Sutherland Shire Libraries News

What do these have in common? Science brings them to life...well maybe not the zombies, as they have to be dead to be zombies, right?

National Science Week provides the impetus to explore this pressing question, as we gear up for the ANSTO Future Vision Quiz.

Ant colonised by zombie virus

Common knowledge tells us that zombies are created by a virus. (Cue every zombie apocalypse books or films )
Scientific knowledge tells us they are created by a humble fungus.
Cordyceps unilateralis spore infects the carpenter ant, takes over it's brain and keeps it alive just long enough for it to be steered to a place where the fungus likes to grow and then it immobilises the ant. It uses the ant's body for sustanence to grow and produce more spores which will drop onto more unsuspecting ants, who will in turn become zombie slaves!

Aurora Australis

Many people have heard of the Aurora Borealis, a stunning light display in the skies of the northern hemisphere. Did you know that it's sister the Aurora Australis can be seen in the southern states of Australia and of course, Antarctica? These brilliant displays are best able to be seen during the coldest nights, and have been visible on the horizon as far north as Coonabarabran. They are created by the Sun's solar flares sending out particles at huge velocity, which intersect with the Earth's magnetic field an few days later. If this all occurs at the correct angles and conditions, an aurora occurs. See more glorious photos and a full explanation of this awe inspiring natural phenomena.

No chance for dinosaur eggs though!

2015 saw 25 years worth of  Ig Noble prizes being awarded in many disciplines.
Begun by a science magazine editor who decided to celebrate the funny and the curious, he includes research which provides a laughable moment and then makes him think! Past winners of the  Less noble Nobels have been in Safety Engineering for 'developing and testing a suit of armour impervious to grissly bears', and in Veterinary Medicine for showing 'that cows who have names give more milk than those who are nameless'.
In the 2015 awards two Australian scientific teams were honoured. One with the Biology award for unboiling an egg! Although this could seem like a waste of effort the Vortex Fluidic Device built to do the job is now being used for many other applications including creating biodiesal much more cleanly.
The other prize winners in Linguistics found that Huh! is a universal word in every language studied. The same sound and meaning, the only word ever found to be so. This has wider implications for how language is studied generally, and our understanding of human development.

Go to Science Research Center with any and all your moments of curiosity and open worlds of discovery. Just type in your library card number and pin for full access.
Pictures supplied by Brittanica Image Quest

Today 1 August is celebrated as the Horses' birthday. This date was chosen  for horses in the Southern Hemisphere as it falls at the beginning of the foaling season.

Celebrate by saddling up with these seven horse themed fiction books(for adults) below.

The horses/ William Lane
 An Australian author...
On the outskirts of Sydney, a boys' boarding school prides itself on the horses it keeps. David, a gifted working class student, receives a scholarship to attend. At the same time Gregory, a new master, is appointed. Both soon learn, from their different perspectives, that what is said bears little relation to what is done. The school isolates itself from the outside world and over the course of several months of rain, the atmosphere inside the school becomes increasingly lawless and violent. School buildings slip away in floods. Underlying differences between various parties in the school turn into open conflicts, and the school community begins breaking up. These tensions are focused in the conflict between two masters, Val and Mr C. These two men loathe one another, and both recruit boys in the war of ideas they are waging.

Half broke Horses/ Jeanette Walls
A true life novel...
“Those old cows knew trouble was coming before we did.” So begins the story of Lily Casey Smith, Jeannette Walls’s no-nonsense, resourceful, and spectacularly compelling grandmother. By age six, Lily was helping her father break horses. At fifteen, she left home to teach in a frontier town—riding five hundred miles on her pony, alone, to get to her job. She learned to drive a car and fly a plane. And, with her husband, Jim, she ran a vast ranch in Arizona. She raised two children, one who is Jeannette’s memorable mother, Rosemary Smith Walls, unforgettably portrayed in The Glass Castle.

All the Pretty horses/ Cormac McCarthy
 A coming of age tale...
The national bestseller, All the Pretty Horses is the tale of John Grady Cole, who at sixteen finds himself at the end of a long line of Texas ranchers, cut off from the only life he has ever imagined for himself.  With two companions, he sets off for Mexico on a sometimes idyllic, sometimes comic journey to a place where dreams are paid for in blood.




