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What do you do with the rest of your life, after you’ve achieved brilliance at an early age? This is the question posed by celebrated journalist Chris Wright to some of the most renowned adventurers, athletes and politicians of the twentieth century. What happens if you are an athlete or gymnast and your career peaks at 14, like Nadia Comaneci, who scored the first perfect 10 in Olympic competition – and the second, and the third, fourth, fifth, sixth and seventh. What is the next challenge for the likes of adventurer Reinhold Messner, when you have climbed all the really tall mountains? Where do you take your career, when you’ve achieved the impossible and walked on the moon? In this far-reaching and illuminating book, Chris Wright travels the globe, talking to Apollo astronauts, record breakers, world leaders and prisoners of war, people whose defining moments came early in their life, and asks a rare but captivating what happened next? Those interviewed in this book are: Don Walsh; the Moonwalkers; Nadia Comaneci; Reinhold Messner; Gloria Gaynor; United 232; Apollo 8; John McCarthy; Ray Wilson; Russ Ewin, The Sandakan Survivor; Chuck Yeager. -
Dark Stranger: John Iggulden
$80.00James Duncan and Peter Jirapon, brought together by the search for a missing witness in a rape and murder case, they are totally opposite in age, temperament and race. Duncan is a cynical, high flying publicity man in his middle fifties; Jirapon is a young, intense, idealistic Aboriginal lawyer. In the course of the search they are swept out to sea in an open boat of the coast of Northern Australia and must find a comradeship in order to survive. -
A chance encounter in a fish-’n’-chip shop set Brendan James Murray on the trail of a mystery. Had a gay man been secretly murdered on H.M.A.S Australia during the Second World War? The veteran he spoke to was certain. ‘I knew about it,’ he said. ‘We all did.’ But was the story true? If so, who was the dead man? And why was it so hard to find out? This book is the search for the answer, almost stone-walled by cover-up and silence. In the end, it brings us to the lies that have shrouded our understanding of war, and especially of war at sea. As one of the survivors poignantly says, ‘I want to pass it on to the next generation. What it was like. What it was really like.’ -
Older than the Melbourne Cup, the Derby is restricted to three year olds and run at set weights. Here is the history of the Derby, with a roll call of famous horses, both winners and also-rans and the effect that this race has had on so many careers. With black and white photographs. -
On September 11, 1944, the British submarine Porpoise slipped quietly from Fremantle Harbour, bound for Indonesia. It was carrying the 23 Australian and British members of Operation Rimau who, under the leadership of the remarkable Lieutenant-Colonel Ivan Lyon of the Gordon Highlanders, intended to repeat the successful Jaywick raid of 1943 by blowing up 60 ships in Japanese-occupied Singapore Harbour, 19 days later, the preliminary part of the operation successfully completed, the submarine commander bade farewell to the raiders at Pedjantan Island, promising to return to pick them up in 38 days' time. A handful of Chinese and Malays and the conquering Japanese were the only people ever to see the 23 men again. According to the scant official post-war record, the mission was an utter failure. All of the party were captured or killed - ten of them beheaded in Singapore only five weeks before the Japanese surrender in, it was claimed, a ceremonial execution. The fate of eleven of the others remains officially unknown. After a 31 year search, Major Tom Hall, with the assistance of the author, has overturned the official version and uncovered the truth. Aided by thousands of Japanese and Allied documents and by the first-hand accounts of several Indonesians and Malays, sole witnesses to the events of 1944, they have established the fate of every member of the party and unravelled the story of The Heroes of Rimau - a story that has for 45 years been all but lost, distorted by hearsay and fantasy, by military cover-ups and conspiracy, by official bungling, ineptitude and apathy. This book not only chronicles a feat of extraordinary daring in the face of overwhelming odds - it also exposes the appalling sequence of events which has, until now, resulted in the shameful suppression of the truth about one of the most amazing stories to emerge from World War II. Illustrated with Black and white photographs. -
Red In The Centre II. After the success of the first Red in the Centre journey for radio, Monte was commissioned by Channel 7's Sunrise programme to go bush and recreate his spontaneous story-telling style for television. But..not everything went as planned. This book follows Monte's evolution from struggling technophobe to self assured, multi-media something-or-other as he travelled the land in search of the stories seldom told, despite Sunrise, technology grapples and a newly-acquired 4WD bus determined to kill him. Illustrated with colour photographs. -
Laurie Lawrence is a remarkable Australian - a maker of champions, capable of lifting the spirits of those around him to soaring heights. As a swim coach possessing the gift of inspiration he is without peer, and his line-up of champions - Steve Holland, Tracey Wickham, Jon Sieben, Duncan Armstrong, Julie McDonald - bears gold medal testimony to his qualities. But Laurie Lawrence is very many other things too - extrovert, patriot, poet, humorist, singer and, in the 1990s, the most sought-after motivational speaker in Australia. Lawrence of Australia captures the essence of the man through 24 remarkable stories of sport and its champions. In these deeply personal, funny and very often inspiring tales, Lawrence uncovers profound secrets of success which translate to all walks of life. It is a book for everyone - entertaining, revealing and vastly uplifting. -
This book brings to life superb portraits of great Australian mothers - Elizabeth MacArthur, Caroline Chisholm, Dame Mary Gilmour; the mothers of luminaries Helen Keller, Sir Don Bradman and Sir Winston Churchill; the American mothers who spurred their children to success - Barbara Guggenheim and Abraham Lincoln's TWO mothers; the mothers behind the great Australian retail names: Ann Horden and Belle Gross, mother of Mick Grace, former chairman of Grace Bros as well as creative mums, their famous children and inspirational mums. Signed by the Author, 'Mr. Movies' Bill Collins, Ita Buttrose, Imelda and Bill Roche, the founders of the Nutrimetics empire. -
Tales of Ghrymatti I. Legends warned that Ghrymatti's third moon never brought good fortune, so with Veena about to reveal her mystic face for the first time in twenty cycles, many of the land's people were on edge. But no one could have suspected the invasion of Vindessa. Able to control the forces of nature with the power of her Crystal Element, Vindessa subjugates the people of Ghrymatti with the help of her sorcerer son G'Briel and her 'Black Cats' Army. In her lust for the throne, however, Vindessa makes many promises, some of which she did not keep. Will the deposed Queen Yehelyah and her family overcome Vindessa with the unlikely assistance of the mysterious Dragon Rider Nea'ss? Illustrations by Chris Froggatt.
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