Australian Memoir

Tom Nash has spent his adult life mesmerising audiences around the world, either with his thought-provoking philosophies or hypnotic DJ sets. However, before his career had even begun, Tom was given the slimmest chance of survival after contracting a deadly disease at the age of nineteen, resulting in him losing both his arms and legs. When the unthinkable becomes your reality, where do you turn? Why do you turn? Tom not only went on to survive, but to thrive, taking on life with nothing more than a pair of prosthetic hooks and a dark sense of humour.

On Friday, September 12, 2014, William Tyrrell—a playful three-year-old boy dressed in a fire-engine red Spider-Man suit—disappears from a quiet street in broad daylight. It's assumed he's lost in the nearby bushland, but despite an intensive search, he's not found, and police start to suspect he's been abducted. No trace of William—not a shoe, not a hair—has ever been found, but now is not the time to surrender. How can a little boy just vanish? We have to find him.

Sometimes the whole truth is the death of everything. Caroline Laner Breure was on holiday in Spain with her boyfriend when her skull was crushed. A year later, following starless months in a coma and painful rehabilitation, Caroline returned to her beachside apartment in Sydney, only to find that her home was not her home, her lover was not her lover and her friends were not her friends. Everyone and everything she'd loved had vanished. Physically broken and no longer able to trust her own mind, she painstakingly searched for clues to explain the cruel disparity between her past and present.

Jack grew up in picturesque Tasmania, playing sport with his family and admiring his older cousin Nick. When Nick was drafted in the AFL, Jack’s focus shifted to footy, and that competitive drive helped Jack become one of Richmond’s most beloved and prolific players.

The ultimate collection of Australia's craziest cons and mad schemes from a master storyteller. Australia is the birthplace and setting of some of the wildest, craziest and least-likely-to-succeed cons and rorts in history. From the cleverest double-crosses to the most unlikely and maddest schemes, master storyteller Jim Haynes reminds us that we've never been shy of pulling a trick or two.

After his interest was piqued by a 19th-century photo of a camel train in a country town, Ryan Butta found himself on the trail of Australia’s earliest Afghan camel-drivers. Separating the bulldust from the bush poetry, he reveals the breadth and depth of white Australian protectionism and prejudice. Told with flair and authority, this gritty alternative history defies the standard horse-powered folklore to reveal the untold debt this country owes to humble dromedaries, their drivers and those who brought them here.

A devastating accident left Saya terrified of the sport that had made her famous. After witnessing her brother Kai suffer a traumatic brain injury in the lead-up to the Tokyo Olympics, Saya was shaken to her core. The sport she once loved now felt too dangerous to continue. With six concussions and the haunting memories of crashes, Saya briefly decided to walk away from BMX. But quitting wasn’t so simple.

Seven years ago, Ben was loveless, overweight, in debt and living in his parents' rumpus room, trying to find a way to quietly die. Days passed by in a haze of marijuana smoke and self-loathing. Then, one day, Ben decided not to die. He decided to change everything—starting with the Ben bit. Becoming Cadance would be more than a gender transition. It would be a transition in every way. It would mean leaving behind a rural Mudgee childhood filled with Frogger, hot chips, Godliness and a forbidden love of Sarah Parker's My Little Pony.

On Wednesdays, Robert J. Hawke - Australia's 23rd and oldest living prime minister - has welcomed Derek Rielly into his home to share fine cigars and irreverent conversation. On a sun-soaked balcony, the maverick young writer and the charismatic old master talk life, death, love, sex, religion, politics, sport...and everything in between.

Capturing everyday lives and exceptional dreams, Australian novels have held up a mirror to the nation, reflecting the good and the bad. Touching on colonial invasion, the bush myth, world wars, mass migration, the recognition of Indigenous sovereignty and the emergence of a modern global, multicultural nation, Carl examines how these pivotal events and persuasive ideas have shaped some of Australia's most influential novels and how these books, in turn, made us.

Lo Carmen weaves her own remarkable story as a critically acclaimed singer/songwriter together with compelling portraits of the women who have influenced her life and career: bold creative visionaries, trailblazers, provocateurs, pioneers, feminists and activists such as Renee Geyer, Chrissy Amphlett, Robyn Archer and Sallie-Anne Huckstepp, exploring the often complex lives of these fascinating women as a way of understanding her own life and choices.

Brendan James Murray has been a secondary school teacher for more than 10 years. In that time, he has seen hundreds of kids move through his classes - troubled, brilliant, funny, passionate, struggling: every single one brings unique qualities or circumstances into school with them, every day. In this astonishing powerful portrait of a single school year, Brendan James Murray shows the ups and downs of school for teachers and students.

The Vitals is Tracy Sorensen's cancer memoir transformed by imagination into something far richer and stranger. Narrated by her internal organs, it will make you infinitely more aware of the peculiar world inside your body and discover all the hidden parts that make you human.

From the small town in regional Australia where she was told that 'girls can't play the drums' to New York City and back again, Brodie has spent her life searching screens, books, music and magazines for bodies like hers, girls who loved each other, and women who didn't follow the silent instructions to shrink or hide that they've received since literal birth. This is the story of life as a young woman through the lenses of feminism and pop culture. Brodie's story will make you reevaluate the power of pop culture in our lives - and maybe you will laugh and cry along the way.

Hooked on the limitless profits of the drug trade, organised crime has grown so powerful that it now poses a major threat to Australia's national security. Clive Small and Tom Gilling show how Australian crime gangs, in partnership with violent international syndicates, have exploited lax law enforcement and corruption on the nation's waterfront to import narcotics on a vast scale from Europe, Asia, Africa and South America.

John Silvester has been reporting on crime from the cop stations, courthouses, back alleys and gangster mansions of Melbourne for forty years. His contact book is a who's who of both sides of criminal justice and the shadowy worlds between. He is the trusted confidant of cops, criminals, lawyers and judges. He knows where the cash is stashed and where the bodies are buried. Naked City is a collection of Silvester's best stories, from sophisticated heists to mindless acts of violence and deeds of pure evil - impeccably sourced, wry, wise and witty.

For more than five decades Olivia Newton-John has been one of our most successful and adored entertainers. A four-time Grammy Award winner, she is one of the world's best-selling recording artists of all time, with more than 100 million albums sold. Her starring roles in the iconic movies Grease and Xanadu catapulted her into superstardom. Her appeal as a performer is timeless. In addition to her music and screen successes, Olivia is perhaps best known for her strength, courage and grace.

Australian magazines once boasted the highest circulation per capita in the world. Former magazine editor Phil Barker follows the story from this golden age to today, showing how mismanagement, unchecked spending, and the challenge presented by the rise of the internet all combined to undermine the previously unassailable position magazines held in the Australian consciousness.

Hailed as "a fearless exposer of folly, vice and crime" when it first hit the streets in the 1890s, Truth was later condemned by a High Court Judge as "a wretched little paper, reeking of filth, injurious to the health of house servants and young girls". Much later it earned the nickname "The Old Whore of La Trobe Street". Truth was called many things but it was never boring.

For much of its history Australia has been described as riding on the sheep's back...but if the country rode on anyone's back, it was on the aching, creaking, flexing spines of Australian shearers. Armed with their blades, a sense of adventure and a relentless work ethic, shearers have been a fundamental part of Australia's outback for centuries.