"For her entire life, Lucinda's mission was to look as hot as possible. She nipped, tucked, bleached, cut, plucked, plumped, shaved, lasered, tanned, crunched, squatted and starved. Then, she broke. All I Ever Wanted Was To Be Hot is a funny, provocative...
"Skin cancer is this country's most common cancer, and melanoma the deadliest form of it. Richard, together with his colleagues at Melanoma Institute Australia, has dedicated years to groundbreaking research and succeeded in transforming even the most advanced...
Future, freedom and success lies ahead of young pianist Stephen de Bastion in 1930s Hungary. Life whirls headily around cocktails, romance, applause, and the buzz of Budapest late into the night. Then, in 1939, Stephen's world disintegrates. This becomes a...
"11 March 1942: The Japanese have stormed the Philippines, forcing US general Douglas MacArthur to flee with his family, escaping by the skin of their teeth to the nearest safe country - Australia. Meanwhile, Australia's foremost general, Thomas Blamey, is...
"Known and loved by her many New Zealand and Australia fans as a down-to-earth broadcaster, ZM radio host and social media sensation, Bree Tomasel is an irrepressible force of nature. Her high-profile role as co-host of Celebrity Treasure Island saw her named...
"Chef and restaurateur Ben Shewry knows obsession well. Whether it's crispy-edged lasagne, saltwater crocodile ribs or the perfect potato, obsession is what motivates him and what makes him tick. It's also what has propelled his Melbourne restaurant Attica...
"'Your friends would probably describe me as nice. But guess what? I can't stand your friends. I'm a liar. I'm a thief. I'm highly manipulative. I don't care what other people think. I'm capable of almost anything.' Sociopath: A Memoir is at once a mesmerizing...
"In Something lost, something gained, Hillary offers her views on life and love, politics, the threats we face, and the future within our reach. We also meet the women dissidents defying dictators around the world, gain new insights about Vladimir Putin, and...
"From Emmy-award winning actor, author, comedian, producer, and director Henry Winkler, a deeply thoughtful memoir of the lifelong effects of stardom and the struggle to become whole. Henry Winkler, launched into prominence as "The Fonz" in the beloved Happy...
"A story of the tender power of animals to heal broken humans. Tim Husband was born into a Jehovah's Witness family who spent their weekends delivering God's Word. Struggling to fit into this orthodox community, he found refuge in the bush, collecting and...
"What do you say when a man you've dated a handful of times asks you to go live with him in a mill by a river in France? The obvious answer is: 'Are you out of your mind?' Maria Hoyle's was: 'Okay.' At the age of 63 she left her life in Auckland - her two...
"Paddy Gower has never been afraid to stand up for what he believes in. From his teenage and university years where he learnt to defend himself from cruel bullying about his looks, to the pressure-cooker years he spent in the Press Gallery holding politicians...
"Yarns on a life lived at a million miles, from beloved broadcaster, podcaster and go-getter Brodie Kane. First up: this is absolutely not a guide to life. I've done some impressive stuff, but I've also slept on the floor of an old Greek man's house and lost...
"Forty, freckled and facing infertility, Megan Dunn hears the siren call that reawakens her lifelong obsession, and sets off in pursuit of mermaids. Real mermaids. From Coney Island and Copenhagen to Courtenay Place, Wellington, New Zealand, from the semiotics...
"From the age of 12, Scott Ryder knew he wanted to join the army, and he signed up as soon as he could. After serving as a paratrooper and in East Timor with 3 RAR, he wanted more. He trained all summer and took the gruelling selection course for the...
"The most capped All Black in history speaks for the record about his storied career, spanning four World Cups, nine Super Rugby finals and 153 appearances in the black jersey. After making his debut for New Zealand in 2010 at the age of 21, Samuel Whitelock...
"A serial rapist is stalking South Auckland in 1980s New Zealand and police are stumped - they can't seem to find the man they call 'The Ghost' before he strikes again. In this incredible memoir of his nearly four decades as a police officer, David 'Chook'...
"Amy Lin never expected to find a love like the one she shares with her husband, Kurtis, a gifted young architect who pulls her toward joy, adventure, and greater self-acceptance. On a sweltering August morning, only a few months shy of the newlyweds' move to...
From her early days in Liverpool to her unexpected acceptance into RADA; from beginning her scriptwriting career with WIDOWS and PRIME SUSPECT to becoming a BAFTA award-winning writer and producer, Lynda La Plante has an important story to tell, one of...
