advocate for increased access to treatment and wider awareness of the healthcare inequi-ties that allow this curable, preventable infec-tious disease to also be the deadliest, killing over a million
  • people every year.
Everything is Tuberculosis (Popular medicine & health) John Green $36.99
  • What went wrong? Australian governments promised to end violence against women and children in a single generation. Instead, it is escalating- men have been murdering women at an increased rate, coercive control and sexual violence are becoming more complex and severe, and we see a marked rise in youth-on-youth sexual assault. Why?
    In Losing It, Jess Hill investigates Australia's National Plan to End Violence Against Women and Children to find out what's working and what's not - and what we can do to turn things around. This compassionate, groundbreaking essay lifts the lid on a national crisis.
Losing It (Domestic violence) Jess Hill $29.99
  • On 24 February 2022, residents of Kyiv, Ukraine, woke to the sound of explosions and gunfire as Russian forces attempted to seize Hostomel Airport. It marked the beginning of the first land war in Europe since World War II. Under the leadership of the charismatic Volodymyr Zelensky, a militarised resistance and a civilian army of volunteers combined to defy Vladimir Putin.
    By day, visitors to Kyiv might mistake it for any other charming European city. But when night falls, sirens wail and citizens sleep in bathrooms and bunkers to escape the persistent dangers of incoming missiles. This war is fought daily on both the front
  • lines and the home front. Resourceful civilians - from old punk rockers and bikers to university professors and corporate brand managers - provide every bit of help they can, outwitting and outmanoeuvring the Russian army with drones, cyber tech and sheer ingenuity.
    As Ukraine's long-term future captures the focus of global leaders in Russia, Europe and the US, veteran journalist and ABC Global Affairs Editor John Lyons takes readers into the heart of a nation under siege. He interviews Ukrainians who stand tall in the face of an increasingly brutal conflict and an uncertain future. These are the stories of ordinary civilians making
  • extraordinary contributions, determined to fight back in every way possible to ensure the survival of themselves, their families, and the soul of their nation.
A Bunker In Kyiv (International relations) John Lyons $34.99
  • On 6 June 1944 when the Allied armies landed on D-Day, the Second World War had already lasted almost five years. Yet many of the British and American troops who invaded Normandy were virgin soldiers, never before committed to battle. They quit England in summertime to face within hours a storm of machine-gun and mortar fire. They witnessed scenes, above all of sudden death, such as no exercise had prepared them for.
    In Sword, veteran chronicler of war Max Hastings explores with extraordinary vividness the actions of the Commando brigade and Montgomery’s 3rd Infantry and 6th Airborne divisions on and around a
  • single beach. He describes their frustrations, hopes, loves and fears through the apparently interminable years training and preparing in England, then their triumphs and tragedies on the beach and beyond. Here are the airborne assaults on the Caen Canal bridge and Merville Battery, the battles on the shoreline and against the German strongpoints inland, narrated and explained with all the insights that Hastings’ decades of study, veterans’ interviews and new archive research enable him to deploy.
Sword (Second World War) Max Hastings $39.99
  • The house at 38 Londres Street is home to the legacies of two men whose personal stories span continents, nationalities and decades of atrocity: Augusto Pinochet, President of Chile, and Walther Rauff, a Nazi SS officer responsible for the use of gas vans.On the run from justice at the end of the Second World War, Rauff crosses the ocean to southern Chile. He settles in Punta Arenas, Patagonia, managing a king crab cannery at the end of the world. But there are whispers about this discreet and self-possessed German - rumours of a second career with Pinochet's secret intelligence service, the dreaded DINA.In 1998, Pinochet is in a London medical
  • clinic when the police enter his room and arrest him on charges of crimes against humanity and genocide. Philippe Sands is called to advise the former head of state on his claim to immunity, but will instead represent a human rights organisation against him. Years later, Sands makes a discovery while working on another book which reignites his interest in the case and leads to a decades-long investigation into Pinochet's crimes, his unexpected connection to Rauff and the former Nazi's possible connection to Chile's disappeared.
38 Londres Street (20th century history) Philippe Sands $34.99
  • Behind the scenes, Laurie's life is chaotic, an often-pleasurable buffet of bad decisions at which she frequently overstays her welcome. Acerbic and wryly self-deprecating, Laurie attempts to carve out her own space as a woman in a world both toxic and intoxicating, while balancing her consuming work with a sometimes-ambivalent relationship to marriage and motherhood.
    As the food world careens towards an overdue reckoning and Laurie's mentors face their own high-profile descents, she is confronted with the questions of where she belongs and how to hold on to the parts of her life's work that she truly values: care and feeding.
Care And Feeding (Memoirs) Laurie Woolever $34.99
  • In the annals of human history, the stakes are highest in war. And in World War I, what was at stake was the future of the world. Anzac troops, fighting and dying so far from home, were crucial to the result that shaped the twentieth century. Those troops wrote letters and diaries, materials that now form the record for the human face of war.Patricia Skehan reveals riveting secrets from the diaries of James Armitage, a young Sydney man who enlisted on his eighteenth birthday, as well as the writings of General Sir John Monash, the military mastermind leading the Anzac troops. With permission from both their relatives, their records of the Western Front are interweaved with stories from doctors, nurses, gunners and many
  • others. The result is a moving portrait of catastrophic events set on Anzac Ridge, in Flanders fields.
