Penguin and the Lane Brothers: the Untold Story of a Publishing Revolution by Stuart Kells

$39.99 AUD

Category: Reading, Writing & Storytelling

A ground-breaking counter-history of Penguin Books - both amusing and and with a strong new Australian aspect. How did the three Lane brothers enter publishing and build Penguin into a global powerhouse? As this new book shows, their innovation and the creative opposition among them would prove to be t he company's secret weapon. The Lane boys did their best thinking together in bathroom board-meetings, where at least one director would always be 'mother naked'. The war, though, brought tragedy for the family. John Lane's 1942 death in action during the North African landings shattered the brothers' intimate partnership. Richard went on to share with Allen the leadership of one of the first global media businesses. The Lanes built a firm and a brand that became synonymous not only with paperbacks but also with a certain kind of publishing: switched-on, progressive, engaging. With its low-price, mass-distribution model, Penguin became a vast 'poor man's university', a proto-internet made from paper and ink. Australia featured prominently in the lives of the Lanes. Richard came to the country as a young man, and later helped establish and lead Penguin Australia, which was so successful that it enabled its UK parent to stave off bankruptcy in the 1960s and 1970s. Relying on unprecedented access to Lane family sources, including Richard's diaries and other papers, Penguin and the Lane Brothers sheds new light on the relationship between Allen, Richard and John, so crucial as a driver of Penguin's spirit and success. It restores the younger Lane brothers to their rightful place in the fascinating story of this unlikely publishing triumph. ...Show more

Ready, Set, Memoir! - The Essential Guide to Telling Your Story by Lindsey Grant

$29.99 AUD

Category: Reading, Writing & Storytelling

This authoritative and accessible workbook guides you through the memoir writing process so you can tell your own story with confidence Ready, Set, Memoir is full of helpful lists, exercises, inspiring quotes from famous memoirists, advice, lessons, and humor to help walk you through the writing proc ess. This guided journal will inspire and motivate you to write--and finish --your memoir. Every year, hundreds of thousands of aspiring writers participate in National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo), writing a first draft of their novels in thirty days. Following in the footsteps of the successful novel writing guide Ready, Set, Novel , this handbook--written by one of the experts behind #NaNoWriMo--guides would-be memoirists step-by-step through the planning and writing process. - FUN, ACCESSIBLE APPROACH TO MEMOIR: Starting any new project can be daunting, let alone a project as personal as memoir. Ready, Set, Memoir has a light, engaging tone, paired with fun illustrations and activities to keep the book accessible and encouraging.- AUTHOR WITH AUTHORITY: As the former program director for NaNoWriMo, Lindsey Grant knows a thing or two about starting a project and getting it done . . . and done fast - INSPIRING, EASY TO FOLLOW ROADMAP: With fun and fresh prompts, activities, and resources, Ready, Set, Memoir breaks down the elements of memoir, helps nonfiction writers both new and seasoned understand the genre; establish the scope and trajectory of their story; build dramatic tension; craft a subplot; identify and overcome common pitfalls to the form, including writer's block and the relationship between memory and truth; revise; and ultimately find a market for your memoir. ...Show more

Rebel Without a Clause by Sue Butler

$24.99 AUD

Category: Reading, Writing & Storytelling

The English language is changing constantly. We invent new words and phrases, we mash up idioms, we mispronounce, misuse, misappropriate. Sue Butler has heard it all and is ready to defend and disagree with common usage. Veering from tolerance to outrage, she examines how the word sheila took a nose-div e after World War II, considers whether we should hunker or bunker down, and bemoans the emptiness of rhetoric. She shouts 'down with closure' as it leaps from the psychoanalyst's couch, explains why we've lost the plot on deceptively, untangles the manuka honey stoush, fathoms why the treatment of famous is infamous, and ponders whether you would, could or should ...Rebel without a Clause is a fascinatingly idiosyncratic romp through the world of words by lexicographer and former Macquarie Dictionary Editor, Sue Butler. ...Show more

Shakespeare in a Divided America by James Shapiro

$39.99 AUD

Category: Reading, Writing & Storytelling

From the author of 1599, a fresh perspective on the history of the United States - and a timely reminder of Shakespeare's indelible influence.

