Non-fiction Adult ( excl. NZ) > Non-Fiction - Recent

Chrissie Wellington is the world's Number 1 female Ironman triathlete, a four times World Champion, having recently won the her fourth title in October 2011 and the World Record holder. In 2009 she was voted '"Sunday Times" Sportswoman of the Year' and in 2010 was awarded the MBE. She is the undefeated champion of Triathlon, having won thirteen Ironman titles from thirteen races. She set a new World Record of 8 hours19:13 at Quelle Roth Germany in 2010, which slashed over 14 minutes from the previous record and where she was only b... read more

A true story of friendship, cocaine and South America's strangest jail. Rusty Young was backpacking in South America when he heard about Thomas McFadden, a convicted English drug trafficker who ran tours inside Bolivia's notorious San Pedro prison. Intrigued, the twenty-something Australian law graduate travelled to La Paz and joined one of Thomas

Lady Fiona Carnarvon became the chatelaine of Highclere Castle - the setting of the hit series Downton Abbey - eight years ago. In that time she's become fascinated by the rich history of Highclere, and by the extraordinary people who lived there over the centuries. One person particularly captured Fiona's imagination - Lady Almina, the 5th Countess of Carnarvon. Almina was the illegitimate daughter of banking tycoon Alfred de Rothschild. She was his only daughter and he doted on her. She married George, the Earl of Carnarvon, at 1... read more

In 1999 a young man from suburban Adelaide set out on an overseas trip that would change his life forever. Initially, he was after adventure and the experience of travelling the Silk Road. But events would set him on a different path. He would be deemed a terrorist, one of George W Bush's 'worst of the worst'. He would be incarcerated in the world's most notorious prison, Guantanamo Bay. And in that place where, according to an interrogator in Abu Ghraib, 'even dogs won't live', he was to languish for five and a half years, sufferi... read more

Coco Chanel, high priestess of couture, created the look of the chic modern woman. Chanel believed in simplicity: she freed women from their corsets and inspired them to crop their hair; and created elegant trousers, trench coats and jersey sweaters. By the 1920s, Chanel employed more than two thousand people in her workrooms, and had amassed a personal fortune. But at the start of the Second World War, Chanel closed down her couture house and went to live at the Ritz, on Place Vend“me. After the war she lived in Switzerland... read more

Fighter pilots call it 'Task Saturation'. Does it make you mental? After reading this compendium of all three Paul Carter books you will know the answer. Life is never simple for Paul. Exhilarating and crazed? Yes. And sometimes terrifying? Often. Strap yourselves in for a bloody funny ride through one man's adventures in the oil trade and beyond with his bestselling books Don't Tell Mum I Work on the Rigs, She Thinks I'm a Piano Player in a Whorehouse and This is Not a Drill. Death and toothache, dysentery and gambling, madness an... read more

The much anticipated and beautifully illustrated Sunday Times Bestselling Biography Coco Chanel: The Legend and the Life was first released to great critical acclaim in 2010. Now the paperback edition of Justine Picardie's biography of the French fashion designer Gabrielle Chanel has arrived. 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 definiti... read more

With his lightning-quick wit, unbridled creativity and his ear for the absurd, Milligan revolutionised British comedy, leaving a legacy of influence that stretches from Monty Python's "Flying Circus" to the work of self-confessed acolytes such as Eddie Izzard and Stephen Fry today. Throughout his life, Milligan wrote prolifically - scripts, poetry, fiction, as well as several volumes of memoir, in which he took an entirely idiosyncratic approach to the truth. In this ground-breaking work, Norma Farnes, his long-time manager, compan... read more

Anzacs on the Western Front: The Australian War Memorial Battlefield Guide is the definitive guide to the Western Front battlefields. Meticulously researched and written by the Head of Research at the Australian War Memorial, Dr. Peter Pedersen, this landmark publication guides readers chronologically through the battles in which Australians and new Zealanders fought on the Western Front from 1916-1918. Lavishly illustrated in vibrant colour, with fascinating images from the Australian War Memorial archive as well as new panoramic... read more

The Great War: four devastating years told by twenty eyewitnesses. There are many books on the First World War, but award-winning and bestselling historian Peter Englund takes a daring and stunning new approach. Describing the experiences of twenty ordinary people from around the world, all now unknown, he explores the everyday aspects of war: not only the tragedy and horror, but also the absurdity, monotony and even beauty. Two of these twenty will perish, two will become prisoners of war, two will become celebrated heroes and two... read more

What's it like to drive a car that's actively trying to kill you?

