New books on display at Hurunui District Library from 28 February-6 March

 “Run” by Ann Patchett

It is just a few weeks after Christmas, and the unforgiving New England weather has taken a turn for the worse. Doyle has dragged his reluctant sons, Tip and Teddy, to a speech by Jesse Jackson. Though his own political career is over, dealt a fatal blow by a family scandal, Doyle is still fired by Jackson’s rhetoric and perplexed by his sons’ indifference. The two boys, both adopted, are close enough in age to be taken for twins, but in character they couldn’t be more different. Teddy - open, affectionate, the gentle dreamer - thinks he has found his calling in the Catholic Church. The elder by a year, Tip is more serious, reserving his own passionate interest for ichthyology: he is happiest alone in the warmth of his lab, labelling and categorising fish specimens. When they are involved in a violent accident in the treacherously icy road, the Doyles are forced for the first time to confront certain truths: about how the death of Bernadette, Doyle’s beloved wife, has affected the family, and about the anonymous figure, never discussed, who is the boys’ real mother. [Cover]

 “Creative scarecrows” by Marcianne Miller

Super scarecrows! They’re decorative, they’re fun to make, and each has a personality all it’s own! Choose one of the unique projects here, gather a few ordinary materials, and voila! A remarkable figure comes to life, ready to defend your yard, astonish your neighbours-and get a smile from everyone who passes. [Cover]

 “Helping your troubled teen” by Cynthia S Kaplan PH.D

Renowned mental health professionals - many of them leaders at McLean Hospital, a teaching facility for Harvard Medical School - return peace and health to your family relationships in “Helping your troubled teen”. Together, these caring professionals share the latest parenting techniques for dealing with destructive teens and offer ways to get your teen - and your entire family - back on a healthy life track. [Cover]

 “T is for Trespass”

In what may be her most unsettling novel to date, Sue Grafton’s “T is for Trespass” is also her most direct confrontation with the forces of evil. Beginning slowly with the day-to-day life of a private eye, Grafton suddenly shifts from the voice of Kinsey Millhone to that of Solana Rojas, introducing readers to a chilling sociopath. Rojas is not her birth name. It is an identity she cunningly stole, an identity that gives her access to private caregiving jobs. The true horror of the novel builds with excruciating tension as the reader foresees the awfulness that lies ahead. The suspense lies in whether Millhone will realize what is happening in time to intervene. Though set in the late eighties, “T is for Trespass” could not be more topical: identity theft; elder abuse; betrayal of trust; the breakdown in the institutions charged with caring for the weak and the dependent. It reveals a terrifying but all-too-real rip in the social fabric. [Cover]

 “New Zealand trout frontiers” by Adrian Bell

A journey of exploration through a range of fishing venues, challenging myths along the way - is the kind of book you read when you can’t go fishing, or when you’d like to go, but need inspiration to get you moving. In a relaxed and readable style, the author entices the readers to follow him as he faces a variety of frontiers that must be breached for progress to occur in the art of trout fishing. Whether following a wild trout in a hazardous setting or grieving for a fish recently lost, he communicates the feeling of being there in the midst of the challenge. [Cover]

To reserve any of these items please contact your local library or email info@hurunuilibraries.govt.nz

Avril

Cooking, kitchen gardens and children: an inspired combination

 ‘Stephanie Alexander:

                                  kitchen garden cooking with kids’

Stephanie Alexander is a highly acclaimed Australian chef and food writer and is involved with the Kitchen Garden Foundation, set up to encourage life-long healthy eating habits by engaging primary school children in the production and preparation of food.

This book tells the inspiring story of the first kitchen garden project at Collingwood College, including the planning of the garden and kitchen facilities and the first years of growing, harvesting and cooking. Because it goes into a lot of detail (e.g. planting lists, permaculture principles), the book is a great resource for anyone thinking about planting their own kitchen garden.

The book also includes 120 mouthwatering recipes, such as ‘Sweetcorn fritters with crisp sage leaves and herb yoghurt’ and ‘Roasted winter vegetables with rosemary and garlic’. In 2007 the recipe book won  Le Cordon Bleu World Food Media Award for best children’s cookbook.

Stephanie Alexander was the feature guest at Nine to Noon on Thursday 14 February; the audio of the interview is available on the National Radio web site (for a limited time), click on the following link:

http://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/ninetonoon/20080214

Sylvia

Love walked in

         ‘Love walked in’ by Marisa de los Santo

This first novel uses language in the most interesting way - almost like a monologue. The plot is simple, but the choice of words makes each incident a special happening.

Very much a ‘lying on the couch and reading until finished’ kind of book!

