New books on display at Hurunui District Library from 27 Nov – 4 Dec

 “Testimony” by Anita Shreve

At a New England boarding school, a sex scandal is about to break. Even more shocking than the sexual acts themselves is the fact that they were caught on videotape. A Pandora’s box of revelations, the tape triggers a chorus of voice – those of the men, women, teenagers, and parents involved in the scandal – that details the ways in which lives can be derailed or destroyed in one foolish moment. A gripping emotional drama with the pace of a thriller, Anita Shreve’s Testimony explores the dark impulses that sway the lives of seeming innocents, and the ways in which our best intentions can lead to our worst transgressions. [Cover]

 “The evil seed” by Joanne Harris

When Alice Farrel meets Joe’s new girlfriend she is disturbed by the girl’s placid nature, not realizing that this is just one side of her persona. Is the lust for power which was true of Rosemary Ashley 40 years before, the same hunger she sees in Ginny? This is a revised edition of the very first Joanne Harris novel which has been out of print for some time. [Cover]

 ”Jamie’s Ministry of food” by Jamie Oliver

The aim of this book is to inspire people who have no interest in food to have a go. If you’re a complete beginner in the kitchen, Jamie’s promise to you is that you’ll be making some great dinners within hours of reading his book. [Cover]

 ”Cara Gayle” by Geraldine O’Neill

Cara Gayle is one of life’s pleasers. A young, country school-teacher in 1960s Ireland, she spends her life looking after her philandering husband, Oliver, and her pious mother, Maggie. When Cara’s seventh wedding anniversary reveals her husband’s latest infidelity, Cara decides it’s time to do something for herself. [Cover]

 “Someone knows my name” by Lawrence Hill

Abducted as an 11-year old child from her village in West Africa and forced to walk for months to the sea in a coffle – a string of slaves – Aminata is sent to live as a slave in South Carolina. But years later, she forges her way to freedom, serving the British in the Revolutionary War and registering her name in the historic book. [Cover]

 

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

 

Avril

 

New books on display at Hurunui District Library from 20 Nov – 27 Nov

 ”Can we help it if we’re fabulous?” by Peta Mathias

Television presenter, author and bon vivant, Peta Mathias’s life has been anything but dull. With ten topics relevant to all women – Fashion, Food, Relationships, Music, Travel, Beauty, Work, Sex, Happiness and, of course, Men – Peta’s sagacious, sexy and occasionally scurrilous book will encourage and inspire readers to reinvent, spice up, embrace and celebrate the lives they have. As well as recounting her own life lessons, Peta interviews a range of women – from psychologists to plastic surgeons, sex therapists to hairdressers, doctors to singers – and discovers what a woman needs to make her happy, independent and successful.
Inspirational, razor-witted and funny, Can We Help It if We’re Fabulous is Peta Mathias at her wisest – and naughtiest. [Cover]

 

 “Magda’s daughter” by Catrin Collier

Stateless and destitute after the Second World War, Magda Janek settles in the Welsh town of Pontypridd, in the hope of building a new life for herself and her baby daughter, Helena. All Magda has to give Helena are the ambitions she had once cherished for herself; dreams cruelly snatched from her by the war and its terrible aftermath. But 1960s Pontypridd is a place of opportunity – at twenty-one, Magda’s daughter has beauty, confidence and prospects beyond even her mother’s wildest imaginings. With a university degree behind her, a coveted teaching post in her old Grammar school, and marriage to the love of her life, Dr Eddie John, the son of an old Pontypridd family to look forward to, Helena couldn’t have been happier. Until tragedy strikes. A tragedy that robs Helena of the only family she has ever known and everything she has ever believed in; Helena uncovers a bitter secret, so explosive that her mother carried it to the grave. [Cover]

 

