A Little Bird Told Me... by Kasey Chambers

$14.00 AUD

Category: Memoir

From the remote outback to the world stage, the far from ordinary life so far of one of Australia's most talented and beloved singer-songwriters. Raised on the Nullarbor by her Seventh Day Adventist parents - her father hunted foxes for a living - young Kasey Chambers and her brother, Nash, would someti mes go for months without encountering another human being. Then, as part of the Chambers family group the Dead Ringer Band perform in rough-and-tumble outback pubs and sleep under the stars, in swags, by the side of the highway, playing for little more than petrol money. Along the way Kasey was honing the talent that created huge hits like 'Not Pretty Enough', 'The Captain' and 'Rattlin' Bones', and earned the praise of such roots music luminaries as Lucinda Williams and Steve Earle. From her gypsy childhood to trailblazing debut LP, 'The Captain', and runaway smash hit, 'Barricades and Brickwalls', and its personal cost to becoming the mother of two boys and the on- and off-stage partner of fellow singer-songwriter, Shane Nicholson, to her latest success with the multi-award winning 'Little Bird' this is a moving and revealing portrait of an extraordinary woman. ...Show more

The Road of Lost Innocence by Somaly Mam

$10.00 AUD

$12.00 (16% off)

Category: Memoir

Somaly Mam was abandoned as a baby and looked after by her grandmother until she disappeared. She was then taken into the care of a man she called 'grandfather', but was treated no better than an unpaid servant. sold. Raped at twelve, Somaly was forced to marry at fifteen and then sold to a brothel. She endured years of abuse before managing to escape. The Road of Lost Innocence is a moving account of a traumatic childhood and also the inspirational story of a determined and courageous woman devoted to helping other girls caught up in the illegal sex trade and violent underworld in Cambodia.In 1997 Somaly Mam co-founded AFESIP to combat trafficking in women and children for sexual slavery. ...Show more

Out of the Forest by Gregory Smith; Craig Henderson

$13.00 AUD

Category: Memoir

For ten years a man calling himself Will Power lived in near-total isolation in northern New South Wales, foraging for food, eating bats and occasionally trading for produce. But who was this mysterious man who roamed the forest and knew all of its secrets and riddles? Some people thought he might be Je sus. Others feared he was a more sinister figure. The truth was that he was neither miraculous nor malevolent, but he was, most certainly, gifted. And when he finally emerged from the forest, emaciated and close to death, he was determined to reclaim his real name and 'give society another chance'. Today, Dr Gregory Peel Smith, who left school at the age of fourteen, has a PhD and teaches in the Social Sciences at university. His profoundly touching and uplifting memoir is at once a unique insight into how far off track a life can go and powerful reminder that we can all find our way back if we pause for a moment in the heart of the forest.   ...Show more

Things I've Said, but Probably Shouldn't Have - An Unrepentant Memoir by Bruce Dern; Christopher Fryer (As told to); Robert Crane

$18.00 AUD

Category: Memoir

Bruce Dern has worked with practically every iconic actor and director in the last fifty years, and he's not afraid to say what he thinks about all of them. His career has run the gamut from B movies to Z movies to becoming an Oscar nominee, and he's created some of the most indelible performances in mo dern cinema. Now, in this uniquely funny memoir, he looks back over his amazing career, telling one memorable story after another and giving key insights into how placing artistic challenge over career development has kept one of Hollywood's greatest actors from also being one of its most rich and famous. People love reading about red carpet regulars, and Dern doesn't disappoint. He writes candidly and unforgettably about working with Alfred Hitchcock, John Frankenheimer, Claude Chabrol, Jack Nicholson, Paul Newman, Bob Dylan, Matt Damon, Charlize Theron, Jane Fonda, John Wayne, and many more. Readers will discover why he turned down potentially career-making roles in The Godfather, Marathon Man, and Gandhi; why his prestigious family disowned him over a typo in the New York Times; and why, after he was already famous, he agreed to star in The Incredible Two-Headed Transplant, the second best two-headed transplant movie of 1971. As Dern's career moves full steam ahead in the HBO series Big Love and Astronaut Farmer (his forthcoming film with Bruce Willis and Billy Bob Thornton), Things I've Said, but Probably Shouldn't Have is the book not just Dern fans and Hollywood enthusiasts will be talking about this season. ...Show more

The Flamboya Tree by Clara Olink Kelly

$10.00 AUD

Category: Memoir

' "Why didn't you try to escape?" That was all she said. I had imagined my grandmother telling us how lovely it was to see us at last. I saw again in my mind's eye the barbwire fences and the soldiers with the glistening bayonets, and felt once more that excruciating fear in the pit of my stomach. Try t o escape? Lots of people had tried to escape.'When the Japanese invaded the beautiful Indonesian island of Java during the Second World War Clara Kelly was four years old. Her family was separated, her father sent to work on the Burma railway, and she together with her mother and her two brothers, one a six week old baby, were sent to a 'women's camp'. They were interned there until the end of the war. Clara's descriptions of the appalling deprivations and impersonal brutality of the camp - standing in the baking heat for hours of 'Tenko' rolecall, living on one cup of rice a day - are countered by the courage and resilience shown by all the internees, most poignantly her own mother. Remarkable too is the way the children, Clara and her elder brother, and their friends keep their spirits high, finding ways to play even in the darkest times with death one false move away. Just as the painting of a Flamboya tree miraculously survives every last minute flight and surprise search by the Japanese, Clara carries her mother's spirit of love, humour, and courage through all of her experiences and into the reader's heart. (Preceeding text courtesy www.randomhouse.co.uk - applies to the Hardback edition) Trade Paperback ...Show more

