The story of an Australian girl who defied convention and became the most famous singer of her era. Growing up in Melbourne, Nellie Mitchell dreamed of fame, but her devout father disapproved. When a chance arose to go to Paris, she trusted in her musical talent and hoped for a lucky break. Within a few years, reborn as Nellie Melba, she was performing to overflowing concert halls, hobnobbing with European royalty and collaborating with some of the most renowned composers of the age. Audiences swooned over the 'heavenly pleasures' of her voice, while the public showed an insatiable appetite for news of her sometimes passionate private life. Dame Nellie Melba was Australia's first international superstar. In this important biography, enhanced by new research, Ann Blainey captures the exuberance, controversy and pathos of Melba's remarkable career. Winner of the 2009 National Biography Award. Shortlisted, 2008 Age Book of the Year Awards. ‘Blainey ... writes with clarity and panache. This is an entertaining biography. Everyone should read it and be reminded of what a remarkable singer we once had in our midst.’ —Sydney Morning Herald ‘There have been five biographies of Melba, together with her own rather fanciful memoirs; but the present one by Ann Blainey is superior to them all.’ —The Age ‘Thoroughly researched, excellently written and beguilingly human biography of Nellie Melba’ —Australian Book Review ‘Blainey brings a freshness to the story, giving us the feeling that we are reading about a life in progress.’ —Good Reading ‘Welcome and timely, shedding new light on the diva’ —Courier Mail ‘This is a gripping story of triumph and sorrow.’ —Sun-Herald ‘Meticulously researched biography’ —The Australian Ann Blainey is the author of I Am Melba. She has written five biographies, and her most recent biography of Dame Nellie Melba reflects her fascination with singing and opera. She has served on the council of two Australian opera companies and of the Percy Grainger Museum in Melbourne, where she lives.

Using the diary she kept as a teenager and through news accounts, Melba Pattillo Beals relives the harrowing year when she was selected as one of the first nine students to integrate Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas, in 1957.

A revealing portrait of a brilliant and troubled figure – a daredevil of the sky Charles Kingsford Smith was the most commanding flyer of the golden age of aviation. In three short years, he broke records with his astounding and daring voyages: the first trans-Pacific flight from America to Australia, the first circumnavigation around the equator, the first non-stop crossing of the Australian mainland. He did it all with such courage, modesty and charm that Australia and the world fell in love with him. He became a national hero, ‘Our Smithy’. Yet his achievements belied a traumatic past. He had witnessed the horror of World War I – first as a soldier at Gallipoli, later as a combat pilot with the Royal Flying Corps – and, like so many of his generation, he bore physical and emotional scars. The public saw the derring-do; only those close to him knew the anxious man who pushed himself to the edge of health and sanity. In November 1935, Kingsford Smith’s plane crashed and he was lost at sea near Burma, his body never to be recovered. This brilliant work from one of Australia’s foremost biographers reveals the complicated, tumultuous life of a fascinating figure, who pursued his obsession to the greatest heights of fame and catastrophe Ann Blainey is the author of the acclaimed I Am Melba, which won the 2009 National Biography Award and was the most popular book in the 2009 State Library of Victoria Summer Reads program. Her other books include biographies of Leigh Hunt and the Kemble sisters. ‘Brilliant ... Blainey’s fascinating book focuses on the inner as well as the outer man. While Smithy’s career highlights may be well known, his ambiguous relationship with fame, his drinking, and his doubts and fears were not. In this beautifully written, scrupulously researched and meticulously indexed work, Blainey has filled this gap to perfection.’ —Ross Fitzgerald, The Weekend Australian 'Crisply written ... Even people not particularly interested in the feats of aviators will find this book an engrossing read.' —Jim Davidson, The Sydney Morning Herald ‘Blainey is a pleasure to read and this biography is superbly researched’ —Michael McGirr, Australian Book Review

In 1957, Melba Beals was one of the nine African American students chosen to integrate Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas. But her story of overcoming didn't start--or end--there. While her white schoolmates were planning their senior prom, Melba was facing the business end of a double-barreled shotgun, being threatened with lynching by rope-carrying tormentors, and learning how to outrun white supremacists who were ready to kill her rather than sit beside her in a classroom. Only her faith in God sustained her during her darkest days and helped her become a civil rights warrior, an NBC television news reporter, a magazine writer, a professor, a wife, and a mother. In I Will Not Fear, Beals takes readers on an unforgettable journey through terror, oppression, and persecution, highlighting the kind of faith needed to survive in a world full of heartbreak and anger. She shows how the deep faith we develop during our most difficult moments is the kind of faith that can change our families, our communities, and even the world. Encouraging and inspiring, Beals's story offers readers hope that faith is the solution to the pervasive hopelessness of our current culture.

'In this highly readable biography of Nellie Melba...Robert Wainwright tells the story of the girl with the incredible voice who, by sheer force of her personality and power of her decibels, took the operatic world by storm and managed to escape from her violent husband' Ysenda Maxtone Graham, DAILY MAIL Nellie Melba is remembered as a squarish, late middle-aged woman dressed in furs and large hats, an imperious Dame whose voice ruled the world for three decades and inspired a peach and raspberry dessert. But to succeed, she had to battle social expectations and misogyny that would have preferred she stay a housewife in outback Queensland rather than parade herself on stage. She endured the violence of a bad marriage, was denied by scandal a true love with the would-be King of France, and suffered for more than a decade the loss of her only son - stolen by his angry, vengeful father. Despite these obstacles, she built and maintained a career as an opera singer and businesswoman on three continents which made her one of the first international superstars. Award-winning biographer Robert Wainwright presents a very different portrait of this great diva, one that celebrates both her musical contributions and her rich and colourful personal life.

Wilson invites you to experience the delicious foods of her heritage. She melds the down-home country cooking of her Southern roots with the urban cultural influences of New York City. Also included is a treasure trove of delightful stories and wisdom from the heart of her bustling kitchen.