Biographies & Memoirs

You've probably heard the rumours about the world ending in 2012 right? Did you know that the smart and powerful people are secretly building three giant spaceships in which to make a getaway but it's only for them? And did you also know that to get on one of those spaceships and escape you've got to be a VIP? That's right, you've got to MAKE IT BIG! You didn't know? You don't know how? Rhys Darby has written just the book for you. Get noticed? Dance like a demon? Score with the opposite sex? Not just talk the talk but walk the tal... read more

A beautifully packaged, collectable volume to commemorate the marriage of Prince William and Catherine Middleton. On 16 November 2010, the long-awaited engagement of HRH Prince William to Miss Catherine Middleton was formally announced, with a London wedding promised for April 2011. Andrew Morton, the leading royal biographer - famous the world over for his million-copy bestselling, authorized biography of Diana, Princess of Wales - has written a full-length biography of William and his new bride. Morton has followed the pri... read more

Dame Alison Holst holds more titles than her damehood suggests: she's been invariably described as 'Mother of the Nation', 'Queen of the Kitchen' and 'a groundbreaker in the culinary world'. In the sixties, Dame Alison singlehandedly changed the way women prepared food for their families with her legendary television programme 'Here's How'. She went on to become a prodigious fund-raiser for Plunkett, the chocolate-coated voice of radio, author of a hundred bestselling cookbooks, a successful business brand, as well as our favourit... read more

On the morning of 23 September 2009 Helen Meads was murdered by her husband Greg at the stables on their Matamata farm. It was the final chapter in years of control and abuse.
Here, Helen's father David White describes the events of that day and what led to it, and tells of the ordeals that a family is subjected to when one of their own is murdered. It is a poignant and compelling story. There are issues of custody, access and bail and looming court appearances. And often, as in this case, there is the killer's family ... read more

This is the definitive illustrated edition of the international bestseller with gorgeous new photography of the celebrated netsuke collection, and sumptuous full-colour images hand-picked by Edmund de Waal from his family archive 264 Japanese wood and ivory carvings, none of them bigger than a matchbox: Edmund de Waal was entranced when he first encountered the collection in his great-uncle Iggie's Tokyo apartment. When he later inherited the 'netsuke', they unlocked a story far larger and more dramatic than he could ever have imag... read more

Ian Mune's resonant growl and his characterful face are an institution in the world of New Zealand theatre, film and TV. Instantly recognised by generations of New Zealanders, he has been a central figure of screen and stage in this country since the 1960s. Ian Mune grew up in Tauranga, and had an early infatuation with the theatre, which took him to Wellington and a full-time career as an actor. Initially with the fledgling Downstage theatre company, he then had two years in the UK with the Welsh Theatre Company, before returning ... read more

When news is often confined to sound bites and brief backgrounders, some of the best stories behind the news go largely untold. Here, without those constraints, Mike is able to give full, truthful and honest portrayals of these event. Admired for his credibility and willingness to go to the hot spots, in a reporting career spanning 25 years, Mike is best known for his work in some of the world's most dangerous places, covering conflicts in Afghanistan, Iraq, Lebanon, Gaza, East Timor and the Solomon Islands. He has also covered som... read more

When five-year-old Miriam boards the Serpia Pinto in 1941, she is unaware that she and her mother Kate are escaping the round-ups, separations extermination camps of Nazi Germany. By the age of 12, Miriam has fled two wars and lived on three continents. Gradually understanding her own history, she begins to train as a doctor at the tender age of 16 and eventually returns to Europe, where she settles in London and marries a German artist, former assistant to Oscar Kokoschka. An elegantly written memoir of a truly fascinating life.

