Australian Memoir

As the Sunrise weatherman, Sam Mac has bungee jumped, swum with sharks, got his cat on the cover of Pussweek magazine, taken his mum to the Logies when he was nominated for gold, stripped naked for The Real Full Monty and even recorded a song with The Wiggles. But, ultimately, his job is about people - from primary schoolers to pensioners, Sam's gift is how he connects with them all. He uses heart and humour in his role on Sunrise to introduce viewers to the true characters of Australia.

We all have a soundtrack to our lives, songs that as soon as we hear them we're transported to a moment in time. As the youngest child, and only girl, in a family of creative types, Myf Warhurst grew up with the music in her. Whether she was watching Daryl Braithwaite on TV on a Sunday night or listening to the crackle of the needle across vinyl as Agnetha and Anni-Frid took her from rural Victoria to Eurovision, music has always shaped Myf's life. Later her love of music (and the realisation that a professional pianist gig wasn't part of the plan) would shape her career.

Edward "Ned" Kelly (1854 -1880) was the last and most celebrated Australian bushranger (outlaw). After being implicated in the shooting of three policemen at Stringybark Creek in October, 1878, Kelly and his gang were declared by the Victorian government to be outlaws, and were the subjects of an extensive manhunt over the next two years.

A customer who ordered a toasted ham and cheese sandwich in one Melbourne restaurant got a mouthful - just not the kind you'd expect.

Sixteen-year-old Alex Noble was a high school rugby star with a promising sporting career ahead of him when an on-field injury left him fighting for his life in the ICU. Following a four-day coma and a diagnosis of C4 quadriplegia, Alex’s first words to his brother Zac were, ‘If I fight, you fight.’ These words became a war cry as Alex’s friends, family and community rallied around him, watching in awe as he fought to regain control over his body and defy his diagnosis.

On 7 February 2009, Roger Wood was the police officer in charge of Kinglake, at the epicentre of the worst ever bushfire disaster in Australia's history, Black Saturday. As the firestorm engulfed the community, he risked his life again and again to try to save people. When he phoned home to warn his wife what was coming, she screamed that the fire had already hit their property. Then the line went dead.

What does a young footballer do to cut loose? At night, some play what they think of as pranks or games: night games with women. Sometimes these involve consensual sex, sometimes not, and often the lines are blurred. In Night Games, Anna Krien follows the rape trial of an Australian Rules footballer. She also takes a balanced and fearless look at the dark side of footy culture - the world of Sam Newman, Ricky Nixon, Matty Johns and the Croa Sharks.

How does a mother cope when she is forced to walk away from her three children and never see them again? That is what happened to JB's mother, Myrtle. Eventually, rescued from her despair by tall, dark, and handsome George Rowley, who fell in love with her, Myrtle started a new life and had seven more children. She buried the grief of losing her first children deep within and kept her pain secret. JB and her siblings were unaware of the existence of Myrtle's first three children until after she died.

John Wood grew up in working-class Melbourne; when he failed out of high school, an employment officer told him, 'You have the mind of an artist and the body of a labourer.' And so John continued to pursue his acting dreams in amateur theatre, sustaining himself by working jobs as a bricklayer, a railway clerk and even in the same abattoir as his father. When he won a scholarship to NIDA, in Sydney, it moved John into a new and at times baffling world, full of extraordinary characters.

Hugh Riminton was a small-town New Zealand teenager with a possible drinking problem and a job cleaning rat cages when a chance meeting with a radio news director changed his life. The news man took a chance on him, and at 17 Riminton became a cadet reporter. Over nearly 40 years he has been shot at, blown up, threatened with deportation and thrown in jail. He has reported from nearly 50 countries, witnessed massacres in Africa, wars and conflicts on four continents, and every kind of natural disaster.

First as a music writer and then as an editor, promoter, manager, broadcaster, publicist and author, Stuart Coupe has experienced the giddy highs and crushing lows of a life lived in the creative fast lane. Shake Some Action is your backstage pass to his remarkable story, from starting his first magazine at the age of fourteen to hoovering heroic amounts of cocaine before interviewing Boy Dylan (who asked him where he got his drugs from).

On Australia Day, 26 January 1966, Jane, Arnna, and Grant Beaumont were abducted from Colley Reserve, Glenelg, South Australia and never seen again, leading to one of Australia's most extensive police investigations and manhunts. Five decades later, no trace of the children has ever been found. Over the years, several individuals have been put forward and investigated as suspects, resulting in false leads and dead ends and with no real suspect until now: Harry Phipps.

Amani Haydar suffered the unimaginable when she lost her mother in a brutal act of domestic violence perpetrated by her father. Five months pregnant at the time, her own perception of how she wanted to mother (and how she had been mothered) was shaped by this devastating murder. After her mother's death, Amani began reassessing everything she knew of her parents' relationship. They had been unhappy for so long - should she have known that it would end like this?

When prominent US neurosurgeon Dr Eben Alexander goes into a coma after contracting a severe brain infection, his doctors tell his family to prepare for the worst - death or, at best, survival in a vegetative state. Remarkably, Dr Alexander wakes up seven days later with his faculties intact. Just as extraordinary is his detailed recall of a near-death experience. Based on all that is known about how the brain works, Dr Alexander had no capacity, while in the coma, to create thought; his neocortex, the part of his brain that makes us human, had effectively shut down.

Lachlan Macquarie is credited with shaping Australia's destiny, transforming a harsh, foreboding penal colony into an agricultural powerhouse and ultimately a prosperous society. He also helped shape Australia's national character. An egalitarian at heart, Macquarie saw boundless potential in Britain's refuse, and under his rule many former convicts went on to become successful administrators, land owners and businesspeople.

Truths from an Unreliable Witness is a fiercely honest and wryly funny memoir of melancholy, love, marriage, the loss of love and marriage, homelessness, of hotel rooms strewn with empty mini-bar bottles of vodka, of waking from a two-week coma, of putrid drug dens and using a jungle to confront yourself. It is about hitting rock bottom and then realising you are only halfway down. Ultimately, it's about hanging on to your last straw of sanity and finding laughter in the darkest of times. You may want to sit down for this....

Michael Fomenko is familiar with adversity. But when he gets shut out of the Commonwealth Games for financial and political reasons at the ripe age of 20, he questions everything. Setting a new course for himself, he dreams of a feat that will require unimaginable determination. With no companions or guides, he will paddle a dugout canoe over 1,000 nautical kilometers from Cairns, Australia, to Dutch, New Guinea.

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.

This is the definitive account of the career of the winningest Supercar driver of all time, Jamie Whincup - most championships, most race wins, most pole positions, most podiums. But it's also the story of the making of a champion - the drive, the beliefs, the grind and the teamwork that it takes to get to the top, on the track and off. With such success, it's easy to understand why Jamie has always had a target painted squarely on his rear spoiler. And it all started back in 1991, when his father purchased Jamie his first-ever go-kart.

Christopher Pyne has been many things and called many things throughout his long career in politics. Member for Sturt. Minister for defence. Manager of opposition business. Leader of the House. 'The Fixer'. Any Canberra story he doesn't know isn't worth telling. Now, after 26 years, the ultimate insider is outside the House and ready to burst the Canberra bubble with his trademark sharp wit.