Your Own Kind of Girl by Clare Bowditch

$29.99 AUD

Category: Chat10Looks3 Recommendations | Reading Level: 3 Biography

ARIA Award-winning singer and actress Clare Bowditch confronts her inner critic in this no-holds-barred memoir. This is the story I promised myself, aged twenty-one, that I would one day be brave enough - and well enough - to write. Clare Bowditch has always had a knack for telling stories. Through her music and performing, this beloved Australian artist has touched hundreds of thousands of lives. But what of the stories she used to tell herself? That 'real life' only begins once you're thin or beautiful, that good things only happen to other people.YOUR OWN KIND OF GIRL reveals a childhood punctuated by grief, anxiety and compulsion, and tells how these forces shaped Clare's life for better and for worse. This is a heartbreaking, wise and at times playful memoir. Clare's own story told raw and as it happened. A reminder that even on the darkest of nights, victory is closer than it seems.With startling candour, Clare lays bare her truth in the hope that doing so will inspire anyone who's ever done battle with their inner critic. This is the work of a woman who has found her true power - and wants to pass it on. Happiness, we discover, is only possible when we take charge of the stories we tell ourselves. ...Show more

Snakes and Ladders by Angela Williams

$32.99 AUD

Category: Australian

Angela Williams' incredible memoir of going to prison, getting out and getting clean, then the beauacratic bungle that sent her back to prison again.

Teacher by Gabbie Stroud

$29.99 AUD

Category: Australian

A powerful and moving memoir about how the current system is letting down children and parents, and breaking dedicated teachers. Devastating, heart-breaking, enraging.  'Gabbie's story needs to be shouted from the rooftops. She very eloquently shows us why and how education needs to change... Teac her made me laugh and cry. I loved it!' - Kathy Margolis, former teacher and activist. Watching children learn is a beautiful and extraordinary experience. Their bodies transform, reflecting inner changes. Teeth fall out. Knees scab. Freckles multiply. Throughout the year they grow in endless ways and I can almost see their self-esteem rising, their confidence soaring, their small bodies now empowered. Given wings. They fall in love with learning. It is a kind of magic, a kind of loving, a kind of art. It is teaching. Just teaching. Just what I do. What I did. Past tense. In 2014, Gabrielle Stroud was a very dedicated teacher with over a decade of experience. Months later, she resigned in frustration and despair when she realised that the Naplan-test education model was stopping her from doing the very thing she was best at: teaching individual children according to their needs and talents. Her ground-breaking essay 'Teaching Australia' in the Feb 2016 Griffith Review outlined her experiences and provoked a huge response from former and current teachers around the world. That essay lifted the lid on a scandal that is yet to properly break - that our education system is unfair to our children and destroying their teachers. In a powerful memoir inspired by her original essay, Gabrielle tells the full story: how she came to teaching, what makes a great teacher, what our kids need from their teachers, and what it was that finally broke her. A brilliant and heart-breaking memoir that cuts to the heart of a vital matter of national importance. ...Show more

A Boy Miner

$22.00 AUD

Category: Australian

The Love That Remains by Susan Francis

$29.99 AUD

Category: Australian

How could I write about the importance of truth and not tell the whole truth myself? After twenty years spent searching for her biological parents, 52-year-old Susan Hull unexpectedly meets the great love of her life - a goldminer named Wayne Francis. He is a gentle giant of a man, who promises Susan th e world. Two years later, they throw in their jobs, marry and sell everything they own, embarking on an incredible adventure, to start a new life in the romantic city of Granada, where they learn Spanish and enjoy too much tapas. In love, and enthralled by the splendour of a European springtime, the pair treasure every moment together. Until a shocking series of events alters everything. Riveting, heartfelt and remarkably honest, Susan Francis The Love that Remains explores unconditional love and the lies we tell to safeguard our happiness. ...Show more

Stay greasy baby by Stevie Belowsky

$29.99 AUD

Category: Australian

Follow the Rabbit-Proof Fence by Doris Pilkington; Nugi Garimara

$19.95 AUD

Category: Australian | Series: Nungar

The film Rabbit-Proof Fence is based on this true account of Doris Pilkington's mother Molly, who as a young girl led her two sisters on an extraordinary 1,600 kilometre walk home. Under Western Australia's invidious removal policy of the 1930s, the girls were taken from their Aboriginal families at Jig along on the edge of the Little Sandy Desert, and transported halfway across the state to the Native Settlement at Moore River, north of Perth. Here Aboriginal children were instructed in the ways of white society and forbidden to speak their native tongue.The three girls - aged 8, 11 and 14 - managed to escape from the settlement's repressive conditions and brutal treatment. Barefoot, without provisions or maps, they set out to find the rabbit-proof fence, knowing it passed near their home in the north. Tracked by Native Police and search planes, they hid in terror, surviving on bush tucker, desperate to return to the world they knew. ...Show more

Twinning It!: Dance, Acro, YouTube and Living Life to the Fullest by Teagan Rybka; Sam Rybka

$29.99 AUD

Category: Australian

Youtube acro sensations, Sam & Teagan Rybka (aka The Rybka Twins) share their story so far, along with their best tips for balancing friendship, success, fitness and family.

