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biography & memoir

Large 9781472153791

Hunger : A Memoir of (My) Body by Roxane Gay

$22.99 AUD

Available Stock:
31

Category: biography & memoir

New York Times bestsellerNational Book Critics Circle Award FinalistLambda Literary Award winnerA best book of 2017: Time NPR People Elle The Washington Post The Los Angeles Times The Chicago Tribune Newsday St. Louis Post-Dispatch PopSugar BookRiot Library Journal Booklist Kirkus Reviews Shelf Awarenes s New York Times bestselling author Roxane Gay has written with intimacy and sensitivity about food and bodies, using her own emotional and psychological struggles as a means of exploring our shared anxieties over pleasure, consumption, appearance, and health. As a woman who describes her own body as "wildly undisciplined," Roxane understands the tension between desire and denial, between self-comfort and self-care. In Hunger, she casts an insightful and critical eye on her childhood, teens, and twenties--including the devastating act of violence that acted as a turning point in her young life--and brings readers into the present and the realities, pains, and joys of her daily life. With the bracing candor, vulnerability, and authority that have made her one of the most admired voices of her generation, Roxane explores what it means to be overweight in a time when the bigger you are, the less you are seen. Hunger is a deeply personal memoir from one of our finest writers, and tells a story that hasn't yet been told but needs to be. ...Show more

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Large 9781408833971

My Salinger Year by Joanna Smith Rakoff

$19.99 AUD

Available Stock:
30

Category: biography & memoir

At twenty-three, after leaving graduate school to pursue her dreams of becoming a poet, Joanna Rakoff moves to New York City and takes a job as assistant to the storied literary agent for J. D. Salinger. She spends her days in the plush, wood-panelled agency, where Dictaphones and typewriters still reig n and old-time agents doze at their desks after martini lunches, and at night she goes home to the tiny, threadbare Brooklyn apartment she shares with her socialist boyfriend. Precariously balanced between glamour and poverty, surrounded by titanic personalities and struggling to trust her own artistic sense, Joanna is given the task of answering Salinger's voluminous fan mail. But as she reads the candid, heart-wrenching letters from his readers around the world, she finds herself unable to type out the agency's decades-old form response. Instead, drawn inexorably into the emotional world of Salinger's devotees, she abandons the template and begins writing back...Poignant, keenly observed and irresistibly funny, My Salinger Year is a memoir about literary New York in the late 1990s, a pre-digital world on the cusp of vanishing, where a young woman finds herself swept into one of the last great stories and entangled with one of the last great figures of the century. Above all, it is the coming-of-age story of a talented writer and a testament to the universal power of books to shape our lives. ...Show more

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Large 9781785780233

The Year of Living Danishly: Uncovering the Secrets of the World's Happiest Country by Helen Russell

$22.99 AUD

Available Stock:
6

Category: biography & memoir

When she was suddenly given the opportunity of a new life in rural Jutland, journalist and archetypal Londoner Helen Russell discovered a startling statistic: the happiest place on earth isn't Disneyland, but Denmark, a land often thought of by foreigners as consisting entirely of long dark winters, cur ed herring, Lego and pastries. What is the secret to their success? Are happy Danes born, or made? Helen decides there is only one way to find out: she will give herself a year, trying to uncover the formula for Danish happiness. From childcare, education, food and interior design to SAD, taxes, sexism and an unfortunate predilection for burning witches, The Year of Living Danishly is a funny, poignant record of a journey that shows us where the Danes get it right, where they get it wrong, and how we might just benefit from living a little more Danishly ourselves. ...Show more

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Large 9780241491515

A Promised Land by Barack Obama

$65.00 AUD

Available Stock:
3

Category: biography & memoir | Reading Level: Easy

In the stirring, highly anticipated first volume of his presidential memoirs, Barack Obama tells the story of his improbable odyssey from young man searching for his identity to leader of the free world, describing in strikingly personal detail both his political education and the landmark moments of th e first term of his historic presidency - a time of dramatic transformation and turmoil.  ...Show more

