Looking for a good book? Staff favourites...week two.
Each week throughout December and January, discover a list of staff favourites (and readalikes) you might like to read.
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| The girl on the train by Paula Hawkins |
Readalikes:
I let you go/ Clare McIntosh
Try not to breathe/ Holly Seddon
Watching Edie/ Camilla Way
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| Moving by Jenny Éclair |
Readalikes:
The secret life of Luke Livingstone/ Charity Norman
The things we never said / Susan Elliot Wright.
The Shell seekers/ Rosamunde Pilcher
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| The Shadow of the Wind / Carlos Ruiz Zafon |
A boy named Daniel selects a novel from a library of rare books, enjoying it so much that he searches for the rest of the author's works, only to discover that someone is destroying every book the author has ever written.
Readalikes:
Slade House/ David Mitchell
The Thirteenth Tale/ Diane Setterfield
Mr Penumbra's 24-hour Bookstore/ Robin Sloan
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| The Stone Diaries / Carol Shields |
Readalikes:
Barkskins/ Anne Proux
LaRose/ Louise Erdrich
Home/ Marilynne Robinson
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| Eucalyptus/ Murray Bail |
Readalikes:
Love in the time of cholera/ Gabriel GarcÃa Márquez
Captain Corelli's Mandolin [sound recording] / Louis de Bernières ; read by Michael Maloney./
Jazz/ Toni Morrison
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| The Beast's Garden/ Kate Forsyth |
It's August 1939 in Germany, and Ava's world is in turmoil. To save her father, she must marry a young Nazi officer, Leo von Löwenstein, who works for Hitler's spy chief in Berlin. However, she hates and fears the brutal Nazi regime, and finds herself compelled to stand against it. Ava joins an underground resistance movement that seeks to help victims survive the horrors of the German war machine. But she must live a double life, hiding her true feelings from her husband, even as she falls in love with him. Gradually she comes to realise that Leo is part of a dangerous conspiracy to assassinate Hitler. As Berlin is bombed into ruins, the Gestapo ruthlessly hunt down all resistance and Ava finds herself living hand-to-mouth in the rubble of the shell-shocked city. Both her life and Leo's hang in the balance.
Readalikes:
At the waters edge/ Sara Gruen
The Nightingale/ Kristin Hannah
All the light we cannot see/ Anthony Doerr
Want more?
Looking for something new to read these holidays? Let the Library help! During December and January, fill in the reading profile form on the library website, tell us about the books you like and don't like and we'll suggest a personalised list of 3 books we think you'll love.
December reads...
Also available as an ebook
Artist Elizabeth Gould spent her life capturing the sublime beauty of birds the world had never seen before. But her legacy was eclipsed by the fame of her husband, John Gould. The Birdman’s Wife at last gives voice to a passionate and adventurous spirit who was so much more than the woman behind the man.
Also available as an ebook
What really did happen to Agatha Christie during her mysterious eleven-day disappearance just as she was on the cusp of fame? An entrancing novel of creativity and grief...
1952. Tasmania. The green, rolling hills of the dairy town Mole Creek have a dark underside — a labyrinthine underworld of tunnels that stretch for countless miles, caverns the size of cathedrals and underground rivers that flood after heavy rain. The caves are dangerous places, forbidden to children. But this is Tasmania — an island at the end of the earth. Here, rules are made to be broken.
For two young brothers, a hidden cave a short walk from the family farm seems the perfect escape from their abusive, shell-shocked father — until the older brother goes missing. Fearful of his father, nine-year-old Kip lies about what happened. It is a decision that will haunt him for the rest of his life.
This dazzling modern recreation of a nineteenth century novel ingeniously entwines Jane Eyre's iconic love story with Sir John Franklin's great tale of exploration and empire. A brilliant and historically accurate depiction of Van Diemen's Land society in the 1800s, as well as a vivid portrayal of the human cost of colonisation, Wild Island shows us that fiction and history are not so different after all. Each story, whether it be truth or fiction, is shaped by its teller.
Do not say we have nothing Madeleine Thien
Thien takes us inside an extended family in China, showing us the lives of two successive generations--those who lived through Mao's Cultural Revolution in the mid-twentieth century; and the children of the survivors, who became the students protesting in Tiananmen Square in 1989, in one of the most important political moments of the past century.
