New books on display at Hurunui District Library from 23 Dec – 8 Jan 2009

 “Edible : the illustrated guide to the world’s food plants”

A natural choice for the millions of people turning to a healthier lifestyle, this book invites readers on a sumptuously illustrated walk through the world garden to discover the story of some 250 food plants from field to table. Illustrated with more than 500 images and written by top international horticultural and culinary experts, the sumptuous Edible explores the origins, history, and contemporary cultural and culinary uses of fruits, vegetables, nuts, grains, beverage plants, herbs, and spices. A rich introduction begins the book, revealing early agriculture and our “green” future. Then an eight-chapter “Food Directory” cameos individual plants, with reader friendly layouts framing each entry’s biography, botanical description, culinary role, and healing powers. In addition to the lively and authoritative narrative, Edible intrigues readers with layers of information: literary quotes, boxes on ancient origins of exotic foods, political underpinnings, nutritional values, longstanding remedies, and more. [Cover]

 “Wanted dead or alive” by Colin Jones

The second book in the continuing saga of Colin Jones. The culling days were over and now with a young bride and children, Colin had to turn his hand to feeding the whanau and putting a roof over their heads. A job as a car salesman lasted for most of the first morning, before Colin realised that it was not for him. What he did know about was the bush, where were found deer and the sneaky tricks they employed to live long and healthy lives. Meat shooting provided an income, but things really took off when live deer were suddenly worth $3000 each. Armed with some flash pakeha technology Jonesy took to the bush to capture them alive. Deer, pigs and the bush form the backdrop to this engaging tale as Jonesy tries a whole lot of different ways to make a living from the things he knows best. [Cover]

 

 “Mama Rock’s rules” by Rose Rock

 

Focuses on Mama Rock’s rules for parenting, with chapters covering specific parenting issues and containing stories from the author’s childhood and parenting experiences. This book explains why parenting and friendship are different, and discusses the importance of boundaries, discipline, choices and consequences. [Cover]

“The Shakespeare secret” by J.L. Carrell

Who exactly was William Shakespeare? And what became of his lost plays? This new novel blends fact and fiction in pursuit of the Bard. The action centres around Kate Stanley, an American academic who is making her directorial debut by staging Hamlet at The Globe theatre in London. All is going well – she even has a big-name actor starring as the ghost of Hamlet’s father – when she receives an unexpected visit from her former mentor Rosalind Howard. Roz has come to ask for Kate’s help in solving a mystery, and before Kate has time to accept the plot lurches away into a breathless sequence of fires, murders and thefts. [Cover]

 

 “Facebook : the missing manual”

Facebook is the wildly popular, free social networking site that combines the best of blogs, online forums, photo sharing, clever applications, and interaction among friends. The one thing it doesn’t have is a user’s guide to help you truly take advantage of it. Until now. Facebook: The Missing Manual gives you a crystal clear and entertaining look at everything this fascinating Facebook phenomenon has to offer. [Cover]

 

To reserve any of these items please contact your local library or email

Avril

 

info@hurunuilibraries.govt.nz

 

 

New books on display at Hurunui District Library from 18 Dec – 24 Dec

  “Fishing for stars” by Bryce Courtenay

Fishing for Stars has, at its heart, two passionate, unforgettable – but very different – women. One is exotic, damaged, and shrewd; the other beautiful, determined and zealous. Both are bitter rivals for the love of the same man. The story is set in Australia, the Pacific Islands, Japan and Indonesia during the latter half of the twentieth century. Nick Duncan is an ingenuous male with a great deal more female on his hands than he can possibly hope to understand. The contest he is called upon to referee is the clash between the two great loves of his life: the seductive Anna Til, and the older, equally fascinating Marg Hamilton. Nick struggles between their worlds: one exploiting the world’s riches for profit, the other fighting to save the environment and its creatures, large and small. [Cover]

 