Fortress Iron Eyes/ Rory Black
A Black Horse Western ...
Tracking outlaws Dobie Miller and Waldo Schmitt into a deadly desert, the notorious bounty hunter Iron Eyes is closing the distance between them with every beat of his determined heart. Yet the magnificent palomino stallion beneath his ornate saddle is starting to suffer. For years the deadly Iron Eyes has never been concerned about his horses, but since acquiring the powerful stallion, his attitude has changed. Iron Eyes knows that the horse has saved his life many times, due to its remarkable strength, but now it needs water badly. Every instinct tells the bounty hunter to stop his relentless hunt for the wanted outlaws, but then his steely eyes spot something out in the sickening heat-haze: It is a towering fortress. Iron Eyes presses on.

Triple Crown/Felix Francis
The latest horse racing thriller by Felix Francis, the son of Dick Francis.

Jeff Hinkley, a British Horseracing Authority investigator, has been seconded to the US Federal Anti-Corruption in Sports Agency (FACSA) where he has been asked to find a mole in their organisation, an informant who is passing on confidential information to fix races.  
  
Jeff goes in search of answers, taking on an undercover role as a groom on the backstretch at Belmont Park racetrack in New York. But he discovers far more than he was bargaining for, finding himself as the meat in the sandwich between FACSA and corrupt individuals who will stop at nothing, including murder, to capture the most elusive and lucrative prize in the world – the Triple Crown.

Tag: A Man, A Woman, And The War To End All Wars/ Barry Heard
A bush tale, a family saga, a romance, and a revelation of the human spirit's ability to survive war's inhumanity...

As a lad in the high country of eastern Victoria, Tag Wardell shows an extraordinary gift with animals: he is followed to school by his pets; his rapport with his horse, Dimble, Becomes the talk of the district; and hi even manages to befriend a mob of brumbies during an adventure with his schoolmates in the Dargo high plains.
Later, when he becomes a blacksmith, locals come to watch him at work, amazed at his ability to clam the meanest of nags.  But 1914 brings war, and the government's patriotic fervour entices Tag and his mates to join the Light Horse regiment.

For Tag, war begins as an adventure.  On the convoy to Egypt, he is quickly singles out to help the distressed horses.  Then, while on leave in Cairo, he meets Jill, a nurse, but their brief romance is cut short as Gallipoli looms.  Tag's life spirals into one of survival in the day-to-day madness of the trenches.

The red pony/John Steinbeck
A Twentieth Century Classic short story...
Like most ten-year-old boys, Jody Tiflin has the urge for rebellion as well as the need to be loved. In these stories, jody begins to learn about adulthood – its pains, its responsibilities and its problems – through his acceptance of his father's gifts. First he is given a red pony and later he is promised the colt of a bay mare. Yet both of these gifts bring tragedy as well as joy, and Jody is taught not only the harsh lessons of life and death, but made painfully aware of the fallibility of adults.

The popular Murder in the Library events have the audience becoming detectives, solving the mystery of the Glass Room.  Here are a selection of literary detectives to inspire you,  using their  various talents to solve mysteries and murders- all by the end of the book.  

Tell us about your favourite detective in the comments.

Best Known
The master of detection and deduction, Sherlock Holmes is probably the best known of  the literary detectives. He is recorded in the Guinness Book of World records as appearing in 200 movies- more than any other character. Start with  The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (e-book) by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.




Roaring Twenties
Phryne Fisher created by Kerry Greenwood
 Described by the Canberra Times as "a sexy, sassy and singularly modish character", The delightful sleuth Phryne Fisher is independently wealthy, elegant, classy and sharp as a tack. Renown for her fabulous 1920's fashion and  bobbed hairstyle, Miss Fisher has featured in 20 books so far. Start with
Cocaine Blues/Kerry Greenwood
You can also watch on  DVD:  Miss Fisher Murder Mysteries.