Hot milk/ Deborah Levy
Also available as an audiobook
Driven to cure her mother's inexplicable illness, a young anthropologist seeks the advice of a famous but controversial consultant on the arid coast of southern Spain, where the transient desert environment shapes her own desires.
Faithful/ Alice Hoffman
Also available as an ebook
She was disappearing inch by inch, vanishing into thin air, and then one day a postcard arrived . . . There was no return address, no signature, only a scrawled message: Say something..
The Fence/ Meredith Jaffé
"I promise you one thing, young lady. Building a fence is not going to keep the world out and won't keep your children in. Life's not that simple."
Gwen Hill adores Green Valley Avenue. Here she has built friendships, raised her children and nurtured a thriving garden.
Francesca Desmarchelliers has high hopes for the house on Green Valley Avenue. To maintain her privacy and corral her wandering children, Frankie proposes a fence between the properties that would destroy Gwen's picture-perfect front yard.
To Gwen, this is an act of war.
The Memory Stones/ Caroline Brothers
An Argentinian woman embarks on a harrowing search in 1976 for her 19-year-old daughter who was "disappeared" by the junta while her husband, a doctor forced to flee to Europe, can only witness the destruction of his country and family from afar.
Treading Air/Ariella Van Luyn.
In 1940s Brisbane, Lizzie O'Dea lies in a lock hospital bed, thinking about how she got there. Thinking about Joe, who's been in gaol for twenty years. Twenty-five years earlier, Lizzie wants to get away from her dad, a petty crim, and the memory of her mum. When she meets Joe at the races, he seems the right man to help her escape. But after they move to Townsville, Lizzie soon falls through what she thought would be a safety net. She starts working at the local brothel because she and Joe desperately need money - but then her work becomes something else. A living. A new life. Skirting the edges of society, Lizzie lets go of rules and expectations, finding real love and true friendship. It's a precarious life, though, and one day it has to collapse - with tragic consequences. And so Lizzie finds herself, two decades later, sick and worn-out, not having seen Joe in years. But she's still alive, and maybe there's hope yet.
Criminally good reads... December
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| Blackwater/ Louise Doughty |
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| Out of Bounds/ Val Mc Dermid |
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| The Undertow/ Elizabeth Heathcote |
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| Blood Wedding/ Pierre Lemaitre |
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| Different Class/ Joanne Harris |
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| The Child Garden/ Catriona McPherson |
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| The last one/ Alexandra Oliva |
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| Kill the next one/ Frederico Axat |
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| The Fourth Victim/ Mari Jungsedt |
Local history, Local stories....The Foundering of the Inflexible
Just after midnight on the morning of Monday 26 August
1889, Charles Goard, master of the harbour steam tug, Inflexible,
steered his ship out from Lavender Bay on a course towards Coalcliff in search
of inward-bound sailing vessels requiring a tow.
All was well until 3:30am when the Inflexible, now
10 miles off the ‘Sisters Rocks’ to the south of Port Hacking, pitched in the
lumpy sea and fell heavily into a trough with a hard jolt. Alarmed by the
shock, Captain Goard, who had been lying below in his berth, jumped up on deck
to ascertain the cause of the abrupt bump, but as the steamer hadn’t collided
with anything obvious and appeared to have escaped unharmed, the captain soon
returned to his bunk and the Inflexible continued on her passage.
Suddenly, at 5:30am a tremendous rush of steam and loud
hissing from the engine room sent the fireman rushing to raise all hands. Water
was streaming in towards the furnaces and heated boiler and, fearing a blow up,
he tried to rake out the flames. This was no easy task and by the time the
fireman had finished hauling out the last of the blaze, he was waist deep in
water.
The Inflexible’s crew of six worked desperately at
the donkey and hand pumps, but with the water gaining at the rate of 1ft every
15 minutes in a shallow vessel of just 8ft, there wasn’t a second to lose.
After half an hour at the pumps Captain Goard saw no alternative but to order
all to abandon the foundering ship.
For the next 45 minutes the crew stood by in the lifeboat
and watched as the doomed Inflexible gradually sank, stern first, below
the angry chopping waves. There was no time to save any effects other than the
compass and glasses.