Jane Chidgey is a fiercely independent, happily single city-dweller when she meets Peter Phillip, a director of the mining company where she worked as a PA. Seemingly overnight, this never-married woman of a certain age abandons her life in Melbourne for life with the man of her dreams in the Limpopo Valley in the far north of South Africa. Instead of catching the tram to work, she finds herself driving an old Land Rover across the veld, tracking cheetahs and coming to grips with the impoverished lives of the local people. With gr... read more

No-one travels like the renowned writer-adventurer Richard Grant and, really, no-one should. Having narrowly escaped death at the hands of Mexican drug barons in Bandit Roads, he now plunges with his trademark recklessness and curiosity into Africa. Setting out to make the first descent of a previously unexplored river in Tanzania, he gets waylaid by thieves, whores and a degenerate former golf pro in Zanzibar, then crosses the Indian Ocean in a cargo dhow before the real adventure begins on the Malagarasi river. Travelling by raft... read more

"We tend to take birds for granted, in the landscape or in our neighbourhoods. The presence of birds communicates the health of a place. When they're gone, it's as though there's a hole in the sky, in the air, an absence of beauty and grace, and vivid chatter or haunting cries are replaced with eerie silence." As an amateur naturalist and nature lover, Janine Burke, art historian and author, has spent many years observing birds. Nest: The Art of Birds is the story of her passion, a personal, wide-ranging and intimate book - part na... read more

There have been many books about Antarctica in the past, but all have focused on only one aspect of the continent - its science, its wildlife, the heroic age of exploration, personal experiences or the sheer awesome beauty of the landscape, for example - but none has managed to capture whole story, till now. Gabrielle Walker, author, consultant to New Scientist and regular broadcaster with the BBC has written a book unlike any that has ever been written about the continent. Antarctica weaves all the significant threads into an int... read more

Since coming to power in 1999, Vladimir Putin has ruthlessly seized control of media, exiled or killed political rivals and dismantled Russia's fragile electoral system, transforming Russia once more into a threat to her own people and to the world. Masha Gessen experienced this history first-hand, in the form of death-threats and the murder, exile, and mysterious disappearances of many of her friends and colleagues. She courageously returned to Moscow to report on Putin's alarming ascent, tracking down sources who dared speak to no one else.

At age eighty, Tony Taylor journeys from Sydney to British Columbia to fish the Cowichan River with his eight-year-old grandson, Ned. This trip is an opportunity for Tony to return to a landscape that has had a profound effect on his life and his way of thinking, and to share this place with his grandson. As Tony teaches Ned the patient art of fly-fishing, a lifetime of memories, thoughts and stories unspool in peaceful reflections by the water's edge. Fishing the River of Time is an elegant meditation on nature, life and family, w... read more

A Rothschild by birth and a Baroness by marriage, beautiful, spirited Pannonica - known as Nica - seemed to have it all: children, a handsome husband and a trust fund. But in the early 1950s she heard a piece by the jazz legend Thelonious Monk. The music overtook her like a magic spell, and she abandoned her marriage to go and find him. Arriving in New York, Nica was shunned by society but accepted by the musicians. They gave her friendship; she gave them material and emotional support. Her convertible Bentley was a familiar sight ... read more

At fourteen, Richard Holloway left his working-class home north of Glasgow and travelled hundreds of miles to an English monastery to be trained for the priesthood. By twenty-five, he had been ordained and was working in the slums of Glasgow. In 2000 he controversially resigned as Bishop of Edinburgh, having lost heart with the the Church over its condemnation of homosexuality. In his years as a priest Richard touched many lives, but behind his confident public face lay a mind troubled by questions. Why is the Church, which claims ... read more

Creativity: It's singing the song that has never been sung and solving the problem that seems impossible. It's the free verse poem and the mathematical equation, the abstract painter and the patient inventor. It's the ability to see the world as it is, and then to imagine how it might be. Jonah Lehrer is on a mission to unlock the mysteries of creativity and invention, starting at the source: inside our head. Discover why humans are the creative species, where original ideas come from and how we can learn to generate more of them. ... read more