Love, death and other scenes: New biographies and memoirs

Love, death & other scenes : a memoir / Weetman, Nova

Nova Weetman's unforgettable memoir reflects on experiences of love and loss throughout her life: losing her beloved partner, playwright Aidan Fennessy, during the 2020 COVID lockdown; the death of her mother ten years ealier; her daughter turning eighteen and finishing school; and her own physical ageing. Using these events as a lens, Nova considers how various kinds of losses - and the complicated love they represent - change us and can become the catalysts for letting go.

Dropping the mask / Hazlehurst, Noni

A fourth-generation performer, Noni Hazlehurst has storytelling in her blood. She has graced our screens, stages and airwaves for fifty years - and won our hearts and respect in the process. She's had a remarkably diverse career. Noni is more than an actor, though. She is also a director, writer, teacher and public speaker, and her time on Play School has led to decades of committed advocacy for children. This is no ordinary memoir. Noni Hazlehurst is funny, fierce, thoughtful and clear-eyed about the world. Her story is full, rich, lively, opinionated - and a testament to her grit, willpower and talent. She has always been committed to telling Australian stories - and this memoir is an impressive addition to her remarkable opus.

Rift : a memoir of breaking away from Christian patriarchy / West, Cait

A gripping memoir about coming of age in the stay-at-home daughter movement and the quest to piece together a future on your own terms. Raised in the Christian patriarchy movement, Cait West was homeschooled and could only wear clothes her father deemed modest. There would be no college in her future, no career. She was a stay-at-home daughter and would move out only when her father allowed her to become a wife. She was trained to serve men, and her life would never be her own. Until she escaped.

Myself and other animals / Durrell, Gerald

Myself and Other Animals is a book mosaicked from unpublished autobiographies, uncollected pieces and previously published extracts from Durrell's work and archives. The result is an extraordinary journey through Durrell's life in his own words, edited and introduced by his widow Lee Durrell. Drawing on a memoir that Durrell started writing before he became too ill to continue it, and an unfinished book from a trip to Australia in 1969 to the Great Barrier Reef, Northern Territory and Queensland, here is the unvarnished story of Durrell's life, from touching family tributes to golden bats and pink pigeons.

Beginnings : in Aotearoa and abroad / Jackson, Michael

Beginnings: In Aotearoa and Abroad is a fascinating account of Michael Jackson’s life as an anthropologist and writer. He talks about growing up in Aotearoa and returning over the years, his life with a growing family in Sierra Leone among the Kuranko people, and his musings on childhood, love, poetry, regeneration, changing friendships, yoga, and the beliefs, mythologies and rituals of different cultures. An insightful and nostalgic read that spans decades and continents, but always returns to a love of the land and people in Aotearoa—and Michael’s beginnings.

Out of the blue : everything this Wiggle journey has taught me / Field, Anthony

Out of the Blue is an utterly compelling memoir that begins with Anthony's childhood and delves into the creation of his first band, the Cockroaches, with two of his brothers while still a teenager. Anthony's university studies in early-childhood education led him to form the extraordinary children's music outfit the Wiggles with fellow students and a former bandmate. Over the years, the Wiggle have experienced incredible successes, unexpected failures and exciting reinventions. Anthony speaks honestly of his struggles with chronic pain and depression, which have at times almost forced him out of his beloved role as the Blue Wiggle.

Model minority gone rogue / Qin, Qin

We all grow up with rules. Do this, be this, don't be that. Qin Qin was all about the rules: do your homework, be good, don't rock the boat. She was the model daughter, model student and model minority. But doing everything right? It made her lost and miserable. So she decided to take a spectacular risk and change everything. At 23, Qin Qin was an unhappy overachiever working for a prestigious law firm. So she quit. She didn't know what else was out there, but she wanted to find out...