 ”Being Elizabeth” by Barbara Taylor Bradford 

The final novel in the Ravenscar trilogy. Elizabeth Turner, scion of the fabled Deravenel family, carries the red-gold hair and beautiful English complexion of her ancestors. And it is not just her colouring that she has inherited from Edward Deravenel. Astute and charismatic, she is also bold, daring and fiercely ambitious, with the same ruthless streak. Now, aged just twenty-five, she stands in the position she has dreamed of – inheriting the family business, Deravenels. Over eight hundred years old, the company is a bastion of male chauvinism and the challenge that lies ahead of Elizabeth is immense. Her future is threatened also by the bitter enmity of her cousin, Mary, who believes herself the rightful heir. Cecil Williams acts as Elizabeth’s mentor while navigating the treacherous corridors of power with her. But her greatest ally is her childhood friend, handsome, charming Robert Dunley. Highly intelligent, he is her match in every way — and there is a spark between them that is impossible to resist. Yet Robert is already married. When they begin an affair it scandalises those around them. But far worse is to come!From the family seat perched high on the Yorkshire moors to the glamour of London as the twentieth century draws to a close, Elizabeth fights for her birthright and her inheritance. [Cover]
“20 years of Garrick Tremain”

In this ‘best of’ collection from one of New Zealand’s leading political cartoonists, Garrick Tremain offers an hilarious perspective on some of the most notable – and most ridiculous – moments in New Zealand politics and popular culture from the last two decades. From the wine box enquiry to Tana Umaga’s infamous handbag incident, and featuring a cast of memorable characters from Muldoon to Bush, Tremain’s talent at finding the funny in everyday life is up there with the very best. A tireless wry wit has seen his career flourish with multiple newspapers publishing one of his cartoons seven days a week for many years, firmly securing his position as New Zealand’s most widely published political cartoonist. Now in semi-retirement, Tremain has whittled down his commitments to one cartoon a week which appears in the Sunday edition of the Otago Daily Times. This collection – handpicked by the cartoonist himself – is guaranteed to entice loads of laughs from anyone with even the slightest interest in New Zealand politics and social history. [Cover]

 

  “Dauntless spirit” by Denis Mclean

Sir Howard Kippenmberger is widely acknowledged as the ideal of a New Zealand citizen-soldier and our foremost soldier-scholar; a country lawyer and provincial intellectual who became a national figure as New Zealanders made the transition from colonials to a forthright nationhood. As a military leader, editor and author he was one of the prime movers in that process. His democratic style of leadership reflected the ethos of a new nation – active, competent and engaged in the world in its own right, no longer a dependency of Britain A second-generation New Zealander, born in 1897, his military career was probably unique in that he was a 19 year old private soldier in one war and emerged in the next as the commander of choice of what was in effect a national army – the 2nd NZ Division – whenever the British-born (and trained) Bernard Freyberg was absent. Kip was never a regular officer; a part-time Territorial soldier in peacetime, with no formal British staff training, he stood in the line of the New Zealand self-made man. Hard-boiled ordinary New Zealanders at war truly admired and respected him, not only for his mastery of the business of fighting but because he was known for a very real and deep rapport with his soldiers and concern for their welfare; he “made men realise that here was one who thought more of them than of himself.” [Cover]

 

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

 

Avril

 

 

 

 

New books on display at Hurunui District Library from 13 Nov – 20 Nov

 ”The comfort of Saturdays” by Alexander Mccall Smith 

Isabel Dalhousie is a new mother and a connoisseur of philosophy; she’d rather not be a sleuth. But when a chance conversation at a dinner party draws Isabel into the case of a doctor whose career has been ruined, she cannot ignore what may be a miscarriage of justice. As she attempts to unravel the truth behind Dr Thompson’s disgrace, Isabel’s patient intelligence is also required to deal with challenges in her own life. There is her baby son Charlie; Cat’s deli to look after, not to mention her vulnerable assistant Eddie; and a mysterious and unlikeable composer who has latched on to Jamie, making Isabel fear for the future of her new family. Isabel treads a difficult path between trust and gullibility, philanthropy and interference, while keeping in her sights the small but certain comforts of family, philosophy and a fine Saturday morning [Cover] 

 ”The woman who can’t forget” by Jill Price

 

 

