Collection: Adult Non Fiction - Biography

Sometimes it seems the most invaluable stories can be found in the unlikeliest of corners. For all who know Brisbane, McWhirters, a once celebrated department store in Fortitude Valley, is an icon. For Melissa Fagan it is also the starting point for this remarkable exploration of her mother and g...

". . . explores the Latinx and feminist icon's signature style, outspoken politics, passionate love life, and courageous art--even in the face of pain and heartbreak"--Dust jacket.

A lyrical and meditative memoir on the damage we inflict in the pursuit of perfection, the pain of losing our dreams, and the power of letting go of both.With a promising career in classical ballet ahead of her, Ellen O'Connell Whittet was devastated when a misstep in rehearsal caused a career-en...

Uncovering his family's remarkable and moving stories, Mark Mazower recounts the sacrifices and silences that marked a generation and their descendants. It was a family that fate drove into the siege of Stalingrad, the Vilna ghetto, occupied Paris, and even into the ranks of the Wehrmacht.

In 1947, returning to the UK newly divorced and with two young children to support, Margaret Durrell starts a boarding house in Bournemouth. But any hopes of respectability are dashed as the tenants reveal themselves to be a host of eccentrics: from a painter of nudes to a pair of glamorous young...

What do Julius Caesar, Pope Innocent III, Thomas More, Napoleon and Abraham Lincoln have in common? What enabled a blind Milton, a deaf Beethoven and a certifiable Virginia Woolf and van Gough to create their memorable masterpieces? Peter Deakin dissects each of these individuals and describes ho...

Anne Glenconner's glittering life hasn't always been golden. As she revealed in her astonishing memoir Lady in Waiting, it has been one of stark contrasts - from growing up in Holkham Hall to living in a tent in the island jungle of Mustique, from travelling the world with Princess Margaret to co...

A first-hand account of the life of travel writer Dervla Murphy in which she tells of her early life in Lismore, Co. Waterford, in her rather unusual household. Her father was the county librarian and her mother a chronic invalid. An only child, Dervla was allowed from the age of seven to freely ...

Amanda never imagined that, after uprooting her comfortable, stable life to make room for her soulmate, he would decide to go his own way. They agreed that their connection was unbelievably cosmic. So why did he say no? A fearless voyage of self-discovery fueled by stubbornness, tenacity, and an ...