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Large 9781925713398

Monsters by Alison Croggon

$29.99 AUD

Available Stock:
3

Category: biography & memoir

From award-winning writer and critic Alison Croggon, Monsters is a hybrid of memoir and essay that takes as its point of departure the painful breakdown of a relationship between two sisters. It explores how our attitudes are shaped by the persisting myths that underpin colonialism and patriarchy, how t he structures we are raised within splinter and distort the possibilities of our lives and the lives of others. Monsters asks how we maintain the fictions that we create about ourselves, what we will sacrifice to maintain these fictions - and what we have to gain by confronting them.   ...Show more

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Large 9781925713220

Literary Lion Tamers: Book Editors Who Made Publishing History by Craig Munro

$29.99 AUD

Available Stock:
3

Category: biography & memoir

'Writers, their friends, enemies, editors, and publishers began to materialise out of the library's archive boxes, and I found myself setting off in search of these elusive, eccentric, and often quarrelsome characters.' In this unique and entertaining blend of memoir, biography, and literary detective w ork, highly respected former fiction editor Craig Munro recreates the lives and careers of Australia's most renowned literary editors and authors, spanning a century from the 1890s to the 1990s. Famous figures featured in this book include A.G. Stephens, who helped turn foundry worker Joseph Furphy's thousand-page handwritten manuscript into the enduring classic Such Is Life; P.R. Stephensen, who tangled with the irascible Xavier Herbert, working closely with the novelist to revise his unwieldy masterpiece Capricornia; Beatrice Davis, who cut Herbert's later novel Soldiers' Women in half, and whose lively literary soirees were the talk of Sydney; and award-winning fiction editor Rosanne Fitzgibbon, who was known as a friend and champion to her authors, including the prodigiously talented young novelist Gillian Mears. Throughout it all, in beguiling and elegant style, Craig Munro weaves his own reminiscences of a life in publishing while tracking down some of Australian literature's most fascinating and little-known stories. Literary Lion Tamers is a delight for anyone interested in the wild outer edges of the book world. ...Show more

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Large 9780571364619

Year with Swollen Appendices: Brian Eno's Diary by Brian Eno

$34.99 AUD

Available Stock:
3

Category: biography & memoir

The diary and essays of Brian Eno republished twenty-five years on with a new introduction by the artist in a beautiful hardcover edition. At the end of 1994, musician, producer and artist Brian Eno resolved to keep a diary. His plans to go to the cinema, theatre and galleries fell through quickly. What he did do - and write - however, was astonishing: ruminations on his collaborative work with artists including David Bowie, U2, James and Jah Wobble, interspersed with correspondence and essays dating back to 1978. These 'appendices' covered topics from the generative and ambient music Eno pioneered to what he believed the role of an artist and their art to truly be, alongside razor-sharp commentary on his day-to-day tribulations and happenings around the world. A fascinating, candid and intimate insight into one of the most influential creative artists of our time, A Year with Swollen Appendices is an essential classic, reissued for a new generation of readers. This beautiful 25th anniversary hardcover edition has been re-designed in the same size as the diary that eventually became this book. It features two ribbons, pink paper delineating the appendices (matching the original edition) and a two-tone paper-over-board cover that pays homage to the original design. ...Show more

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Large 9781408895443

The Haunting of Alma Fielding: A True Ghost Story by Kate Summerscale

$29.99 AUD

Available Stock:
3

Category: biography & memoir

'A page-turner with the authority of history' PHILIPPA GREGORY'As gripping as a novel. An engaging, unsettling, deeply satisfying read' SARAH WATERSLondon, 1938. Alma Fielding, an ordinary young woman, begins to experience supernatural events in her suburban home. Nandor Fodor - a Jewish-Hungarian refug ee and chief ghost hunter for the International Institute for Psychical research - begins to investigate. In doing so he discovers a different and darker type of haunting: trauma, alienation, loss - and the foreshadowing of a nation's worst fears. As the spectre of Fascism lengthens over Europe, and as Fodor's obsession with the case deepens, Alma becomes ever more disturbed. With rigour, daring and insight, the award-winning pioneer of historical narrative non-fiction Kate Summerscale shadows Fodor's enquiry, delving into long-hidden archives to find the human story behind a very modern haunting.   ...Show more

