Autobiography/Bio/Non-Fiction

//Autobiography/Bio/Non-Fiction
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  • This is the second and final volume of the centenary history of Burns, Philp and Co. During the years reviewed in this volume (1914 - 1946) Burns Philp was firmly established as a merchant in Australia and the South Pacific,renowned as a buyer of copra, a seller of merchandise, plantation owner, shipowner and provider of credit.Within three months of the beginning of World War I, James Burns was carving up the map of the South Pacific; and there is an account of Australian planters acquiring the former German plantations in New Guinea, followed by covert German attempts to re-establish themselves in the Territory. The effects of the Great Depression and the success of the company in coming through it are portrayed vividly.
  • Based on meticulous research and interviews with dozens of family members, friends, lovers, directors, and costars, Rebel offers a revelatory look at actor and film icon James Dean (1931-1955) - cinema's most enduring symbol of rebellious youth, has held the world's fascination since his tragic death at the age of twenty-four. From the dusty roads of rural Indiana to Manhattan's gay culture, from Broadway to Burbank, here is Dean's troubled life: the tragic death of his mother when he was nine; his tumultuous relationship with his father; his rise to stardom in New York and Hollywood and his on-and off-screen exploits. With black and white photos.
  • From the author of I Can Jump Puddles.   It's time to visit Alan Marshall's Australia: sitting on the sliprail exchanging yarns, driving a buggy down long dusty trails. And meet such wonderful characters as Lance Skuthorpe, who tethered a bull in Bourke Street and offered five quid to anyone who could ride him for half a minute and Binjarrpooma, the terror of Arnhem Land.  Make a visit to an Australia that is now gone.
  • Empires remain alive in our minds by dint of the great works they achieve. And the Roman empire is still the world's preceptor in politics, law, administration and the art of war. Her legal advisors laid the foundations of justice and morals in society; her municipal system has handed down criteria of administration still in use today. The Romans built triumphal arches, the domed Pantheon, aqueducts, circuses and amphitheatres for their captains, the needs of their empire and the pleasure of their great cities, in addition to their military roads which spread their will to the ends of the earth. They also created the Coliseum and the Thermal Baths of Caracella, so majestic they can be taken as a symbol of Roman dominion. The scandal of Roman orgies surpassed anything that had been seen in the Orient; Latin is the parent of many modern languages; and for Cicero, Seneca and Tacitus, the most imperious need was the free possession of the self. With colour and blak and white photographs  and artistic representations of events, places and people.
  • Beatrix Potter lived a modest, unsensational and private life. The first few decades were spent in being governess-taught at home and with few friends outside of her brother and extended family and in being the dutiful daughter. She loved to study nature and became a very good natural scientist - but by 1897, Beatrix was 31 and searching for more independent activities, wishing to earn some money of her own while dutifully taking care of her parents, dealing with her especially demanding mother as well as managing their various households.  From painting natural botanical specimens she progressed to fantasy pictures of animals and thence to the book that became the classic Tale Of Peter Rabbit. And the rest - of course - is history. This biography was only made possible with the assistance of her family friends - the tale of the creator behind the perennial animal stories beloved by generations of children.  Includes four colour plates and sixteen black and white photographs.
  • Joan Baez, the undisputed Queen of Folk, was catapulted to fame after her appearance at the 1958 Newport Folk Festival.  Here, she not only tells her story, but the story of the changing social history of  her time, from the smoke-filled coffee houses of the 1950s to the Vietnam war protests, Woodstock and beyond.
  • The tale of the White Star Liner Oceanic which struck a remote reef of Shetland and sank in 1914, just after the outbreak of World War One.  This 'Queen of the Seas' was more magnificently luxurious than her famous sister Titanic.  It is remarkable that the disaster was scarcely heard of at the time and is now all but forgotten; but it was wartime; secrecy was paramount and the line had been taken over by the Royal Navy and had become the armed cruiser HMS Oceanic, yet still retaining its grand marble bathrooms, gilt carvings, gold-plated fittings and stained glass domes. The cause of the disaster is classic - there were two captains; one  naval and the other merchant navy, although the naval officer was in supreme command. The ship was on patrol off the north coast of Scotland; the navigator was miles out in in his estimate of of its position on September 8 and when  the mist cleared, instead of being well south and west of the isle of Foula, the ship was east of it and heading straight for the terrible Shaalds reef. After that, mistake piled on mistake - the bow struck and the tide pushed the ship further onto the reef; and the giantess was poised briefly before breaking up and sinking. A remarkable salvage operation of the Oceanic was achieved in 1974.
  • Ukrainian-born Irène Némirovsky was already a successful writer in the early 1940s and living in Paris. She was also Jewish and in 1942 she was arrested and deported to Auschwitz: a month later she was dead at the age of thirty-nine.  She intended Suite Française  to be a five-part novel but at the time of her death, she had only completed the first two parts. The handwritten manuscripts were hidden in a suitcase that her daughters would take with them into hiding and eventually into freedom. A Storm In June: In the chaos of the massive 1940 exodus from Paris on the eve of the Nazi invasion, several families and individuals are thrown together under circumstances beyond their control. They share nothing but the harsh demands of survival - some try to maintain lives of privilege, others struggle simply to preserve their lives - but soon they will be forced to face physical and emotional displacement and the annihilation of the world they know. Dolce: Life in a German-occupied provincial village becomes increasingly complex and uneasy as the villagers - from aristocrats to shopkeepers to peasants - cope as best they can with the soldiers billeted amongst them. Some choose resistance, others collaboration - and lives are transformed by each and every choice. Irène Némirovsky saw that true nobility and love did exist but often in the most surprising places.
  • 'We're happy little Vegemites, as bright as bright can be...'  Who remembers Vegemite sandwiches in their school lunch boxes? Or, when  you felt a bit crook, Vegemite on Sao biscuits to settle your stomach?  Generations of Aussie kids have been raised on Vegemite. In 1992, Kraft produced the 70th Happy Birthday Vegemite book, full of games, memorabilia, recipes, advertisement and facts all about Vegemite.  V not only stood for Vegemite - it stood for vitamins and vitality, vim and vigor!