It was then that the crew noticed some large pieces of
timber , some 60 – 70ft long , floating in the water and it was supposed that
this may have been the wreckage the ship had fallen upon as it crashed in the
waves causing the fateful crack in the bottom of the steamer directly under the
foremast.
The Inflexible gone, the men now found themselves
alone on the rough seas 12 miles from shore. They pulled in a north-westerly
direction, trying to pick up with the collier, the Governor Blackall,
but the dark and squally night prevented them being seen. There was nothing for
it but to turn their dinghy and row towards shore. Finally, seven hours later
and drenched to the skin with rain and saltwater, the crew pulled in safely to
Port Hacking where they were met by Mr Springall, proprietor of the Oriental
Hotel, who ensured that Captain Goard and his crew were ‘most hospitably
entertained.’
This, however, was not quite the end of the story.
The following week, members of the Inflexible’s
crew, which had included William Langstone (engineer), Thomas Halstead (the
fireman – nephew to the owner), Duncan McDonald (fireman), Thomas Holmes
(mate), Ralph Thompson (deck hand), and Charles Goard (master), were called up
before the Marine Board for an inquiry into the foundering of the steam tug,
the cause of which the insurance company believed was ‘enshrouded in mystery’.
Not only had the amount covering the Inflexible been raised from £3000
to £6000 just three months prior to its sinking - with no special survey
conducted of the vessel - but the owner, Mr James Halstead, had visited the
Commercial Union Insurance Company several times in the preceding weeks in
connection with the steam tug. Just three days before it sank, Mr Halstead had
again visited the CUIC office to make enquiries into whether the company would
cover the Inflexible on a projected trip to Melbourne. There were even
allegations from a previous commander of the Inflexible, a William
Jewell, that Mr Halstead had once instructed him to “take her outside and sink
her.” The curiously named Dr Sly, who was appearing on behalf of the master and
owner of the vessel, objected strongly to this evidence.
After deliberation, the Marine Board found the Inflexible
had sunk after unaccountably springing a leak which caused her to founder, and
there was no evidence with which they could charge the captain, Charles Goard,
with default.
Looking for a good book? Staff favourites...week one.
Each week throughout December and January, discover a list of staff favourites (and readalikes) you might like to read.
A Classic romance
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| Pride and Prejudice/ Jane Austen |
Readalikes:
Evelina by Frances Burnie
Longbourn Jo Baker ( The story as told from the servant's perspective)
Eligible by Curtis Sittenfeld (A modern retelling)
A heart-pounding thriller that explores the dark secrets of Manhattan’s iconic fashion scene in Linda Fairstein's 18th book in her Alexandra Cooper series.
Readalikes:
Dead connection by Alafair Burke
Pray for silence by Linda Castillo
Woman with a gun by Philip Margolin
Historical Book to movie...
The first in a series of 12 historical books that have been made into a television series, currently on ABC on Sunday nights. It is a best selling series, loved for it's blend of drama, romance, memorable characters and evocative Cornish setting. A saga spanning the
Request the books and watch the series (seasons one and two).
Readalikes:
The land of my dreams : war at home, 1916 / Cynthia Harrod-Eagles.
The forgotten room / Karen White, Beatriz Williams, Lauren Willig.
Penmarric/ Susan Howatch
***Shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2014***
Rosemary's young, just at college, and she's decided not to tell anyone a thing about her family. So we're not going to tell you too much either: you'll have to find out for yourselves, round about page 77, what it is that makes her unhappy family unlike any other.
Readalikes:
The evolution of Bruno Littlemore/ Benjamin Hale
A beautiful truth/ Colin McAdam
Spill simmer falter wither/ Sara Baume
A portrait of India in 1970's...
A perennial bestseller, A Fine Balance is consistently acclaimed as a masterpiece from one of the most gifted writers of our time.In mid-1970s urban India - a chaos of wretchedness on the streets and slogans in the offices - a chain of circumstances tosses four varied individuals together in one small flat.The reader first learns the characters' separate, compelling histories of brief joys and abiding sorrows, then watches as barriers of class, suspicion, and politeness are gradually dissolved.
