This autobiography covers Joanna Lumley’s incredibly diverse life – the early years in Kashmir and Malaya, growing up in Kent, the years in London where she worked as a photographic model and then her hugely successful acting career, which has included roles as a Bond girl, as Purdy in The New Avengers, as Patsy in Absolutely Fabulous and in documentaries about the Northern Lights, Bhutan and the Nile. It also discusses her campaigning work on behalf of the Gurkhas and contains never-before-seen photos from Lumley’s personal collection.

In 1998, Raimond Gaita’s Romulus, My Father (Text. PB. $25.95) was first published. The autobiographical account of how a compassionate and honest man taught his son the meaning of living a decent life amidst almost unendurable tragedy, it inspired a film version and gained both critical and popular acclaim. Now, 13 years later, Gaita has put together a collection of essays in which he reflects on the writing of the book, the making of the film, his relationship to the desolate beauty of the central Victorian landscape, the character of his father’s best friend Hora, the philosophies that underpinned his father’s relationship to the world and, most movingly, the presence and absence of his mother and his unassuaged longing for her.

‘My mind took control of my body. I had nothing left in the legs, but as a cyclist you just keep going until the finish. I kept reminding myself that I had to get to the finish...’ Filled with sensational photographs and revealing insights, this book celebrates in words and photographs the indomitable will and champion’s heart of Cadel Evans, the winner of the 2011 Tour de France. Cadel writes about his hard-fought triumphs and equally challenging disappointments, and the book gives a rare and fascinating insight into the way a top rider prepares, both mentally and physically.

This is the examination of Dickens we’ve all been waiting for! It gives full measure to his heroic stature – his huge virtues both as a writer and as a human being – while observing his failings in both respects with an understanding but unblinking eye. Twenty years ago Claire Tomalin’s award-winning The Invisible Woman (Penguin. PB. $26.95) convincingly traced the relationship between Dickens and Nelly Ternan in a triumph of sympathetic scholarship. Now she has written a full-scale biography of the writer, a story worthy of Dickens’ own pen: a comedy that turns to tragedy as the very qualities that made him great – his indomitable energy, boldness, imagination, showmanship and enjoyment of fame – finally destroyed him. The man who emerges is one of extraordinary contradictions, whose vices and virtues were intertwined as surely as his life and art.

Ellis Rowan may not be a household name today, but at her death in 1922 she was one of Australia’s best-known artists. Born into a landholding family in Victoria in 1848, Rowan grew up to defy tradition, carving out a name and a career for herself as a botanical artist at a time when well-heeled women were expected to remain at home. Attired in high-necked Victorian blouse and equipped with a parasol, she set off on journeys into the Australian wilderness to paint the flora, and the resulting artwork was noted for its botanical accuracy and its aesthetic appeal. This is a worthy portrait of a little-known but trail-blazing woman artist, who won acclaim in Australia, England and the US.

Olivia Harrison’s wonderful pictorial biography of her late husband combines photographs, letters, diary extracts and reminisces from close friends and Harrison himself to create a collage-like portrait of the late Beatle. The book is divided into seven impressionistic chapters, covering Harrison’s early years, Beatlemania and his devotion to Indian music and culture. Harrison wasn’t only an accomplished musician and songwriter. His production company Handmade Films brought The Life of Brian and Withnail and I to the big screen, and as a keen gardener he spent much of his time restoring his beloved Victorian neo-Gothic mansion Friar Park and its vast grounds. Harrison’s seriousness, warmth, humour and devotion are perfectly captured in this heartfelt and beautifully compiled tribute. Published to coincide with the Scorsese documentary of the same name.

Potter Edmund de Waal was entranced when he first encountered the collection of 264 tiny wood and ivory carvings in the Tokyo apartment of his great uncle Iggie. Later, when Edmund inherited these netsuke, they unlocked a story far larger than he could ever have imagined. In this new, illustrated edition of his stunningly original memoir, de Waal travels the world to stand in the great buildings his forebears once inhabited. He traces the network of a remarkable family against the backdrop of a tumultuous century and tells the story of a unique collection.

