It’s impossible to compile a list of favourite books but here’s a few:

  • My Place by academic Sally Morgan outlines aspects of her life, but in particular, events in the lives of her Aboriginal ancestors in Western Australia and exploitation at the hands of white station owners and pastoralists;
  • Chloe Hooper’s The Tall Man: Death and Life on Palm Island details day-to-day events and important legal issues and trials related to the tragic death of Cameron Doomadgee on Queensland’s Palm Island;
  • The Narrow Road to the Deep North by Richard Flanagan (awarded the 2014 Man Booker Prize) focuses on the experiences of Australian Prisoner of War, Dorrigo Evans, and is based on Flanagan’s father, Arch as well as the sacrifices of Dr Edward ‘Weary’ Dunlop.
  • In Glass After Glass, Barbara Blackman describes her early life in 1930s-1940s Brisbane, marriage to artist, Charles Blackman and life in various parts of Australia and overseas, including their experiences of mixing with the avant garde set;
  • My Brother Jack by George Johnston; The Harp in the South, Fishing in the Styx and other titles by Ruth Park; Frank Hardy’s novels including Power Without Glory; Mandy Sayer’s Velocity; Tim Winton’s Breath and Dirt Music; and various works of Kate Grenville, Helen Garner, Rhyll McMaster, Louis Nowra and John Mortimore;
  • Rock stars have good fodder for books: Chronicles by Bob Dylan; Don Walker’s, Shots; Paper Paradise: Confessions of A Rock ‘N’ Roll Survivor from Glenn Wheatley, and Sex and Thugs and Rock ‘N’ Roll by Billy Thorpe are only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to great reads on rock star lives;
  • In the Pulitzer Prize winning, Personal History, Katharine Graham, gives a detailed account of life in the corridors of power after she took over as head of The Washington Post on the death of her husband, Phil Graham. Covering many years, the book cites details of the Pentagon Papers, Watergate saga and the great names of the newspaper such as Bob Woodward, Carl Bernstein and Ben Bradlee.
  • Maggie Tabberer’s, Maggie, is frank about her time as a model and television presenter, life in the fast lane and experiences of child raising and marriages and particular events in Australia;
  • The Life and Myth of Charmian Clift by Nadia Wheatley; David Marr’s Patrick White: A Life; Actor-writer, Graeme Blundell’s autobiography, The Naked Truth: A Life in Parts and his biography of artist Brett Whiteley, Whiteley (co-written with Margot Hilton); Brett written by Whiteley’s sister, Frannie Hopkirk;
  • Sydney barrister, Chester Porter’s, Walking on Water: A Life in the Law, is a great read, with chapters including: “Human Nature at its Worst”, “The Voyager Royal Commission”, “The Prisons Royal Commission”, “Roger Rogerson” and others including on prisons, the drug trade, battling the police and representing the underdog;
  • Books on: former Australian Prime Ministers including John He Did It His Way Gorton by Ian Hancock, Chifley by David Day and Don Watson’s Keating: The Inside Story; Bob Carr’s Thoughtlines: Reflections of a Public Man and Diary of a Foreign Minister; Graham Richardson’s Whatever It Takes;
  • Various books on American politics by Doris Graber, Joe McGinniss, Robert A Caro, Barack Obama, Bill Clinton (and many other authors of course).