TEACHER MAN by McCourt Frank

$8.50 AUD

Category: Memoir

The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion

$10.50 AUD

Category: Memoir | Reading Level: very good

Didion's journalistic skills are displayed as never before in this story of a year in her life that began with her daughter in a medically induced coma and her husband unexpectedly dead due to a heart attack. This powerful and moving work is Didion's "attempt to make sense of the weeks and then months that cut loose any fixed idea I ever had about death, about illness, about marriage and children and memory, about the shallowness of sanity, about life itself." With vulnerability and passion, Joan Didion explores an intensely personal yet universal experience of love and loss. The Year Of Magical Thinking will speak directly to anyone who has ever loved a husband, wife, or child. ...Show more

Tamil Tigress: My Story as a Child Soldier in Sri Lanka's Bloody Civil War by Niromi de Soyza

$16.00 AUD

$18.00 (11% off)

Category: Memoir

In 1987, 17-year-old Niromi de Soyza shocked her middle-class Sri Lankan family by joining the Tamil Tigers. Equipped with a rifle and cyanide capsule she was one of the rebels' first female soldiers--this is her story of her time as a guerrillaHow could it be that a well-educated, middle-class, Catholi c-educated girl from a respectable family came to be fighting with the Tamil Tigers? The Sri Lanka that Niromi de Soyza knew growing up in Jaffna included daily gun fights, and a systematic campaign by an elected governement to wipe out parts of its own population. In a fit of righteous anger and teenage idealism she joined the Tamil Tigers to defend her rights and the lives of her friends and neighbors. Two days before Christmas, in 1987, she found herself, at the age of 17, as part of a small platoon of militant Tamil Tigers, most of them teenage girls, in an ambush by the Sri Lankan army. With her was her lifelong friend, Ajanthi, also 17. Ajanthi was killed that day as they came under heavy fire. Today Niromi lives in Sydney with her husband and children--and now she is telling her amazing story. ...Show more

Stones into Schools by Greg Mortenson

$18.00 AUD

Category: Memoir

From the author of the phenomenal No.1 bestseller Three Cups of Tea, the continuing story of this determined humanitarian's efforts to promote peace through education. In this dramatic first-person narrative, Greg Mortenson picks up where Three Cups of Tea left off in 2003, recounting his relentless, on going efforts to establish schools for girls in Afghanistan; his extensive work in Azad Kashmir and Pakistan after a massive earthquake hit the region in 2005; and the unique ways he has built relationships with Islamic clerics, militia commanders, and tribal leaders even as he was dodging shootouts with feuding Afghan warlords and surviving an eight-day armed abduction by the Taliban. He shares for the first time his broader vision to promote peace through education and literacy, as well as touching on military matters, Islam, and women - all woven together with the many rich personal stories of the people who have been involved in this remarkable two-decade humanitarian effort. ...Show more

A Dangerous Pursuit of Happiness - A Female Pro Surfer's Terrifying Memoir of Surviving Abduction in India by Carmen Greentree

$19.00 AUD

Category: Memoir

Carmen never felt like she fit in. Even as a very young child, she was certain there was more going on than met her eye. She was always searching for something more, something deeper. Her quest led her from a difficult childhood into a world of external fame, fortune and adventure as a world-class pro s urfer. However, riding the ecstatic waves of professional surfing only hid her inner pain; it didn't stop the bouts of crushing despair. Carmen started to explore self-development and then took a deeper dive into spirituality at the age of 21.Her pursuit took her to India to study with the Dalai Lama, but in her innocence she was abducted, stripped of her money and passport, held captive, repeatedly raped and extorted for two long months. After a dramatic rescue, Carmen made her way back home to Australia and began the long journey to healing, self-worth and forgiveness. What she discovered is profound. ...Show more

Not Quite Straight - A Memoir by Jeffrey Smart

$25.00 AUD

Category: Memoir

"Australian artist Jeffrey Smart's wicked and utterly engaging memoir. Born in respectable (read- dull) Adelaide in 1921, Jeffrey Smart made his first Grand Tour of Europe at age 4. By 5 he had discovered Sex (with a female classmate) and Crime. By 18 he d decided he was the only person in Australia who was not quite straight . The subsequent decades brought further enlightenment, more travel, study with Fernand Leger, artistic development, adventures high and low, international acclaim, friends famous and infamous and - fittingly for someone who refers to himself as a European who carries an Australian passport - a permanent return to the ancient, sun-soaked landscape of Tuscany. This is Jeffrey Smart's account of that very full life. He writes with a wicked wit of his family, friends and lovers, and of his jobs, including being the much-loved Phidias in ABC Radio s The Argonauts and the more lowly position of sink-scrubber on a slow boat to London, before finding fame as an artist. Throughout he is candid, funny and engaging. Like Smart s paintings, Not Quite Straightoffers a singular perspective shaped by a unique life." ...Show more

Degree of Mastery - A Journey Through Book Arts Apprenticeship by Annie Tremmel Wilcox

$11.50 AUD

Category: Memoir