Tony Bilson is an icon of Australian cooking, and this memoir describes his journey from a privileged but tumultuous childhood to the vanguard of a maturing national cuisine. From his first, influential restaurant Bon Goût, to the famed Ampersand and Bilson’s, the book describes the business travails, the creative triumphs and the personal highs (travel and family) and lows (alcoholism) of life in the chef’s hat. Bilson has a Zelig-like talent for catching the wave of the culture, as he goes boho in the Eltham hills in the 1960s, hangs with the Sydney Whitlamites in the ’70s and moves into the theatre crowd with his cabaret, Kinselas, in the ’80s. Hundreds of names are dropped along the way: sharehousing with George Negus, hanging out with Rudolph Nureyev, and setting plates in front of everyone from Mick Jagger to Donald Trump.

From the prizewinning author of William Morris (Faber. HB. $49.99) comes a new biography of Edward Burne-Jones, the greatest British artist of the second half of the 19th century and a leading figure in the aesthetic movement of the 1880s. In many ways a bridging figure between Victorian and modern art, Burne- Jones influenced not just his immediate circle, but artists such as Klimt and Picasso. Fiona MacCarthy explores and re-evaluates the man’s art and life – his battle against vicious public hostility, the romantic susceptibility to female beauty that would inspire his art and ruin his marriage, his ill health and depressive sensibility, and the devastating rift with his great friend and collaborator William Morris as their views on art and politics diverged.

For all the volumes written about Karl Marx’s academic works, there are precious few written about his life and family. In Love and Capital, Mary Gabriel aims to redress this imbalance, writing about Marx and his relationship with his wife, Jenny, and his children. Delving into reams of correspondence between Marx and his contemporaries and family members, Gabriel fleshes out an intimate portrait of the man amid the political upheavals of the 19th century. Marx emerges as much more than merely a dour intellectual. From his student days in Berlin to his courtship of Jenny and the eventual suicides of two of his daughters, this is a tale of high emotion, intellectual fervour and, ultimately, great pathos.

Music journalist and author Peter Doggett is best known for his warts-and-all account of the fallout of the breakup of the Beatles, You Never Give Me Your Money (Vintage. PB. $19.95). This time he turns his forensic gaze on David Bowie and the 1970s – the decade when Bowie was at his most frenetically creative and produced a body of work that is astounding in both its range and depth. This blow-byblow account of every song Bowie wrote and recorded between 1969 and 1980, from ‘Space Oddity’ to ‘Ashes to Ashes’, is interspersed with a variety of essays covering the different musical styles and personas Bowie adopted throughout the decade. Obsessively researched and magnificently detailed, it’s a must-have for Bowiephiles and an intriguing portrait of an artist blazing a trail across the decade that made him a household name.

The creator of Snugglepot and Cuddlepie was one of Australia’s best-known illustrators. Here, for the first time, her early life and artistic career are explored in detail. Gibbs travelled to England in a quest to develop as an artist and became an early supporter of the suffragettes. Her early work as a botanical illustrator led her to discover the limitations of being a woman artist and she discovered that working hard to develop a sustaining commercial career in art was not going to be easy. One of the few women to become a commercial success, she did so by turning to fantasy and children’s illustration. This is a fascinating illustrated biography of a talented artist, complete with beautiful reproductions of May Gibbs’ work.

In this major new biography, Meryle Secrest gives us a fully realised portrait of one of the 20th century’s master painters and sculptors. A Sephardic Jew from an impoverished but genteel Italian family, Modigliani travelled to Paris to train as an artist and make his fortune and was known for his striking good looks (‘How beautiful he was, my god how beautiful,’ said one of his models). Secrest looks closely at his artistic influences (including Nietzsche’s theories of the artist as divinely endowed and inspired) and debunks his reputation as a ranting, drunken, stoned womaniser, arguing that Modigliani suffered throughout his life from various illnesses (including TB) that he attempted to conceal. This comprehensive and wellrounded biography brings to life bohemian society in early 20th-century Paris and is an extraordinary revelation of a passionate artistic life.

