DIY Book Club | Biography Titles

84, Charing Cross Road

Hanff, Helene

Books

What started as a request for an out-of-print book evolved into a 20-year friendship between Helene Hanff, a freelance writer living in New York, and Frank Doel, a used-book dealer in London.

All I know : a memoir of love, loss and life [Book Club Set]

Coustas, Mary

Books

Starting with a colourful childhood in Collingwood and Doncaster and ending in sunny Bondi, All I Know is a journey through the life of Mary Coustas, and a journey through the three deaths that changed her life forever.

Animal, vegetable, miracle : our year of seasonal eating [Book Club Set]

Kingsolver, Barbara

Books

When Barbara Kingsolver and her family move from suburban Arizona to rural Appalachia, they take on a new challenge: to spend a year on a locally-produced diet, paying close attention to the provenance of all they consume.

Band-aid for a broken leg : being a doctor with no borders (and other ways to stay single) [Book Club Set]

Brown, Damien, 1977-

Books

A powerful, heart-breaking, surprisingly funny, honest and ultimately uplifting account of life on the medical frontline, and a moving testimony of the work done by Medecins Sans Frontieres and the extraordinary and sometimes eccentric people who work for it.

Butterfly on a pin : a memoir of love, loss and reinvention [Book Club Set]

Hill, Alannah

Books

Unflinching, funny, shocking, inspiring and tender: this is a story like no other. Alannah Hill, one of Australia's most successful fashion designers, created an international fashion brand that defied trends with ornamental, sophisticated elegance, beads, bows and vintage florals.

Anzac girls : the extraordinary story of our World War I nurses [Book Club Set]

Rees, Peter, 1948-

Books

By the end of the Great War, forty-five Australian and New Zealand nurses had died on overseas service and over two hundred had been decorated. These were the women who left for war looking for adventure and romance but were soon confronted with challenges for which their civilian lives could nev...

The court reporter [Book Club Set]

Wells, Jamelle

Books

As a seasoned courtreporter, the ABC's Jamelle Wells has filed thousands of stories on murderers, sex offenders, thieves, bad drivers, family feuds and business deals gone wrong. In more than 10 years, Jamelle has witnessed many of Australia's most notorious and high-profile court cases....

Educated [Book Club Set]

Westover, Tara

Books

Tara Westover grew up preparing for the End of Days, watching for the sun to darken, for the moon to drip as if with blood. She spent her summers bottling peaches and her winters rotating emergency supplies, hoping that when the World of Men failed, her family would continue on, unaffected.

Elizabeth Macarthur : a life at the edge of the world [Book Club Set]

Tucker, Michelle Scott

Books

In 1788 a young gentlewoman raised in the vicarage of an English village married a handsome, haughty and penniless army officer. In any Austen novel that would be the end ofthe story, but for the real-life woman who became an Australian farming entrepreneur, it was just the b...

The erratics [Book Club Set]

Laveau-Harvie, Vicki

Books

When her elderly mother is hospitalised unexpectedly, Vicki travels to her parents' isolated ranch home in Alberta, Canada, to help her father. She has been estranged from her parents for many years (the reasons for which rapidly become clear) and is horrified by what she discovers on her arriv...

Everywhere I look [Book Club Set]

Garner, Helen, 1942-

Books

I pedal over to Kensington just after dark. As I roll along the lane towards the railway underpass, a young Asian woman on her way home from the station walks out of the tunnel towards me. After she passes there's a stillness, a moment of silent freshness that feels like spring. Helen Garner ...

Fake : a startling true story of love in a world of liars, cheats, narcissists, fantasists and phonies [Book Club Set]

Wood, Stephanie

Books

"Women the world over are brought up to hope, even expect, to find the man of their dreams, marry and live happily ever after. When Stephanie Woods meets a sweet, sophisticated man who owns land and businesses, she embarks on an exhilarating romance with him. He seems compassionate, tru...

The feel-good hit of the year : a memoir [Book Club Set]

Pieper, Liam

Books

Ghost empire [Book Club Set]

Fidler, Richard

Books

"In 2014, Richard Fidler and his son Joe made a journey to Istanbul. Fired by Richard's passion for the rich history of the dazzling Byzantine Empire - centred around the legendary Constantinople - we are swept into some of the most extraordinary tales in history.

Hillbilly elegy : a memoir of a family and culture in crisis [Book Club Set]

Vance, J. D.

Books

Shares the story of the author's family and upbringing, describing how they moved from poverty to an upwardly mobile clan that included the author, a Yale Law School graduate, while navigating the demands of middle class life and the collective demons of the past.

