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A story of seven summers: life in the Nun's House
By Hilary Burden. 2012
On the outside, Hilary Burden was living a glamorous life - she was a busy, high-flying, globe-trotting magazine journalist based…
in London, who'd think nothing of flying to New York for a weekend, interviewing movie stars in luxury hotels or jetting off to Italy on assignment to hunt truffles with Curtis Stone. But on the inside, something was missing in her life and she didn't know quite what it was. Deciding that she wanted to make her own life, Hilary returned to Tasmania. She bought a ramshackle old house - The Nuns' House - with a sprawling, neglected garden, and gave herself the time and space to begin again. There was no particular kind of plan, but things just somehow worked. Now, seven summers later, she has a home, a garden, two alpacas (named Jack and Kerouac), two chooks (called Marilyn and Monroe), a purpose and a passion.No job for a girl
By Susan Swaney. 1993
When the author set up a veterinary practice in Western Victoria, there was resistance because she was a woman and…
there was the rugged climate to get used to. This is a diary of twelve months in the author's life as a vet, farmer and mother.Beaten by a blow: a shearer's story
By Dennis McIntosh. 2008
Dennis McIntosh was always determined not to get stuck in a factory like his father, but it's only once he…
takes a job as a roustabout that he discovers what he really wants to be: a shearer. Travelling from station to station, he revels in the smell and feel of the sheds, and the freedom of being answerable to no man except his mates. And it's a thrilling time to be in this legendary occupation. There's a fight on: the union is defending its workers against scab labourers' use of the wide comb. But while shearing's a fine life for a nineteen-year-old, it's a hard one for a man. As the added weight of adulthood settles on Dennis's shoulders, the sheds take their unforgiving toll. Beaten by a Blow shows us the reality behind the romance of the shearer. Most of all, it tells the story of a boy dull of hope crashing headlong into life - into work, into drink, into responsibilities he isn't ready for, which come closer to breaking his back than shearing ever did.How to get there: a memoir
By Maggie MacKellar. 2014
After Maggie Mackellar’s acclaimed When It Rains, her second memoir traces with her characteristic candour and perception her move to…
Tasmania, for love, and the struggles and joys of settling there. In 2011 Maggie Mackellar moved from her family’s farm in Central West New South Wales to the east coast of Tasmania with her children and assorted menagerie to live with a farmer. ’In the book she explores learning to love again after living through grief, and the complexities of doing this in a community with which she is unfamiliar, with two young children. She reflects on love after grief, juggling being a mother and negotiating a burgeoning relationship, the rhythms of country life, displacement and the writing life. This is a book for anyone who has imagined taking a risk, for anyone who has moved to a new place and struggled with feelings of homesickness and displacement. It is a story about making a life in a remarkable setting - the east coast of Tasmania, on a sheep farm in a stone house built by convicts in 1828.When it rains: a memoir
By Maggie MacKellar. 2010
'My body, suddenly, carries two stories of loss... One is easy for people to recognise. My mother died of cancer.…
I watched her age twenty-five years in eight weeks... My other story marks me as different. It is more silent and more savage, it is not pure and no one knows how to approach it. Somewhere I lost my husband.' When Maggie's vibrant young husband, father to a five-year-old daughter and an unborn son, dies tragically, Maggie is left widowed and due to give birth three months later to their second child. Then her beloved mother, backbone of the family, mother to three children, grandmother to two, dies suddenly of aggressive cancer. In two short years, Maggie's life has shattered. After a year, she gives up trying to juggle single motherhood and the demands of an academic career and returns with her children to the family farm in central western New South Wales to take stock and catch a breath. The farm becomes a redemptive, healing place for Maggie and her children as they battle the heat and drought that only the Australian landscape can offer. She throws herself into the horses, sheep, ducks and chickens and slowly, finally, realises she has found a new shape for herself.Love in the outback
By Deb Hunt. 2014
The true story of an unlikely romance set in the Australian outback. The year before she turned fifty, Deb Hunt…