Scrim tells the cautionary tale of an immensely popular radio broadcaster who could not resist opportunities to taunt his political masters, and was sacked by them when they would not put up with him any longer. Uncle Scrim, as the Reverend Colin Scrimgeour was known at the time, was one of New Zealand’s most popular citizens during the great depression. His Fellowship of the Friendly Road, based on his radio station 1ZR, brought radio evangelism to this country. His Sunday evening broadcasts offered comfort and hope ... read more

There are love stories and then there's the story of Kristian and Rachel Anderson. When Kristian wanted to show his wife Rachel how much he loved her after learning he was terminally ill, he ended up winning a million hearts around the world, thanks to the now famous YouTube video he made for her 35th birthday. Social media is often condemned as trivial but this heartfelt and moving tribute by a young Australian father of two and his battle with cancer drew attention to a much larger story we all wanted to know and of an ordeal so ... read more

Imagine in Michael Schumacher had come back to Formula 1 and won the World Championship. This is what Mark Todd has achieved - winning at Badminton in 2011 and being a favourite to win a third Olympic gold medal. Mark Todd retired from eventing in 2000, after the Sydney Olympics, to take up a career as a racehorse trainer and breeder in his native New Zealand. He had a great deal of success but always hankered after competing at the highest level. He set his sights on riding at the 2008 Olympics - he achieved this, jumping a dou... read more

The renovations to 34 via del Duomo now complete, Marlena de Blasi, the best-selling international author and 'the woman with the fairytale life' needs to find time and space to finish a book. Lured by the offer of a simple stone cottage in the remote, mountainous region of western Tuscany, distant from the distractions of her everyday life with Fernando in Orvieto, she sets off for some much-needed solitude. But her plans to live simply, in peace and quiet, are overturned when she meets the imperious, tempestuous Antonia, the stil... read more

A Rothschild by birth and a Baroness by marriage, beautiful, spirited Pannonica - known as Nica - seemed to have it all: children, a handsome husband and a trust fund. But in the early 1950s she heard a piece by the jazz legend Thelonious Monk. The music overtook her like a magic spell, and she abandoned her marriage to go and find him. Arriving in New York, Nica was shunned by society but accepted by the musicians. They gave her friendship; she gave them material and emotional support. Her convertible Bentley was a familiar sight ... read more

Joanna Lumley is one of Britain's undisputed national treasures, an English actress, voiceover artist and author, best known for her roles in the British television series ABSOLUTELY FABULOUS portraying Edina Monsoon's best friend, Patsy Stone, as well as parts in THE NEW AVENGERS and SAPPHIRE & STEEL. A former model and Bond girl, her distinctive voice has been supplied for animated characters, film narration and AOL's "You've got mail" notification in the UK. She has spoken out as a human rights activist for Survival Intern... read more

'It is the desire really to make myself a first person. For many years I was a third person - as children are, 'they', 'she', and as probably oppressed minorities become, 'they'. - Janet Frame, radio interview about writing her autobiography (1983). For the first time ever, this collection brings together Janet Frame's published short non-fiction in one collected volume, as well as material never seen before. Letters spanning 50 years of Frame's life are published alongside essays, reviews, speeches and extracts from interviews. T... read more

At age eighty, Tony Taylor journeys from Sydney to British Columbia to fish the Cowichan River with his eight-year-old grandson, Ned. This trip is an opportunity for Tony to return to a landscape that has had a profound effect on his life and his way of thinking, and to share this place with his grandson. As Tony teaches Ned the patient art of fly-fishing, a lifetime of memories, thoughts and stories unspool in peaceful reflections by the water's edge. Fishing the River of Time is an elegant meditation on nature, life and family, w... read more

In his essay on Tennessee Williams, Colm Toibin reveals an artist profoundly tormented by his sister's mental illness. Through the relationship between W.B. Yeats and his father, Toibin examines a world of family relations, and in Roddy Doyle's writing on his parents illuminates an Ireland reinvented. From John Cheever's journals Toibin makes flesh this darkly comic misanthrope and his intimates. "Educating an intellectual woman," Cheever remarked, "is like letting a rattlesnake into the house." In pieces that range from the import... read more