Former Justice of the High Court of Australia and one of the nation’s longest serving judges, Michael Kirby has also served on three university governing bodies and various international HIV and AIDS organisations. A Private Life provides a glimpse of the man behind the public figure in a series of very personal, open and fascinating reflections, including his early days growing up in Sydney and his serious crush on James Dean. Kirby’s reminiscences of life as a young closeted gay in an era of rampant homophobia in 1950s Australia and the touching account of his longterm relationship with John Van Vloten are especially moving and insightful. These days, Kirby focuses on his work as an outspoken educator and defender of human rights, especially in the area of sexuality and AIDS.

Coco Chanel’s life story makes for an archetypal rags-to-riches tale. From a childhood in penury, she rose to become an icon of French fashion, growing fabulously wealthy while mingling with English royalty and A-list celebrities in between-the-wars France. A complex character, she was described as brilliant and insufferable, and noted for her genius and generosity. But for all the glamour and acclaim, there remains a dark underside to Chanel’s tale: her longstanding affair with a Gestapo agent and her complicity with the Nazi regime occupying France. Set against the broad political movements of 20th-century Europe, this is a compelling biography of Chanel, examining in detail her connections and dealings with the Nazis.

This timely publication gives us a unique insight into the life and thinking of the man who single-handedly transformed the world, Apple co-founder Steve Jobs. Former Sunday Times journalist and CEO of CNN Walter Isaacson presents an extraordinary account of Jobs’ professional and personal life drawn from three years of exclusive and unprecedented interviews with his subject, as well as extensive interviews with Jobs’ family members and key colleagues from Apple and its competitors. The definitive portrait of the greatest innovator of his generation. RIP.

Dave Grohl will probably always be best known as the drummer of three-piece grunge rockers Nirvana, whose frontman Kurt Cobain committed suicide in 1994, but his own band, the Foo Fighters, has a popularity that has grown to stadium rock proportions. Paul Brannigan, music journalist and former editor of Kerrang! magazine, has had a professional association with Grohl for 15 years and their friendship has allowed him to get up close and personal for this in-depth biography of the musician’s life and career to date. Of course, it’s the Nirvana years from 1990 to ’94 and Grohl’s ongoing spat with Courtney Love that many fans will be most interested in, and Brannigan doesn’t disappoint, with plenty of rock anecdotes and revelations.

Written with the unique cooperation of the Van Gogh Museum, Pulitzer-winning authors Naifeh and White Smith (Jackson Pollock: An American Saga) recreate the extraordinary life – and examine the troubled mind – of Vincent van Gogh, creator of some of the best-loved works of art ever made. Drawing for the first time on all of his (and his family’s) extensive letters, which offer exquisite glimpses into his thoughts and feelings, this is the definitive portrait of one of the world’s cultural giants.

Her debut novel Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit (Vintage. PB. $12.95) straddled the line between memoir and fiction. It won the 1985 Whitbread Prize for a First Novel and launched her career as an internationally acclaimed novelist. Now, with candour and characteristic eloquence, Jeanette Winterson has finally penned an account of her turbulent life. Her troubles began in infancy, when she was adopted by the tyrannical and obsessively religious Mrs Winterson. As a child Jeanette often escaped into books, but at 16 she realised she’d need to go further. In love with a girl called Janey, she could no longer survive under her adoptive mother’s roof. With the titular question, posed by Mrs Winterson, ringing in her ears, Jeanette ventured forth on a difficult journey towards happiness.

Described by reviewers as ‘sketch comedy in book form’, this loose memoir by the first-ever female head writer of Saturday Night Live (hence the title) is packed with hilarious one-liners and gems about working in television comedy.

