Biography Girls

Growing up on the whitewashed Central Coast in the 1980s and attending an elite school as a scholarship student from the wrong side of the tracks, Lebanese-Cypriot Simone Amelia Jordan felt like an outcast among her peers for years. Her lifeline was hip-hop, then in its golden age. From girlhood, Simone recognised the art form's pro-Black consciousness, and the rappers' resonant words inspired her to embrace her own identity and back herself.

This book is filled with anecdotes of weird and stressful life scenarios and how all we could do was laugh and say "Oki f*cking dokie". This is a lighthearted self-help listen that shows how these past thoughts and experiences are ones we all share. We can laugh out loud and cringe about them together!

"The War-Time Journal of a Georgia Girl, 1864-1865" is an evocative and historically significant diary penned by Eliza Frances Andrews, which vividly captures the tumult and transformation of the American South during the waning days of the Civil War and the onset of Reconstruction.

Nigel Delphian was a poor misfit without direction when he surprised everyone around him and joined the navy. As he embarked on his new adventure, Nigel had no idea that his decision would place him on a path he never expected.

For more than 50 years, Wendy McCarthy has been on the leading edge of Australian feminism, and her trailblazing advocacy and leadership have made her a widely respected and revered figure: a woman who shaped her times as much as she was shaped by them. Now, at 80 years of age, she shares her remarkable life and achievements. From sheltered country schoolgirl to relentless campaigner for abortion and contraception, from passionate teacher to lifelong advocate for education, Wendy smashed the glass ceiling again and again.

Four shocking crimes. Four lives lost. Countless lives shattered. Four shocking tales of young lives cut brutally short that will make you want to hug your daughter and never let her go.

While their husbands, brothers and sweethearts fought in Europe and their mothers, sisters and friends kept the home fires burning, for the first time, a group of remarkable women took to the skies. They weren't allowed into combat but risked their lives in bad weather and without radios to bring our boys the aircraft they so vitally needed. Employed by the Air Transport Auxiliary, these women were known as 'attagirls'. They proved that women, too, could master Spitfires, Mosquitoes and Hawker Hurricanes, forging a new path in aviation.

"I dragged my heels all the way to the mill. ‘I can’t do it!’ I sulked. Mother sighed and shook her head. My heart sank. Of course, I’d seen the mill hundreds of times before, but now it was different - now, I was going in. I’d never seen a place so depressing; I wanted to cry." With tales from hardworking Audrey and mischievous Maureen to high-spirited Doris and dedicated Marjorie, The Mill Girls is an evocative story of hardship and friendship from when cotton was still king.

An activist calls for better support of young families so they can thrive and reflects on her experiences as a Black mother and college student fighting for opportunities for herself and her child. Pregnant Girl presents the possibility of a different future for young mothers - one of success and stability - in the midst of the dismal statistics that dominate the national conversation.

The chilling true story of the heinous murder of Karlie Pearce-Stevenson and daughter Khandalyce and how the case was cracked. How did two girls go missing for seven years and nobody noticed? In August 2010, dirt bike riders discovered human bones in the notorious Belanglo State Forest, where Ivan Milat had so cruelly tortured and slain seven young backpackers. The remains were those of a young woman, who the police dubbed 'Angel' after a T-shirt emblazoned with the word 'Angelic' that was found near the body.

This is Nadina LaSpina's story - from her early years in her native Sicily, where she contracts polio as a baby, a fact that makes her the object of well-meaning pity and the target of messages of hopelessness, to her adolescence and youth in America, spent almost entirely in hospitals where she is tortured in the quest for a cure and made to feel that her body no longer belongs to her, and to her rebellion and her activism in the disability-rights movement.

It's Saturday, and everything is different. No, I didn't go to the market this morning, and I didn't have my usual coffee on Westerstraat. And no, I wasn't getting ready for a new semester at college. Next Monday, January 31, I have to admit myself at the hospital for my first chemotherapy session. For the next two months, I'm expected each week for a fresh shot of vincristine, etoposide, ifosfamide, and loads more exciting abracadabra.

The Girl with the Self-Esteem Issues is the remarkable story of Rosie Mercado’s journey from helplessness to becoming a model, life coach, and daytime celebrity and one of the “top 25 most powerful Latinas” (People). But as Rosie reveals, that success came after years of pain.

Luliia was a dedicated member of the Komsomol (the Soviet communist youth organization) and her parents worked for the NKVD. She started at the sniper school and eventually became a valued member of her battalion during operations against Prussia. She persevered through eight months of training before leaving for the Front on 24th November 1944 just days after qualifying. Joining the third Belorussian Front her battalion endured rounds of German mortar as well as loudspeaker announcements beckoning them to come over to the German side.

Terrified after her father's arrest by the Nazis, Ruth flees to Belgium. This is the unbelievable autobiographical story of Ruth Uzrad, a Jewish teenager whose life was turned upside down by the Nazi regime. After her father was arrested one night from their Berlin apartment by the Gestapo, Ruth's mother sends 13-year-old Ruth and her two younger sisters out on their escape route across Europe by train to the safety of Belgium. But then the Nazis also reach Belgium, driving Ruth into the French Jewish underground....

A modern girl is nothing without her squad of besties. But don't let all the hashtags fool you: The #girlsquad goes back a long, long time. In this hilarious and heartfelt audiobook, geek girl Sam Maggs takes you on a tour of some of history's most famous female BFFs.

It's 1985 in a small factory town near Pittsburgh. Eight-year-old Karen's parents are lifelong workers at the Anchor Glass plant, where one Saturday, an employee goes on a shooting spree, killing four supervisors, then himself. This event splits the young girl's life open, and like her mother, she begins to seek comfort in obsessive rituals and superstitions. This beautifully evocative memoir chronicles the next 14 years, as Karen moves through girlhood, adolescence, and young adulthood.

A Girl Called Beauty is a passion project belonging to first-time published author Susan (Scully) Hetrick, who started writing in sixth grade. Even at an early age, Susie had challenges and struggles well beyond those of a normal childhood, and wondered if everyone lived the way she did. But undaunted by life's tangled paths, Susie pressed on. After being handed even more obstacles, she realized that life had thrown enough at her to fill a book, so she started writing.

The China Lake missile range is located in a huge stretch of the Mojave Desert, about the size of the state of Delaware. It was created during the Second World War, and has always been shrouded in secrecy. But people who make missiles and other weapons are regular working people, with domestic routines and everyday dilemmas, and four of them were Karen Piper's parents, her sister, and - when she needed summer jobs - herself.

In late 2019, Sylvia Patterson was a celebrated pop journalist, still merrily writing about the musical greats. But with the diagnosis of a life-threatening disease, a global pandemic and the collapse of her industry, life was about to take a drastic turn. It was a misadventure that would teach her many things. The power of friendship, the shock of mortality and what happens when love is tested. How a walk in the park, a spontaneous dance and a TV hero can save your life. How your perspective can shift on everything, from work, family and music, to what truly makes you happy.