Secondhand Biography Bargain Book Box SP2998

Secondhand Biography Bargain Book Box SP2998

Eighteen hardback biographies, nearly all with jackets: David Marr’s Patrick White, Holroyd’s Shaw, Dimbleby’s authorised Prince of Wales, Christine Wallace on Germaine Greer, Weary Dunlop’s war diaries, FitzSimons’ Kokoda, Bill Hayden, Glenn McGrath, Ricky Ponting, Greg Norman and Kingsford Smith. A strong Australian shelf with a few big British lives for ballast.

1. Bernard Shaw, Volume 1: The Search for Love — Michael Holroyd — Shaw from Dublin poverty to the first plays, with the mother who left and the women he pursued. The first volume of the definitive life, and Holroyd’s best writing.
2. Greer: Untamed Shrew — Christine Wallace — The unauthorised biography Greer tried to stop, from the Melbourne convent school to The Female Eunuch. Wallace got the story anyway.
3. Hayden: An Autobiography — Bill Hayden — Policeman, Labor leader deposed on the day of the 1983 election, foreign minister, Governor-General. He’s frank about Hawke and about the day it was taken from him.
4. Bride of an Anzac: My Life Story — Queenie Sunderland — A war bride’s memoir, told plainly, from a woman who lived to see a century.
5. In the Line of Fire — Rex Sadler & Tom Hayllar — Australians at war in their own words, Gallipoli to Vietnam. Letters and diaries, not generals.
6. The Prince of Wales: A Biography — Jonathan Dimbleby — The authorised 1994 biography in which Charles admitted the affair and said he’d been pushed into the marriage. The book that made the news.
7. Glenn McGrath: Line and Strength — Glenn McGrath with Daniel Lane — Narromine to 563 Test wickets, and Jane’s illness. More honest than most cricket books.
8. Patrick White: A Life — David Marr — The Nobel laureate’s whole life, written with White’s cooperation and published after his death: the wartime affairs, Manoly, the feuds, the novels. Widely called the best Australian biography ever written.
9. Chadwick: A Man of Many Parts — Nick Richardson — Sir Albert Chadwick, chairman of the MCC and the man who ran Melbourne cricket for decades. Foreword by Michael Happell.
10. A Captain’s Diary: My First Year — Ricky Ponting & Brian Murgatroyd — The 2004 season, match by match, from the new Australian captain.
11. Geoffrey Dutton: Out in the Open — Geoffrey Dutton — The poet, publisher and founder of Australian Letters on his wealthy childhood, the war, Penguin Australia and the Adelaide scene. Candid about everyone.
12. The Generals of Saratoga: John Burgoyne and Horatio Gates — Max M. Mintz — The two commanders at the battle that turned the American Revolution, in a dual biography.
13. Greg Norman: The Way of the Shark — Greg Norman with Donald T. Phillips — Lessons on golf, business and life, and the 1996 Masters collapse from the inside.
14. Smithy: The Life of Sir Charles Kingsford Smith — Ian Mackersey — The Pacific crossing, the fame, the drinking and the disappearance over the Andaman Sea in 1935. The standard biography.
15. Kokoda — Peter FitzSimons — The track, the Japanese advance, and the militia boys who held them. The number-one bestseller that put Kokoda back in the national story.
16. The Biographer’s Tale — A.S. Byatt — A novel, not a biography: a postgraduate abandons theory to write the life of a biographer and finds the facts won’t cooperate. Byatt playing with the form.
17. Screw Business as Usual — Richard Branson — Branson’s argument that doing good is good business, with Virgin examples. Hardback.
18. The War Diaries of Weary Dunlop — E.E. Dunlop — Java and the Burma–Thailand Railway, 1942–45, kept in secret at risk of death. One of the great Australian documents of the war. Penguin hardback.