Once in a generation a woman comes along who changes everything. Tina Fey is not that woman, but she met that woman once and acted weird around her. Before 30 Rock, Mean Girls and 'Sarah Palin', Tina Fey was just a young girl with a dream: a recurring stress dream that she was being chased through a local airport by her middle-school gym teacher. She also had a dream that one day she would be a comedian on TV. She has seen both these dreams come true. At last, Tina Fey's story can be told. From her youthful days as a vicious nerd to her tour of duty on Saturday Night Live; from her passionately halfhearted pursuit of physical beauty to her life as a mother eating things off the floor; from her one-sided college romance to her nearly fatal honeymoon -- from the beginning of this paragraph to this final sentence.

She was married twice, each time to one of her own brothers. She waged a brutal civil war against the first; she poisoned the second. Incest and assassination were family specialties. Cleopatra appears to have had sex with only two men. They happen, however, to have been Julius Caesar and Mark Antony. Cleopatra had a son with Caesar and – after his murder – three more with his protégé. Already she was the wealthiest ruler in the Mediterranean; the relationship with Antony confirmed her status as the most influential woman of the age. The two would together attempt to forge a new empire, in an alliance that spelled their ends. Cleopatra has lodged herself in our imaginations ever since. Famous long before she was notorious, Cleopatra has gone down in history for all the wrong reasons. Shakespeare and Shaw put words in her mouth. Michelangelo, Tiepolo and Elizabeth Taylor put a face to her name. Along the way the supple personality has been lost. In a masterly return to the classical sources, Stacy Schiff here boldly separates fact from fiction to rescue the magnetic queen whose death ushered in a new world order a generation before the birth of Christ. Rich in detail, epic in scope, Schiff's is a luminous, deeply original reconstruction of a dazzling life.

Cocktail Hour Under the Tree of Forgetfulness tells the story of the author's mother, Nicola Fuller.
Nicola Fuller and her husband were a glamorous and optimistic couple and East Africa lay before them with the promise of all its perfect light, even as the British Empire in which they both believed waned. They had everything, including two golden children - a girl and a boy.

However, life became increasingly difficult and they moved to Rhodesia to work as farm managers. The previous farm manager had committed suicide. His ghost appeared at the foot of their bed and seemed to be trying to warn them of something. Shortly after this, one of their golden children died. Africa was no longer the playground of Nicola's childhood. They returned to England where the author was born before they returned to Rhodesia and to the civil war.

The last part of the book sees the Fullers in their old age on a banana and fish farm in the Zambezi Valley. They had built their ramshackle dining room under the Tree of Forgetfulness. In local custom, this tree is the meeting place for villagers determined to resolve disputes. It is in the spirit of this Forgetfulness that Nicola finally forgot - but did not forgive - all her enemies including her daughter and the Apostle, a squatter who has taken up in her bananas with his seven wives and forty-nine children.

Funny, tragic, terrifying, exotic and utterly unself-conscious, this is a story of survival and madness, love and war, passion and compassion.

Now in a paperback edition, this bestselling biography shows how the greatest fashion designer of all times also fashioned the myth of her own life. Note: December release.

The Mail on Sunday calls it 'gripping', the Sunday Times declares it to be 'fascinating', the Telegraph 'elegant' and 'brilliant' while the Daily Mail hails it as a 'vividly told account, in the style of Chanel herself'. This is the definitive biography of a heroine who founded the most successful fashion label in history; a woman that transformed her life into a myth veiled in enigma and scandal; whose talent and innovation endures beyond her own pioneering sartorial creations. Coco Chanel: The Legend and the Life was written by Justine Picardie as a celebration and investigation of Chanel's phenomenal achievements. Shortlisted for the Galaxy National Book Awards, selling over 50,000 copies thus far, and now translated into 15 languages worldwide, this eloquent biography has revealed the hidden secrets of the legendary Chanel.

After a decade on trail of previously unseen evidence left by Chanel, the author's exploration of Chanel's extraordinary life traces the emergence of an inventor and storyteller who rose above the poverty into which she was born. Following clues to Coco's early years in a convent and passionate love affairs with playboys, artists and aristocrats, Justine Picardie deftly weaves together the lost threads of Chanel's life. In doing so, she uncovers how an abandoned child came to conjure up the iconic creations that were proudly worn by legends in their own right, from Jackie Kennedy to Marilyn Monroe, who famously declared that she went to bed in nothing but Chanel No.5.

