Sutherland Shire Libraries News

Leisure and Business: New Trails Added to Picture Sutherland Shire

Two new Trails have been added to Picture Sutherland Shire, our online collection of historical images of the Sutherland Shire.

Business in the Sutherland Shire revisits some of the shops and streetscapes of the early days of the Sutherland Shire. Who knows, perhaps you might recognise one of the staff of Vallance's Stores?

Leisure in the Sutherland Shire brings together a collection of images showing what people did and where they went to spend their leisure time in the first 50 years or so of the Sutherland Shire.

Do you have old photos of the Shire?
The Library actively collects photographs of the Sutherland Shire which are of historical interest. Enquiries regarding the donation of local history material should be directed to the Local Studies Librarian at Sutherland Library.

Macular Degeneration Awareness Week

Macular Degeneration Awareness Week runs from 25 June - 1 July 2007 and aims to promote awareness of this disease. Age related macular degeneration (AMD) is the leading cause of severe vision impairment in older Australians. It occurs when central vision deteriorates, making reading, close work and recognising faces more difficult.

Eligible people can contact the Home Library Service on 9710 0459 for information regarding services that are available for people with macular degeneration and related problems.

More information about macular degeneration is available from the Macular Degeneration Foundation.

Poetry Reading @ Sutherland Library

Listen to and meet Jo de Groot at Sutherland Library on Saturday 30 June at 2pm.

Jo offers a collection of beautiful and moving letters, articles and poems of a fellow Australian of deep faith, or radical and practical spirituality centred upon justice for the humiliated and marginalised.

Born in the Netherlands in 1941, Jo de Groot grew up in Queensland where, at 20 years of age, she entered the Institute of the Sisters of the Good Samaritan. Her first 15 years as a sister were spent teaching, after which she became a social worker. She spent many years working with St Francis Community ministering to the poor and homeless in the inner city of Sydney.

In 1986 Jo re-entered lay life and finished her doctoral studies in 1993, pursuing her interest in mental health. She is now happily married and lives in the south of Sydney. Retired from the workforce, Jo continues to speak and write on a variety of topics ranging from science to spirituality.

Young Voices: Refugee Week 17-23 June

Come to Sutherland Library and see fabulous photos and visions of the future by refugee students in Young Voices, a display celebrating Refugee Week, 17-23 June 2007.

These students attended a Homework Club supported by St Phillips Anglican Church at Caringbah and Gymea Community Aid and Information Service. The students have come from Sudan. They are relatively recent arrivals in Sutherland Shire who are enjoying the peace, acceptance and freedom found in their adopted home.

These students are also featured in an exhibition at Kogarah Library - Voices of Our Young People from Refugee Backgrounds - which will be launched on Tues 19th June at 4.30pm.

Rhymetime Comes to Cronulla and Menai

Our ever expanding Rhymetime program, a drop-in storytime for babies from 6-18 months, is about to start at Cronulla Library and Menai Library.

On Wednesdays beginning 18 July you can visit Cronulla Library at 11am or Menai Library at 2pm for some storytime fun for you and your baby. Rhymetime involves songs, simple books, rhymes and finger play all aimed at developing early childhood literacy.


Of course our existing Rhymetime sessions at Sutherland, Miranda, Caringbah and Engadine Libraries will continue. Click here for full details of days and times...

Bring your singing voice and have some fun!

Have a Creepy Crawley Time @ the Library these School Holidays

Visit one of our libraries in the July School Holidays for some beastly fun! Bugs and Beasties is the theme this time around - you can get up close and personal with Feature Creatures, bug Trevor for a drawing lesson or come along for some creepy crawley games, stories and craft.

The Events Calendar has all the where and when information and the School Holidays page will give you the lowdown on the dos and don'ts.

Bookings are being taken now so get in before you miss out. We hope to see you there!

Fiction Follies: June 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

Knots and Crosses by Ian Rankin
A Collector's Edition of the first Rebus novel, before Rebus became a national institution. At first it seems that Rebus is just one of many policemen hunting the killer of two young girls.Then messages begin to arrive: knotted stringes taunt Rebus with a puzzle only he can solve and matchstick cross.

Murder on the Ile Saint-louis by Cara Black
A distraught, late-night anonymous phone call distracts Aime from her deadline and sends her to the courtyard of her Ile Saint-Louis building, where she finds an infant girl. After the caller never shows up for her baby (whom Aime decides to care for), Aime wonders if the woman may have become an "Yvette", a Jane Doe dragged from the Seine.