The Secrets of ANZAC Ridge (Military history) Patricia Skehan $34.99
  • In 1973, Blue Poles, the iconic painting by America's great abstract expressionist Jackson Pollock, was acquired by the Australian government for A$1.4 million. This record-setting price for an artwork sparked a media sensation and controversy both in Australia and the United States.Blue Poles: Jackson Pollock, Gough Whitlam and the painting that changed a nation details how Jackson Pollock rose to fame, the negotiations that led to the artwork's move to the National Gallery of Australia, and the many successes and turbulent turns in between.This story covers Pollock's entree into an art circle which included renowned patron Peggy Guggenheim, as well as his
  • relationship with artist Lee Krasner, and the larger-than-life accounts that surrounded his artistic practice - including questions around the creation of Blue Poles.It was Gough Whitlam's commitment to the arts and cultural capital that would see the painting move to another continent, where the media feasted on stories of its cost and brows were raised over its merit. The value of Blue Poles to the Australian art and museum landscape was yet to be foreseen.
Blue Poles (Art & design styles: Abstract Expressionism) Tom McIlroy $34.99
  • Debbie's earliest memory of her mother is that her mother was not there, but any story of neglect always has two sides.
    When Debbie's daughter, Heather, says she wants to write a book about her upbringing, Debbie begins to string together jagged memories of growing up with Stella, and it's proving more painful than she could've ever imagined.
    Part memoir, part biography, part imagination, Little Bit is a story with a third side. Told in the alternating perspectives of Debbie and Stella, Heather writes the story of her mother's and grandmother's lives, where addiction is rife and regret is a
  • constant, and where survival for a woman in a man's world is anything but straightforward. Fiction or nonfiction, this is a book that cannot be categorised and will not be quiet.
Little Bit (Modern & contemporary fiction) Heather Taylor-Johnson $32.95
  • Bill Gates is one of the most transformative figures of our age. In Source Code he takes us back to his beginnings. He describes with candour his childhood in Seattle, the centrality of family - his close relationship with his card-playing grandmother and his demanding but caring parents - his struggles to fit in, his rebelliousness, his first deep friendships and the impact of losing his closest friend.
    We see Gates's extraordinary mind developing, the restless teenager who discovered a love of coding and computing at the dawn of a new era and felt that 'by applying my brain, I could solve even the world's most complex mysteries'. We see
  • the earliest signs of his phenomenal business acumen, which led him to drop out of Harvard at the age of 20 to devote all his energies to Microsoft, the company he started with his childhood friend Paul Allen. He writes about his first encounters with three Steves - Jobs, Wozniak and Ballmer - who would play a crucial role in so much that followed.
    The book ends in the late 1970s when Microsoft, still with only a dozen employees, signed its first deal with Apple. The deals would go on and Microsoft would grow unimaginably. Yet Gates never forgot his mother's reminder that he was merely a steward of any wealth that he gained. This
  • warm and inspiring book, Bill Gates' origin story, allows readers to understand his energy and ambition - and to see how he sets himself in the world.
Source Code (Autobiography: science, technology & medicine) Bill Gates $55.00
  • To mark The Australia Institute's 30 years of big ideas, we have asked some of our good friends and leading thinkers from Australia and around the world to share a big idea for a better Australia.
    The Australia Institute has spent the last 30 years producing research that matters, and this anthology offers fresh thinking about climate action, how to safeguard our democracy, the importance of bravery in policymaking, and how to address some of the biggest issues of our day- from gender-based discrimination to the housing crisis; from our relationship with the United States to keeping cities cooler.
  • In our first 30 years, The Australia Institute has shown how to make the impossible feel inevitable, and the radical seem reasonable. The works in this inspiring volume serve as a reminder that the solutions are there; Australia just needs the courage to implement them.
What's The Big Idea (Politics & government) Various Authors $34.99
  • How do we manage to transition to a more sustainable world without the collapse of the economy?
    Capitalism has brought about many positive things. At the same time, however, it is ruining the climate and the environment, so that humanity's very existence is now at risk. 'Green growth' is supposed to be the saviour, but economics expert and bestselling author Ulrike Herrmann disagrees. In this book, she explains in a clear and razor-sharp manner why we need 'green shrinkage' instead.
    Greenhouse gases are increasing dramatically and unchecked. This failure is no coincidence, because the climate crisis
  • goes to the heart of capitalism. Prosperity and growth are only possible if technology is used and energy is utilised. Unfortunately, however, green energy from the sun and wind will never be enough to fuel global growth. The industrialised countries must therefore bid farewell to capitalism and strive for a circular economy in which only what can be recycled is consumed.Herrmann makes a convincing argument that we won't get anywhere without personal restrictions and government planning. Her example for a solution is the British war economy of the 1940s. This is not a utopian scenario, but a comprehensive example of the restrictions and government-led plans needed now and in the future.
The End of Capitalism (Climate change) Ulrike Herrmann $37.99
  • Sonia Orchard was in her forties when she told a therapist about the boyfriend she had when she was fifteen. Sure, he had been a decade older than her, but it was consensual ... wasn't it? To her surprise, Sonia broke down in tears, then began to shake uncontrollably - an unmistakable expression of trauma that lasted for days. She was clearly not okay, but could the relationship she'd thought was loving really have been abuse? Had she been groomed?Years later, her own daughters now teenagers and the March4Justice changing the conversation about sexual assault, Sonia tentatively called the police. As she began the gruelling journey through the legal system, she saw how allegations of child
  • abuse and sexual assault were routinely minimised, justified and rarely brought to light. Facing her own court case, she couldn't shake bigger questions: how had we allowed this to happen, and what would it take to fix it?
Groomed (Memoirs) Sonia Orchard $34.99
Need2Read 2024