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Autobiography & Biography & Memoir

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Showing 1 - 15 of 2664 results
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ISBN / ISSN:

9780330447362

Factory Girls : Voices from the heart of modern China

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NZ$ 30.00 each

Paperback

Author: Leslie T. Chang

Published by: Picador

'Head and shoulders above almost all other new books about China, this unflinching and yearningly compassionate portrait of the lives and loves of ordinary Chinese workers is quite unforgettable' - Simon Winchester. Every year in China millions of migrant workers leave their rural towns to find jobs in the cities. These people are the driving forces behind China's economic boom: they work very hard and for little money to make the trainers, ornaments, designer handbags and toys which we buy. Through the lives of two young women, Chang vividly portrays a world where you can lose your boyfriend and your friends with the loss of a cell phone; where lying about your age, your education, and your work experience is often a requisite for getting ahead; and, where a few computer or English lessons can catapult you into a completely different social class. This is a powerful and humane portrait of the forces which are shaping China. ... more

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ISBN / ISSN:

9780732288822

Hell on High Seas : Amazing stories of survival against the odds

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NZ$ 37.00 each

Paperback

Author: Rob Mundle

Published by: HarperCollins Australia

HELL ON HIGH SEAS chronicles some of the most remarkable stories of survival and daring that the world's oceans have hosted over the past half century. Bizarre, unbelievable accounts of people who went missing and were given up for dead, only to miraculously reappear months later. Amazing feats of daring on the high seas - some verging on madness, others where death is eluded through sheer courage, determination and innovation ...or even divine intervention? Five Mexican fishermen went to sea for a three-day shark-fishing trip and vanished - nine months later three of them reappeared; Maurice and Maralyn Bailey spent 117 days adrift in a rubber dinghy in the Pacific after their yacht was capsized by a whale; and Steve Callahan survived for 76 days in a rubber raft after his tiny 6.5-metre long yacht sank while he was racing single-handed across the Atlantic. 276 pages.

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ISBN / ISSN:

9781408805763

Committed : A sceptic makes peace with marriage

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NZ$ 39.00 each

Paperback

Author: Elizabeth Gilbert

Published by: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC

At the end of her bestselling memoir "Eat, Pray, Love", Elizabeth Gilbert fell in love with Felipe - a Brazilian-born man of Australian citizenship who'd been living in Indonesia when they met. Resettling in America, the couple swore eternal fidelity to each other, but also swore to never, ever, under any circumstances get legally married. (Both were survivors of previous horrific divorces. Enough said.) But providence intervened one day in the form of the U.S. government, who - after unexpectedly detaining Felipe at an American border crossing - gave the couple a choice: they could either get married, or Felipe would never be allowed to enter the country again. Having been effectively sentenced to wed, Gilbert tackled her fears of marriage by delving completely into this topic, trying with all her might to discover (through historical research, interviews and much personal reflection) what this stubbornly enduring old institution ... more

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ISBN / ISSN:

9781408801178

Love Junkie

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NZ$ 30.00 each

Paperback

Author: Rachel Resnick

Published by: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC

Love Junkie is the story of Rachel Resnick's dangerous addiction to sex and love. An addiction that has cost her in horrible ways throughout the course of her life - from the time she rear-ended a family van on the freeway because she was obsessively speed-dialing her lover's phone, to when she blew the deadline on her first major newspaper assignment. Love Junkie charts Rachel Resnick's harrowing amotional journey from addiction to intimacy, from despair to hope, and the men - the worst kind of men - who accompanied her on it. It is a groundbreaking and compulsively readable memoir that cracks open one of the more elusive and pervasive addictions of our time. Written with raw humour and unflinching honesty, it is the story of coming to terms with your past in order to be able to map out a different kind of future.

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ISBN / ISSN:

9781848091351

Elsie and Mairi Go to War : Two Extraordinary Women on the Western Front

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NZ$ 30.00 each

Paperback

Author: Diane Atkinson

Published by: Preface Publishing

When they met at a motorcycle club in 1912, Elsie Knocker was a thirty year-old motorcycling divorcee dressed in bottle-green Dunhill leathers, and Mairi Chisholm was a brilliant eighteen-year old mechanic, living at home and borrowing tools from her brother. Little did they know, theirs was to become one of the most extraordinary stories of the First World War. In 1914, they roared off to London 'to do their bit', and within a month they were in the thick of things in Belgium driving ambulances to distant military hospitals. Frustrated by the number of men dying of shock in the back of their vehicles, they set up their own first-aid post on the front line in the village of Pervyse, near Ypres, risking their lives working under sniper fire and heavy bombardment for months at a time. As news of their courage and expertise spread, the 'Angels of Pervyse' became celebrities, visited by journalists and photographers as well as royals and ... more

