New books on display at Hurunui District Library from 28 May – 4 Jun

  “That’s another story” by Julie Walters

Julie Walters has been described as the nation’s most popular actress and comedienne. She has been delighting us on screen and on stage for over 25 years and we have taken her to our hearts. Now she tells us her own story, in her own words. She was born in fifties Birmingham, daughter of an austere Irish Catholic mother. She was sent to school in a convent and from a young age always wanted to be an actress but to appease her mother she first went into nursing. This didn’t last for long though and she soon went to join the Everyman Theatre in Liverpool. West End success followed, and she quickly replicated her success on film, earning an Academy Award nomination for her role opposite Michael Caine in Educating Rita. Julie’s collaborations with her close friend Victoria Wood have given us, among others, the unforgettable character ‘Mrs Overall’ in Acorn Antiques and Petula in ‘Dinnerladies’, and she’s recently charmed a new generation of fans playing Mrs Weasley in the Harry Potter films and alongside Meryl Streep in ‘Mamma Mia!’, as well as co-starring with Helen Mirren in Calendar Girls. The winner of countless awards, Julie has continued to be in some of Britain’s best TV drama and was awarded a CBE for her services to the theatre. A natural writer with an instinctive sense of timing, Julie’s memoirs are warm, moving, painfully felt, fiercely intelligent – and totally entertaining. [Cover]

 “Light the flame” by Christine Rankin

Born in the West Coast mining town of Blackball and with an abusive father, Christine Rankin was a mother at 18, a solo mum of two by her mid-20s and the chief executive of WINZ in her early 40s, in charge of 6000 staff and operating costs of more than $580 million. Then it all went horribly wrong. Since she left WINZ after a spectacular Employment Court case Christine Rankin has carved out a powerful new role as a motivational speaker, career change specialist and child-abuse prevention advocate. This inspiring book distills her views on leadership, activism and effectiveness, twinning the lessons she has learned and the truths she has encountered over her years in the public spotlight with the story of her own difficult upbringing and early adult life. Warm and inspiring this well focused book is an essential tool for anyone involved in leading teams of people. It’s also the story of one of New Zealands’ most well-known women. [Cover]

 ”The winter vault” by Anne Michaels

From the author of the acclaimed “Fugitive Pieces” her first work of fiction in more than a decade: a mesmerizing love story that juxtaposes historical events with the most intimate moments of individual lives. In 1964, a newly married Canadian couple settle into a houseboat on the Nile just below Abu Simbel. Avery is one of the engineers responsible for the dismantling and reconstruction of the temple, a “machine-worshipper” who is nonetheless sensitive to their destructive power. Jean is a botanist by vocation, passionately interested in everything that grows. They met on the banks of the St. Lawrence River, witnessing the construction of the Seaway as it swallowed towns, homes and lives. Now, at the edge of another world about to be inundated, they create their own world, exchanging “the innocent memories we don’t know we hold until given the gift of the eagerness of another”. But when tragedy strikes, they return to separate lives in Toronto: Avery to school to study architecture; and Jean into the orbit of Lucjan, a Polish emigre artist whose haunting tales of occupied Warsaw pull her further from Avery but offer her the chance to assume her most essential life. Stunning in its explorations of both the physical and emotional worlds of its characters, intensely moving and lyrical, “The Winter Vault “is a radiant work of fiction. [Cover]

 “All the nice girls” by Joan Bakewell

“All the nice girls” captures the danger and excitement of wartime Britain with a sweeping story of heroic deeds and painful separations, illicit love and battles at sea, and above all, of the poignancy of longing and loss. 1942, and the war is not going well. As part of the war effort the Ashworth Grammar School for Girls signs up for the Merchant Navy’s Ship Adoption Scheme. The headmistress, who lost her lover in the First World War, believes the project will broaden the horizons of her girls, especially Polly and Jen, bright sixth formers eager to live and love despite it all. Then Josh Percival, captain of the adopted ship, the SS Treverran, comes with his men to visit Ashworth. The choices that follow will disrupt all their lives, reverberating even to the next generation, when, decades later, life and love are on the line again … [Cover]

 “Map of the invisible world” by Tash Aw

Set during the tumultuous “Year of Living Dangerously” in post-colonial Indonesia, a stunning follow-up to the international debut literary sensation The Harmony Silk Factory. Tash Aw burst onto the international literary scene in 2005 with his highly acclaimed, award-winning debut novel. Now, with the same lyrical evocation of an exotic yet tumultuous world that made The Harmony Silk Factory so beloved, Map of the Invisible World is masterful, psychologically rich, and deeply rewarding. Sixteen-year-old Adam is an orphan three times over. He and his older brother, Johan, were abandoned by their mother as children; then Adam watched as Johan was taken away by a wealthy couple; and now Karl, the artist who raised Adam, has been arrested by soldiers during Sukarno’s drive to purge 1960s Indonesia of its colonial past. All Adam has to guide him in his quest to find Karl are some old photos and letters – one of which sends him to the colourful, dangerous capital, Jakarta, and to Margaret, an American whose own past is bound up with Karl’s. Soon, both have embarked on journeys of discovery that seem destined to turn tragic. Woven hauntingly into this page-turning story is the voice of Johan, who is living a seemingly carefree, privileged life in Malaysia, but who is careening out of control as he cannot forget his long-ago betrayal of his helpless, trusting brother. “Map of the Invisible World” confirms Tash Aw as one of the most exciting young voices on the international stage. [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 18 Sep – 25 Sep