The pioneer of the little black dress, bobbed hair and trousers for women, Chanel was so much more than a couture aficionado; for in reinventing herself, she was also to become one of the most influential women in history.

Set against the great upheavals of the Depression and WWII, Rowley profiles the unconventional and inspiring partnership of Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt.

Franklin Delano & Eleanor Roosevelt’s marriage is one of the most celebrated & scrutinised partnerships in presidential history. It raised eyebrows in their lifetimes & has only become more controversial since their deaths. From FDR’s lifelong romance with Lucy Mercer, to Eleanor’s purported lesbianism, and many scandals in between, the public has never tired of speculating about the ties that bound these two headstrong individuals. Some claim that Eleanor sacrificed her personal happiness to accommodate FDR’s needs; others claim that the marriage was nothing more than a gracious facade for political convenience. Set against the great upheavals of the Depression & World War II, Hazel Rowley paints a portrait of a bold and radical partnership, born of mutual admiration and compassion.

This enthralling story of three generations of women in Bonyhady’s family follows their path from being wealthy patrons of the arts in fin de siècle Vienna to refugees from the Holocaust in Sydney’s Cremorne.

In 1900 Vienna was one of the most exciting places to live in the world. Its glamorous high society was the envy of Europe, and it was the centre of an exploding arts movement that set the tone for the following century. Tim Bonyhady's great-grandparents were leading patrons of the arts in fin de siecle Vienna: Gustav Klimt painted his great-grandmother's portrait, and the family knew many of Vienna's leading cultural figures. In Good Living Street he follows the lives of three generations of women in his family in an intimate account of fraught relationships, romance, and business highs and lows. They enjoyed a lifestyle of luxury and privilege-until everything changed for families of Jewish origin like his. In 1938, his family fled Vienna for a small flat in a harbourside suburb of Sydney, taking with them the best private collection of art and design to escape the Nazis.

The bestselling, laugh-out-loud, reach for your hanky story of one of Australia's best-loved comedians - now in hard cover gift edition.

Description
Anh Do nearly didn't make it to Australia. His entire family came close to losing their lives on the sea as they escaped from war-torn Vietnam in an overcrowded boat. But nothing - not murderous pirates, nor the imminent threat of death by hunger, disease or dehydration as they drifted for days - could quench their desire to make a better life in a country where freedom existed.

Life in Australia was hard, an endless succession of back-breaking work, crowded rooms, ruthless landlords and make-do everything. But there was a loving extended family, and always friends and play and something to laugh about for Anh, his brother Khoa and their sister Tram. Things got harder when their father left home when Anh was thirteen - they felt his loss very deeply and their mother struggled to support the family on her own.

His mother's sacrifice was an inspiration to Anh and he worked hard during his teenage years to help her make ends meet, also managing to graduate high school and then university. Another inspiration was the comedian Anh met when he was about to sign on for a 60-hour a week corporate job. Anh asked how many hours he worked. 'Four,' the answer came back, and that was it. He was going to be a comedian!
The Happiest Refugee tells the incredible, uplifting and inspiring life story of one of our favourite personalities. Tragedy, humour, heartache and unswerving determination - a big life with big dreams. Anh's story will move and amuse all who read it.

Awards
Overall Winner, Indie Book of the Year Award 2011
Winner, Non-fiction Indie Book of the Year 2011
Winner, The 2011 Nielsen BookData Booksellers' (ABA) Choice Award
Winner, ABIA (Australian Book Industry Awards) Book of the Year
Winner, ABIA Newcomer of the Year 2011
Joint winner, ABIA Biography of the Year 2011
Shortlisted, 2011 NSW Premier's Literary Awards, Community Relations Commission Award

Set in Melbourne, China and Cambodia, the followup memoir by the author of Unpolished Gem (Black Inc. PB. $26.95) looks at the relationship between the writer and her father.