Recommended,

Pat

New books on display at Hurunui District Library from 21 February-28 February

 ”Treading water” by Rob Hewitt

In February 2006, Rob Hewitt went missing while diving in the sea off the Kapiti Coast. Seventy-five hours later, he was found in the water alive. Treading Water is the story of the spiritual journey Rob made during that time. It traces Rob Hewitt?s humble beginnings, through the childhood events that shaped him, his career in the navy, and the days and nights adrift at sea and how the ordeal changed his life. [Cover]
“Jane Austen : The parson’s daughter”

Jane Austen was a clergyman’s daughter, related to other clergy, born and brought up in a parsonage. Many of her attitudes, expressed in her novels, reflect this directly or indirectly. Her father’s reasoned and practical approach to religion, along with the range of books available to her in his library, shaped the essentially moral outlook behind her entertaining, but devastating, criticism of individuals and of society. [Cover]

 “Three cups of tea” by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin

One man’s campaign to build schools in the most dangerous, remote, and anti-American reaches of Asia: in 1993 Greg Mortenson was an American mountain-climbing bum wandering emaciated and lost through Pakistan’s Karakoram. After he was taken in and nursed back to health by the people of a Pakistani village, he promised to return one day and build them a school. From that rash, earnest promise grew one of the most incredible humanitarian campaigns of our time–Mortenson’s one-man mission to counteract extremism by building schools, especially for girls, throughout the breeding ground of the Taliban. In a region where Americans are often feared and hated, he has survived kidnapping, fatwas issued by enraged mullahs, death threats, and wrenching separations from his wife and children. But his success speaks for itself–at last count, his Central Asia Institute had built fifty-five schools. [Cover]

 “Strangers in death” by Nora Roberts

Technology may be different in 2060 New York, yet the city is still a place of many cultures and great divides. But as ever, some murders receive more attention than others - especially those in which the victim is a prominent businessman, found in his Park Avenue apartment, tied to the bed - and strangled - with cords of black velvet.It doesn’t surprise Lieutenant Eve Dallas that Thomas Anders’ scandalous death is a source of titillation and speculation to the public - and of humiliation to his family. But while all those in the city are talking about it, people close to Anders aren’t so anxious to do the same. With some help from her billionaire husband, Roarke, Eve is soon knocking on doors - or barging through them - to find answers.But the facts don’t add up. Physical evidence suggests that the victim didn’t struggle. The security breach in the apartment indicates that the killer was someone connected to the family, but everyone’s alibi checks out. Was this a kinky sex game that turned into a crime of passion - or a meticulously planned execution? It’s up to Dallas to solve a case in which strangers may be connected in unexpected, and deadly, ways. [Cover]

 ”Measuring the world” by Daniel Kehlmann

Towards the end of the eighteenth century, two young Germans set out to measure the world. One of them, the Prussian aristocrat Alexander von Humboldt, negotiates savanna and jungle, travels down the Orinoco, tastes poisons, climbs the highest mountain known to man, counts head lice, and explores every hole in the ground. The other, the barely socialized mathematician and astronomer Carl Friedrich Gauss, does not even need to leave his home in Gottingen to prove that space is curved. He can run prime numbers in his head. He cannot imagine a life without women, yet he jumps out of bed on his wedding night to jot down a mathematical formula. Von Humboldt is known to history as the Second Columbus. Gauss is recognized as the greatest mathematical brain since Newton. Terrifyingly famous and more than eccentric in their old age, the two meet in Berlin in 1828. Gauss has hardly climbed out of his carriage before both men are embroiled in the political turmoil sweeping through Germany after Napoleon’s fall. [Cover]

To reserve any of these items please contact your local library or email info@hurunuilibraries.govt.nz 

Avril

New books to read at Amuri

 “The breached wall” by Anita Burgh

Two families bound together by conflict, passion and betrayal.The peaceful calm of Cresswell Manor in Devon has been shattered. More and more soldiers arrive home from the Great War to recover and convalesce. The old social order is crumbling.

“Rivals for the Crown” by Kathleen Givens

Two childhood friends are caught in a web of intrigue, conspiracies and love as Scotland is torn apart by greed and ambition, and a valiant nation’s freedom hangs in the balance

 ”Tour de France” by Graeme Fife

In this updated version of the highly acclaimed Tour de France, Fife sets the 2007 scandal in the context of the event’s remarkable history.

Anne/JJ

A comfy read

        ‘Divas don’t knit’ by Gil McNeil

This is a comfy sofa read! The story covers a year in the life of Jo McKenzie after the death of her husband. The book covers just about everything in the nicest possible manner of writing: relocation, relationships and romance all get an airing…

Recommended!

Pat

New books on display at Hurunui District Library from 14 February-21 February

 “In search of ancient New Zealand” by Hamish Campbell & Gerard Hutching

In this wonderful book palaeontologist Hamish Campbell and natural history writer Gerard Hutching present an exciting new account of New Zealand’s evolution aimed at the general reader. For the first time the story of the 8th continent - Zealandia - is revealed. From 3-billion-year-old grains of sand found in present-day rocks, through the momentous breakaway from Gondwanaland to the drowning and uplift of New Zealand giving rise to today’s landscapes, this new book traces our absorbing geological story. Photographs of fossils, rocks and the current landscape are linked to outstanding state-of-the-art digital imagery from the files of the New Zealand Institute for Geological and Nuclear Sciences.

