Showing results by narrator "Nick Farnell" in All Categories

From his early life as an up-and coming AFL player to his tours of duty in Timor, Iraq and Afghanistan and his final battle in the dusty Ghawcha village in the Uruzgan Province, Afghanistan - the powerful biography of Cameron Baird, VC, MG, one of Australia's most decorated modern soldiers.

Outside the wire, Uruzghan Province, Afghanistan, 2010.... In the badlands of central Afghanistan, an Australian Special Forces platoon is fatally hit by a roadside bomb. A shadowy Taliban commander, codenamed 'Rapier', is identified as responsible for the deadly attack. Matt Rix, the ultra-tough commando who led the ambushed platoon, swears vengeance. Rix is one of Special Forces' most lethal operators. He'll neutralise Rapier - whatever it takes. But in Afghanistan's brutal war, not all things are as they seem.

A very Australian story of heroism and healing. In 2004 Garth Callender, a junior cavalry officer, was deployed to Iraq. He quickly found his feet leading convoys of armoured vehicles through the streets of Baghdad and into the desert beyond. But one morning his crew was targeted in a roadside bomb attack. Garth became Australia's first serious casualty in the war. After recovering from his injuries, Garth returned to Iraq in 2006 as second-in-command of the Australian Army's security detachment in Baghdad.

From one of the game's true champions - a man who has captained both the West Coast Eagles and Carlton - comes a revealing, honest and unique autobiography. A rare and intimate look inside the world of the elite sportsman. Few people know Australian-rules football better than Chris Judd. He's one of the game's out-and-out champions, having captained two of the greatest clubs in the league - the West Coast Eagles and Carlton - and taken the Eagles to premiership victory in 2006.

Last year was a “blood year” in the Middle East - massacres and beheadings, fallen cities, collapsed and collapsing states, the unravelling of a decade of Western strategy. We saw the rise of ISIS, the splintering of government in Iraq, and foreign fighters - many from Europe, Australia and Africa - flowing into Syria at a rate ten times that during the height of the Iraq War. What went wrong?In Blood Year, David Kilcullen calls on twenty-five years’ experience to answer that question.

When football star Nick Harding hobbles into the Black Salt Cafe the morning after the night before, he is served by Anna, a waitress with haunted-looking eyes and no interest in footballers, famous or otherwise. Nick is instantly drawn to this exotic, intelligent girl. But a relationship between them risks shame for her conservative refugee family and backlash for Nick that could ruin his career. Meanwhile, when Nick's sister, Lily meets Toby, it seems that for the first time she is following her heart, not the expectations of others.

Australian Special Forces commander Matt Rix is back in another action-packed adventure. Disgraced and discarded, Matt Rix is no stranger to having the deck stacked against him - and just when it seemed things couldn't get any worse, he is given an ultimatum that brings the heavens crashing down around him. What follows is the frantic pursuit of Faisal Khan, the recently escaped, ingenious Taliban commander who has taken receipt of a deadly weapon of mass destruction.

A harrowing account of Afghanistan's notorious Pul-e-Charkhi prison, written by its longest-serving Western inmate. Former soldier Rob Langdon was working as a security contractor in Afghanistan when he was found guilty of murder and sentenced to death in a case that would have been ruled a clear miscarriage of justice in the British legal system. His sentence was commuted to 20 years in jail, and he served his time in Kabul's most notorious prison, Pul-e-Charkhi.

Ten incredible stories of world class athletes with formidable mindstates. We are living beneath our potential, allowing our doubts and anxieties to close us within an ever-tightening circle of possibility. We are too willing to accept things as they are. We do less than we could to realise our potential, to live the life that is available to us if only we will reach out and take it.