 “Survive! remarkable tales from the New Zealand outdoors” by Carl Walrond

New Zealanders love exploring the outdoors, but when things go wrong, why do some people survive and some don’t? Carl Walrond uses contemporary and historical accounts of mishaps and adventures to reveal interesting truths about survival. In doing so, he finds that the mind and the tricks it plays can be just as challenging as the wilderness itself. [Cover]

 

 

 “Sonata for Miriam” by Linda Olsson

 

A middle-aged man living on Auckland’s Waiheke Island recalls vividly the sudden death of his daughter Miriam. Grief silenced Adam at the time, but now he decides to break the silence and explore the secrets of the past. The search becomes a tribute to his daughter, and takes Adam from New Zealand to Poland. There he finds the truth about his past, but now he must live with it. On an island off the rocky coast of Sweden he re-connects with the love of his life. Sonata for Miriam is a heartbreaking tale of a man’s search for his past, about the exposure of secrets that have been hidden for too long, and about the importance of talking about the most vital and the most painful in life. But more than anything it is a novel about love. Rich and satisfying, Sonata for Miriam will stay with the reader long after they have put it down. [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 11 Dec – 18 Dec

 ”Nigella Christmas” by Nigella Lawson

Contains easy-to-follow recipes and advice about planning and cooking ahead for Christmas. This book features Christmas cakes and puddings, quick and easy homemade presents (biscuits, preserves and other standbys) and edible tree-decorations. It is illustrated by Lis Parsons. [Cover]

 ”The islands” by Di Morrissey

It’s the psychedelic 70s and social conventions are being challenged. When Catherine Moreland from rural Australia goes on her first trip abroad, a handsome American naval officer sweeps her off her feet and she goes to live in beautiful Hawaii with her new husband. At first, the magic and loveliness of the islands lead Catherine to believe she is living in paradise. However as she learns more about the islands, she begins to discover that paradise has a darker side. [Cover]

 “Diggers, hatters & whores” by Stevan Eldred-Grigg

This is a first – a thorough and carefully researched history of the gold rushes in New Zealand – and it establishes a benchmark for future work on the history of the gold rushes. It’s based on sound scholarship and aimed at the wide and growing general readership of those keen to know more about, and to weigh up, the history of New Zealand. The style is clear, clean and lively. The scope is the social history of the goldfields of colonial New Zealand, from the 1850s to the 1870s. The book opens with a survey of worldwide rushes in the late eighteenth and the first half of the nineteenth centuries, when for the first time in history a great wheeling movement of gold diggers began to revolve from continent to continent. The main body of the book looks at all the rushes, large and small, that took place in the colony: Coromandel, Golden Bay, Otago, Marlborough, the West Coast and Thames. The early chapters of the main body survey rushes chronologically; the later chapters look at rushes thematically. Beautifully illustrated with sketches and watercolours of the times, this is both a wonderful read and a beautiful gift book. [Cover]

 “The bodies left behind” by Jeffery Deaver

A spring night in a small town in Wisconsin…A call to police emergency from a distant lake house is cut short…A phone glitch or an aborted report of a crime? Off-duty deputy Brynn leaves her family’s dinner table and drives up to deserted Lake Mondac to find out. She stumbles onto the scene of a heinous murder…Before she can call for backup, though, she finds herself the next potential victim. Deprived of her phone, weapon and car, Brynn and an unlikely ally – a survivor of the carnage – can survive only by fleeing into the dense, deserted woods, on a desperate trek to safety and ultimately to the choice to fight back. The professional criminals, also strangers to this hostile setting, must forge a tense alliance too, in order to find and kill the two witnesses to the crime… [Cover]