"A near-fatal health emergency leads to this powerful reflection on death--and what might follow--by the bestselling author of Tribe and The Perfect Storm. For years as an award-winning war reporter, Sebastian Junger traveled to many front lines and frequently...
"When she breaks an unspoken family code not to dig too deeply into the past, Andra is plunged into the bleak world of the Soviet and Nazi occupations of Latvia in World War II, and the secret lives of her grandmothers. Teenage Aline is separated from her...
"'After I swim, I watch an osprey hanging in mid-air. If those who came before really do dissolve and dissipate, and if their cells really are all around us, then that bird is held there by Mum and Peter and billions of others of the long-dead. The osprey is...
"Part memoir, part historical and social analysis, J. D. Vance's Hillbilly Elegy is a fascinating consideration of class, culture, and the American dream. Vance's grandparents were "dirt poor and in love." They got married and moved north from Kentucky to Ohio...
"From a rare and deadly amniotic avalanche to a victim of roasted peanuts ... The bestselling author of The Cause of Death and The Quick and the Dead returns with more stranger-than-fiction stories of death, disease and murder - as well as new perspectives on...
"Dai Henwood wanted to be a comedian even before he knew what a comedian was. He always knew there was something special in being able to make people laugh. Over a 25-year career, the much-loved Kiwi entertainer and TV host has won every major comedy award in...
In this widely acclaimed and bestselling book, the award-winning investigative reporter Seymour M. Hersh reveals a John F. Kennedy we have never seen before, a man insulated from the normal consequences of behavior long before he entered the White House. His...
"A personal memoir in which Lyn Slater, known on Instagram as "Accidental Icon," brings her characteristic style, optimism, forward-thinking, and rules-are-meant-to-be-broken attitude to the question of how to live boldly at any age. When Lyn Slater started...
Dick and Angel recount the newest and biggest challenges they faced on the journey to transforming their once derelict and abandoned chateau in France's Pays de la Loire into a thriving family home and sustainable business. When Covid-19 engulfs the world, the...
Right there by the toe of my boot, next to the blade of my spade and camouflaged by the leaves on the ground, was magpie chick. It squatted belligerently, peering up at me with magpie fury. When Frieda Hughes moved to the depths of the Welsh countryside, she...
"This is the astounding true story of one of the last female special operations agents in France to get out alive after its liberation in WWII. Born in 1921, Pippa Latour became a covert special operations agent who parachuted into a field in Nazi-occupied...
"It was 1966 and the times they were a-changing, even in the provincial New Zealand coastal town of New Plymouth. Skirts were getting shorter, the Vietnam War was on TV every night and French nuclear tests in the Pacific turned the night sky a violent red....
"Laugh-out-loud yarns from a soldier in the New Zealand Army. When new recruit Dario Nustrini's head was freshly shaved in preparation for the army, he knew nothing about what training to fight, kill and die for New Zealand would look like. Since leaving high...
"Disarmingly witty and poignant, Sloane Crosley's memoir explores multiple kinds of loss following the death of her closest friend. How do we live without the ones we love? Grief Is for People is a deeply moving and suspenseful portrait of friendship, and a...
"On April 13, 1986, ten-year-old Tiger Woods watches his idol, Jack Nicklaus, win his record sixth Masters. Just over a decade later, chants of "Ti-ger, Ti-ger!" ring out as the twenty-one-year-old wins his first Green Jacket. He blazes an incredible path,...
"Bangka Island, 1942: Australian Army nurse Vivian Bullwinkel was just twenty-six when Japanese soldiers marched her and her fellow nurses into the shallow waters of a remote beach to be executed. Miraculously, Vivian would be the lone survivor, and she...
"A four-time world squash champion, Dame Susan Devoy has led a remarkably varied life. She's been Race Relations Commissioner, a television star, a newspaper columnist, raised four boys and met Bill Clinton and King Charles. Fiercely driven and wildly...
"In the 1950s, a young Ngāhuia is fostered by a family who believe in hard work and community. Although close to her kuia, she craves more: she wants higher education and refined living. But whānau dismiss her dreams. To them, she is just a show-off, always...
"The forgotten story of a pioneering group of five Black ballerinas, the first principals in the Dance Theatre of Harlem, who traveled the world as highly celebrated stars in their field and whose legacy was erased from history until now. At the height of the...
