Books
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Sy Montgomery & Rebecca Green
How To Be A Good Creature : A Memoir in Thirteen Animals
$40.00
National Book Award finalist Sy Montgomery reflects on the personalities and quirks of 13 animals - her friends - who have profoundly affected her in this stunning, poetic, and life-affirming memoir featuring illustrations by Rebecca Green.Visit product page →
Understanding someone who belongs to another species can be transformative. No one knows this better than author, naturalist, and adventurer Sy Montgomery. To research her books, Sy has travelled the world and encountered some of the planet’s rarest and most beautiful animals. From tarantulas to tigers, Sy’s life continually intersects with and is informed by the creatures she meets.
This restorative memoir reflects on the personalities and quirks of thirteen animals - Sy's friends - and the truths revealed by their grace. It also explores vast themes: the otherness and sameness of people and animals; the various ways we learn to love and become empathetic; how we find our passion; how we create our families; coping with loss and despair; gratitude; forgiveness; and most of all, how to be a good creature in the world.
About the Author
Researching films, articles, and 22 books, Sy Montgomery has hiked the Altai Mountains of Mongolia looking for snow leopards, tracked tree kangaroos in Papua New Guinea, and more. A National Book Award finalist, she has also been honoured with a Sibert Medal, two Science Book and Film prizes from the National Association for the Advancement of Science, three honorary degrees, and many other awards. -
Clare Hunter
Threads of Life
$25.00
For the mothers of the disappeared in 1970s Argentina, protest was difficult. Every Thursday they marched in front of government buildings wearing headscarves embroidered with the names of their lost children. Through sewing, they found a way to campaign. In Tudor England Mary, Queen of Scots was under house arrest and her letters were censored, so she sewed secret treason into her needlework to communicate with the world outside.Visit product page →
From the political propaganda of the Bayeux Tapestry and First World War soldiers with PTSD, to the maps sewn by schoolgirls in the New World, Threads of Life stretches from medieval France to contemporary Mexico, from a POW camp in Singapore to a family attic in Scotland. It is a chronicle of identity, protest, memory, power and politics told through the stories of the men and women, over centuries and across continents, who have used the language of sewing to make their voices heard, even in the most desperate of circumstances.
In an eloquent blend of history and memoir, Threads of Life is an evocative and moving book about the need we all have to tell our story.
About the Author
Clare Hunter has been a banner-maker, community textile artist and textile curator for over twenty years and has established the community enterprise NeedleWorks in Glasgow. She was a finalist for the Aesthetica Creative Writing Award, and had a story published in its 2017 Annual. She was also a recipient of a Creative Scotland Award in 2016. Threads of Life is her first book. -
Robbie Fowler
Robbie Fowler : My Life In Football
$35.00
To Liverpool fans, Robbie Fowler was 'God'. He is the sixth-highest goal scorer in the history of the Premier League and notched 183 goals for Liverpool alone.Visit product page →
But before all of that, he was a Liverpool lad who loved the game, the Kop and everything that came with it. My Life In Football is the story of a boy who became a legend.
Born in Liverpool in 1975, Robbie Fowler became a club icon by the time he was 18. Now, he takes us through the games that have shaped his life and football philosophy, over 25 years after he first signed as a professional for Liverpool.
Engaging, personal and revealing, Robbie opens up about his astounding achievements, the price of fame and the regrets and struggles of being a professional footballer. From Hillsborough to Madrid, via the cup treble, that goal line celebration, hundreds of goals, Houllier, Benitez, Klopp and more, Robbie explains his thinking about the modern game. Inviting readers inside the dressing room, he shares stories of legendary teammates like Rush, Owen and Gerrard, as well as his rise to football's top table. How did he get back up so many times after the injuries that blighted his career? What gave him the drive to keep going and pursue his dreams?
Robbie's My Life In Football harks back to a simpler time when fans and players shared the same story, and when the local boy really could dream of scoring a hat-trick for his home club when Saturday came. -
Gabbie Stroud
Teacher
$30.00
A powerful and moving memoir about how the current system is letting down children and parents, and breaking dedicated teachers. Devastating, heart-breaking, enraging.Visit product page →
Watching children learn is a beautiful and extraordinary experience. Their bodies transform, reflecting inner changes. Teeth fall out. Knees scab. Freckles multiply. Throughout the year they grow in endless ways and I can almost see their self-esteem rising, their confidence soaring, their small bodies now empowered. Given wings.