stopped dating. She was done with love and sick of chasing men who didn't return her affections. When her most recent flame announced he was marrying someone else, Deb knew it was time to make a change. She landed a job as a marketing assistant with the Royal Flying Doctor Service and left London for the sunshine of Sydney on a mission to find happiness without a mate. But then on a trip to the red-dust town of Broken Hill, she encountered a man unlike any other. A legend of the RFDS, he was practical, steady, financially responsible and conservative - everything Deb was not. He wanted a relationship. She wanted to flee. Funny, warm, and beautifully told, this is the story of what happens when you ditch your fantasies of romance and discover the truth about love.The strength in us all (Bullo River Station series #2)
By Sara Henderson. 1994
In this sequel to "From strength to strength", Sara Henderson brings us up to date on her life on Bullo…
since the end of 1991. After Sara won Bulletin/Qantas Business Woman of the year in 1991, life continued to deal its heavy blows. Letters began to arrive from all over Australia showing care and concern. In these letters Sara found the strength and inspiration to carry on.From strength to strength: an autobiography (Bullo River Station series #1)
By Sara Henderson. 1993
After the death of her husband, Sara Henderson took up the challenge of rebuilding their floundering property with successful results.…
In 1991 Sara was named Bulletin/Qantas Business Woman of the Year. Now at the age of 55, Sara's life is beginning all over again.Trailing clouds of glory: an informal chronicle of northern New South Wales, 1930-46
By Frances Hackett. 1990
Written with a child's eye-view of the past, larger than life, mystified, unclouded. It is also a picture of a…
small country town in northern N.S.W., trapped in its isolation and its poverty.Real dirt: how I beat my grid-life crisis
By James Woodford. 2008
It took James Woodford a while to realise that the greasy pole of big-city ambition was not for him. To…
rediscover the environmentalist he'd aspired to be when he was young, and to get his family out of the city. But eventually they made it: to the wildly beautiful south coast of New South Wales and a sustainable, self-sufficient, solar-powered lifestyle on 120 acres. No house? They'd build one. Land grazed down and eroding into the lake? Fix it up with some love and hard work...coax it to yield home-grown vegies...plant orchards, raise chooks...a humungous worm farm... How hard could it be? Real Dirt is the true story of a sea-change, the life that led there - and what you have to go through to get where you want to be.A family under the jackboot
By Hans Roland. 1993
During the time of the Third Reich, the young Hans Roland is swept up by the Hitler youth, but his…
family establish a conduit to undesirables and Jews out of Germany and Poland to safety. Eventually Hans deserts the army and returns through the lines.The Spanish Civil War
By David Mitchell. 1982
This book quotes the direct testimony of dozens of eyewitnesses, who observed fellow-countrymen settling old scores with unparalleled ferocity. For…
many foreign nationals it was a simple clash of right and wrong - for the Spanish there were many causes.The spirit of the digger: then & now
By Patrick Lindsay. 2003
"In many ways the Digger is a study in contradictions: he doesn’t crave war yet he will fight with unequalled…
ferocity; he hates spit and polish but will hold his discipline under the most trying conditions; he is tough yet compassionate; he hates his enemy until he surrenders, then he is generous in victory; he despises histrionics but will cry unashamedly at the loss of a mate..." 'The Digger' is a key piece of the complex jigsaw puzzle that makes up 'The Australian'. But who is the Digger exactly, and what elements have gone into forging his spirit? Australian soldiers have had an impact in world conflicts far in excess of their numbers. They've won acclaim for their fighting prowess and bravery, while retaining their larrikin spirit, their compassion and their strong sense of mateship. Those who fought in the trenches of Gallipoli, the Somme and Ypres have an immediate kinship with the Diggers who followed in their footsteps in North Africa and New Guinea, and later in Korea, Vietnam, East Timor, Afghanistan and Iraq. We are justifiably proud of the heritage that our Diggers have bequeathed us.Elena's journey
By Elena Jonaitis. 1997
Elena Jonaitis, a young Lithuanian woman, lived with repression and the threat of deportation on a daily basis during World…
War II. Her journey did not end with the war. Joy and sorrow lay ahead of her before she began a new life in Australia in 1949.Guantanamo: my journey
By Paul Kennedy, David Hicks. 2010
In 1999 a young man from suburban Adelaide set out on an overseas trip that would change his life forever.Initially,…