At twenty-something, Alice is hungry for the milestones of young womanhood: leaving home, choosing a career, finding friendship and love on her own terms. But with each step she takes away from home, she feels the sharp tug of invisible threads: the love and worry of her Chinese-Cambodian parents, who want more than anything to keep her from harm. Her father fears for her safety to an extraordinary degree – but why? As she digs further into her father's story, Alice embarks on a journey of painful discovery: of memories lost and found, of her own fears for the future, of history and how it echoes down the years. Set in Melbourne, China and Cambodia, Her Father's Daughter captures a father–daughter relationship in a moving and astonishingly powerful way.

Georges Remi, better known as Herge, is widely regarded as the greatest twentieth-century master of the European bande dessinee. His Tintin books have sold well over 200 million copies worldwide. Drawing from private archives, exclusive interviews and thousands of hours of research, Raphael Taylor both tells the story of the man's life - which spanned the greater part of the twentieth century - and searches for the inspiration behind his work. Taylor explores Herge the man, covering his youth, his controversial life in Nazi-occupied Brussels during the Second World War, his depressive crises, the break-up of his first marriage and the manner in which his later life became a 'practice of philosophy'. And for each Tintin story Taylor provides succinct descriptions of the secrets of Herge's workshop, with a special focus on "Tintin in Tibet" - Herge's most personal Tintin story.

Kelly reads the entire book on 16 CDs Includes a bonus disc of his friends Russell Crowe, Judy Davis, Hugh Jackman, Cate Blanchett and Ben Mendelsohn reading selected chapters. Note: December release.

NOW IN PAPERBACK. Paul Kelly is a uniquely gifted storyteller. For thirty years he has written songs of uncommon directness about everything from love and land rights to cricket and cooking. 'Before Too Long', 'To Her Door', 'Leaps And Bounds', 'Don't Start Me Talking', 'Dumb Things', 'From Little Things Big Things Grow', 'How To Make Gravy' – his songs connect generations of listeners across the country. Now Kelly has written the memoir everyone hoped he would. How to Make Gravy mirrors the structure of his legendary A to Z shows, where he performs around a hundred of his songs alphabetically over four nights. Taking the lyrics of those songs as starting points in this book, he tells stories of his life – the highs and lows of performing, the art of songwriting, being on the road with the band, tales of his childhood, family, friends and fellow musicians. All illuminate Kelly's wide sources of inspiration, offering an unequalled portrait of the creative mind.

Note: December release.

Izzeldin Abuelaish is a Palestinian doctor’s inspiring account of his extraordinary life, growing up in poverty but determined to treat his patients in Gaza and Israel regardless of their ethnic origin. Harvard-trained Abuelaish was born and raised in the Jabalia refugee camp in the Gaza Strip. He now lives in Gaza but works in Israel, and has been crossing the lines in the sand that divide Israelis & Palestinians for most of his life—as a physician who treats patients on both sides of the line, as a humanitarian who sees the need for improved health & education for women as the way forward in the Middle East. And, most recently, as the father whose three daughters were killed by Israeli shells on 16 January 2009, still arguing for peace.

In this biography, Brown reveals Kirby’s difficult and often challenging personal path as judge, public intellectual and gay man.

The remarkable story of the life and work of Australia’s most famous modern judge.

This biography charts Michael Kirby’s extraordinary public life from his first forays as a student politician in the early 1960s, to his appointments as foundation chairman of the Australian Law Reform Commission in 1975, President of the NSW Court of Appeal in 1984, and Justice of the High Court of Australia (1996-2009).

Internationally, Kirby has been a leader in law reform and human rights with the OECD, UNESCO, UN Human Rights Commission and the WHO Global Program on AIDS. He is a former world president of the International Commission of Jurists, and in 1993-1996 was the first Australian to serve as a Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General for Human Rights.

A J Brown reveals Kirby’s difficult and often challenging personal path as judge, public intellectual and gay man. He shows the sharp contrast between Kirby’s 30-year love affair with controversial public issues and the reality of a man whose underlying message is deeply traditionalist – that people should have faith in the status quo of political institutions, even the monarchy.