Daisy Dalrymple created by Carol Dunn
The Honorable Daisy Dalrymple is a fictional character, living in England in the 1920s. According to her Facebook page, her personal interests include stumbling upon bodies in unexpected places and meddling in her husband's crime investigations. A believable, likable heroine with a flair for solving mysteries the heroine of 19 books so far! If you are a fan of traditional English whodunits, start with  Death at Dentwater Court: A Daisy Dalrymple mystery/ Carol Dunn.

Police Detectives
Rebus- created by Ian Rankin
In the first draft of Knots and crosses, the old fashioned, curmudgeonly, yet humane detective was to be killed off...luckily Ian Rankin gave the character a reprieve, becoming the cynical protagonist of a series of over twenty books and a television star. Read or listen to the audio book version of Knots and crosses.

Sean Duffy created by Adrian McKinty
Described on Adrian McKinty's website as "an intelligent , resourceful potentially rogue police officer, with influential friends and powerful enemies. A very dangerous asset." The first book in this series, The cold, cold ground was picked as one of the best crime novels of the year by The Times.

Cozy amateurs...
Agatha Raisin created by M.C Beaton
The Cotswolds-based PR guru turned amateur sleuth is an endearing character, who by good luck and chance solves murder mysteries. A perennial 53 year's old, the acerbic, eccentric and hilarious Agatha continues to solve mysteries throughout this delightful series, now up to book 27- Pushing up daisies. It's best to start with book one, The Quiche of Death (you can also watch the DVD), and read the books in order.

Maisie Dobbs created by
Maisie Dobbs, Psychologist and Investigator, began her working life at the age of thirteen as a servant in a Belgravia mansion.  A the beginning of the The Great War  Maisie enlists for nursing service overseas. Years later, in 1929, having apprenticed to the renowned Maurice Blanche, a man revered for his work with Scotland Yard, Maisie sets up her own PI business. The series starts with Maisie Dobbs (available via Interlibrary Loan), followed by book two,  Birds of a feather.
Nordic Noir
Kurt Wallander created by Henning Mankell
A gloomy Swedish detective created by the late Henning Mankell. A dysfunctional, divorced and middle-aged man who drinks heavily and eats too much junk food, and exercises too little. He is brilliant at detecting, but hides behind a brusque manner that leaves him with few close friends. The series has been adapted to into  various television and film productions. The series starts with Faceless Killers and ended with the eleventh book,  An Event in Autumn in 2014.


Martin Beck created by Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö,   This married writing team plotted and planned the books together, then wrote alternative chapters for each of the ten novels in this series of these Swedish Police procedurals.  The first book Roseanna, introduces the enigmatic, taciturn Martin Beck, a chronic smoker, with a perpetual cold.


Queen of Crime characters...
Two enduring characters created by the Queen of crime, Agatha Christie...
Miss Marple
Deceptively innocent, behind this sweet old lady facade hides a mind like a steel trap, catching out many a murderer... There are 12 Miss Marple novels, starting with Murder at the Vicarage.

Hercule Poirot
The fastidious Hercule Poirot is widely considered to be one of the most famous literary detectives of all time, appearing in 33 novels. His obituary was published in the New York Times 6 August 1975, two months before the release of the last Poirot novel, Curtain. Start with The Mysterious Affair at Styles and discover why the mustached Belgian detective continues to have fans worldwide.

Forensic Specialists...
Temperance Brennan is a forensic anthropologist who first appeared in Déjà Dead (audio book format) by Kathy Reichs.
She is one of only fifty board-certified forensic anthropologists in North America. As the series progresses, you learn more about her personal life, including her family life and struggle with alcoholism.  There are currently 18 books in the series.
Dr Ruth Galloway is a forensic archaeologist living in a cottage near Norfolk with her two cats – when she is not digging up graves and bones linked to archaeology, that is. The Crossing Places is the first of eight books in the series so far...

The Harry's...
Detective Hieronymus Bosch aka Harry Bosch was created by Michael Connelly, first appearing in The Black Echo. The abandoned son of a murdered prostitute, this popular character has become a hard, damaged detective who is the anti- hero of 19 novels.




