Enrol Now! - Digital Photography & the Internet
Our next Digital Photography & the Internet course starts on May 10. Contact Sutherland Library to reserve your place.Here is what some of the participants at our last Digital Photography course had to say:
"I found this course extremely interesting and would appreciate any follow up courses."
"Very helpful and informative."
"Trainers explalined complicated terms & ideas in a way that was easy for someone with little or no experiance to understand."
I will have more fun fun with my photos now!"
This course is aimed at introducing newcomers to digital cameras to the benefits that digital photography provides. The course includes:
- An overview of digital cameras and digital photography
- Tips for taking better pictures - composition, focus and exposure
- Moving photos from camera to computer
- Basic editing - crop, resize, etc.
- Emailing digital photos
- Internet resources
For more information or to make a booking please telephone Sutherland Library on 9710 0351.
Wireless Hotspot Arrives @ Sutherland Library
Regular readers of this blog will remember that we promised to introduce a wireless hotspot at Sutherland Library this year. Well, the time has come!The hotspot trial is now up and running. Bring your wi-fi enabled laptop into Sutherland Library and you will be able to access the Internet while you're here.
There is no charge for the service. You will, however, need to ask at one of our enquiry desks for an access code. A word of warning! Other than providing the login details, staff can not offer any technical support regarding the set up of your computer or the establishment of a connection to the network.
The hotspot is located on the ground floor toward the back of the Library. You may also be able to get a signal from the Reference Library upstairs.
If you use this service please let us know what you think. Leave a comment below or send us a message via our website.
Get Reading for the next Book Group Meeting
An Evening Book Group meets on the 4th Thursday of each month at 7.00 pm in the meeting room at Sutherland Library. It's a group for book lovers to meet and have a friendly discussion about books by both new authors and much loved classics.The next meeting in on May 24 and the book to be discussed is The Tortilla Curtain by T. Coraghessan Boyle. Following that we will be discussing Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird at our June 28 meeting.
For any inquiries please contact Sutherland Library on 9710 0346 or email kjohnson@ssc.nsw.gov.au.
Miles Franklin Literary Award 2007 Shortlist Announced
The shortlist for the Miles Franklin Award 2007 was announced on 19 April. The Prize is awarded for the novel of the year which is of “the highest literary merit and which must present Australian life in any of its phases”. The four books in the shortlist are:
Theft: A Love Story by Peter Carey Michael—a.k.a. “Butcher”—Boone is an ex–“really famous” painter: opinionated, furious, brilliant, and now reduced to living in the remote country house of his biggest collector and acting as caretaker for his younger brother, Hugh, a damaged man of imposing physicality and childlike emotional volatility. Alone together they’ve forged a delicate and shifting equilibrium, a balance instantly destroyed when a mysterious young woman named Marlene walks out of a rainstorm and into their lives on three-inch Manolo Blahnik heels. Beautiful, smart, and ambitious, she’s also the daughter-in-law of the late great painter Jacques Liebovitz, one of Butcher’s earliest influences. She’s sweet to Hugh and falls in love with Butcher, and they reciprocate in kind. And she sets in motion a chain of events that could be the making—or the ruin—of them all.
“A book that is at once cruelly levelling, darkly witty and unsettlingly personal . . . Hilarious and disquieting, a madcap ride.” —THE AGE. More Reviews...
Dreams of Speaking by Gail JonesAlice is entranced by the aesthetics of technology and, in every aeroplane flight, every Xerox machine, every neon sign, sees the poetry of modernity. Mr Sakamoto, a survivor of the atomic bomb, is an expert on Alexander Graham Bell. Like Alice, he is culturally and geographically displaced. The pair forge an unlikely friendship as Mr Sakamoto regales Alice with stories of twentieth-century invention. His own knowledge begins to inform her writing, and these two solitary beings become a mutual support for each other a long way from home.
"If a good novelist makes us look at everyday subjects in new ways, then Jones is an excellent one, and Dreams takes flight, skipping from descriptions of sound waves to Cellophane with bravura flair." - TIME magazine. More Reviews...