Readalikes:
Howards End/ E.M. Forster
Sea of poppies/Amitav Gosh
Behind the beautiful forevers/ Katherine Boo
A moody, suspenseful page-turner filled with mystery and spellbinding secrets.
The morning after the Edevane's exclusive Midsummer Eve party in Cornwall in 1933, their youngest child, Theo, is nowhere to be found. After months of futile searching, the family pack up and leave their beautiful country home, never to return. Until, in 2003, a young female police officer stumbles into the lost gardens surrounding the abandoned house and determines to find out what happened.
Readalikes:
Black Rabbit Hall/ Eve Chase
The evening spider/ Emily Arsenault
The thirteenth tale/ Diane Setterfield
Looking for something new to read these holidays? Let the Library help! During December and January, fill in the reading profile form on the library website, tell us about the books you like and don't like and we'll suggest a personalised list of 3 books we think you'll love.
A heart-pounding thriller
 |
| Killer look / Linda Fairstein |
Readalikes:
Dead connection by Alafair Burke
Pray for silence by Linda Castillo
Woman with a gun by Philip Margolin
Historical Book to movie...
 |
| Poldark / Winston Graham |
Request the books and watch the series (seasons one and two).
Readalikes:
The land of my dreams : war at home, 1916 / Cynthia Harrod-Eagles.
The forgotten room / Karen White, Beatriz Williams, Lauren Willig.
Penmarric/ Susan Howatch
Coming of age...
 |
| We are all completely beside ourselves / Karen Fowler |
Rosemary's young, just at college, and she's decided not to tell anyone a thing about her family. So we're not going to tell you too much either: you'll have to find out for yourselves, round about page 77, what it is that makes her unhappy family unlike any other.
Readalikes:
The evolution of Bruno Littlemore/ Benjamin Hale
A beautiful truth/ Colin McAdam
Spill simmer falter wither/ Sara Baume
A portrait of India in 1970's...
 |
| A fine balance / Rohinton Mistry |
Readalikes:
Howards End/ E.M. Forster
Sea of poppies/Amitav Gosh
Behind the beautiful forevers/ Katherine Boo
Atmospheric mystery
 |
| The Lake House |
A moody, suspenseful page-turner filled with mystery and spellbinding secrets.
The morning after the Edevane's exclusive Midsummer Eve party in Cornwall in 1933, their youngest child, Theo, is nowhere to be found. After months of futile searching, the family pack up and leave their beautiful country home, never to return. Until, in 2003, a young female police officer stumbles into the lost gardens surrounding the abandoned house and determines to find out what happened.
Readalikes:
Black Rabbit Hall/ Eve Chase
The evening spider/ Emily Arsenault
The thirteenth tale/ Diane Setterfield
Want more?
Be Safe Online these Holidays
Do you know who can see your child’s online profile?How can you manage cyber bullying?
What do trolls have to do with the internet?
School holidays are a great opportunity for the family to indulge themselves and spend more time than usual on online pursuits. Whether it's keeping in touch with friends, Christmas shopping online, uploading and organising photos or gaming, personal security is important.
Test your knowledge of how to best protect yourself and your family by using the brand new course Learning Internet Safety, available via Computer Training Online.
The course starts from the basics with online browsing and email issues eg. Phishing scams, dangerous attachments, suspicious links etc - and so is great for informing new online device users (older parents, younger children) of the need for caution.
Could the replies you are posting to that chatroom be seen as Trolling?
Learning Internet Safety provides a total of 20 short (5 - 10 minute) presentations on all things security online. Suitable for 8 - 88 year olds. If you are really keen to know that you now know it all, there are 6 assessments you can test yourself with. Why not try them first to find out what you need to brush up on!
Computer Training Online offers the following hands-on short format courses:
Learning Internet Safety - 20 lessons and 6 assessments
Mobile Devices - Intro to Android and iPad
Photography - Simple and Advanced Concepts
Windows 10 Training
Introductory Computer Training
Office 2010 Training
Windows Training - Vista, Windows 7 and Windows 8
Social Networking Training - Twitter, Facebook and Blogging
Office 2007 Training and Testing
Intro to E-Learning
Register for your own account and have your progress tracked so you always know where you are up to.
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