Sir Henry Neville, Alias William Shakespeare : Authorship Evidence in the History Plays by William D. (FRW) John; Rubinstein Mark; Casson Bradbeer

$37.99 AUD

Category: Reading, Writing & Storytelling

Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish - Advice for the Rest of Your Life - Classic Graduation Speeches by No Author

$19.99 AUD

Category: Reading, Writing & Storytelling

Give it your all. Dare to be all you can be. Graduation day is a pivotal moment. After a lifetime of learning, and at least three years of studying hard in a chosen subject, we are thrown headfirst into the unknown world of adulthood. That day - and the months afterwards - are ripe with possibility. T hey can feel by turns thrilling and rudderless, dreamy and terrifying. It's the perfect time to reflect on the past and look at what's to come. In this collection of carefully curated speeches, hear from leading voices such as Barack Obama, Gloria Steinem and Tim Minchin, and discover their profound advice for the graduating classes of Harvard, Stanford and many more top-class universities, who have gone on to shape the world we live in. Whether you're looking for the perfect graduation gift, a memento of this significant life moment, or are simply seeking guiding inspiration, the lessons in Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish will last a lifetime. ...Show more

The Art of Creative Writing by Egri, Lajos

$25.99 AUD

Category: Reading, Writing & Storytelling

Thousands of books have been written on the subject of writing and how to do it better. Among them are a few select classics that reveal the essential elements of good storytelling. The Art of Creative Writing is such a classic. As in the bestselling The Art of Dramatic Writing, still considered one of the most essential books on playwriting more than 75 years after publication, the author outlines in detail his highly acclaimed Egri Method of Creative Writing and shows how to apply it to all fiction formats-novels, short stories, and screenplays. Grounded in Egri's assertion that "Every type of creative writing depends upon the credibility of a character," here is concise, clear advice on the most important element of good writing- characterization. Step by step, Egri shows writers how to probe the secrets of human motivation to create flesh-and-blood characters who create suspense and conflict, and who grow emotionally under stress and strain. As practical as it is inspiring, The Art of Creative Writing remains a timeless, illuminating guide that teaches every writer, and aspiring writer, how to create works that are both compelling and enduring. ...Show more

The Book Thieves: The Nazi Looting of Europe's Libraries and the Race to Return a Literary Inheritance by Anders Rydell (Contribution by)

$27.99 AUD

Category: Reading, Writing & Storytelling

While the Nazi party was being condemned by much of the world for burning books, they were already hard at work perpetrating an even greater literary crime. As they ransacked Europe's libraries and book-shops, they began to compile a library of their own-one that they could use to wage an intellectual w ar on literature, history, and the ideologies of their opposition. Through extensive new research that includes records saved by the Monuments Men themselves, Anders Rydell tells the untold story of Nazi book theft, as he joins a group of heroic librarians in the effort to return the lost books. Taking readers on a journey across Europe, The Book Thieves shows just how much a single book can mean to those who own it. ...Show more

The Glossy Years: Selective Memoirs by Nicholas Coleridge; Anon

$55.00 AUD

Category: Reading, Writing & Storytelling

Diana touched your elbow, your arm, covered your hand with hers. It was alluring. And she was disarmingly confiding. "Can I ask you something? Nicholas, please be frank..." Over his thirty-year career at Condé Nast, Nicholas Coleridge has witnessed it all. From the anxieties of the Princess of Wales to the blazing fury of Mohamed Al-Fayed, his story is also the story of the people who populate the glamorous world of glossy magazines. With relish and astonishing candour, he offers the inside scoop on Tina Brown and Anna Wintour, David Bowie and Philip Green, Kate Moss and Beyonce; on Margaret Thatcher's clothes legacy, and a surreal weekend away with Bob Geldof and William Hague. Cara Delevingne, media tycoons, Prime Ministers, Princes, Mayors and Maharajas - all cross his path. His career in magazines straddles the glossies throughout their glorious zenith - from the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s to the digital iterations of the 21st century. Having cut his teeth on Tatler, and as Editor-in-Chief of Harpers & Queen, he became the Mr Big of glossy publishing for three decades. Packed with surprising and often hilarious anecdotes, The Glossy Years also provides perceptive insight into the changing and treacherous worlds of fashion, journalism, museums and a whole sweep of British society. This is a rich, honest, witty and very personal memoir of a life splendidly lived. 'Coleridge writes like a dream' Observer ...Show more