 “Bleeding Kansas” by Sara Paretsky

The Grelliers and the Schapens are two families who have been farming in the Kaw River Valley for over a hundred and fifty years, their lives connected through the generations by history and geography. Gina Haring, bringing with her the liberal air of the big city, moves into a dilapidated house near both families’ properties. Gina has secrets, her own reasons for being in the Kansas countryside, and they’re not necessarily what the people around her imagine. Susan’s involvement with her stirs up the wrath of the Schapen clan — and has cataclysmic results for her own family. This is not one of Paretsky’s mystery stories.

 “Timewaster diaries” by Robin Cooper

Robin Cooper turns his hand to diary writing in this hilarious new novel. The year starts badly for Robin, who is fired for writing too many letters on company time, and for his wife Rita, who sprains her ankle (yet again). But Robin has a cunning plan - his marrying of the crossword and sudoku into his devilish ‘crossoku’ - which might just make their fortune…  

 “Though the heavens may fall” by E.V. Thompson

It is 1856. When three men are murdered in Cornwall, Amos Hawke, a Cornish detective working from London’s Scotland Yard, is sent to investigate. He finds lodgings with one of the murdered men’s wives - and her daughter, Talwyn. But while Amos’s relationship with Talwyn gets off to a bad start, she is to prove crucial in helping him bring her father’s killers to justice. A wonderful tale from a master storyteller, Though the Heavens May Fall has its heart and soul in the lore and landscape of Cornwall.

 “Eyes right (and they’s wrong)” by Joe Bennett

In the past year New Zealand’s favourite columnist has turned fifty, lost a dog, been to China, been motivationally spoken to, built a goatshed, drunk with a Bangkok buddhist, survived Christmas, eavesdropped Winnie with Condoleeza and …but why not let him tell you about it himself ?

To reserve any of these items please contact your local library or email info@hurunuilibrary.govt.nz

Avril

New books on display at Hurunui District Library from 7 February - 14 February

 ”Secrets of rusty things” by Michael de Meng

If you’ve ever wanted to learn the secrets that turn an old iron into an ancient pyramid, transform electrical wires into crawling vines, and change an old oval photo frame into a porthole to another world, then prepare yourself for inspiration that will have you checking your trash bin twice.

 “Travels with Herodotus” by Ryszard Kapuscinski

As a novice reporter in 1950s, Ryzsard Kapuscinski wanted nothing more than to travel outside the borders of Poland. One day, without warning, his editor called him into her office and told him he was being sent to India. This book records how Kapuscinski set out on his first forays - to India, China and Africa.

 “Subversive seamster”

The thrift store is your playground, and your sewing machine is your favourite toy. You’re a seamster. And “Subversive seamster” is your key to the thrills of thrifting and the ins and outs of refashioning. Give unwanted and tired duds from second-hand stores, relatives or even the back of your closet a whole new life in the front of your closet.

 “7th heaven” by James Patterson

Michael Campion was a people’s hero, a popular governor’s son who publicly battled against a rare heart illness. When he vanished without a trace one evening, his disappearance and the search to find him, dead or alive, hit the headlines daily. Detective Lindsay Boxer is determined to find out what happened to San Fransisco’s Golden Boy.

 “Bridge of sighs” by Richard Russo

This is a major novel about America today about the twin dangers of innocence and cynicism, optimism or despair. This novel has all the glorious life that readers have come to expect from Russo but with a tough new edge, a broader scope and a darker seam of glittering secrets.

To reserve any of these items please contact your local library or email info@hurunuilibrary.govt.nz

Avril

Fashion, culture and modern life

         ‘Adorned in dreams: fashion and modernity’

                               by Elizabeth Wilson

If you believe that fashion is no more than a superficial and frivolous aspect of everyday life, this book will make you think again. While adornment has been a preoccupation of human beings for millenia, the concept of ‘fashion’ is distinctly modern. It is inextricably linked with the rise of an urban, capitalist and industrialized society.

Today, the fashion and beauty industry is a global, billion dollar empire. In fact the history of early industrialization largely revolved around the clothing industry, and the author describes the appalling conditions in the 19th century sweat shops. Shamefully, such practices have not been abandoned but merely displaced from Western Europe to other parts of the world.

The conundrum of modern fashion is that is aims to express individuality, yet often does this by an insiduous pressure to conform to certain standards of beauty. Perhaps this is why those personal make-over shows on television make such ghastly yet utterly compelling viewing…

      ‘Looking flash: clothing in Aotearoa New Zealand’

                             edited by Bronwyn Labrum, et al.

If you are intrigued to know what New Zealanders have made of of the fashion question, this book gives a fascinating insight into a variety of topics such as colonial and Maori dress, wartime garb, uniforms, beach wear, and of course the black singlet.

Both highly recommended,

 Sylvia

‘Looking flash : clothing in Aotearoa New Zealand’ is on display at Hurunui District library from 14-21 February.

Avril