The Princess of Burundi by Kjell Eriksson
Eriksson's debut opens a week before Christmas when a Swedish town is rocked by the brutal murder of John Jonsson, a local family man. Detectives, led by a very pregnant inspector Ann Lindell, at first suspects a chillingly well-drawn psychotic, and they may be right.

Fatal burn: she's the moth to the flame by Lias Jackson
The police don't believe Shannon flannery when she says someone is out there, watching her, trying to kill her. The only person on her side is Travis Settle. The former Special Forces agent is convinced Shannon's dark past has something to do with the disa ppearance of his daughter, Dani, a child. This is just the beginning of the nightmare.

New Fiction

Goodbye Mexico by Phillip Jennings
Remember when the alphabet agencies CIA, DIA, NSA and the FBI were actually competent? Are you sure? Maybe they were just better at burying their mistakes. Allies and enemies alike have getting tired of grubby fingerprints all over. Gearheardt's answer? We ar gloves. If you thought the Vietnam was crazy, you ain't seen nothin' yet!

February Flowers by Fan Wu
Seventeen-year-old Ming and twenty-four-year-old Yan have very little in common: Ming, innocent and preoccupied; Yan is, by contrast, sexy but cynical, beautiful but wild. She uses her looks to get what she wants from the many men in her life. When the two girls meet and become best friends, Ming's world is changed forever.

A thousand splendid suns by Khaled Hosseini
Tells the story of an unusual and lifelong friendship between two Afghan women, spanning from the idyllic mid 1950s to post-September 11 Kabul. Bound by tragedy and fate, by political circumstance and custom, the two women live through the Soviet war, the harrowing days of the Afghan civil war and the rule of the Taliban.

The witch of Portobello by Paulo Coelho
This is the story of Athena, or Sherine, to give her the name she was baptised with. Her life is pieced together through a series of recorded interviews with those people who knew her well or hardly at all, parents, colleagues, teachers, friends, acquaintances, and her ex-husband.

New Thrillers

The alibi man by Tami Hoag
Amid the glitz and glamour of the ultra-rich, in their playground of expensive toys and world-class polo, Elena is walking a tightrope over fire. But the deeper into the case she goes, the more determined she becomes to reveal the truth. A truth that will shock Palm Beach to its very core.
The night ferry by Michael Robotham
Alisha Barba's dreams of being a detective were shattered when a murder suspect broke her back across a brick wall. Now on her feet again, with her police career in limbo, she receives a message from an old friend, Cate Beaumont, who is eight months pregnant and in trouble.

Zoo Station by David Downing
Englishman John Russell is a member of the foreign press corps in Berlin and a first-hand witness to the brutal machinations of Hitler and the Nazi party in the build-up to war during the early months of 1939. Unlike many of his colleagues, Russell wishes to remain in Berlin for as long as possible to be close to his eleven-year-old son, who lives with his estranged German wife.
Anatomy of fear: A Novel of Visual Suspense by Jonathan Santlofer
Nate Rodriguez is a police sketch artist for the NYPD and his success rate is high, with one out of three of his drawings leading to an arrest. But when he is faced with an unusually talented killer, he realizes that he may have met his match.

New Romance

A Dangerous Man by Candice Camp
Eleanor has always been looked on askance as "the bossy American" by London society, the very antithesis of British virtue and propriety. Now, at the death of her husband, she has been appointed trustee to his estate, and the proverbial fur is flying. From its delicious beginnings to it’s satisfying ending, offers a double helping of romance.

The marriage game by Fern Michaels
In a dazzling celebration of the power of friendship and love, acclaimed bestselling author Fern Michaels brings her trademark wit and warmth to an action-packed story featuring a group of diverse women who bond Survivor-style under the most unlikely of circumstances... and find romance along the way.

A Time To Remember by Margaret Pemberton
A teenager when her father dies, Elizabeth turns to his Adam Harland for guidance, and despite the twenty-year age gap, they marry. As the threat of war hangs over Europe, Adam takes his wife away from a burgeoning career as a concert pianist to Hong Kong, where if the Japanese invade, Adam Hopes to defend his country.

New Historical Fiction

The Blood of Flowers by Anita Amirrezvani
The haunting story of a young girl's journey from innocence to adulthood, and begins in the 1620s in a remote Iranian village. On the sudden death of her father our heroine and her mother fall upon hard times and are forced to travel to the exotic city of Isfahan where relatives take them in. Happiness may come in time.

* 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.