Showing results by publisher "Bolinda Publishing Pty Ltd" in Biographies & Memoirs

If you're likely to buy only one audiobook this year, make sure it's a ripper. Make it one about a boy from the bush who's hell-bent on becoming an elite sportsman. Be sure it's a true story, with ups and downs and plenty of fun times you can relate to. An inspiring insight into triumph over adversity probably won't go astray either. Born without the lower half of his left leg, young Don Elgin never considered himself disabled until he was in high school - and even then, he had to be convinced.

The remarkable story of The Queen, as she approaches her Diamond Jubilee as the leader of the Monarchy..Throughout history, there has been no Monarch like her. She is not merely the oldest Sovereign this country has ever known. She is the most worldly. She has travelled further than all her predecessors put together. She has met more historic figures than anyone alive - from Churchill to Mandela, de Gaulle, Reagan and Obama. And today, Queen Elizabeth II is no more contemplating retirement than she was when she came to the throne in 1952.

>Join Swampy for a laugh in Aramac as Old Jack attempts to leave the pub; be spooked by the vision of a nun in Kojonup; wrestle with crocs in Nhulunbuy and find out why a very drunk local from Normanton legs it at a pace from the hospital.... Long after the last tale has been told, you'll still hear laughter from the pub, the crash of a drunken donkey falling in a trench, and recall the time...they found this bloke, sitting in the main street at three o'clock in the morning, hammering one of those survey pegs in the ground. So they said, "What the hell are you doing?" And this drunk feller replies, "I'm driving a peg inta the arsehole of the world."

Margaret Harrod shared a unique bond with her twin brother, Michael. As children they were inseparable, and at age 22, together, they gave their lives to the Catholic Church. Margaret became a nun and Michael a Salesian priest - it was the proudest day of their deeply religious parents' lives. Margaret cherishes those carefree childhood memories because the brother she adored is now in jail. Father Michael Aulsebrook pleaded guilty to multiple charges of molesting children, some as young as seven. And the unlikely whistle-blower was his courageous twin sister.

Growing up in Brisbane in the 1970s and 80s, Zoë Boccabella knew if you wanted to fit in, you did not bottle tomatoes, have plastic on the hallway carpet or a glory box of Italian linens. Though she tried to be like 'everyone else', refusing to learn Italian and even dyeing her dark hair blonde, Zoë couldn't shake the unsettling sense of feeling 'half-and-half' - half Australian, mezza italiana - unable to fit fully into either culture, or merge the two.

On an afternoon bike ride in the Blue Mountains Janine Shepherd's life was altered irrevocably. When the champion cross country skier in training for the Winter Olympics was hit by a truck, doctors warned her parents that she was not expected to survive. Even if she recovered, she would never walk again. Coming to terms with her shattered Olympic dreams, Janine focused every sinew of her being on healing. Her fighting spirit was rekindled watching small planes flying overhead. She said to herself, 'If I can't walk, I'll fly.' And fly she did.

This is the story of an evolution. It covers the dramatic change in Australian transport over the twenty five years after World War Two. In that time so many important changes occurred.They include the sorting out of the railway gauge problems; the dieselisation of the railways; the Hughes and Vale road tax decision; the arrival of containers and roll-on roll-off shipping. Best of all, the marriage of road and rail freight operations.

In 1996, when Akuch Kuol Anyieth is five, her mother flees to Kakuma with her children, intent on finding safety and freedom for her family, while her husband stays behind in South Sudan to fight in the civil war. The family spends nine years in the camp, eking out an existence amidst famine, disease, unbearable heat and chronic violence. Despite their suffering, Akuch never loses hope or her sense of humour. She’s a bright student who loves learning and does well at the local school.

For most of human history, mental illness has been largely untreatable. Sufferers lived their lives - if they survived - in and out of asylums, accumulating life's wreckage around them. In 1948, all that changed when an Australian doctor and recently returned prisoner of war, working alone in a disused kitchen, set about an experimental treatment for one of the scourges of mankind - manic depression, or bipolar disorder. That doctor was John Cade and in that small kitchen he stirred up a miracle.