 “Show of hands” by Anthony McCarten

A huge crowd gathers around a car yard for the ‘Win a new Land Rover Discovery’ competition – all you need do is keep your hand on the car the longest. Attracted to this gruelling Darwinian contest are people from every walk of life, who for one reason or another – avarice, poverty, anger, revenge, despair, loyalty, love – see their salvation in winning the car. But who will win, and why? Will it be Tom Shrift, using his Mensa brain and general contempt for humanity; or the kindly meter maid Jess Podorowski, who needs the car as it will fit her daughter’s wheelchair. Or will it be Matt, the poor little rich boy who wants a real challenge in his life; or Betsy, the flirtatious girl he takes a shine to; or the pensioner, the street kid, the ex-car thief, the soldier, or the numerous other contestants who line up . . . And if they can’t win a car, which hearts might be won instead? A humane, funny and compelling novel about the greatest endurance contest of all: our daily lives. Also released as a feature film. [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 4 Dec – 11 Dec

 ”How to prune” by John Cushnie

 

Pruning is one aspect of gardening that nature is not very good at. For once, you really do need to get out there and help her along. This book covers the basic techniques and includes specific instructions on pruning over 500 popular garden plants. [Cover] 

 

 “The business” by Martina Cole 

Imelda Dooley is scared. Really scared. She’s played hard and fast and now she’s been caught. She’s pregnant and now she’s on her own. Her father, not a man to mess with, will see that somebody pays for this. And it’s not going to be her. So Imelda Dooley tells a lie. A lie that literally causes murders. When Mary Dooley’s husband is killed in the night’s events, she knows she must graft to keep the family afloat. And graft she does, becoming a name in her own right. But she still has to watch her daughter’s life spiral into a vicious, hate-fuelled cycle of drugs and prostitution. Caught up in the carnage that is Imelda’s existence are Mary’s adored grandchildren, Jordanna and Kenny. Pretty little Jordanna isn’t yet three and she already knows far too much. All she can do is look after her baby brother, Kenny, and try not to draw unwanted attention to herself. Set in the East End of London from the tail-end of the seventies up until the present-day, a tale of drugs, prostitution and a young girl’s fight for survival against all the odds. [Cover]

 “The land of summer” by Charlotte Bingham

 

Emmaline has always understood from her mother that as the eldest of four daughters she must marry, but it seems that no proposals are going to come her way. Until, at a crowded ball, Julius makes his way to her side and waltzes her off. The next morning he makes it plain that he wants to marry her, and will marry her no matter what. So it is that Emmaline finds herself on the way to England from America to be with her husband-to-be, her hopes as high as they have ever been. What greets her when she arrives, however, is a strange house, full of odd guests and eccentric servants. It is a far cry from the glorious place that Julius had described to her. Indeed, as the days go by, her fiance seems to change beyond recognition and Emmaline becomes more and more unhappy.She cannot see any future to their relationship. But that is before Julius’s past, and the history of his house, make themselves plain to her. [Cover]

 “The slap” by Christos Tsiolkas

At a suburban barbecue a man slaps a child who is not his own. This event has a shocking ricochet effect on a group of people, friends and relatives who are all directly or indirectly influenced by the slap. In this remarkable novel, Christos Tsiolkas turns his unflinching and all-seeing eye onto that which connects us all : the modern family and domestic life in the twenty-first century. The slap is told from the point of view of eight people who were present at the barbecue. [Cover]

   ”Coast to coast” by Rick Stein  

Rick Stein’s passion for fresh, well-sourced food has taken him from continent to continent, across magnificent shorelines and to the very best produce the coast has to offer. From Fresh grilled cod with shellfish in garlic butter at the tip of St Ives, to Cured red duck breasts with melon, soy and pickled ginger in Sydney Harbour, this collection of over 130 recipes evokes all the pleasure and flavour associated with the coast. Chapters are organised by region: healthy salads inspired by the Californian ocean, sumptuous starters fit for French cuisine, modern light lunches such as Japanese sashimi and Moroccan tagines, and main courses using fresh fruit, vegetables, fish, meat, poultry and game from the most fertile coastal regions in the world. [Cover]

 

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

 

Avril