Showing results by publisher "Wavesound from W. F. Howes Ltd" in Biographies & Memoirs

Broadcaster Jacinta Parsons was in her 20s when she first began to feel unwell - the kind of unwell that didn’t go away. Eventually she got a diagnosis: Crohn’s disease. But knowing this wouldn’t stop her life from spiralling into a big mess of doctors, hospitals and medical disasters. What’s most extraordinary about Jacinta’s story is how common it is. With compelling candour, Jacinta trains a microscope on the unique challenges of living with an invisible condition.

Far from being a land of plenty, the Antarctic continent—if it was that—was no place for human beings. Robert Falcon Scott's 1910 attempt to reach the South Pole is placed in jeopardy when Edward Evans joins as his second-in-command. A clash of personalities between the two men almost prevents the Terra Nova from sailing, but they forge ahead, conscious of competing expeditions racing to the pole. On the treacherous journey across the Antarctic ice, the differences between the scientific-minded Scott and the ambitious Evans become insurmountable.

It was no surprise that Angela Williams went to jail. A traumatic, violent upbringing saw to that. But after serving a short sentence for theft as a teenager, she worked hard to break the cycle. Thirteen years later Angela was studying, teaching, providing a stable home for her son, and finally feeling like she'd got her life together. Then she got hit by a postie bike. Police realised that Angela still had 10 months to go on the prison sentence she'd thought was in her distant past. However, Angela was a different prisoner the second time around.

When the Japanese invade in 1942, the Australian men and women stationed at the New Guinea port of Rabaul flee into the jungle. Written off by their government as ‘hostages to fortune', the little-known garrison on Australia's tropic frontier has been left with no modern equipment, no lifeline to the outside, and no means of escape. Most are captured and killed in the sinking of the prison ship Montevideo Maru, which remains Australia's worst sea disaster. But the surviving soldiers and nurses carry on.

On her much-loved Tea with Jules programme on YouTube, presenter, stylist and philanthropist Jules Sebastian captures beautiful conversations, many of them with Australian icons, women and men from all walks of life about their pivotal experiences. These stories range the full spectrum - covering motherhood, relationships, career, lifestyle, health and more - and are at times both raw, moving and poignant. These conversations have shaped Jules' own life, helping her navigate her role as a career woman, mother, daughter and wife of one of Australia's most popular musicians.

William McInnes, one of Australia's best-loved entertainers and authors, takes a look at the Aussie obsession with sports and pop culture. A chance encounter in an auction house is the jumping-off point for William's inimitable take on our sport-obsessed nation, Australian popular culture and the artefacts and memorabilia that make us both cringe with recognition and laugh with warm affection. His trademark humour and anecdotes litter this collection, making it a true delight.

Paul Kennedy's Funkytown is the vivid true story of a year in the life of a teenager leaping into manhood. It is 1993: a serial killer is loose on the streets of Frankston, Victoria. The community is paralysed by fear, and a state's police force and national media come to find a killer. Meanwhile, 17-year-old Paul Kennedy is searching for something else entirely. He is focused on finishing school, getting drafted into the AFL and falling in love. So much can change in a year.

When Gemma Carey was 12 years old, a man twice her age would sneak into her bedroom on a weekly basis and sexually assault her. When Gemma was 17, she took the perpetrator to court without anyone else knowing and had him placed on the child sex offenders register. When she was 33, her mother died of cancer. For 20 years, her mother had known about this man. But why had she not acted to protect her daughter? Could the genesis of this betrayal be found in her own family history?

In the 80s and 90s, surf culture was toxic, especially towards women. But Pauline Menczer - a dirt-poor, chronically ill, freckle-faced teen from Bondi - defied insults and intimidation to ride the waves. The reason: she simply loved to surf. But when Pauline's determination propelled her onto the pro circuit, her battle for acceptance and equality didn't end there. The endemic sexism of the industry meant prize money for women was a pittance, while sponsors ignored her because she was a lesbian and didn't have the beach babe look.