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ISBN / ISSN:

9780061768927

Machiavelli : Philosopher of Power (Eminent Lives)

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NZ$ 28.00 each

Paperback

Author: Ross King

Published by: Harper Perennial

The author of "The Prince"--his controversial handbook on power, which is one of the most influential books ever written--NiccolO Machiavelli (1469-1527) was no prince himself. Born to an established middle-class family, Machiavelli worked as a courtier and diplomat for the Republic of Florence and enjoyed some small fame in his time as the author of bawdy plays and poems. In this discerning new biography, Ross King rescues Machiavelli's legacy from caricature, detailing the vibrant political and social context that influenced his thought and underscoring the humanity of one of history's finest political thinkers.

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ISBN / ISSN:

9780330448185

When a Crocodile Eats the Sun

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NZ$ 28.00 each

Paperback

Author: Peter Godwin

Published by: Picador

Peter Godwin, an award-winning writer, is on assignment in Zululand when he is summoned by his mother to Zimbabwe, his birthplace. His father is seriously ill; she fears he is dying. Godwin finds his country, once a post-colonial success story, descending into a vortex of violence and racial hatred. His father recovers, but over the next few years Godwin travels regularly between his family life in Manhattan and the increasing chaos of Zimbabwe, with its rampant inflation and land seizures making famine a very real prospect. It is against this backdrop that Godwin discovers a fifty-year-old family secret, one which changes everything he thought he knew about his father, and his own place in the world. Peter Godwin's book combines vivid reportage, moving personal stories and revealing memoir, and traces his family's quest to belong in hostile lands a quest that spans three continents and half a century.

Due December 2007.

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ISBN / ISSN:

9781741669343

Wings of Ice : The Mystery of the Polar Air Race

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NZ$ 45.00 each

Paperback

Author: Jeff Maynard

Published by: Vintage (Australia)

With the rise of aviation at the beginning of the twentieth century, daring men were finally able to explore the Earth's final frontiers - the Arctic and Antarctic wildernesses.

Hoping to resurrect his fading career, the legendary Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen desperately wanted to fly over the North Pole. American naval commander Richard Byrd was determined to beat Amundsen to the prize. An Australian adventurer, George Hubert Wilkins, also joined the competition, initiating a rivalry with Byrd that would last years and take them to the ends of the Earth.

The world watched in fascination as the air race to the North Pole escalated, until in May 1926 Byrd claimed to have reached it in his Fokker Trimotor, the Josephine Ford. But did he really succeed?

In 1928, while Amundsen was involved in the bitter dispute that would cost him his life, Byrd announced he would fly to the South Pole. Wilkins was hired by newspaper magnate ... more

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ISBN / ISSN:

9780732279837

Absurdistan : A Bumpy Ride Through Some of the World's Scariest, Weirdest Places

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NZ$ 35.00 each

Paperback

Author: Eric Campbell

Published by: HarperCollins Australia

A Bumpy Ride Through Some of the World's Scariest, Weirdest Places.

An award-winning journalist's gritty and compelling account of life reporting from the edge.

As a foreign correspondent for ABC television, Eric Campbell covered Boris Yeltsin's drunken demise in Russia, ethnic cleansing in the former Yugoslavia and the public madness in Britain following the death of Diana, Princess of Wales. He's been arrested, drugged, robbed, stoned by the Taliban, threatened with expulsion from China and thrown into a variety of tricky situations - such as dating in Moscow and eating a sheep's head (while hung over) in Afghanistan. In 2003, while covering the war in Iraq, he was wounded in a suicide bombing which killed his cameraman and friend, Paul Moran.

Absurdistan, Eric's first book, documents the highs and lows of being a reporter in some of the strangest, most dysfunctional places on Earth while juggling life, ... more

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ISBN / ISSN:

9780141037561

South : The Endurance Expedition (Popular Penguin)

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NZ$ 15.00 each

Paperback

Author: Ernest Shackleton

Published by: Penguin Books Ltd

Sir Ernest Shackleton's South is one of the greatest survival stories of all time. In 1914, Shackleton led a party of men hoping to be the first to traverse the Antarctic, but when their ship became crushed by ice 350 miles from land, the expedition soon became a matter of life and death. This is the extraordinary account of treacherous seas, glaciers and relentless cold, and wonderfully encapsulates the heroic age of Antarctic exploration.