 “Kai ora” by Anne Thorp

Anne Thorp is the sparkling hostess of the winning Kai Ora cooking shows on Maori Television and The Food Channel and her swish Herne Bay and Pakiri homes have been featured in most of New Zealand’s glossy magazines. Her specialty is taking our indigenous foods (from snapper and crayfish to kina, oysters and more exotic shellfish) and cooking them simply and quickly in a modern manner that delivers zest, zing and freshness. She’s been called “the Maori Queen of Cuisine”; but her approach to food is also so much more than that: seafood is her strong suit and she inspires us to use it creatively and sometimes bravely! With over 85 recipes, lifestyle shots and an essay by Anne on her fascinating life in food, this book serves as a quintessential guide to New Zealand indigenous food – from the bounty of our shores through to land-based ingredients such as piko piko and puha. A special feature is an essay by Auckland breast surgeon Trevor Smith who operated on Anne when she had surgery for breast cancer several years ago. Trevor believes that the right diet can prevent the incidence of cancer and has worked with Anne to highlight the ‘cancer busting’ ingredients in each recipes. Featuring stunning photography by Aaron McLean. [Cover]

 “The ladies lending library” by Janice Kulyk Keefer

It is August of 1963, the year of the Taylor/Burton film epic Cleopatra, showcasing a passion too grand to be contained on the movie screen. The women of the Kalyna Beach cottage community gather for gin and gossip, trading the current racy bestsellers among themselves as they seek a brief escape from the predictable rhythms of children and chores. But dramatic change is coming this summer as innocence falters and the desire for change reaches a boiling point, threatening to disrupt the warm, sweet, heady days and the lives of parents and children, family and friends, forever. [Cover]

 “Dark places” by Gillian Flynn

Libby Day was seven when her mother and two sisters were murdered in “The Satan Sacrifice of Kinnakee, Kansas.” As her family lay dying, little Libby fled their tiny farmhouse into the freezing January snow. She lost some fingers and toes, but she survived-and famously testified that her fifteen-year-old brother, Ben, was the killer. Twenty-five years later, Ben sits in prison, and troubled Libby lives off the dregs of a trust created by well-wishers who’ve long forgotten her. The Kill Club is a macabre secret society obsessed with notorious crimes. When they locate Libby and pump her for details-proof they hope may free Ben, Libby hatches a plan to profit off her tragic history. For a fee, she’ll reconnect with the players from that night and report her findings to the club . . . and maybe she’ll admit her testimony wasn’t so solid after all. As Libby’s search takes her from shabby Missouri strip clubs to abandoned Oklahoma tourist towns, the narrative flashes back to January 2, 1985. The events of that day are relayed through the eyes of Libby’s doomed family members-including Ben, a loner whose rage over his shiftless father and their failing farm have driven him into a disturbing friendship with the new girl in town. Piece by piece, the unimaginable truth emerges, and Libby finds herself right back where she started-on the run from a killer. [Cover]

 “The true history of paradise” by Margaret Cezair-Thompson

From the acclaimed author of “The Pirate’s daughter” comes a story of three women born into the divided, troubled paradise of Jamaica. Easter, 1981, with Jamaica in a state of emergency, the Landing family gathers to bury one of its own. For Monica Landing, who had not spoken to her daughter for fifteen years, the death of Lana is the cruellest kind of loss. For Lana’s youngest sister, Jean, it is a tragedy. All she knows is that her beloved homeland holds no future for her. But flight means crossing a landscape where soldiers turned executioners and armed gangs rule. It means making her way through the memories that engulf her, with perhaps the only man she has ever loved by her side. This book captures the grace, beauty and brutality that are indelible parts of the Jamaican experience. [Cover]

 “Pop goes the weasel” by Albert Jack

Who were Mary Quite Contrary and Georgie Porgie? How could Hey Diddle Diddle offer an essential astronomy lesson? And if Ring a Ring a Roses isn’t about catching the plague, then, what is it really about? This ingenious book delves into the hidden meanings of the nursery rhymes and songs we all know so well and discovers all kinds of strange tales ranging from Viking raids to firewalking and from political rebellion to slaves being smuggled to freedom. Children have always played at being grown up and all kinds of episodes in our history are still being re-enacted today in a series of dark games (Oranges and Lemons traces a condemned man’s journey across London to his execution, Goosie Gander is about dragging a hidden Catholic priest to prison) And there are many many more…Full of vivid illustrations and with each verse reproduced, here are a multitude of surprising stories you won’t be able to resist passing on to everyone you know. Your childhood songs and rhymes will never sound the same again. [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 14 May – 21 May