In 2023 the curtain finally came down on Brian Houston. The rock star of Pentecostalism, former Global Senior Pastor of Hillsong Church, was acquitted of concealing his father's sexual abuse of a minor, but it was too late. His glittering megachurch had disowned him. How had it come to this? And how did Hillsong, the brightest star of international evangelical Christianity, fall to earth so spectacularly?

In July 2016, inner-city resident Judy Ryan found a young man—one of ‘her regulars'—slumped and quiet at her gate. He had overdosed from heroin. Fortunately, that man lived. But Judy had reached breaking point. After four years in a ‘war zone', where children might encounter a body on the streets, enough was enough. Knowing little about what she was getting into, but fired with resolve, Judy launched a grassroots campaign against apathy and prejudice.

While most music careers stalled during the pandemic, Vika and Linda Bull soared with two chart-topping albums as they became beacons of warmth in uncertain times. For three decades they were best known as backing singers and collaborators to some of Australia's biggest artists, but it was when the world turned upside down that everyone realized just how much they loved the exquisite harmonies of these hard-working, easy-talking, all-singing sisters.

The peacock's tail is used to describe a wine that is wonderfully complex and ultimately rewarding. Surely there's no better metaphor for life. It was at the bottle shop, somewhere between the chardonnay and the zinfandel, that Peter realised he didn't have a clue about wine. On his way to a dinner party and in a mild panic, he called Matt, a wine-loving acquaintance who expertly steered him towards the perfect bottle. The selection was a hit, but it was Matt's passion that stuck in Peter's mind.

Growing up Cantonese in the racist outer suburbs was hard enough for Jess Ho, but add in a dysfunctional family who only made peace over food, and it was clear that a normal life was never on the menu. Jess emerged from childhood with a major psychological complex and a kick-arse palate, traits that would help them fit right in to the messy world of Melbourne's food scene.

When Mark McKenna set out to write a history of the centre of Australia, he had no idea what he would discover. One event in 1934 - the shooting at Uluru of Aboriginal man Yokunnuna by white policeman Bill McKinnon, and subsequent Commonwealth inquiry - stood out as a mirror of racial politics in the Northern Territory at the time. But then, through speaking with the families of both killer and victim, McKenna unearthed new evidence that transformed the historical record and the meaning of the event for today.

Tim Olsen is the son of arguably Australia's most famous living painter, John Olsen. Son of the Brush is his fascinating, candid memoir of what it was like to grow up in the shadow of artistic genius, with all its wonder, excitement and bitter disappointments.

The Criminal Class is based on the true-life experiences of an everyday teacher who makes the precarious career transition to an Education Officer in the prison system. Dealing with both the law enforcers and the law breakers, but not bound by any normal allegiances, he finds himself having to thread the rocky path of an outsider on the inside.

Robert Dessaix’s Chameleon is about everything that matters, a book of memories that flow so freely they seem to happen as we read. Cartwheeling from story to story, Dessaix describes an identity in flux: his beginnings as an adopted child named Thomas Robert Jones, his youthful interest in religious thinking, his obsession with all things Russian, his marriage to Lisa and divorce, his discovery of travel.

Justin Yerbury made a promise to his mother while she was dying of motor neurone disease (MND) that he would do everything he could to find a cure. MND had already taken several members of Justin's family, and he learned that they carried a rare genetic form of the disease that gave them a fifty-fifty chance of inheritance. Desperate to help his loved ones, Justin went to university to study science, eventually becoming a professor of molecular biology at the University of Wollongong and one of the world's leading experts on MND.

How do you begin your life again when you've lost everything you've worked for and your dreams have been shattered? That was the question beloved Australian author Belinda Alexandra faced one freezing winter night when she ran from her home in terror, clutching only her wallet, her phone and her latest manuscript on a USB stick. To pull herself up from rock bottom, Belinda drew strength from the real life women who had inspired her bestselling historical fiction.