In her early twenties, Esther Rutter suffered an acute mental breakdown while teaching English in Japan. Sectioned and held in a Japanese psychiatric institution until she could be flown home under escort, her recovery only began when she came to live and...
"In his own voice and uniquely unpretentious style, Tom Selleck brings readers on his uncharted but serendipitous journey to the top in Hollywood, his temptations and distractions, his misfires and mistakes and, over time, his well-earned success. Along the...
"The Outback Court Reporter is a sometimes funny, sometimes tragic look at the comings and goings on inside the country courtrooms dotted across Australia. From the case of the stolen cat flap, to missing lollipops and exploding chocolate milk in a country...
"In 2023 the curtain finally came down on Brian Houston. The rock star of Pentecostalism, former Global Senior Pastor of Hillsong Church, was acquitted of concealing his father's sexual abuse of a minor, but it was too late. His glittering megachurch had...
"Over seventy years had passed since Mira Unreich was freed from a concentration camp in Germany. On that spring day in 1945, she found herself alive, against all odds. In the decades that followed, she never explained the mystery underpinning her survival....
"It's all in a mad day's work: the good, the bad and the crazy. From a man who swallowed fishhooks to patients playing pranks, emergency operations in the wee hours, constantly being mistaken for a nurse, and holding hands through silent goodbyes, this is a...
"When Julie Legg was diagnosed with ADHD at age 52, suddenly her life made sense. Bringing together her own experience along with research studies and personal stories from other Kiwi women with ADHD, this book is a go-to reference no matter where you are in...
"At age 18, Bariz Shah ended up in an Auckland prison. As an Afghan migrant who was deeply affected by 9/11, Bariz spiralled from schoolyard fights into crime and drugs - until prison made him rethink the story of his life. Years later, in Christchurch, Bariz...
"Sir Nicholas Winton rescued 669 Jewish children from Nazi occupied Czechoslovakia at the brink of World War II. Most never saw their parents again. This is his story. In 1938, 29-year-old 'Nicky' cancelled a ski holiday and instead spent 9 months...
In the 1970s, Michael Palin came across an old family photograph of a young man in military uniform. Learning that this was his grandfather's brother Harry, killed in the First World War, his curiosity was piqued. But his career was hitting new heights, and...
"On the morning of 12 August 2022, Salman Rushdie was standing onstage at the Chautauqua Institution in upstate New York, preparing to give a lecture on the importance of keeping writers safe from harm, when a man in black – black clothes, black mask – rushed...
"A life-affirming true story of kindness, courage and one horse's extraordinary journey from a derelict paddock to the esteemed stables of the Mounted Police. On a hot summer's day in Northern New South Wales, Mounted Police officer Tiffany Williams spotted an...
"When Michael Lewis first met him, Sam Bankman-Fried was the world's youngest billionaire and crypto's Gatsby. CEOs, celebrities, and leaders of small countries all vied for his time and cash after he catapulted, practically overnight, onto the Forbes...
"Before she was three years old Elizabeth had been both a princess and then a bastard following the brutal execution of her mother, Anne Boleyn. After losing several stepmothers and then her father, the teenage Elizabeth was confronted with the predatory...
"The Woman in Me is a brave and astonishingly moving story about freedom, fame, motherhood, survival, faith, and hope. In June 2021, the whole world was listening as Britney Spears spoke in open court. The impact of sharing her voice--her truth--was...
"A heart-wrenching multigenerational family memoir by an excommunicated member of the Exclusive Brethren After coming out as gay, Craig Hoyle was excommunicated from the New Zealand Exclusive Brethren and forced to say goodbye to his family forever. The...
"By the time of her execution at thirty-six, Maria Mandl had achieved the highest rank possible for a woman in the Third Reich. As Head Overseer of the women's camp at Auschwitz-Birkenau, she was personally responsible for the murders of thousands, and for the...
"Despite being hailed as one of the best guitarists of his era, George Harrison, particularly in his early decades, battled feelings of inferiority. He was often the butt of jokes from his bandmates owing to his lower-class background and, typically, was...
"In addition to her celebrated career as a novelist, Hilary Mantel contributed for years to newspapers and journals, unspooling stories from her own life and illuminating the world as she found it. "Ink is a generative fluid," she explains. "If you don't mean...
"Throughout her childhood, Safiya Sinclair's father, a volatile reggae musician and militant adherent to a strict sect of Rastafari, became obsessed with her purity, in particular, with the threat of what Rastas call Babylon, the immoral and corrupting...
