Showing titles in Cultural & Regional

A waiter's job is to deceive you. They want you to believe in a luxurious calm because on the other side of that door...is hell. Edward Chisholm's spellbinding memoir of his time as a Parisian waiter takes you below the surface of one of the most iconic cities in the world and right into its...

Achieving a hit in every decade since the 1950s, Cliff Richard stands alone in pop history. Coming of age in 1950s London, he began his music career at Soho's legendary 2i's Cafe, and now he's approaching his 80th birthday with record sales of over 250 million and counting. Cliff looks back on his humble upbringing and how he went on to fulfil his wildest dreams by becoming a pop star and even a film star. He talks about finding Christianity, reflects on the ups and downs of life in the public eye and reveals how the false allegations against him changed his life forever.

For more than five decades, Tame Iti has stood at the heart of Aotearoa's struggle for indigenous rights. From land marches to performance art, police raids to prison cells, his voice has challenged New Zealand to reckon with its colonial legacy. Once branded as a dangerous and extreme activist, now hailed as a national treasure, Tame has lived the contradictions and realities of standing with mana motuhake in a modern world.

Martín Prechtel continues the narrative of his unique life in Santiago, Atitlan in Long Life, Honey in the Heart, an eloquent memoir replete with the subtle intelligence and sophistication of Mayan culture. Set against the dramatic backdrop of Guatemala's political upheaval in the 1980s, this...

Problem Child is the unbelievably true story of Terrell Carter, an American musician and actor who grew up in Buffalo, New York, in a dysfunctional family, each member crazier than the next. And the Problem Child is the only one in the story who may, or may not, actually have a problem. An emotional journey of trials and revelations, with a huge secret at its core, this story may force you to laugh - just to keep from crying.

The unabridged, downloadable audiobook edition of Charles Dickens: A Life, the major new biography from the highly acclaimed Claire Tomalin, published for the 200th anniversary of his birth. Charles Dickens was a phenomenon: a demonicly hardworking journalist, the father of ten children, a...

Brought to you by Penguin. A stunning memoir that transforms our understanding of a generation born at a key turning point in world history In my home country, they call me a ‘bornfree’. Simukai Chigudu was one of the first generation to be born after the end of colonial rule in Zimbabwe...

In 1972, when Alexandra Fuller was two years old, her parents finally abandoned their English life and returned to what was then Southern Rhodesia and to the beginning of a civil war. By the time she was eight, the war was in full swing. Her parents veered from being determined farmers to being blind drunk, whilst Alexandra and her sister, the only survivors of five children, alternately take up target practice and sing Rod Stewart songs from sun bleached rocks.

Dogs of all shapes and sizes visit Ruth Shaw's three wee bookshops in Manapōuri in the far south of Aotearoa New Zealand. Local dogs, holiday house dogs, travelling dogs – many have great stories, be they funny, sad, strange, bemusing, quirky or sweet. Woven throughout are tales of the very special Hunza, the dog who worked with troubled teens alongside Shaw when she was a youth worker.

'As uncomfortable as it is, we need to reckon with our history. On January 26, no Australian can really look away.' Since publishing his critically acclaimed, Walkley Award-winning, bestselling memoir Talking to My Country in early 2016, Stan Grant has been crossing the country, talking to huge...

Written and read by bestselling Australian author and much loved actor, William McInnes, this is a story about our love affair with holidays. It's about going away and staying at home. It's about the relaxing times you had as a kid, escapes you have with your children and the stories you hear...

In this often violent but always introspective memoir, Mobb Deep’s Prodigy tells his much anticipated story of struggle, survival, and hope down the mean streets of New York City. For the first time, he gives an intimate look at his family background, his battles with drugs, his life of crime, his relentless suffering with sickle-cell anemia, and much more.

In the summer of 1885, three Frenchmen arrived in London for a few days’ shopping. One was a Prince, one was a Count, and the third was a commoner with an Italian name, who four years earlier had been the subject of one of John Singer Sargent’s greatest portraits. The three men's lives play out against the backdrop of the Belle Epoque in Paris. The beautiful age of glamour and pleasure more often showed its ugly side: hysterical, narcissistic, decadent and violent, a time of rampant prejudice and blood-and-soil nativism, with more parallels to our own age than we might imagine.

Brought to you by Penguin. A witty and humane account of one man, multiple jobs and what it means to live Hu AnYan has held nineteen different jobs since he graduated. He’s been a convenience store clerk, a bicycle salesman, a security guard and a delivery driver (among many other things)...

We discover why appreciating the beauty of sakura, cherry blossom, allows for a moment to deeply experience a season through a single entity (Cherish). In the traditional tea ceremony, we see the importance of kiwameru, the Japanese word for achieving mastery or perfection (Perfect). In umami, we taste how something simple and delicious can nourish the heart (Savour). We explore why the things left unsaid, ma, are just as important as the words we say (Harmonise).

A true story of a man who took it upon himself to live alone on a deserted island in the South Pacific, in fact he loved it so much he decided to return and stay a while longer!

Brought to you by Penguin. Discover the many lives of Peter Matthiessen – writer, naturalist, activist, CIA agent, Zen master – in this kaleidoscopic biography of an American literary giant. Author of The Snow Leopard, co-founder of the Paris Review and the only writer to have ever won the...

Born in country NSW in the 1940s, baby Dianne is immediately taken from her Indigenous parents and adopted by an Irish couple. Raised in the era of the 'White Australia' policy and widespread racism, Dianne grows up believing her adoptive mother, Val, is her birth mother. Val promises Dianne that when she turns 15, she will 'tell her a story'. But just months before Dianne's 15th birthday, Val dies.

When his Los Angeles neighborhood was threatened by gangbangers, Stanley Tookie Williams and a friend formed the Crips, but what began as protection became worse than the original gangs. From deadly street fights with their rivals to drive-by shootings and stealing cars, the Crips' influence—and Tookie's reputation—began to spread across Los Angeles. Soon he was regularly under police surveillance, and, as a result, was arrested often, though always released because the charges did not stick.

The books that make up the life and times of Maya Angelou are some of the best, most beautiful and haunting pieces of autobiography written. They run the gamut from life affirming to tragedy and back again with a tone that is a joyous, direct and searingly honest and are an extraordinary portrait of 20th century black America.