Careless by Deborah RobertsonEight-year-old Pearl tries very hard to get things right. She watches over her small brother and manages her mother's happiness, while carefully guarding her private passions. But the events of a summer's day are about to change Pearl's life, and nothing may ever be right again. In a cooler, greener suburb, Sonia is learning to live alone after the death of her husband, and at the edge of the city, close to the beaches, the young artist Adam Logan is hoping that his recent celebrity will open the doors to a new life. In ways connected but unforeseen, Pearl's tragedy will soon affect the worlds of these two strangers. Combining the intimacy of a family's heartache, with the suspense of a thriller, Careless is a gripping, seductive novel about the ties of caring and responsibility, that are formed, and broken, in our society. It is a novel about our times.
"What a heart swell of a book, so much wisdom and compassion and loveliness and sadness in it, along with writing that makes you suck in your breath at its beauty and precision. As a writer, you just go 'wow'. It's a winner - a beautiful, passionate book that swells your heart." - NIKKI GEMMELL, author of The Bride Stripped Bare.
Carpentaria by Alexis WrightWhen Elias Smith, a shipwrecked mariner, walks out of the sea and into the Port of Desperance, a small coastal town in the Gulf of Carpenteria, the whole town turns out to watch his arrival. Carpenteria tells the story of what becomes of his life and his eventual return to the sea against the backdrop of two warring Aboriginal groups who have been feuding over a land dispute for more than 400 years. A great, funny, sprawling and ambitious novel of black and white culture, Carpenteria is narrated by the oracles - the old, traditionally minded people who keep all stories and beliefs from the past to the present.
Visit the Miles Franklin award web site to read more about these novels and what the judges had to say about them. Then celebrate Australian culture by reading them! Click on the links above to reserve a title.
Free Blood Pressure Test @ Sutherland Library
In conjunction with Heart Week 2007 - April 29 to May 5 - Sutherland Library is offering free blood pressure testing on Thursday 3 May, between 10am and 4pm.If you can make it between 12 noon and 1pm there will also be a clinical nurse available to answer any questions you may have.
Each year, coronary heart disease - mainly heart attack - is the underlying cause of the death for almost 25,000 Australian men and women. During Heart Week 2007, the Heart Foundation is urging all Australians to become aware of the warning signs of a life threatening heart attack and of the importance of calling 000 immediately to save lives and prevent serious damage to the heart.
The warning signs of heart attack vary but the symptoms usually last for at least 10 minutes and you may experience more than one of the symptoms such as pain in the chest, spreading pain, discomfort in the upper body. There may also be difficulty breathing, nausea or vomiting, a cold sweat or a feeling of being dizzy or light-headed.
In all situations, when the warning signs of heart attack are experienced, the Heart Foundation
advises calling 000 for an ambulance. The operator will give advice on what to do before the
ambulance arrives. If calling 000 does not work on your mobile phone, try 112.
Do You Like Reading Biographies?
If so, you may be interested to know that the 2007 National Biography Award winner was announced on Tuesday 27 March,and the winner is...
East of Time by Jacob B Rosenberg. East of time is a personal memoir, collection of short stories/reminiscences of the author's adolescence spent in a Jewish ghetto in Lodz until 1944, when he was sent to Auschwitz. He was the only member of his family to survive. By all accounts, this book is a powerful story of humanity. It has previously also won the 2006 NSW Premier's Literary Award for Non-Fiction.
Other books in the shortlist included:
- Mr Stuart's Track by John Bailey
- No Time for Dances by Gillian Bouras
- The Beginner's Guide to Winning the Nobel Prize: A Life in Science by Peter Doherty
- Arthur Tange by Peter Edwards
- Margaret Olley: Far from a Still Life by Meg Stewart
- Bernard Shaw: A Life by A.M. Gibbs
- Will Dyson, Australia's Radical Genius by Ross McMullin
- Hoi Polloi by Craig Sherborne
What is your favourite biography? Leave a comment and share a good book with other readers.
Fiction Follies: April 2007
Fiction Follies is a monthly newsletter containing a selection of NEW fiction added to the collection of the Sutherland Shire Libraries. Click on the book title to reserve your copy.New Mysteries
Innocent in death by J.D. RobbEve Dallas has a mysterious homicide to solve when a popular teacher at an exclusive school turns up dead in his classroom, apparently poisoned. Dallas is baffled as to who could possibly hold a grudge against this young teacher. Eve grows more and more frustrated with the case when it becomes obvious that no one is as innocent.
The Intruders by Michael Marshall
Jack Whalen was an LAPD patrol cop for twelve years. He left in difficult circumstances and now he's not really sure what he is. He's not too sure about his wife, either, when she goes missing on a routine business trip to Seattle, Jack heads up there to find her.