"Jada Pinkett Smith was living what many would view as a fairy-tale. But appearances can be deceiving, and as she felt more and more separated from her sense of self, emotional turmoil took hold. A rollercoaster from the depths of suicidal depression to the...
"An inspirational memoir from the authors of Every Bastard Says No about the peaks and troughs of a life in the high country. In 2017 the Ross family left behind their inner-city lives in Auckland and their successful vodka business, 42 Below, to follow their...
"Nellie Melba is remembered as a squarish, late middle-aged woman dressed in furs and large hats, an imperious Dame whose voice ruled the world for three decades and inspired a peach and raspberry dessert. But to succeed, she had to battle social expectations...
"The internationally bestselling author of the Guido Brunetti mysteries tells her own adventurous life story as she enters her eighties In a series of vignettes full of affection, irony, and good humor, Donna Leon narrates a remarkable life she feels has...
"Wendy Harmer has had an extraordinary life. From being born with a severe facial deformity, to performing as a stand-up comedian, a national television host and then the highest paid woman in the cut-throat world of Sydney FM radio ... Wendy's tale of...
"What if you woke up one morning and found you'd acquired another self--a double who was almost you and yet not you at all? What if that double shared many of your preoccupations but, in a twisted, upside-down way, furthered the very causes you'd devoted your...
Twenty years after leaving London, Nina Stibbe is back in town with her dog, Peggy. Together they take up lodging in the house of writer Debby Moggach in Camden for a year-long sabbatical. It's a break from married life back in Cornwall, or even perhaps a...
"Born in Swaziland in 1957, Richard E. Grant moved to the UK to pursue his acting career, and has been a fixture on screens since his breakout role in 'Withnail and I' in 1987. When his beloved wife Joan died in 2021 after almost forty years together, she set...
"'Making It' is an inspirational memoir about beating the odds and turning things around even when it all seems hopeless. In this book, Jay shares the details of his life, from his childhood growing up sheltered and innocent on a council estate in Hackney, to...
"Sam Kerr is widely considered to be one of the best female footballers of all time. She is famous worldwide for her skills on the soccer pitch - but before she was the Matildas captain and the leading goal scorer for Chelsea, she was just an average Aussie...
When Billy Connolly set out from Glasgow as a young man, he never looked back. He played his banjo on boats and trains, under trees, and on top of famous monuments. He danced naked in snow, wind and fire. He slept in bus stations, under bridges and on...
"A coming-of-age memoir of addiction, ambition and redemption in the high-stakes world of Michelin star kitchens. From reckless drug addict to one of Australia's top chefs and television stars: MasterChef judge Jock Zonfrillo's powerful life story will shock...
"The incredible account of Sister Betty Jeffrey OAM and the Australian war nurses who survived the bombing of evacuation ship SS Vyner Brooke in February 1942, and subsequently spent three years in Japanese prison camps in Sumatra. During those perilous years...
"In 1962, a Sāmoan family journeyed to New Zealand - a country immigrants once called 'the land of milk and honey' - in search of a better life. Instead, their eldest son, Vitale, arrived in an era of dawn raids by police and immigration officials, and endless...
"Dogs of all shapes and sizes visit Ruth Shaw's three wee bookshops in Manapouri in the far south of Aotearoa New Zealand. Local dogs, holiday house dogs, travelling dogs: many have great stories, be they funny, sad, strange, bemusing, quirky or sweet. Woven...
"Paris, 1940. The City of Light has fallen under German Occupation. Among patriotic Parisians, the pursuit of art, culture, and jazz have become bold acts of defiance. So has forbidden romance for talented and spirited Jewish teenager Annette Zelman, a student...
"Berserk: out of control with anger or excitement; wild or frenzied. Berserkers: an elite Norse fighting corp who, apparently off their tits on hallucinogenic drugs, fought with a particular fury and senseless abandon still present in many Scandinavian heavy...
"Before Steven Joyce entered politics, he had a hugely successful 17-year career building and running the radio network RadioWorks. He learnt to cut deals, compete ferociously, and carefully manage the on-air talent. They were all skills he would put to great...
"When Penny Moodie hears people say that they're 'a bit OCD' about cleaning or tidying, she can't help but feel frustrated. It took her twenty-three years to be diagnosed with obsessive-compulsive disorder - a debilitating mental health condition involving...