Harry Hole created by Jo Nesbo
Harry Hole smokes too much, drinks too much, uses unconventional methods to catch criminals and has few close friends.  An officer in the Oslo Police force,  Harry is grudgingly respected by his colleagues, due to his brilliance in solving crimes. Book One: The Bat is set in Australia. (Although this is the first book in the series, it was released in Australia only after seven books in the series had already been published in English).

Harry Devlin created by Martin Edwards
The Guardian newspaper describes this character as ‘a charming but down-at-heel Liverpool solicitor with bruised emotions, a nice line in self-deprecation, and a penchant for Mersey low life.’ He can't help but get into trouble, although his heart is in the right place. Meet Harry in All the lonely people, the first of eight books in the Harry Devlin Liverpool series.

Hard boiled Golden Age...
Philip Marlowe created by  Raymond Chandler
 Under the wisecracking, hard-drinking, tough private eye exterior, Marlowe is quietly contemplative and philosophical and enjoys chess and poetry. The leading icon of hard boiled  mystery fiction... he debuted in the The Big Sleep. Learn more at the upcoming literary talk, The Simple Art of Murder presented by Joanna Penglase.


Sam Spade/ Dashiell Hamlett
This hard nosed and cynical, tough guy character only appears in one full length novel, the 1930's The Maltese Falcon. In the opening paragraph describes him as the blond satan...

Both of these characters were played by Humphrey Bogart in film adaptations.

Congratulations to the winners of the Kibble Literary Awards 2016. These awards aim to encourage Australian women writers to improve and advance literature for the benefit of our community through works identified as life writing. These include novels, autobiographies, biographies, literature and any writing with a strong personal element.

The Kibble Literary Award recognises the work of an established author while the Dobbie Literary Award recognises a first published work.

Small acts of disappearance/ Fiona Wright

Salt Creek/ LucyTreloar

Agatha Raisin and the curious curate / M.C. Beaton
Amateur sleuth Agatha Raisin is going through a man-hating phase and so is unmoved by news of a captivating new curate. But when she meets the golden-haired, blue-eyed Tristan Delon, she is swept off her feet ... along with every other female in the village. She is positively ecstatic when he invites her to dine with him, but the next day Agatha is left with a hangover from hell - and his cold corpse.

Pleasantville / Attica Locke
Fifteen years after his career-defining case against Cole Oil, Jay Porter is broke and tired. That victory might have won the environmental lawyer fame, but thanks to a string of appeals, he hasn't seen a dime. His latest case—representing Pleasantville in the wake of a chemical fire—is dragging on, shaking his confidence and raising doubts about him within this upwardly mobile black community on Houston's north side. Though Jay still believes in doing what's right, he is done fighting other people's battles. Once he has his piece of the settlement, the single father is going to devote himself to what matters most—his children.
His plans are abruptly derailed when a female campaign volunteer vanishes on the night of Houston's mayoral election, throwing an already contentious campaign into chaos. The accused is none other than the nephew and campaign manager of one of the leading candidates—a scion of a prominent Houston family headed by the formidable Sam Hathorne. Despite all the signs suggesting that his client is guilty—and his own misgivings—Jay can't refuse when a man as wealthy and connected as Sam asks him to head up the defense.

The good liar
This is a life told back to front.
This is a man who has lied all his life.
Roy is a conman living in a leafy English suburb, about to pull off the final coup of his career. He is going to meet and woo a beautiful woman.  He will swiftly move in with her and together they will live the seemingly calm life of a retired couple – evenings in front of the television, a little holiday in Berlin.  Then he will slip away with her life savings.
But who is the man behind the con and what has he had to do to survive this life of lies?
And why is this beautiful woman so willing to be his next victim?

The Crow Girl/  Erik Axl Sund ; translated by Neil Smith
 In a Stockholm city park, the hideously abused body of a young boy is stumbled upon. Detective Superintendent Jeanette Kihlberg heads the investigation, which quickly dead-ends: no trace of the boy's identity can be found. But with the discovery of two more children's bodies in similar condition, it becomes clear that a psychopathic serial killer is at large. Jeanette turns to therapist Sofia Zetterlund for help in identifying suspects, and as their lives become increasingly intertwined, professionally and personally, as we begin to know their particular histories, needs, and desires, as they draw closer to the truth about the killings--working together but, ultimately, each on her own--we come to understand that these murders are only the most obvious evidence of a hellishly insidious societal evil. As viscerally dramatic as it is psychologically intense, The Crow Girl is a tale of almost unfathomably heinous deceit and deeds, and of the profound damage--and the equally profound need for revenge--they leave in their wake.