The house by the lake : Berlin. One house. Five families. A hundred years of history [Book Club Set]

Harding, Thomas, 1968-

Books

In the summer of 1993, Thomas Harding travelled to Germany with his grandmother to visit a small houseby a lake on the outskirts of Berlin. It had been her 'soul place' as a child, she said - a holiday home for her and her family, but much more - a sanctuary, a refuge. In the 1930s...

I am Malala : the girl who stood up for education and was shot by the Taliban [Book Club Set]

Yousafzai, Malala, 1997-

Books

'I am Malala' tells the inspiring story of a schoolgirl who was determined not to be intimidated by extremists, and faced the Taliban with immense courage. Malala speaks of her continuing campaign for every girl's right to an education, shining a light into the lives of those children who...

Island home : a landscape memoir [Book Club Set]

Winton, Tim, 1960-

Books

This apparently simple fact is the starting point for Tim Winton's beautiful, evocative and sometimes provocative memoir of how this unique landscape has shaped him and his writing. For over thirty years, Winton has written novels in which the natural world is as much a living presence as any c...

Miss ex-Yugoslavia [Book Club Set]

Stefanovic, Sofija

Books

"Sofija Stefanovic was born into a country destined to collapse. With Yugoslavia on the brink of war, her family was torn between the social existence they'd always known and the pull of stability on offer in the distant land of Australia. Surrounded by conflict and uncertainty, it's no wonder ...

Mockingbird : a portrait of Harper Lee [Book Club Set]

Shields, Charles J., 1951-

Books

To Kill a Mockingbird - the twentieth century's most widely read American novel - has sold thirty million copies and still sells a million yearly. But despite the book's popularity, its author Harper Lee has always been a mysterious figure.

Miss Muriel Matters [Book Club Set]

Wainwright, Robert, 1961-

Books

Discover the most inspiring woman you've never heard of ... In 1909, a young Australian actress made headlines around the world when she took to the sky over London in an airship emblazoned with the slogan 'Votes for Women' and dropped leaflets over the city.

Reckoning : a memoir [Book Club Set]

Szubanski, Magda

Books

Heartbreaking, joyous, traumatic, intimate and revelatory, Reckoning is the book where Magda Szubanski, one of Australia's most beloved performers, tells her story. In this extraordinary memoir, Magda describes her journey of self-discovery from a suburban childhood, haunted by the demons of ...

The rugmaker of Mazar-e-Sharif [Book Club Set]

Mazari, Najaf, 1971-

Books

Running away to home : our family's journey to Croatia in search of who we are, where we came from, and what really matters [Book Club Set]

Wilson, Jennifer

Books

A story of seven summers : life in the Nuns' House [Book Club Set]

Burden, Hilary

Books

An unconventional wife : the life of Julia Sorell Arnold [Book Club Set]

Hoban, Mary

Books

The page-turning biography of an Australian woman who refused to bend to the expectations of her husband and her time. Julia Sorell was an original. A colonial belle from Tasmania, vivacious and warm-hearted, Julia's marriage to Tom Arnold in 1850 propelled her into one of the most renowned f...

The trauma cleaner : one woman's extraordinary life in death, decay & disaster [Book Club Set]

Krasnostein, Sara

Books

It's not the police, firefighters, or EMTs that clean up a crime scene - that's the job of a traumacleaner, specifically Sandra Pankhurst. Before she was a trauma cleaner, Sandra Pankhurst was many things: husband and father, drag queen, gender reassignment patient, sex worker, small...

H is for hawk [Book Club Set]

Macdonald, Helen, 1970-

Books

As a child, Helen Macdonald was determined to become a falconer, learning the arcane terminology and reading all the classic books. Years later, when her father died and she was struck deeply by grief, she became obsessed with the idea of training her own goshawk.

The measure of a man : a spiritual autobiography [Book Club Set]

Poitier, Sidney, 1927-

Books

Sidney Poitier, a true American icon, looks back on his celebrated life and career. His body of work is arguably the most morally significant in cinematic history, and the power and influence of that work are indicative of the character of the man behind the many storied roles.

Why be happy when you could be normal? [Book Club Set]

Winterson, Jeanette, 1959-

Books

In 1985 Jeanette Winterson's first novel, Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit, was published. It was Jeanette's version of the story of a terraced house in Accrington, an adopted child, and the thwarted giantess Mrs Winterson. It was a cover story, a painful past written over and repainted.