Jill Price has the first diagnosed case of a memory condition called “hyperthymestic syndrome”- the continuous, automatic, autobiographical recall of every day of her life since she was fourteen. Give her any date from that year on, and she can almost instantly tell you what day of the week it was, what she did on that day, and any major world event or cultural happening that took place, as long as she heard about it that day. Her memories are like scenes from home movies, constantly playing in her head, backward and forward, through the years; not only does she make no effort to call her memories to mind, she cannot stop them. The Woman Who Can’t Forget is the beautifully written and moving story of Jill’s quest to come to terms with her extraordinary memory, living with a condition that no one understood, including her, until the scientific team who studied her finally charted the extraordinary terrain of her abilities. As we learn of Jill’s struggles first to realize how unusual her memory is and then to contend, as she grows up, with the unique challenges of not being able to forget – remembering both the good times and the bad, the joyous and the devastating, in such vivid and insistent detail – the way her memory works is contrasted to a wealth of discoveries about the workings of normal human memory and normal human forgetting. Intriguing light is shed on the vital role of what’s called “motivated forgetting” as well as theories about childhood amnesia, the loss of memory for the first two to three years of our lives; the emotional content of memories; and the way in which autobiographical memories are normally crafted into an ever-evolving and empowering life story. [Cover]  

 

 

“The birthday present” by Barbara Vine

It’s late spring of 1990 and a love affair is flourishing between Ivor Tesham, a thirty-three year old rising star of Margaret Thatcher’s Conservative government, and Hebe Furnal, a stunning North London housewife stuck in a dull marriage. What excitement Hebe lacks at home, however, is amply compensated for by the well-bred and intensely attractive Tesham – an ardent womaniser and ambitious politician. On the eve of her twenty-eighth birthday, Tesham decides to give Hebe a present to remember: something far more memorable than, say, the costly string of pearls he’s already lavished upon her, involving a fashionable new practice known as ‘adventure sex’. A man arranges for his unsuspecting but otherwise willing girlfriend to be snatched from the street, bound and gagged, and delivered to him at a mutually agreed venue…Set amidst an age of IRA bombings, the first Gulf War, and sleazy politics, The Birthday Present is the gripping story of a fall from grace, and of a man who carries within him all the hypocrisy, greed and self-obsession of a troubled era. [Cover]

 “Tramping in New Zealand” by Shaun Barnett

Tramping in New Zealand is a highly innovative new tramping guide that has been developed around the latest generation of ‘bird’s eye’ computer-generated maps. These completely accurate panoramic overviews are constructed from map data, but because they can recreate a view of the landscape from any angle or height they provide a remarkably readable and clear way of understanding the lie of the land. For trampers, these bird’s eye maps offer a superb way of showing a tramping route in three dimensions, which cannot be done with a conventional topographical map. In this book the 40 most popular tramps in New Zealand are featured, each illustrated with at least one bird’s eye map. These have been created by Wellington company Geographx, whose cutting-edge maps feature in the acclaimed New Zealand Geographic Atlas. The maps are also supported by relevant route information and photographs from one of New Zealand’s most respected tramping authors, Shaun Barnett. The tramps covered include our best known Great Walks, such as the Milford Track, the Routeburn and the Tongariro Crossing, and many others from both islands, such as the Queen Charlotte Track, the ReesDart near Queenstown, and the Pinnacles Hut on the Coromandel. With such a high degree of readability and visual appeal combined with the highest quality information and photographs, Tramping in New Zealand creates a new benchmark for this kind of guidebook, and is set to become a classic in this popular genre. [Cover] 

 

 

 “The butterfly garden” by Chip St. Clair

Fear rocked Chip St. Clair’s world. As a boy, he never knew what would set his father off – maybe the ice cubes had melted in his glass of Tab, maybe dinner was overcooked or undercooked or the gravy was too runny. Regardless, the beatings always came. As did the twisted games of cat and mouse – being thrown from a rowboat into frigid Lake Michigan, the middle-of-the-night moves to different states, or being left to dangle over a ten-story balcony while his father watched from inside. But one fateful night when the police answered the call, the truth came to light from the shadows, sparking national headlines: Chip St. Clair’s entire life – his name, even his date of birth – had been a lie, and the man he called ‘Dad’ was an impostor, an escaped child killer who had been on the run for over two decades. The stunning revelation would send one of America’s Most Wanted to justice and another on a quest for his true identity. With chilling detail and a riveting, lyrical narrative, The Butterfly Garden reveals St. Clair’s struggle to piece together his haunted past before it consumes him and shares his inspiring metamorphosis from victim to victim’s advocate. The Butterfly Garden is a timeless triumph, a reminder that hope can be the most powerful of all emotions, freeing us to soar despite the past and the odds against us. [Cover]

