Anywhere: biographies (Keywords)

In 1810, Matthew Flinders made his final voyage home to his beloved wife, Ann, his body ravaged by the deprivations of years of imprisonment by the French.Four years later, at the age of just 40, he would be dead – a premature, tragic end to one of the world’s greatest maritime adventurers who ci...

Lachlan Macquarie is credited with shaping Australia's destiny, transforming a harsh, foreboding penal colony into an agricultural powerhouse and ultimately a prosperous society. He also helped shape Australia's national character. An egalitarian at heart, Macquarie saw boundless potential in Bri...

Aspiring actress Norma Jean Baker lives in squalor in the early '40s and dreams of being a movie star. Photographer Ralph Johnson convinces her to try for her dream, supporting her as she's bounced from casting couches to sleazy photo shoots. She befriends once-powerful producer Hal James, who tr...

Arriving as a young writer in an ancient Dutch town, Benjamin Moser was flummoxed, as any newcomer might be, by the language, people, and culture. As he started exploring his newly adopted country, he stumbled upon the great painters of the Dutch Golden Age, that galaxy of sixteenth- and seventee...

When NASA sent astronauts to the moon in the 1960s and 1970s the agency excluded women. It was an era in which women were steered away from jobs in science and deemed unqualified for space flight. Eventually, though, NASA opened the application process to a wider array of hopefuls. From a candida...

He will stay in Auschwitz to the bitter end if it means his brother might survive. Poland, 1940. Moshe and his family flee their hometown of Warsaw in a desperate bid for survival as Nazi forces advance on the city. Hiding under false identities, they hope to wait out the end of the war, which mu...

1939: Paul Kurz - engineer, refugee from Vienna and Dunera Boy - is separated from his wife, Paula, and his mother at the outbreak of World War II and interned in Australia. Late 1960s: an Australian student from an Irish Catholic family railing against his alcoholic father, struggling with his r...

A raw and bold memoir about abuse and addiction, and the power of expression and community that helped Stephanie Kuehnert, the author of Ballads of Suburbia and regular Rookie contributor, survive and thrive. Told in varied narrative styles, including journal entries, original illustration, and p...

A NASA astrophysicist narrates his improbable journey from an impoverished childhood and an adolescence mired in drugs and crime to the nation's top physics PhD program at Stanford in this inspiring coming-of-age memoir.Born into extreme poverty and emotional deprivation, James Edward Plummer was...

"...to be revisited again and again...The candy-colored pages and straightforward stories are hard to resist..." -The New York Times"Gorgeously illustrated...vibrant and comprehensive...will be brought down from the bookshelf again and again" -Evening Standard"Glorious celebration of 52 black her...

When the Rolling Stones hit the scene in the 60's, it was to play rhythm & blues, nothing more. They were far from imagining that they would change music, let alone become the mouthpiece of a changing world. Sticking their tongue out at the establishment

Kurt Cobain's life and death fast became rock 'n' roll legend. The worldwide success of his band, Nirvana, defined the music scene in the early 1990s and their songs spoke to and for a generation. Music journalist Charles R. Cross, a veteran of the Seattle music scene, relates this extraordinary ...

A definitive biography of Angelos Postecoglou, the soccer manager and former player who is the head coach of Premier League club Tottenham Hotspur. When Ange Postecoglou became the first Australian to be appointed manager of an English Premier League Club he introduced his attacking style of play...

'The War Magician' tells the life story of Jasper Maskelyne, a world famous magician and illusionist in the 1930s whose skills were harnessed by the British Army, culminating in a brilliant deception plan that won the Battle of El Alamein.

Diana, Princess of Wales -- security code name 'Purple Five Two' -- travelled all over the world during her incredible life. Wherever she went, in public or in private, she was shadowed by her Scotland Yard personal protection officer, Inspector Ken Wharfe, whose job it was to keep her safe, even...

Little Book of Dior is the beautifully illustrated story of Christian Dior's early life, the brand's inception, the triumphs of the couture collections on the catwalk and the red carpet, and the brand's journey after the death of its founder. Christian Dior's spectacular rise to the upper echelon...

My father, political activist Samuel Mark Goldbloom, was my hero and my nemesis all the days of his life. Sandra Goldbloom Zurbo grew up in thrall to her father, a prominent socialist and covert member of the Communist Party. From an early age, she adopted his political beliefs, becoming a suppor...

Brian Harradine, Independent Senator for Tasmania from 1975 till 2004, refutes the view that independent parliamentarians have no place in our political system and exert no influence. On the contrary, this former Labor stalwart and trade union official, expelled from the ALP before entering parli...

This thoroughly revised edition has been updated to incorporate recent case studies, biographies, syntheses, journal articles and scholarly conferences that appeared in conjunction with the centenary of the outbreak of the First World War in 2014. The original version of this work, published by J...

In 1908 Ellen Wilkinson, a fiery adolescent from a working-class family in Manchester, was "the only girl who talks in school debates." By midcentury, Wilkinson had helped found Britain's Communist Party, earned a seat in Parliament, and become a renowned advocate for the poor and dispossessed at...