Collection Capers: June 2006

Collection Capers is a monthly newsletter of NEW interesting or unusual non fiction added to the Sutherland Shire Libraries collection.

Real mosquitoes don’t eat meat by Brad Wetzler
A whimsical collection of essays on the natural world draws on the knowledge of scientists, outdoors specialists, and professors and offers insight into numerous scientific curiosities, from the causes of a bat's crooked flight to the reasons why woodpeckers do not get headaches. Perhaps you’ve wondered why you
feel wavy several hours after getting off a boat.

1606 : an epic adventure by Evan McHugh
1606 marked the first European sighting of Australia, when the Dutch ship Duyfken landed on Cape York. This gripping book tells the stories of the seafaring explorers, shipwrecks and mutinies that followed. The pre Cook voyages are full of daring as sailors really did sail into the great unknown.

Angels of death : inside the bikers’ global crime empire by William Marsden and Julian Sher
A terrifying journey to the heart of the Hell's Angels motorcycle club, the most infamous biker group in the world. It’s not all Easy rider out there on the highway. Since the 1960s the Hells’ Angels have a reputation for being heavily involved in crime, including murder, kidnap and running a worldwide amphetamine empire. But to the Angels it’s just business, with a little bit of biking thrown in.

Animal nation: the true story of animals and Australia by Adrian Franklin
Bib No. 285212, Call No. 304.27FRA
Traces the complex relationship between animals and humans in Australia. Starts with the colonial period and brings us full circle to the present when native species are finally getting the protection they’ve so sadly lacked
over the last 200 years .

Voyageur : across the Rocky Mountains in a birchbark canoe by Robert Twigger
An intrepid journey of two thousand miles, painfully towing a canoe against the current this tale relives a journey first undertaken in 1793. It is a voyage into real wilderness, of bears, ice and bracing cold. Readers might also be interested in No man’s river by Farley Mowat, another extraordinary account of canoeing in the Alaskan wilderness. On a lighter note, Whit Deschner’s Travels with a kayak is very humourous.

Leonardo’s machines : da Vinci’s inventions revealed by Domenico Laurenza
Combining the original coded notebooks and modern computer imaging, this work includes over 30 of Leonardo da Vinci's inventions. It includes recreations of the finished inventions, and shows how they would have been used in contemporary life - from manned flying machines and mechanical bridges to devastating circular tanks. This book will not make any money for Dan Brown.

Et tu, Brute : the murder of Caesar and political assassination by Greg Woolf
Most of us probably think of Shakespeare when we think of the assassination of Gaius Julius Caesar. The life dictator of Rome, not quite a king and not yet a god, was murdered by Brutus and other on the Ides (15th) of March in 44 BC. But why should we care about the Ides of March? In part because Caesar's ghost long outlasted the Roman Empire and partly because it resonates through the centuries as a keystone for
political treachery.

Miracle in the Andes : 72 days on the mountain and my long trek home by Nando Parrado
Probably one of the most well-known (and infamous) tales of wreck and survival (apart from the lives of the late George Best and the immortal Keith Richards). This is the story of the 1972 Andes plane crash and rescue, made famous by Piers Paul Read in his book, Alive, finally told by one of the heroes who saved his team-mates. Controversial because of the cannibalism
Involved which was the only way to save lives.

Hooked : a true story of pirates, poaching and the perfect fish by G Bruce Knecht
A rip-roaring tale of modern day piracy on the high seas, and one of the longest and most dangerous pursuits in maritime history: the 21 day hunt for the Uruguayan fishing vessel suspected of poaching Patagonian Toothfish in Australian waters. A desperatechase across the cold Antarctic waters for 3900 nautical miles.

The definitive guide to the Da Vinci code Paris walks by Peter Caine
All the sights of the story are covered and explained in full: The Louvre, St Sulpice, The Ritz, The American University, Place Vendome, the Chateau de Villette and Chartres. A very timely guide as it will help you avoid all those people walking around with this book.

Child of the revolution : growing up in Casto’s Cuba by Luis M. Garcia
Cuba, a land of cigars, hot nights, sultry music and romantic revolutionary heroes. But what was it really like to live in Fidel Castro's tropical paradise? With an evocative wide-eyed innocence, Luis Garcia takes us back to his Cuban childhood and his parents' dream of escape.

1973 nervous breakdown : Watergate, Warhol, and the birth of post-sixties America by Andreas Killen
An engaging and eye-opening dissection of a watershed year in American history, 1973, which was defined by defeat in Vietnam, Roe v. Wade, the oil crisis, and the Watergate hearings, using the cultural media of the time. Perhaps the sixties was an excess of hype and the incandescence of the counter-culture, but then came the myopic seventies and the reaction against both the excess of the 60s and the sins of Richard Nixon. Should be a nice nostalgia trip for the soon to be retired baby boomers.