He shows also how Kirby’s most constant companion – publicity – has been a double-edged sword. Behind his active courtship of an unprecedented judicial profile lay a passion for principles and the social relevance of the law, but it drove him into fierce conflict with the many judges and politicians who questioned whether such celebrity was compatible with judicial life.

The slow coming together of his personal, professional and public lives culminates in sharp moments of truth – for Kirby, for powerful institutions, and for a society learning to cope with the challenges of change.

In 1990, at the age of seventeen, Kári Gíslason travelled to Iceland, the land of his birth, and arranged to meet his father. What he found was not what he expected. Born from a secret liaison between a British mother and an Icelandic father, Kári moved regularly between Iceland, England and Australia. He grew up aware of who his father was, but understood his mother had promised never to reveal his father's identity. It was a promise his father was to also elicit from him when they met. A decade later, Kári made the decision to break the promise and he contacted his half-siblings, who knew nothing of his existence. What led him there and what followed makes for a heartfelt and riveting journey over landscapes, time and memory, searching for a sense of belonging.

On an icy dawn morning in Paris in January 1943, 230 French women resisters were rounded up from the Gestapo detention camps and sent on a train to Auschwitz – the only train, in the four years of German occupation, to take women of the resistance to a death camp.The youngest was a schoolgirl of 15, the eldest a farmer’s wife of 68; there were among them teachers, biochemists, sales girls, secretaries, housewives and university lecturers. Caroline Moorehead’s remarkable new book is the story of these women – the first time it has been told.It is about who they were, how and why they joined the resistance, how they were captured and treated by the French police and the Gestapo, their journey to Auschwitz and their daily life in the death camps – and about what it was like for the 49 survivors when they returned to France. Six of the women were still alive in 2010 and able to tell their stories. What they had to say – and this was confirmed by the children of those who died – was that great affection and camaraderie grew up among the group. They became friends, and it was precisely this friendship that kept so many of them alive.They supported and cared for one another, worked together, shared everything, watched out for each other and faced the horror together.Friendship, almost as much as luck, dictated survival.

From the songs of Arab diva Umm Khultum on the banks of the Tigris to the strains of a young boy playing the violin for his mother in Melbourne, to the swing jazz of the nightclubs and cabarets of 1940s Baghdad, a fisherman playing a flute on the banks of the Mekong, and Paganini in the borderlands of eastern Poland… Music weaves its way through each of these spellbinding stories. Each tale, each fragment of music, leads to Amal, the woman who saved her life by clinging to a corpse for twenty hours alone in the sea. Arnold Zable takes the reader on an intimate journey into the lives of people he met on travels over the last forty years. These are tales aching to be told. Tales of hardship, of yearning and of celebration. Tales that span the globe, and bring us back to Melbourne to the powerful and heartbreaking story of Amal—her flight from Baghdad, her fears boarding the unseaworthy SIEV X, her survival when it went down, and her desire to have her story told.

A diverse and captivating tribute to the art of letter writing, as celebrated at the literary afternoons hosted by Women of Letters.

In a world of the short and swift, of texts and Twitter, there's something of special value about a carefully composed letter. In homage to this most civilised of activities, Marieke Hardy and Michaela McGuire created the literary afternoons of Women of Letters. Some of Australia's finest dames of stage, screen and page have delivered missives on a series of themes, collected here for the first time. Claudia Karvan sends 'A love letter' to love itself, Helen Garner contacts ghosts of her past in 'The letter I wish I'd written', Noni Hazlehurst dispatches a stinging rebuke 'To my first boss', and Megan Washington pays tribute to her city and community as she writes 'To the best present I ever received'. And some gentlemen correspondents – including Paul Kelly, Eddie Perfect and Bob Ellis – have been invited to put pen to paper in a letter 'To the woman who changed my life'. By turns hilarious, moving and outrageous, this is a diverse and captivating tribute to the art of letter writing. All royalties for this book will go to Edgar's Mission animal rescue shelter.