he was after adventure and the experience of travelling the Silk Road. But events would set him on a different path. He would be deemed a terrorist, one of George W Bush's 'worst of the worst'. He would be incarcerated in the world's most notorious prison, Guantanamo Bay. And in that place where, according to an interrogator in Abu Ghraib, 'even dogs won't live', he was to languish for five and a half years, suffering horror, torture and abuse, while Australians were told who he was - by politicians, the media and foreign governments.Everyone had an opinion on him.But only he knows the truth.And now, for the first time, David Hicks tells his story.The memoir book
By Patti Miller. 2007
We all have a story to tell - whether it is a story of a migrant childhood, a difficult past,…
adopting a child, riding a bike across India, or simply a contemplative year in a garden. With these stories we make sense of ourselves and the world around us. Memoir - writing about an aspect of a life rather than a whole life - expresses and shapes these stories within us so that the writing becomes more than a record, it becomes a creative journey. Drawing on Patti's extensive teaching and writing experience, and using examples and exercises, The Memoir Book provides invaluable insight on how to find your topic, develop narrative voice, find a balance between factual truth and vivid story-telling, explore creative ways of structuring memories, and helps identify the best form for your writing - whether it be literary memoir, narrative non-fiction, sojourn and travel writing, or even the personal essay.The reality slap: how to survive and thrive when life hits hard
By Russ Harris. 2020
Sometimes, it can feel like life holds endless setbacks and challenges; like reality is continually slapping you in the face…
and causing pain that you aren't equipped to handle. This 'reality slap' can take many forms, from the death of a loved one to the loss of a job, loneliness to rejection. And whatever form it takes, it hurts! With constructive methods based on real-world research, this guide gives you the tools to rebuild your life and thrive after serious setbacks.Storyteller: a foreign correspondent's memoir
By Zoe Daniel. 2014
Zoe Daniel is the ABC’s fifteenth South East Asia Correspondent, and one of only a handful of women to combine…
one of the most dangerous jobs in the world with one of the most demanding - motherhood. From the political unrest in Bangkok and the bittersweet story of conjoined twins in India, to a tragic plane crash in Laos and the destruction of Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines, Storyteller is a frank and brave memoir, as much about the events that capture our attention as it is about a personal story of the universal juggle of work, ambition and family amid the unpredictability of life and the predictability of the 24/7 media cycle.Storyteller is a timely reminder of the bravery and audacity of the men and women who bring us the news - the journalists, the local ‘fixers’, the cameramen - but above all it is a tribute to ordinary people who find themselves eyewitnesses to the extraordinary.Lunatic soup: inside the madness of maximum security
By Andrew Fraser. 2008
At the top of his game, top defence lawyer Andrew Fraser saw cocaine as another trapping of success. He didn't…
realise it would lead him into a $1000-a-day drug habit that would land him in prison. Convicted and disbarred, Fraser became the confidant of one of Australia's most notorious serial killers, Peter Dupas. What he learned made him the Homicide Squad's secret weapon. Fraser paints a vivid picture of the grim, terrifying and futile reality of maximum-security prison life and of his time spent with the murderers, psychopaths and paedophiles. Lunatic Soup relates his harrowing experiences of the justice system, as a prisoner, and on the stand as a witness in a murder trial.I can see clearly now: understanding and managing blindness and vision loss
By Cameron Algie. 2021
This is a comprehensive, highly readable guide for the blind and vision impaired, their sighted families and friends, professionals, service…
providers and employers. It shows how someone can successfully adjust to vision impairment, and dispels fears, misinformation and prejudices. The book has 18 chapters divided into three parts. In the first part, I look at some of the main causes of vision loss, and discuss the complex psychological aspects of blindness and how to overcome grief, fear and anxiety. I also examine the disempowering nature of sighted people's attitudes and explain how those with vision impairment can assert their own independence. In part two, I look at education, work, parenting, the teenage years and dating, gender and schooling to provide practical illustrations of how to manage sight loss. I use many insights gained from discussion groups to show the range and depth of experiences, insights and solutions in these important areas. Part three offers sensible advice on being independent in the home, keeping mobile, finding the latest technology, and working with hobbies. Practical tips cover cooking, cleaning, applying make-up, shaving, working in the shed, shopping, white canes, guide dogs, public transport, apps and software, the best gadgets, and many more aspects affecting day-to-day life.