The Library Book by Susan Orlean

$14.99 AUD

$29.99 (50% off)

Category: Reading, Writing & Storytelling

On the morning of April 29, 1986, a fire alarm sounded in the Los Angeles Public Library. As the moments passed, the patrons and staff who had been cleared out of the building realized this was not the usual fire alarm. As one fireman recounted, "Once that first stack got going, it was `Goodbye, Charlie .'" The fire was disastrous: it reached 2000 degrees and burned for more than seven hours. By the time it was extinguished, it had consumed four hundred thousand books and damaged seven hundred thousand more. Investigators descended on the scene, but more than thirty years later, the mystery remains: Did someone purposefully set fire to the library - and if so, who? Weaving her lifelong love of books and reading into an investigation of the fire, award-winning New Yorker reporter and New York Times bestselling author Susan Orlean delivers a mesmerizing and uniquely compelling book that manages to tell the broader story of libraries and librarians in a way that has never been done before. In The Library Book, Orlean chronicles the LAPL fire and its aftermath to showcase the larger, crucial role that libraries play in our lives; delves into the evolution of libraries across the country and around the world, from their humble beginnings as a metropolitan charitable initiative to their current status as a cornerstone of national identity; brings each department of the library to vivid life through on-the-ground reporting; studies arson and attempts to burn a copy of a book herself; reflects on her own experiences in libraries; and reexamines the case of Harry Peak, the blond-haired actor long suspected of setting fire to the LAPL more than thirty years ago. Along the way, Orlean introduces us to an unforgettable cast of characters from libraries past and present - from Mary Foy, who in 1880 at eighteen years old was named the head of the Los Angeles Public Library at a time when men still dominated the role, to Dr. C.J.K. Jones, a pastor, citrus farmer, and polymath known as "The Human Encyclopedia" who roamed the library dispensing information; from Charles Lummis, a wildly eccentric journalist and adventurer who was determined to make the L.A. library one of the best in the world, to the current staff, who do heroic work every day to ensure that their institution remains a vital part of the city it serves. Brimming with her signature wit, insight, compassion, and talent for deep research, The Library Book is Susan Orlean's thrilling journey through the stacks that reveals how these beloved institutions provide much more than just books - and why they remain an essential part of the heart, mind, and soul of our country. It is also a master journalist's reminder that, perhaps especially in the digital era, they are more necessary than ever. ...Show more

The Madman's Library: The Greatest Curiosities of Literature by Edward Brooke-Hitching

$45.00 AUD

Category: Reading, Writing & Storytelling

From the author of the critically acclaimed and globally successful The Phantom Atlas, The Golden Atlas and The Sky Atlas comes a stunning new work. The Madman's Library is a unique, beautifully illustrated journey through the entire history of literature, delving into its darkest territories to hunt do wn the very strangest books ever written, and uncover the fascinating stories behind their creation. This is a madman's library of eccentric and extraordinary volumes from around the world, many of which have been completely forgotten. Books written in blood and books that kill, books of the insane and books that hoaxed the globe, books invisible to the naked eye and books so long they could destroy the Universe, books worn into battle, books of code and cypher whose secrets remain undiscovered... and a few others that are just plain weird. From the 605-page Qur'an written in the blood of Saddam Hussein, through the gorgeously decorated 15th-century lawsuit filed by the Devil against Jesus, to the lost art of binding books with human skin, every strand of strangeness imaginable (and many inconceivable) has been unearthed and bound together for a unique and richly illustrated collection ideal for every book-lover.   ...Show more

The Making of a Poem: A Norton Anthology of Poetic Forms by Eavan Boland

$29.95 AUD

Category: Reading, Writing & Storytelling

This anthology illuminates the history, practice, and wonder of our most elusive art, poetry. Intended for all those who love poetry, including teachers, readers, writers, and students. The anthology draws the reader in to the excitement and entertainment of various poetic forms.