First published 1919.

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ISBN / ISSN:

9781921640285

Tokyo Vice : A Western Reporter on the Police Beat in Japan

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NZ$ 40.00 each

Paperback

Author: Jake Adelstein

Published by: Scribe Publications

At 19, Jake Adelstein went to Japan in search of peace and tranquility. What he got was a life of crime - crime reporting, that is, at the prestigious Yomiuri Shinbun. For twelve years of 80-hour work weeks, he covered the seedy side of Japan, where extortion, murder, human trafficking, and corruption are as familiar as ramen noodles and sake. But when his final scoop brought him face to face with Japan's most infamous yakuza boss - and the threat of death for him and his family - Adelstein decided to step down, momentarily. Then, he fought back. In Tokyo Vice, he tells a riveting, often humorous tale of his journey from an inexperienced cub reporter - who made rookie mistakes like getting in a martial-arts battle with a senior editor - to a daring investigative journalist with a price on his head. With its vivid, visceral descriptions of crime in Japan and an exploration of the world of modern-day yakuza that even few Japanese ever ... more

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ISBN / ISSN:

9781408800799

Hurry Down Sunshine : A Father's memoir of love and madness

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NZ$ 30.00 each

Paperback

Author: Michael Greenberg

Published by: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC

One summer evening Michael Greenberg's daughter Sally was brought home by the police after rushing into a busy road in Greenwich Village, convinced she could halt the oncoming traffic. The mania had come over her abruptly: her habit of poring obsessively over poems late into the night or listening to music on her battered walkman for hours could be considered 'normal' teenage behaviour, and yet it was a clue to the internal tumult that was about to overwhelm her. Now her behaviour had moved from the realm of the adolescent and eccentric to the acutely unstable, and she needed professional help. And so just a few days later Michael found himself in the surreal world of a Manhattan psychiatric ward during the city's most sweltering months. Confused, anxious, looking for answers, he asked himself whether he was to blame. Perhaps this illness had been Sally's genetic inheritance. Perhaps, as a writer, he hadn't been able to provide the ... more

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ISBN / ISSN:

9781741759518

Looking for Lionel : Coping with Dementia

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NZ$ 35.00 each

Paperback

Author: Sharon Snir

Published by: Allen & Unwin

A seeringly honest yet inspirational memoir of how dementia changed a family in ways they never could have imagined.

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ISBN / ISSN:

9780571243709

The Ticking is the Bomb

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NZ$ 30.00 each

Paperback

Author: Nick Flynn

Published by: Faber and Faber

One day I hope to be able to tell my daughter a story about a dark time, the dark days before she was born, and how her coming was a ray of light. 'We got lost for a while', this story will begin, 'but then we found our way.' Set just before the birth of Flynn's first child, a daughter, this impassioned memoir explores the fears and joys of becoming a father, whilst artfully interweaving passages from Flynn's own childhood. Haunted by a history of addiction, a relationship with a fantasist father and a longing to connect with his mother, who committed suicide when he was a child, Flynn explores these painful memories and unsteady relationships to create an unflinching and unforgettable story. The time bomb of the title becomes a vehicle for exploring his impending fatherhood, which brings him face to face with the stark realities of humanity - among them, the terror, torture and political crimes that begin to haunt him. Here is a ... more

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ISBN / ISSN:

9780571214082

Another Bullshit Night in Suck City

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NZ$ 28.00 each

Paperback

Author: Nick Flynn

Published by: Faber and Faber Ltd

Nick Flynn met his father when he was twenty-seven years old, working as a caseworker in a homeless shelter in Boston. As a teenager he'd received letters from this mystery father - self-proclaimed poet (and greatest American novelist since Mark Twain), descendant of the Romanov dynasty, alcoholic, and con-man doing time for bank robbery - but there had been no contact. Another Bullshit Night in Suck City (a phrase Flynn senior uses to describe his life on the streets) tells the story of the eerie trajectory that led Nick and his father into that homeless shelter, onto those streets, and finally to each other.
With a raw authenticity, telling honesty and a dark but necessary humour, Nick Flynn's memoir breathes new life and vigour into the form. In passionate and playful prose Another Bullshit Night in Suck City illuminates the emotional and physical consequences of a relationship between father and son that exists, if ... more

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