Australian Memoir

Havoc-06 is the call sign of former Australian Combat Controller Troy Knight. As a Royal Australian Air Force Airfield Defence Guard, Troy had not found the military adventure he sought: combat operations. His thirst for overseas deployment saw him privately contract his services in Iraq and South East Asia, but when he got whiff that the Australian Defence Force was raising a new defence capability, he couldn’t help but want to be part of it.

THE ONLY TRUE STORY BEHIND THE CREATOR OF MARY POPPINS The remarkable life of P.L. Travers, the creator of Mary Poppins—perfect for fans of the movie Mary Poppins Returns and the original Disney classic! “An arresting life…Lawson is superb at excavating the details.” —Library Journal...

Keith Banks was a member of the Queensland Police Force when not everyone with a badge could be trusted. After serving as an undercover cop and declining an opportunity to participate in a lucrative and totally corrupt enterprise, Keith found himself sidelined from the drug squad. In 1984, he was transferred to the Taringa Criminal Investigation Branch as a detective senior constable. That had its moments, but he wanted more. He missed the adrenaline charge of his days as an undercover cop.

In 1999, Larry McMurtry, whose wanderlust had been previously restricted to the roads of America, set off for a trip to the paradise of Tahiti and the South Sea Islands in an old-fashioned tub of a cruise boat, at a time when his mother was slipping toward a paradise of her own. Opening up to...

The story of eight courageous women who had the courage and strength for which the Anzacs are renowned and the compassion and tenderness that only a woman can bring. One brave nursing sister, Hilda Samsing, became a whistle blower. Nursing aboard the hospital ship Gascon, outraged by the bungled evacuation of wounded Anzacs which was censored out of the press, she let her diary be shown in high places, which raised questions in the House of Commons.

The Big Book of Australian Yarns is master storyteller Jim Haynes's comprehensive collection of factual and fascinating stories and humour. The yarns range from the poignant to the hilarious, from the ridiculously Australian to the unexplained and spooky. There are heroic and inspiring characters, as well as larrikins and crooks, and everyday humorous events told with a refreshing understatement that vividly evokes a vanishing Australia.

Born into a daring, musical family in 1886, Annette Kellerman was a force of nature and made for the stage – her first love – and encouraged to defy social norms from a young age. But after she was diagnosed with rickets as a child she took up swimming for therapy, and soon she became an Australian champion, beating boys, breaking records and astonishing huge crowds by diving from great heights. By 1905, Kellerman was 18 and on her way to England in an attempt to swim the Channel and challenge endurance records in the Thames.

Grace Tame has never walked on middle ground. From a young age, her life was defined by uncertainty - by trauma and strength, sadness and hope, terrible lows and wondrous highs. As a teenager she found the courage to speak up after experiencing awful and ongoing child sexual abuse. This fight to...

For celebrated journalist Tracey Lee Holmes, sport has been both a way of life and a lens through which to look at life itself. In this completely candid, wide-ranging and passionate book – part memoir, part manifesto – she shares both her stories and her views on sport’s most dramatic...

In 2002, twenty-one-year-old Taekwondo champion Kim Dalton was living her dream of becoming an Australian champion and running a Taekwondo school with Rob. But by early 2003, a persistent pain in her side turned out to be a rare and aggressive cancer called adrenocortical carcinoma. Kim called the tumor “Fred the Freak.” Life changed forever, and the real fight had just begun. In this very personal Australian story, Kim takes you on her journey through the maze of doctors, specialists, scans, and operations.

From the outside, Seana Smith lived an enviable life. An Oxford graduate, a successful career with the BBC and Sydney’s Channel 9, a bestselling author, happily married. But behind this perfect life she had a secret: Seana was a drinker, and alcohol was slowly taking away her life, destroying...

Under the cover of being designated as private correspondence, the letters between the queen and the governor-general about the dismissal have been locked away for decades in the National Archives of Australia, and embargoed by the queen - potentially forever. In the face of this, Professor Jenny Hocking embarked on a four-year legal battle to force the Archives to release the letters. In 2015, she mounted a crowd-funded campaign, securing a stellar pro bono team that took her case all the way to the High Court of Australia.

Is the glass half-empty or half full? Sometimes life influences our view and alters our perception. In 1997, life changing events almost destroyed me. At my lowest point, and just in time, I met Nigel. He helped me to discover how a positive attitude can change everything.In 2008, with good times ahead of us, my glass was half-full. As a family, we made the biggest and most difficult decision of our lives; part of our family would immigrate to Australia. We lived the Australian dream, embracing adventure until adversity came to test us.

After I'd got him out of harm's way, I dived back in yet again and swam out past the surf-break, out to where the other two lads were floundering. Then, one at a time, I took them back onto the rocks – all done against the raging rip and wild surf. By then an hour or so had passed. Still, severe cuts, bruises and abrasions aside, I'd successfully saved the lives of the four young people who, in all probability, would've otherwise drowned.

Damien Cave and his wife Diana thought they understood what it meant to take risks. As two journalists who traveled the world covering pressing international stories, they were convinced they had seen it all; that is, until they moved to Australia. Suddenly, their kids were being thrown into giant Pacific waves in intensive lifeguard bootcamps, and they were expected to be present and participating instead of obsessing about work or politics. They soon noticed what seemed to be a societal surrender of control to nature and community.

The term ‘Bible bashing’ took on new meaning in our household. Not so much for its reading, though God certainly remained high on Mum’s spiritual priorities, but more for its treatment of bunions, chilblains, corns, etc. Mum suffered from bunions until she started bashing them with the heavy family Bible, believing the Lord’s weight behind the Lord’s word could move anything from mountains to bunions. More Great Australian Outback Yarns includes many of the most memorable tales from Swampy’s collections.

Master storyteller Bill 'Swampy' Marsh has travelled the length and breadth of the country to gather their tales of adventure and misadventure, drama and mayhem, and larrikinism and laughter, to create this memorable collection of real-life stories about those on the front-line in the heart of Australia.

Criminality, some say, is part of Australia's national identity, and in Great Australian Rascals, Rogues and Ratbags Jim Haynes profiles 15 larger-than-life Aussie rogues. These stories uncover the truth and expose the myths about characters ranging from the most despicable examples of humanity, to those whose courage has to be admired and whose so-called 'crimes' were unjustly punished. Told with Haynes's inimitable combination of history and humour, Great Australian Rascals, Rogues and Ratbags is packed with murders, mystery and miscreants.

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.

Lisa Wilkinson's The Titanic Story of Evelyn is the never-before-told true tale of the only Australian survivor of the sinking of the Titanic. It is the story of a brave young Australian nurse who wanted to see the world, fell in love, then almost lost it all in one of the greatest maritime...