THE VIETNAM WAR ROCKED AUSTRALIA TO ITS CORE…'The Third Chopstick' transports us back to those days. In starkly beautiful prose Biff Ward, herself a protester, seeks to understand the war from multiple angles. She balances the heartfelt motivations of the protest movement with candid accounts from veterans about what was happening for them in Vietnam and afterwards. In riveting interviews, she explores combat, the ravages of PTSD, and the acceptance that can come with ageing and pe...

Poignant and moving memoir of Elizabeth Ward, known to one and all as Biff, who grew up in the 1950s in a household that tiptoed around her mother's demons and her father's fame.There are secrets in this family. Before Biff and her younger brother, Mark, there was baby Alison, who drowned in her bath because, it was said, her mother was distracted. Biff too, lives in fear of her mother's irrational behaviour and paranoia, and she is always on guard and fears for th...

How Australian Marcus Lee and his wife, Julie, survived wrongful imprisonment, house arrest and five years of trials and tribulations in Dubai.In 2006 Marcus Lee moved to Dubai with his wife, Julie, to take up his dream job working for Nakheel, the emirate's largest property developer. Everything went swimmingly until one day in 2009 when Marcus was picked up by the state police and imprisoned in solitary over false charges of bribery. Marcus managed to get out of prison - and out o...

From a talented emerging Australian writer, a brave, honest, unforgettable memoir about mental illness that breaks the silence and shatters the taboos to give hope to all those struggling to find their way through.'When I was eleven years old Mum told me, "One crowded hour of glorious life is worth an age without a name." Even before I heard these words I was always a child who crammed intense joy into tiny pockets of time.'One day Sophie Hardcastle realise...

The story of a mother's journey through inconsolable grief after the death of her teenage son. Powerfully written, it's an eloquent reminder that our hold on life is tenuous, and communication, love and togetherness are the key to surviving such a tragedy.As seen on Australian StoryChristopher was seventeen and had everything to live for. He was smart, charismatic, loving, and deeply loved, and a champion rugby player. Yet he was s...

An unflinching portrait of talent and addiction, now an award-winning feature film.In 2008, the artist Adam Cullen invited journalist Erik Jensen to stay in his spare room and write his biography.What followed were four years of intense honesty and a relationship that became increasingly claustrophobic. At one point Cullen shot Jensen, in part to see how committed he was to the book. At another, he threw Jensen from a speeding motorbike. The book contract...

In the tradition of Wild and Tracks, one woman's story of how she left the city and found her soul.Disillusioned and burnt out by her job, Claire Dunn quits a comfortable life to spend a year off the grid in a wilderness survival program. Her new forest home swings between ally and enemy as reality – and the rain – sets in.Claire's adventure unfolds over four seasons and in the essential order of survival: shelter, water, fire and food. Sh...

Latika Bourke was adopted from India, aged eight months. Growing up in Bathurst, New South Wales she felt a deep connection to her Australian home and her Australian family.It wasn't until she heard her name uttered in the hit movie Slumdog Millionaire that Latika recognised she knew nothing of her Indian roots, the world she was born into and what she could have become had she not been brought to Australia as a baby.As Latika carved out a successful career for her...

Stella Gibney grew up in 1960s New Zealand. She was the fifth child in a family of six. But unlike her brothers and sisters, Stella suffered a number of abusive incidents during her formative years.But Stella was determined not to let years of horrific abusive situations and domestic violence determine her life. She found solace in writing her thoughts down in a series of journals. Through writing she began to understand her feelings and how to gain control of her life. Over the co...

Two husbands, four trials and one bloody execution: Winner of the 2015 Davitt Award for Best Crime Book (Non-fiction) -- the terrible true story of Louisa Collins.In January 1889, Louisa Collins, a 41-year-old mother of ten children, became the first woman hanged at Darlinghurst Gaol and the last woman hanged in New South Wales. Both of Louisa's husbands had died suddenly and the Crown, convinced that Louisa poisoned them with arsenic, put her on trial an extraordi...

Tanya Saad's life wasn't perfect but it wasn't far off. Happily occupied with a demanding job, the competitive cycling she loved and the support of her irrepressible family, she wasn't given to introspection. Then the thunderbolt hit. At the age of 30 she discovered she had tested positive for the BRCA1 gene – a gene that meant her chances of developing breast and ovarian cancer young increased exponentially. Worse was to come when one of her beloved younger sisters tested positive too.

This is the first volume of Witi Ihimaera's enthralling, award-winning memoir, packed with stories from the formative years of this much-loved writer. Witi Ihimaera is a consummate storyteller — one critic calling him one of our ‘finest and most memorable’. Some of his best stories, however, are about his own life. This honest, stirring work tells of the family and community into which Ihimaera was born, of his early life in rural New Zealand, of family secrets, of facing ...