 

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

 

Avril

 

New books on display at Hurunui District Library from 6 Nov – 13 Nov

 

 ”Mountain men” by Rachel Goodchild

This book profiles some 15 great eccentrics from the High Country of the South Island; men who have led interesting and diverse lives working on the land in this dramatic landscape. It is rich with quirky characters and hair-raising experiences. Mountain Men will evoke memories of a more innocent time in New Zealand and remind many readers of their roots. It serves to highlight, even honour, the especially hard lives these jokers had to contend with, particularly by modern standards. The photography, which is utterly beguiling, is a mixture of portrait profiles and landscapes. [Cover]

 ”The other Anzacs” by Peter Rees

By the end of the Great War, 45 Australian and New Zealand nurses had died on overseas service and over 200 had been decorated. These were women who left for war on an adventure, but were soon confronted with remarkable challenges for which their civilian lives could never have prepared them. They were there for the horrors of Gallipoli and they were there for the savagery on the Western Front. Within twelve hours of the slaughter at Anzac Cove they had over 500 horrifically injured patients to tend on one crammed hospital ship, and scores of deaths on each of the harrowing days that followed. Every night was a nightmare. Their strength and humanity were remarkable. Using diaries and letters, Peter Rees takes us into the hospital camps, and the wards and the tent surgeries on the edge of some of the most horrific battlefronts of human history. But he also allows the friendships and loves of these courageous and compassionate women to enrich their experiences, and ours. [Cover]

  ”The lucky one” by Nicholas Sparks 

Is there really such a thing as a good luck charm? Ex-soldier Logan Thibault thinks he just might have found one. Haunted by memories of the friends he lost in Iraq, Logan knows how fortunate he is to be home. He believes that a photograph he carried with him, a picture of a smiling woman he’s never met, kept him safe. Even though he knows nothing about this woman, he hopes she might hold the key to his destiny. Resolving to find her, Logan embarks on a journey of startling discovery. Beth, the woman whose picture he holds, is struggling with problems of her own: her volatile ex-husband won’t accept their relationship is over and threatens anyone who gets too close to her. And, despite a growing attraction between them, Logan has kept one explosive secret from Beth: how he came across her photograph in the first place …[Cover]   

Other new items this week include

“The world’s most influential painters…and the artists they inspired” by David Gariff  

More than just another survey of art history, this richly illustrated volume reveals the often surprising cross-influences among 50 of the world’s most important painters. Enlightening illustrated spreads present family trees of influence and time lines, each focusing on a major artist or school of art. The artists examined in this volume include Vermeer, Piero della Francesca, Botticelli, Bosch, Da Vinci, Dürer, Michelangelo, among many others. Approximately 225 color images, including reproductions of the famous works being discussed, accompany the reader on this fascinating journey through the history of art. [Cover]

and  

“The book of answers”

The Book of Answers gives solutions to everyday parenting problems and offers authoritative advice on how to raise a happy, healthy, safe, and secure child, from birth through to age five. Compiled from Littlies magazine ‘Ask our Experts’ archives, the panel of top New Zealand experts includes: Dr Simon Rowley (Paediatrician), Nikki Hart (Dietician), Diane Levy (Family Therapist), Nigel Latta (Psychologist), Dr Catherine Cearns (GP) and Marcia Roberts (Lactation Consultant). Raising a baby through to school age is a hugely fulfilling, often exhausting and sometimes frustrating experience and almost all parents and caregivers of young children face similar concerns. The Book of Answers includes the most common questions asked by parents and caregivers and is organised by topic area: from sleeping to eating to developing social skills and self confidence to curbing bad behaviour. [Cover]

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

 Avril