The Lives of Others

Sylvia Plath: Drawings is a portfolio of pen-and-ink illustrations created during the transformative period spent at Cambridge University, when Plath met and secretly married poet Ted Hughes, and traveled with him to Paris and Spain on their honeymoon, years before she wrote her seminal work, The Bell Jar.
Throughout her life, Sylvia Plath cited art as her deepest source of inspiration. This collection sheds light on these key years in her life, capturing her exquisite observations of the world around her.

If you want to talk about the lives of others, then surely Anne Frank's diary cannot be left out.

Cut off from the outside world, they faced hunger, boredom, the constant cruelties of living in confined quarters, and the ever- present threat of discovery and death. In her diary Anne Frank recorded vivid impressions of her experiences during this period. By turns thoughtful, moving, and amusing, her account offers a fascinating commentary on human courage and frailty and a compelling self-portrait of a sensitive and spirited young woman whose promise was tragically cut short.

At twenty-something, Alice is eager for the milestones of adulthood: leaving home, choosing a career, finding friendship and love on her own terms. But with each step she takes she feels the sharp tug of invisible threads: the love and worry of her parents, who want more than anything to keep her from harm. Her father fears for her safety to an extraordinary degree – but why?

The winner of the 2011 Western Australian Book Awards digs further into her father's story, and Alice embarks on a journey of painful discovery: of memories lost and found, of her own fears for the future, of history and how it echoes down the years.

Xing Li is what some Chinese people call a banana – yellow on the outside and white on the inside. Although born and raised in London, she never feels like she fits in. When her mother dies, she moves with her older brother to live with venomous Grandma, strange Uncle Ho and Hollywood actress Auntie Mei. Her only friend is Jay – a mixed raced Jamaican boy with a passion for classical music.

Xing Li's life is consumed with secrets, lies and confusing family relations, and PP Wong's novel, while fictional, is a great insight into the life of an immigrant child whose roots are not home.

The rock star of the 70s breaks her icy facade to bring us this autobiography. Patti Smith’s first book of prose, the legendary American artist offers a never-before-seen glimpse of her remarkable relationship with photographer Robert Mapplethorpe in the epochal days in the late sixties and seventies.

Profane, honest, and totally real advice from writer and director Kevin Smith! Take one look at Kevin Smith: He's a balding fatty who wears a size XXL hockey jersey, shorts, and slippers year-round. Not a likely source for life advice. But take a second look at Kevin Smith: He changed filmmaking forever when he was twenty-four with the release of Clerks, and since then has gone on to make nine more profitable movies, runs his own production company, wrote bestselling books and graphic novels, and has a beautiful wife and kid. So he must be doing something right.

In The Devil’s Guide to Hollywood, screenwriter Joe Eszterhas reveals everything he knows about the movies – the players, the personalities, the legends – and screenwriting itself, revealing all that has inspired, amused and enraged him in Hollywood since his career began. Hilarious, colourful but also practical, this is required reading for anyone who’s ever thought of writing for the screen, and for anyone who wants the inside story on the organised insanity of the movie business.

John Lennon''s post Beatles life was every bit as amazing as his time as part of the legendary Fab Four. A In the upcoming Bluewater A comic book "Fame: John Lennon", writer Marc Shapiro looks at those up and down moments that defined this true artist and renaissance man''s final years...right up to the moment when the music truly died.

When an accident on an uninhabited mountain in Norway leaves Dr. Sacks with a severe leg injury, he becomes the patient. During what should have been a routine recovery period, he experiences an overwhelming sensation that his injured leg is now absent from his body, and indeed from his physical awareness. In A Leg To Stand On, one of Dr. Sacks’ most personal works, this disturbing experience is the starting point of a fascinating journey through the mysteries of perception, the physical substance of our identities, and the experience of being a patient.

Kang Chol-Hwan is the first survivor of a North Korean concentration camp to escape the 'hermit kingdom' and tell his story to the world. This memoir reveals the human suffering in his camp, with its forced labour, frequent public executions and near-starvation rations.

This is no easy read, but by god is it illuminating and insightful.

You watched the Academy-awarding winning movie - but you got to read this harrowing tale for yourself. Solomon Northup, a free black man from upstate New York, is abducted and sold into slavery. Facing cruelty at the hands of a malevolent slave owner, as well as unexpected kindnesses, Solomon struggles not only to stay alive, but to retain his dignity. In the twelfth year of his unforgettable odyssey, Solomon's chance meeting with a Canadian abolitionist will forever alter his life.

Visionary, entrepreneur, philanthropist, are some of the words that come to mind when we think of Bill Gates. Gates is undoubtedly one of the most influential technological titans of the 20th and 21st century.