They fall in love with learning.
It is a kind of magic, a kind of loving, a kind of art.
It is teaching.
Just teaching.
Just what I do.
What I did.
Past tense.
In 2014, Gabrielle Stroud was a very dedicated teacher with over a decade of experience. Months later, she resigned in frustration and despair when she realised that the Naplan-test education model was stopping her from doing the very thing she was best at: teaching individual children according to their needs and talents. Her ground-breaking essay 'Teaching Australia' in the Feb 2016 Griffith Review outlined her experiences and provoked a huge response from former and current teachers around the world. That essay lifted the lid on a scandal that is yet to properly break - that our education system is unfair to our children and destroying their teachers.
In a powerful memoir inspired by her original essay, Gabrielle tells the full story: how she came to teaching, what makes a great teacher, what our kids need from their teachers, and what it was that finally broke her. A brilliant and heart-breaking memoir that cuts to the heart of a vital matter of national importance.
About the Author
Gabrielle Stroud was a primary school teacher from 1999 to 2015. Now a freelance writer, her debut novel, Measuring Up , was published by Scribe in 2009. She is currently at work on her next novel. -
Jill Baker
A Dog Called Harry
$35.00
A moving memoir of a dog dubbed Dirty Harry who helped a broken woman love life again.Visit product page →
You want a friend, get a dog - Gordon Gekko
'Jeez, look at you, my friend blurted. 'You hardly smile. You used to be hilarious but you haven't laughed in weeks.'She listed the things she thought might help: a bottle of wine, six months at the beach, a year overseas.
I was having none of it.
Finally, she said: 'Jill, you need something to love.'
She was right. I needed someone who cuddled me at night and was still excited to see me in the morning. I just hadn't met him yet.
Newspaper editor Jill Baker arrived home to find her husband dead on the bedroom floor. Within weeks, still in shock, she was diagnosed with breast cancer and told her chances of surviving. Surgery, chemotherapy and radiation treatment followed in a year from hell.
At her lowest ebb, Jill took a chance. She needed something or somebody to make life worth living again. But could it really be a crazy, howling, snoring, digging, chewing, barking orange pup?
Turns out Harry and Jill were made to be together. They are an unlikely duo. Jill is quiet, Harry is loud as hell. Jill meticulously plans the day while Harry says let's wing it. She sips pinot while he's an espresso martini guy. Theirs is a beautiful friendship, an unbreakable bond.
A Dog Called Harry is the moving story of a dog dubbed Dirty Harry who helped Jill love life again. -
Susan Francis
The Love That Remains
$30.00
An extraordinary memoir about secrets, life's shocking twists and unconditional love.Visit product page →
How could I write about the importance of truth and not tell the whole truth myself?
After twenty years spent searching for her biological parents, 52-year-old Susan Hull unexpectedly meets the great love of her life - a goldminer named Wayne Francis. He is a gentle giant of a man, who promises Susan the world.
Two years later, they throw in their jobs, marry and sell everything they own, embarking on an incredible adventure, to start a new life in the romantic city of Granada, where they learn Spanish and enjoy too much tapas. In love, and enthralled by the splendour of a European springtime, the pair treasure every moment together.
Until a shocking series of events alters everything.
Riveting, heartfelt and remarkably honest, Susan Francis The Love that Remains explores unconditional love and the lies we tell to safeguard our happiness.
About the Author
When she was a baby, Susan Francis was privately adopted from a doctor's practice in Newcastle, NSW. She grew up and travelled the world, living in Southern Spain, England, Indonesia and the central west of NSW. The unexpected death of her husband in Portugal, in 2015, a man who was the love of her life, inspired her to finish her memoir.
Susan holds a Master's degree in Australian literature and worked as a High School English teacher. Her only son Jonno is her pride and joy. Currently, Susan lives in her hometown of Newcastle, with no pets, too many books and an obsession to write about the truth. She is working on her second book, a crime novel inspired by the execution of the Balibo Five.