Gulpilil (HB) by Derek Rielly

$29.99 AUD

Category: Australian | Reading Level: 3 Biography

It's been almost fifty years since a teenage David Gulpilil illuminated screens worldwide with his breakout role in Walkabout. It was the first time we'd seen an Aboriginal cast in a significant role and only four years after Holt's referendum to alter the constitution and give Aboriginal people citizen ship and, subsequently, the right to vote. Gulpilil quickly became the face of the Indigenous world to white Australian audiences. Charisma. Good looks. A competent, strong, mysterious man starring in films ranging from Rabbit-Proof Fence to Crocodile Dundee.But what has marked Gulpilil, despite his fame and popularity, is the feeling that he's been forever stuck between two worlds: a Yolngu man, a hunter, a tracker, who grew up in the bush in Arnhem Land outside any white influence; and a movie star flitting from sets to festivals. Able to exist in both worlds, but never truly home. From the author of the bestselling Wednesdays with Bob, Derek Reilly attempts to encapsulate the most beguiling and unconventional of Australian entertainers, observing Gulpilil's own attempt to find a place in the world. With interviews from icons and friends - such as Jack Thompson, Paul Hogan, Craig Ruddy, George Gittoes, Gary Sweet and Damon Gameau - this unriddles a famous enigma at last. ...Show more

Don't Tell Mum I Work on the Rigs: She Thinks I'm a Piano Player in a Whorehouse by Paul Carter

$22.99 AUD

Category: Feel Good Non-fiction

A take no prisoners' approach to life has seen Paul Carter heading to some of the world's most remote, wild and dangerous places as a contractor in the oil business. Amazingly, he's survived (so far) to tell these stories from the edge of civilization, and reason.

Is That Thing Diesel?: One Man, One Bike and the First Lap Around Australia on Used Cooking Oil by Paul Carter

$22.99 AUD

Category: Australian

At forty years old, a successful writer, husband and father, no longer toiling on offshore drilling rigs, was Paul Carter happily nestled in the cotton wool of suburban life enjoying the fruits of his labour? Was he f**k! With his manic life left far behind and the perfect opportunity to take it easy st retched before him what else would a middle-aged, bike-obsessed, man want? Yes, that's right, he'd want to be the first guy to ride around Australia on an underpowered experimental motorcycle that runs on used cooking oil, wouldn't he? Preferably without getting hit by a semi-trailer full of bridge parts. Is he out of his mind? Quite possibly. Embark on a rollickingly, downright dangerous and often unhinged quest that starts on an environmentally friendly motorcycle built on a shoestring budget by students, and ends with a plan to break the motorcycle land speed record for biofuel. Carter is back to his old balls-to-the-wall style of writing, prepare to laugh out loud. ...Show more

Finding the Heart of the Nation: The Journey of the Uluru Statement Towards Voice, Treaty and Truth (HB) by Thomas Mayor

$39.99 AUD

Category: Australian | Reading Level: 4 Non Fiction

An important and unique book that takes us into the lives of Indigenous people today, and offers constructive ideas about how we can live together, moving beyond the injustices of the past.   This is a book for all Australians. Since the Uluru Statement from the Heart was formed in 2017, Thomas Mayor has travelled around the country to promote its vision of a better future for Indigenous Australians. He’s visited communities big and small, often with the Uluru Statement canvas rolled up in a tube under his arm. Through the story of his own journey and interviews with 20 key people, Thomas taps into a deep sense of our shared humanity. The voices within these chapters make clear what the Uluru Statement is and why it is so important. And Thomas hopes you will be moved to join them, along with the growing movement of Australians who want to see substantive constitutional change. Thomas believes that we will only find the heart of our nation when the First peoples – the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders – are recognised with a representative Voice enshrined in the Australian Constitution. ‘Thomas’s compelling work is full of Australian Indigenous voices that should be heard. Read this book, listen to them, and take action.’ – Danny Glover, actor and humanitarian ...Show more