Collection: Adult Non Fiction - Biography

Sue Walker tells the story of her magazine editor grandfather against the larger backdrop of Australian history and cultural growth. William Shum was a pioneer in Australian magazines, as founding editor of (The) New Idea in 1902, and then Australian Home Beautiful in 1926. As founding editor of ...

Sometimes, rather than making you laugh or cry out in surprise, a story will instead leave you wondering about human fragility. In the telling of his own tale, children's author and screenwriter Paul Jennings demonstrates how seemingly small events can combine into a compelling drama. As if assem...

The incredible true story of how a street-fighting petty criminal, who was kicked out of school at fourteen, became one of Australia's most celebrated and successful portrait artists. Raised amid poverty and violence on the poor streets of Melbourne, Vincent Fantauzzo was just a boy when he accep...

"Theophila Pratt was born Honey Faithful in Gloriavale, the fundamentalist Christian community that has been at the centre of decades of allegations of sexual and physical assault, and workplace exploitation. Raised in this isolated community, where a small contingent of men held all the power, T...

"Born blind in Vietnam, Julie Yip-Williams narrowly escaped euthanasia by her grandmother, only to then flee the political upheaval of the late 1970s with her family. Loaded into a rickety boat with three hundred other refugees, Julie made it to Hong Kong and, ultimately, America, where a surgeon...

Niel Black, a Scot from Argyllshire, arrived in Melbourne in September intending to make his fortune. Ambitious and determined, Black became one of the most successful and energetic squatters in the Western District of Victoria - a livestock breeder and a Member of the Legislative Council. He was...

"An entertaining, humorous, and inspirational memoir-think #GirlBoss meets Furiously Happy-about harnessing your creativity and embracing your flaws to reach your goals. With humour and heart, ban.do founder Jen Gotch shares the empowering story of her unlikely journey to becoming the creator and...

The year was 1935: the twilight of the English aristocracy. It was a time of wealth and glamour; of lavish balls and evening gowns; of tiaras and a coronation. As personal maid to Lady Coventry, Hilda Newman had a unique insight into the leisured life of one of Britain's most noble families. In h...

"In 1974, a twenty-year-old Christie Brinkley was "discovered" outside a Paris phone booth, which set off a meteoric modelling career that would land her on the covers of hundreds of magazines and cement her legacy as an All-American icon. Although she's lived more than fifty years in the public ...