"Andrew Bagshaw was many things - a genius-level geneticist, keen cricketer and sailor, private pilot, much-loved son, brother and uncle, as well as a hugely brave and principled idealist who risked everything to travel from Christchurch to Ukraine to work as...
"A stunning memoir of one man's search for his birth parents, which uncovered an astonishing global scandal at the heart of the Catholic Church. Brendan Watkins was eight years old when his parents told him he was adopted. When he was in his late twenties, he...
"This is the first biography to focus exclusively on Neil Finn, the man who wrote the timeless hits of Split Enz and Crowded House. In early 1980, 21-year-old Neil Mullane Finn wrote 'I Got You', which became the signature song and biggest hit for the Kiwi...
"Carl Hayman, All Black 1000, once the most highly prized player in world rugby and a giant of the game in every sense - someone who was always respected, even feared. But at the end of seventeen years as a professional rugby player, the last eight played with...
"From award-winning writer Dr Emma Espiner comes this striking and profound debut memoir. Encompassing whanau, love, death, '90s action movies and scarfie drinking, There's a cure for this is Espiner's own story, from a childhood spent shuttling between a...
"Dr David Galler tells stories of life and death from his position as Intensive Care specialist at Middlemore Hospital. Written lyrically and warmly, these stories are based on real life events describing the everyday dilemmas and challenges that doctors and...
"Dusty Springfield was one of our greatest pop singers. From 60s hits like 'I Only Want To Be With You', 'Son of a Preacher Man' and 'You Don't Have To Say You Love Me' to her 80s collaboration with the Pet Shop Boys and beyond, she was a musical pioneer and...
"Laurie Zaleski never aspired to run an animal rescue; that was her mother Annie's dream. But from girlhood, Laurie was determined to make the dream come true. Thirty years later as a successful businesswoman, she did it, buying a 15-acre farm deep in the...
"This is the compelling story of Nigerian physician Ike Anya's path to becoming a doctor, from his intensely demanding studies to his beginnings as a newly qualified doctor. Moving, often humourous and always revealing, his account lays bare the challenges and...
"Brought face to face with the author of his obituary and his own inevitable mortality, Edward Stourton is prompted to reflect on the life he has led and the events that have shaped him. Ed was born into a life of privilege: the son of expat parents in...
"On 9 August 1918, at Chipilly Spur overlooking the Somme River, an entire British Army Corps is held up by German machine gunners. The battle has raged for 30 hours and more than 2000 men have fallen. Then, two Australian sergeants, Jack Hayes and Harold...
"Jessica Kirkness has traversed the boundary between deaf and hearing cultures all her life. Her memoir tells the story of her grandparents who grew up deaf in a hearing world--one where sign language was banned for much of the twentieth century--and weaves in...
"Dean Karnazes is an internationally recognised endurance athlete who has pushed his body and mind to inconceivable limits. In this remarkable memoir, he recounts the personal events that have led to him becoming an extraordinary athlete. The seeds of his...
"Gen's early teenage years were the hardest of her life. Struggling with anorexia and poor mental health, she spent time in and out of hospitals and clinics, which also had a huge impact on her family. But with treatment and support, Gen was able to turn her...
"What would you do if you were told by the people you loved the most that the way you were born was evil and wrong? For Shaneel Lal, this was their reality from the time they were five. Growing up in a tiny, traditional village in Fiji, Shaneel always knew...
"Amelia Dalton, fresh from touring the Scottish islands, takes on the world and sets up exclusive holidays in remote places for a new cruise ship. As she scopes out her itineraries, she explores inaccessible islands and survives a hotel fire, a bomb in a...
"Anna Bibby owned a successful art gallery in New Zealand until one day, on holiday in France, she bought a falling-down house in a picturesque medieval village. So began the process of renovating her beautiful old house which, of course, wasn't without its...
"In 2010, New Zealand met its remotest family, through the writing of Robert Long — aka Beansprout — and we were intrigued. Now Beansprout's wife, Catherine Stewart, tells her story, and answers many of our questions. Why did she decide to join him on the wild...
"The definitive account of the disastrous siege at the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Texas, featuring never-before-seen documents, photographs, and interviews, from former investigative reporter Jeff Guinn, bestselling author of Manson and The Road to...
"Alba Donati was used to her hectic life working as a book publicist in Italy, a life that made her happy and allowed her to meet prominent international authors, but she was ready to make a change. One day she decided to return to Lucignana, the small village...
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