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Large 9780750994255

The Mitford Girls' Guide to Life by Lyndsy Spence

$34.99 AUD

Available Stock:
2

Category: biography & memoir

The six Mitford girls were blessed with beauty, wit and talent, yet they led very distinct, cultural lives and not one sister, except for Diana and Unity, shared the same opinion or ideology. Nancy Mitford was the ultimate tease and her talent for mockery reformed the publishing industry in the 1930s an d '40s. Indeed, the Mitford girls' popularity provoked Jessica to label it 'The Mitford Industry'. As individuals they exploited their attributes to the best of their abilities, and through difficult times they used laughter as their remedy. Their life experiences, although sometimes maddening, are a lesson to us all. How would the Mitford girls cope with the pressures and turmoil of modern life? Whether it is Pamela's guide to throwing a jubilee party, Nancy's guide to fashion or Diana's tips on how to stay young, this quirky and fact-filled book draws on rare and unpublished interviews and information to answer that question. ...Show more

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Large 9780241511435

Unfinished by Priyanka Chopra Jones

$32.99 AUD

Available Stock:
2

Category: biography & memoir

A thoughtful and revealing memoir from one of the world's most recognizable women, renowned for her bold risk-taking, multiculturalism, and activism. "I am a product of traditional India and its ancient wisdom, and modern India and its urban bustle. My upbringing was always an amalgamation of the two I ndias, and, just as much, of East and West." Unfinished takes readers from Priyanka's childhood in India, where she was raised by her grandparents and her parents-two army doctors committed not only to their children but to their careers and to philanthropy-before being sent away to boarding school at an early age; through her formative teenage years in the U.S. living with extended family in the Midwest (Cedar Rapids and Indianapolis), Queens, and suburban Boston, where she endured bouts of racism; to her return to India, where she unexpectedly won the national and global beauty pageants (Miss India and Miss World) that launched her acting career. Readers looking for a glimpse into what it takes to succeed in the massive Indian film industry will find it here, and they'll also find an honest account of the challenges Priyanka faced navigating her career, both in India and Hollywood. The result is a book that is warm, funny, sassy, inspiring, bold, and rebellious. Just like Priyanka herself. From her dual-continent twenty-year-long career as an actor and producer to her work as a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador, from losing her beloved father to cancer to marrying Nick Jonas, Priyanka Chopra Jonas's story will inspire a generation around the world to gather their courage, embrace their ambition, and commit to the hard work of following their dreams. ...Show more

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Large 9781760894627

Emotional Female by Yumiko Kadota

$34.99 AUD

Available Stock:
2

Category: biography & memoir

Yumiko Kadota was a young, gifted medical student - the top of her class - on her way to becoming an outstanding plastic and reconstructive surgeon. Fourteen years she'd studied and worked hard. She put in 70-hour weeks at the public hospital as a plastic surgery registrar, accepted everything her super iors threw at her because that's what you do to get on, right? Her life revolved around her work, but it was okay because it would all amount to a stellar, dream career down the track. In 2018, she walked away from it all. Emotional Female charts Kadota's rugged journey through ambition and dedication to exploitation and eventual collapse - and beyond. Yumiko Kadota is a voice for her generation when it comes to work practices and burnout, but she's also someone other generations can look to as a symptom of what's acceptable in the workplace.   ...Show more

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Large 9781781257234

Fracture: Trauma, Success and the Origins of Greatness by Matthew Parris

$34.99 AUD

Available Stock:
2

Category: biography & memoir

Matthew Parris, presenter of Great Lives on BBC Radio 4, explores the surprising connection between trauma and greatness through vivid case histories. Ada Lovelace. Frederick Douglass. Vladimir Lenin. Marie Curie. Frieda Kahlo. Carl Jung. Tupac Shakur. All geniuses who changed the world in ways that sti ll influence our lives today. And all men and women who experienced, in childhood, trauma so severe that it should have broken them completely.While presenting Great Lives on Radio 4, Matthew Parris noticed a trend in the lives of the exceptional people the programme covered: many of them had been marked by extreme trauma and deprivation. They seemed to have succeeded not only in spite of their backgrounds, but perhaps even because of them. As Matthew Parris brings each individual's story to life in this original and compelling study, it becomes clear that we must rethink the origins of success, as well as the legacy of trauma. ...Show more

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