Mercenary Mum is the true story of a young single mother who went from working at her local Woolworths store to serving as a soldier in the Australian Army's elite Close Personal Protection Unit. She then left the army to become a high-risk security contractor, where she was responsible for protecting high-threat targets from assassination and opportune attack in Iraq. Neryl reveals what it's like to be a woman in a private army trying to survive in a prejudiced man's world, exposed to alcohol-fuelled parties, drugs and sexual abuse. Neryl's professional and personal resolve is pushed to its... View More...
Presents one of the most powerful men in late antiquity, Attila's peerless Hunnic empire stretched from the Ural mountains to the Rhine river. In a series of epic campaigns dating from the AD 430s until his death in AD 453, he ravaged first the Eastern and later the Western Roman Empire, invading Italy in AD 452 and threatening Rome itself. Lavishly illustrated, this new analysis of his military achievements examines how Attila was able to sweep across Europe, the tactics and innovations he employed and the major battles he faced, including one of his few major setbacks, the defeat at the batt... View More...
How do women defy the odds and get their careers back on track after a break? How do women manage the mummy mafia at the school gate? Is there a motherhood penalty? Can women really have it all - a successful career and a rewarding family life? Does overseas experience really accelerate your career in Australia? How do you recreate your career after a setback? In Career Interrupted fourteen high-achieving women talk openly about their challenges in carving out a successful career after a break. These women come from all walks of life - from battlers to privileged backgrounds, from small busine... View More...
From blue collar to billionaire . . . Hunter Valley mine electrician Nathan Tinkler borrowed big in 2005, made a fortune from several speculative coal plays, and by 2011 was a self-made billionaire. He had gambled and won, but his volatility and reluctance to pay his debts were making him enemies. He lived the high life as only a young man would, buying luxury homes, private jets, sports cars and football teams, and splurging massively to build a horseracing empire. But Tinkler's dreams had extended beyond even his resources, and his business model worked only in a rising market. When coal p... View More...
Historians still disagree over virtually every aspect of the eldest Kelly boy's brushes with the law. Did he or did he not shoot Constable Fitzpatrick at their family home? Was he a lawless thug or a noble Robin Hood, a remorseless killer or a crusader against oppression and discrimination? Was he even a political revolutionary, an Australian republican channelling the spirit of Eureka? Peter FitzSimons, bestselling chronicler of many of the great defining moments and people of this nation's history, is the perfect person to tell this most iconic of all Australian stories. From Kelly's early d... View More...
For much of the World War II conflict, Japan had been a safe haven for its citizens, far, far away from Germany's relentless advance in Europe and the daily horrors of such events as the London blitz, concentration camps and the fall of France. But Alex Faure always felt that one day the war would come with a vengeance to the Land of the Rising Sun, although even he was astonished by the ferocity with which the Allied forces exacted their retribution on the place he's always called home. Up until then, life had been good for Alex in Japan. The son of a French father and White Russian mother, h... View More...
"Rex" is the blockbuster autobiography of one of Australia's best-loved and most colourful personalities - Rex Hunt. His book is Rex to the core - funny, earthy, refreshingly direct and, above all, deeply inspirational. "Rex" tells the story of a kid who struggled at school, but who found the drive and motivation to carve out a hugely successful career as an Aussie Rules player and then as a major media figure. Along the way Rex talks about his years in the police force, his national service, the dramatic legal case against his former manager after the disappearance of millions of dollars of R... View More...
'Did you ever feel that you were missing someone you had never met?'. Haunted by the ghost of the wise, mystical, lovely lady who lives just around the corner in time, Richard Bach begins his quest to find her, to learn of love and immortality not in the here-after, but in the here and now. Yet caught in storms of wealth and success, disaster and betrayal, he abandons the search, and the walls he builds for protection become his prison. Then he meets the one brilliant and beautiful woman who can set him free, and with her begins a transforming journey, a magical discovery of love and joy. 'Non... View More...
One man's path to discovery and the breakthrough that saved thousands of lives. From the slums and religious indoctrination of northern England to front-line research institutions worldwide, stem cell pioneer Robert Tindle's relentless curiosity led him to a remarkable career in fields as disparate as evolutionary biology and immunotherapy for cancer. From years of field work on the Galapagos Islands to pioneering breakthroughs in biomedical research in Australia and the United Kingdom, this book, conveys the excitement of scientific discovery and chronicles how his own discoveries were used t... View More...
Espionage is one of the world's oldest professions, and it played an integral role in Allied successes and failures during the Second World War. Equal to men in both their bravery and in the sacrifices they made, the female undercover operatives of the Second World War deserve to have their incredible stories told. The Women Who Spied for Britain traces the fascinating and sometimes tragic stories of eight women who put their lives on the line and made invaluable contributions to the British war effort. Drawn from many different walks of life, including a princess, a beauty queen, a war widow,... View More...