When Ryan Campbell was six he fell in love with aeroplanes. It was a passion that was to dominate his childhood and it was no surprise when at 15 Ryan became the youngest pilot in Australia. Inspired by his father and grandfather who were also aviators, Ryan sought a challenge and, like adventurers before him, he found one that spoke to him more than the rest. He wanted to fly around the world, solo, in a single-engine aircraft.

In a voice rich with big-hearted generosity and quick-witted humour, Mary Coustas shares with us the heartbreak she faced while entertaining audiences as the larger-than-life Effie Stephanidis, and the life lessons she hopes can save us from giving in to grief, or denying ourselves a full life because of it. Mary's story is at times heartbreaking but, ultimately, is an enriching and uplifting celebration of life.

On the last, cold Sunday of February 1859, Daniel Sickles shot his wife's lover in Washington's Lafayette Square, just across from the White House. This is the story of that killing and its repercussions. Thomas Keneally brilliantly recreates an extraordinary period, when women were punished for violating codes of society that did not bind men. And the caddish, good-looking Dan Sickles personifies the extremes of the era.

Scottish-born but a Queenslander to the bone, Jock McLaren was a true Australian hero. As a prisoner, he escaped twice, first from Changi and later from the infamous Sandakan POW camp in Borneo. After paddling a dugout canoe across open sea, he fought for two years with American-led Filipino guerrillas, his exploits so audacious the Japanese put a price on his head.

A fascinating detective story and moving memoir of death and deceit. When Dr William Macbeth poisoned two of his sons in 1927, his wife and sister hid the murders in the intensely private realm of family secrets. Like the famous poisoner Dr Crippen, Macbeth behaved as if he were immune to consequences; unlike Crippen, he avoided detection and punishment...or did he? As time passed, the story of Dr William Macbeth, well-dressed poisoner, haunted and divided his descendants.

This first book by the much-loved stars of TV's Village Vets is the unforgettable, hilarious, heartwarming and hair-raising adventures of two country vets, the animals they treat and the characters they meet. Best mates since they met on their first day at uni, Anthony Bennett and James Carroll both dreamed of working with animals from the time they were young. Committed to and passionate about caring for creatures great and small, they share a mischievous sense of humour and a wonder for life.

"It isn't easy to reminisce, alone, into a tape recorder. Yet that is what I asked my father, John Bowden, to do when, in the late 1980s I suggested he should not only record our family history, but reflect on a life that embraced almost the entire twentieth century. Then in 1998, at the age of 91, Father 'woke up dead' in his own bed, in his own house (which he never wanted to leave), not long after adding a postscript - a final chapter to his life story.…"

Next year is the fiftieth anniversary of the making of the Leyland Brothers' groundbreaking documentary, Down the Darling, which records Mike and Mal Leyland travelling down the Darling. Their film was sold to Channel 9 and later to the BBC. It was shown in 65 countries and selected by the Australian government to be shown at Expo 67 in Canada.

In this tell-all audiobook, discover how the justice system works and why, at times, the innocent are convicted and the guilty set free. Bill Hosking looks back at his career as a criminal barrister in a candid account of his time at the bar. He tells the true story behind some of his most famous cases, including the Hilton bombings, 'Toecutter' Jimmy Driscoll's attempt to avoid prison time and the Anita Cobby trial.

This audiobook chronicles the triumphs and failures of his surgical life. Having spent his childhood in the backstreets of a northern steel town, he went on to become one of the world's foremost heart surgeons. His drive for perfection in his profession took him to the world-renowned Harefield Hospital, the foremost heart surgery centre in Birmingham, Alabama and the newly-created Cardiothoracic Centre in Oxford. Then in 2019 in Wuhan he was the first Western doctor to learn about Covid-19 before the virus was identified.

Meet Shane Jenek. Raised in the Brisbane suburbs by loving parents, Shane realises from a young age that he's not like all the other boys. At a performing arts agency he discovers his passion for song, dance and performance, and makes a promise to himself: to find a bigger stage. Meet Courtney Act.