Plum lovin' by Janet Evanovich
Love is in the air in Trenton, New Jersey and a new year for Stephanie and Lulu and Connie Rosolli has a secret admirer. Or does she? Connie is receiving both love and hate letters. Could they be from the same person, or does she have two stalkers? Stephanie is determined to find out.
Secret sins by Kate Charles
An ecclesiastical mystery starring newly ordained Anglican cleric Callie Anson, who when not distracted by romance, tends the needs of her parishioners, missing persons and maybe a murder.
New Fiction
A man walks into a room by Nicole KraussThe story of a man suddenly liberated from his life he has made, disconnected from the people who have defined him. Withdrawing from a wife he has no memory of loving, Salmon plunges weightless into the future. But when he agrees to participate in a revolutionary experiment, what he gains is nothing short of the revelation of what it is not to be a human being.
Salmon fishing in the Yemen by Paul Torday
With a wickedly wonderful cast of characters—including a visionary Sheikh, a weaselly spin doctor, Fred's devilish wife and a few thousand transplanted salmon—Salmon Fishing in the Yemen is a novel about hypocrisy and bureaucracy, dreams and deniability and the transforming power of faith and love.
New Romance
The edge of winter by Luanne RiceNeve Halloran will find herself drawn to a man who has devoted his life to the sanctuary, but who is unable to share the pain of a recent loss, or reconnect with the father who still bears the scars of World War II. As winter gives way to spring, and spring to summer, a secret will emerge that has lain buried in the depths.
New Thrillers
The abduction: imagine the most terrifying thing that could happen by Mark GimenezWhen hotshot lawyer Elizabeth Brice turns up to collect her tomboy daughter Grace from football practice in a small American town, the coach tells her that she needn’t have bothered, as Grace’s uncle has already picked her up. The only problem is – Grace has no uncles.
Rage therapy by Daniel Kalla
Dr. Stanley Kolberg was not just murdered; his lifeless body was battered and broken almost beyond recognition. Who killed him and why? The answers lie hidden in a lurid underworld of depraved sex and violence - and in the tortured past of one disturbed young woman.
The seventh sacrament by David Hewson
Back in Rome after their dramatic adventures in Venice, Nic Costa, Gianni Peroni, and Leo Falcone are rebuilding their lives. But they team up once again when faced with the sudden appearance of fresh bloodstains on a missing young boy's T-shirt. Found in a small museum exhibit.
When darkness falls by James Grippando
Miami attorney Jack Swyteck gets more than he bargained for when he takes on a homeless man as a client, in another thriller from James Grippando.
Spell of swallows by Sarah Harrison
Would you risk a stable marriage for a dangerous affair? Vivien loves her husband and is adored by him in return. So why does she find herself so strongly drawn to John, the enigmatic stranger who appears in Eadenford, as if from nowhere, the summer after the Great War ends?
New Fantasy
Spirit gate by Kate ElliotFirst in a new series introducing a once prosperous but now lawless land called the Hundred. Its godlike Guardians, who dispersed justice, have disappeared and a mysterious, ruthless new force preys on the towns and inhabitants. The beginning of an epic fantasy full of fabled cities, mysterious gods and terrible dangers.
New Historical Fiction
The scarlet lion by Elizabeth ChadwickCaptivating historical novel, based on the true story of one of England’s greatest leaders, illuminates the complex lives William Marshal, his wife Isabelle and the turbulent era of the early thirteenth century with all the texture, colour and dramatic detail of the richest stained-glass window.
* Note, many descriptions of books are taken from the publishers synopsis and websites.
Have you recently seen an interesting book that we don’t have? Visit our web site to Suggest an Item for the Library's collection.
Easter Holiday Opening Hours
All Branches Except Sutherland Library
Thursday April 5: openGood Friday April 6: closed
Easter Saturday April 7: closed
Easter Sunday April 8: closed
Easter Monday April 9: closed
Tuesday April 10: open
Sutherland Library
Thursday April 5: 9am - 9pmGood Friday April 6: closed
Easter Saturday April 7: 9am - 4pm
Easter Sunday April 8: closed
Easter Monday April 9: closed
Tuesday April 10: 9am - 9pm
24 hour book return chutes will be available at Sutherland, Cronulla, Caringbah and Miranda Libraries. As a result of vandalism in the past the book return chutes at Engadine and Menai Libraries will not be available.
Have a happy and safe Easter.
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