A Time of Torment  / Connolly, John
Jerome Burnel was once a hero. He intervened to prevent multiple killings, and in doing so destroyed himself. His life was torn apart. He was imprisoned, brutalized.
But in his final days, with the hunters circling, he tells his story to private detective Charlie Parker. He speaks of the girl who was marked for death, but was saved; of the ones who tormented him, and an entity that hides in a ruined stockade.
Parker is not like other men. He died, and was reborn. He is ready to wage war.
Now he will descend upon a strange, isolated community called the Cut, and face down a force of men who rule by terror, intimidation, and murder.
All in the name of the being they serve. All in the name of the Dead King.

The ex: a novel / Alafair Burke
Olivia Randall is one of New York City's best criminal defense lawyers. When she hears that her former fiance, Jack Harris, has been arrested for a triple homicide--and that one of the victims was connected to his wife's murder three years earlier--there is no doubt in her mind as to his innocence. The only question is, who would go to such great lengths to frame him--and why? For Olivia, representing Jack is a way to make up for past regrets and absolve herself of guilt from a tragic decision, a secret she has held for twenty years. But as the evidence against him mounts, she is forced to confront her doubts. The man she knew could not have done this. But what if she never really knew him?

Ten days/ Gillian Slovo
It's 4 a.m. and Cathy Mason is watching dawn break over the Lovelace estate. By the end of the day, her community will be a crime scene. By the end of the week, her city will be on fire. In this gripping thriller, a death at police hands has repercussions far beyond one family plunged into grief ...As violence erupts in the middle of a stifling heatwave, the dead man becomes a useful tactic (or an urgent threat) in political games at the highest level. So while lives are at risk in Cathy Mason's estate, across London in Westminster, careers are being made, or ruined.

The graveyard of the Hesperides / Lindsey Davis
In first century Rome, Flavia Albia, the daughter of Marcus Didius Falco, has taken up her father's former profession as an informer. On a typical day, it's small cases cheating spouses, employees dipping into the till but this isn't a typical day. Her beloved, the plebeian Manlius Faustus, has recently moved in and decided that they should get married in a big, showy ceremony as part of beginning a proper domestic life together. Also, his contracting firm has been renovating a rundown dive bar called The Garden of the Hesperides, only to uncover human remains buried in the backyard. There have been rumors for years that the previous owner of the bar, now deceased, killed a bar maid and these are presumably her remains. In the choice between planning a wedding and looking into a crime from long ago, Albia would much rather investigate a possible murder. Or murders, as more and more remains are uncovered, revealing that something truly horrible has been going on at the Hesperides. As she gets closer to the truth behind the bodies in the backyard, Albia's investigation has put her in the cross-hairs which might be the only way she'll get out of the wedding and away from all her relatives who are desperate to 'help'.

Fellside/ M.R Carey
Fellside is a maximum security prison on the edge of the Yorkshire Moors. It's not the kind of place you'd want to end up. But it's where Jess Moulson could be spending the rest of her life.
It's a place where even the walls whisper.
And one voice belongs to a little boy with a message for Jess.
Will she listen?

You don't have to believe in ghosts for the dead to haunt you. You don't have to be a murderer to be guilty. "This is about three deaths. Actually more, if you go back far enough. I say deaths but perhaps all of them were murders. It's a grey area. Murder, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder. So let's just call them deaths and say I was involved. This story could be told a hundred different ways." For Penelope Sheppard, university offers an escape from her troubled past. Running from a life weighed down with scandal and tragedy, Pen sees this as the ideal place to reinvent herself among perfect strangers. Life in her new hall of residence feels like a wonderland of sex, drugs, and maybe even love. But all too soon Pen realises you never can run far or fast enough. And when Pen's secrets are revealed, the consequences are deadly.