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Discover the best in WHSmith books & products with reviews and features below.

Filtered by Memoirs

Run For Your Life

What started out as a great adventure turned into a terrifying nightmare when Nick Stride and his family were forced to flee for their lives from one of the richest, most powerful men in the world. Nick moved to Russia in 1998 to help build the British Embassy in Moscow, but ended up on the run with his wife and two children after leaking secrets from Vladimir Putin’s one-time deputy.

Hope

On a warm summer’s evening in February 2014, eleven-year-old Luke Batty was killed by his father at cricket practice. It was a horrific act of family violence that shocked Australia. The next morning, his mother Rosie bravely stood before the media. Her powerful and gut-wrenching words about family violence galvanised the nation and catapulted her into the spotlight. From that day on, Rosie Batty campaigned tirelessly to protect women and children, winning hearts and minds with her courage and compassion, singlehandedly changing the conversation around domestic violence in this country.

My Dream Time

I’m only in my mid-twenties, and some might think that’s young to write a memoir. Who does that, right? But for me and my team it’s always been important to reflect on every part of the journey, especially the end. In that context, the timing is perfect to share my story, from the first time I picked up a racquet as a 5-year-old girl in Ipswich to the night I packed up my tennis bag at Melbourne Park after winning the 2022 Australian Open. This book gives me a chance to look back at every moment of the 20 years in between, and to think carefully through the highs and lows, the work and the play, the smiles and the tears.

The Girl Who Fell From the Sky

When Emma Carey was twenty, she fell from 14,000 feet and survived. In The Girl Who Fell From the Sky Emma tells us the inspirational story of how, through one of her greatest tragedies, she found her truest self.

Stronger

A puddle of water on a highway changed Dinesh Palipana’s life forever. Halfway through medical school, Dinesh was involved in a catastrophic car accident that caused a cervical spinal cord injury. After his accident, his strength and determination saw him return to complete medical school – now with quadriplegia. Dinesh was the first quadriplegic medical intern in Queensland, and the second person with quadriplegia to graduate medical school in Australia.

The Jane Austen Remedy

By Ruth Wilson An uplifting and delightfully bookish memoir about an 89-year-old woman who reclaims her life by re-reading each of Jane Austen’s novels. As she approached the age of seventy, Ruth Wilson began to have recurring dreams about losing her voice. Unable to dismiss her feelings of unexplainable sadness, she made the radical decision…