Fifty Years of Flying Fun covers, in a roughly chronological order, over fifty continuous years of flying. This ranges from joining the RAF in 1962, through his intriguing first operational tour on Hunters in Aden, the early days of the Jaguar in Germany and, finally in the RAF, an almost outrageous two years flying the Jaguar and Hunter with the Sultan of Oman's Air Force. His subsequent civil flying has been exclusively in the General Aviation and flying display fields as a flying instructor and well known display pilot, including being involved in many varied and interesting display-rela... View More...
More to the Story looks beyond negative media reports, political speeches and fear-mongering statistics to tell human stories of refugees and asylum seekers in Australia. Rosemary Sayer writes with empathy and humility of her interviews with refugees from Burma, Afghanistan and South Sudan. Together, they tell stories of persecution, violence and starvation; families separated for a time, or forever; the desperation of thousands in refugee camps, awaiting relocation under humanitarian programs; the perilous journeys by boat of those for whom waiting would have meant death; life in mandatory d... View More...
Russell Brand grew up in Essex . His father left when he was three months old, he was bulimic at 12 and left school at 16 to study at the Italia Conti stage school. There, he began drinking heavily and taking drugs. He regularly visited prostitutes in Soho, began cutting himself, took drugs on stage during his stand-up shows, and even set himself on fire while on crack cocaine. He has been arrested 11 times and fired from 3 different jobs - including from XFM and MTV - and he claims to have slept with over 2,000 women. In 2003 Russell was told that he would be in prison, in a mental hospital o... View More...
From its early beginnings in World War II, the Special Air Service (SAS) has won renown in some of the most dramatic, dangerous and controversial special operations of the 20th century. It is a secretive and mysterious unit, whose operations and internal structures are hidden from the public eye. Now, one of its longest-serving veterans offers a glimpse inside its shadowy world. Rusty Firmin spent 15 years with 'The Regiment' and was a key figure in the Iranian Embassy Siege in May 1980, the planned attack on Argentina during the Falklands War and the secret conflict between the SAS and IRA in... View More...
"Sallyanne Atkinson AO has been a leader in political and business life for over four decades. A trailblazer for working mothers, she built a high-profile national career while raising five children. No Job for a Woman takes us from Sallyanne's wartime childhood in Sri Lanka to her first jobs as a journalist and TV personality. Driven to make a difference in her community, she entered local politics and went on to become the first female Lord Mayor of Brisbane. For the first time, Sallyanne shares the challenges and triumphs of a life devoted to public service in Australia and abroad, includin... View More...
***each copy signed by the author on front end paper 'Best Wishes, Sandy Thorne'*** Feel like a trip down memory lane? Need a laugh? If you've ever pinched fruit, pelted rocks on people's roofs, talked about hairs in grade seven or been expelled from school, this hilarious memoir will be your cup of tea. If you didn't do any of those things but wanted to, this book is also for you. Growing up wild and free in the golden era of the 1950s and '60s in rural Queensland, Sandy Thorne was constantly in more strife than Flash Gordon. Her bum frequently glowed as crimson as a baboon's after t... View More...
RAAF Sergeant E.A. (Ted) Coates was flying his Wellington bomber over Germany on raid after raid, knowing that eventually he and his crew would find themselves on the receiving end of a German fighter. One night in November 1942 their worst fears were realised and Ted found himself parachuting through the darkness of a French night over enemy territory. This story relates his adventures as he walked and rode across France on his way to Spain and freedom ... without any help from the French Underground. View More...
Carl Gustaf Emil Mannerheim is a legendary figure, whose life and career were deeply influential in Finnish and European history. He is viewed by many as the father of modern Finland after leading the 'White' faction to victory and independence in the Finnish Civil War of 1918. He then commanded his country's forces in a sequence of bitter clashes in the ice and snow, in the build-up to, and during, World War II: the Winter War in 1939-40, the Continuation War in 1941-44 and the Lapland War in 1944-45. This study provides a fascinating insight into Mannerheim's career, analysing his traits, hi... View More...
Steven Preece was a Royal Marine Commando from 1983 to 1990, serving first at entry-level and then as a lance-corporal. Amongst the Marines is Steven's first-hand account of his years as an elite soldier, focusing directly on the excessive and often shocking lifestyle of the Marines during this time, and the impact this had on his own personality and behaviour. Preece fulfilled his childhood ambition by earning the coveted Green Beret from the Commando Training Centre at Lympstone when he was 18. He was unaware, however, of the brutal rite of passage that awaited him and all the other 'pieces ... View More...
The Queen of the Never Never as never seen before! In the 1890s, when a woman's role was seen as marrying well and raising a family, Daisy Bates reinvented herself from humble governess to heiress-traveller and 'woman of science'. She would become one of the best-known and most controversial ethnologists in history, and one of the fi rst people to put Aboriginal culture on the map. Born into tough circumstances, Daisy's prospects were dim; her father an alcoholic bootmaker, her mother dying of consumption when Daisy was only four years old. Through sheer strength of will, young Daisy overcame ... View More...
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