  “Weathered bones” by Michele Powes

This is a very fine first novel by a promising writer who has already attracted some attention and much praise from her mentors Stephanie Johnson and Siobhan Harvey. It is set in the present day, but has many references back to historical events. The lives of three women interweave in the novel. Eliza McGregor is New Zealand’s only female permanent lighthouse keeper at Pencarrow lighthouse near Wellington in the 1850s. She takes life, and its storms, head on, hardening herself against its wintry gales. In the present day, Antoinette, a widowed grandmother, struggles with her sense of self-worth as she deals with budding loneliness. And emotional Grace, much younger, caught in a cool, loveless marriage with Jason, tries to commit suicide and is assigned to a psychiatric clinic. There she meets Antoinette, and an unusual friendship develops. As the novel develops Eliza, the lighthouse keeper from an earlier century, becomes a presence in Grace and Antoinette’s lives, a ghostly vision who seems to have a life of her own in the present day…[Cover]

 “Journey to the edge of the world” by Billy Connelly

In the summer of 2008 Billy Connolly set sail on a ten-week journey from ocean to ocean: from the Atlantic to the Pacific, by way of the North West Passage – a fabled route deep within the Arctic Circle that has thwarted explorers and fortune-hunters for centuries. For Cook, Drake and countless other adventurers, the North West Passage has been an alluring but impossible journey, a trial of unparallelled physical and mental strength, a haunting and fascinating wilderness. Now the Arctic is melting at a rate of 36,000 square miles a year and the journey is finally possible. For the first time, if you’re quick, you can sail freely, if precariously, from Newfoundland right round to Vancouver. By plane, rail, road and boat, along coastlines and across sweeping landscapes that represent the final Northern frontier of the inhabited world for both man and beast, Billy’s adventure will embrace a memorable mix of bizarre encounters, Hemingway-esque characters, incredible wildlife, forgotten languages, big game hunting and all night carousing under the midnight sun. And he’s taking us with him. [Cover]

 “In the land of invisible women..” by Qanta Ahmed

When British doctor Qanta Ahmed’s U.S. visa wasn’t renewed, the practising Muslim, who’d been living in New York, accepted a position in an exotic land: Saudi Arabia. Ahmed’s memoir of her two years working at a Riyadh hospital describes her life – both professional and personal – as she navigates a strange new world where women aren’t allowed to drive and must lie on operating tables with veiled faces. Ahmed also makes a pilgrimage to Mecca and sees first-hand the reaction to the tragedy of 9/11. [Cover]

 “The New Zealand seafood cookbook”

Five chefs, John Campbell, Peter Chaplin, Mark Dronjak, Petra New and Steve Roberts from the Auckland Seafood School (located at the Auckland Fish Market) share their most popular recipes. Also includes a guide to New Zealand fish species and information on wine matching. [Cover]

 “A dog’s life” by Martin Clunes

Martin Clunes is happy to admit that with Mary, it was love at first sight; her soft, brown eyes, her perfect figure and that unstoppable wagging tail. As cocker spaniels go, she was perfect. It is a love that has taken them through puppy classes to the local dog show, a move to the country and even visits from a dog psychologist, and has often caused Martin to wonder: Where the hell did you come from? To find a satisfying answer to that question, Martin embarked on a worldwide quest to look into the history of dogs, and link the pampered pets of today with their wild ancestors painted dogs in Tanzania, dingoes in Australia and wolves in Yellowstone National Park, USA. He also explores how humans have shaped the dog breeds of today, visiting the Beverly Hills Mutt Club and meeting working dogs in several countries police dogs, hunting hounds and sled dogs. Accompanied by his stunning photography, Martins account of his discoveries, told with his trademark warmth and humour, is compelling and full of surprises. One thing is certain: at the end of this fascinating journey, Martin will never look at his own dogs in the same way again. [Cover]

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

 

Avril

New books on display at the Hurunui District Library from 8 to 14 May 2009

    “Forgotten Anzacs : the campaign in Greece, 1941″ by Peter Ewer

‘Every school child in Australia and New Zealand is brought up on the legend of the Anzacs. This, though, is the largely unknown story of another Anzac force which fought not at Gallipoli, but in Greece during World War II. Desperately outnumbered, and fighting in deeply inhospitable conditions, these Anzacs found themselves engaging in a long retreat through Greece, under constant air attack. Most of the Anzac Corps was evacuated by the end of April, but many men got only as far as Crete. Fighting a German paratroop invasion there in May, large numbers were taken captive and spent four long years as prisoners of the Nazis. Just as Gallipoli provided military academies the world over with lessons in how not to conduct a complex feat of arms, Churchill’s Greek adventure reinforced fundamental lessons in modern warfare… ‘ [Cover].

   “Handle with care” by Jodi Picoult

‘Willow O’Keefe is born with osteogenesis imperfecta, or brittle bone disease, which means she will suffer hundreds of broken bones as she grows, and a lifetime of pain. As the family struggles to cover medical expenses, her mother Charlotte decided to file a wrongful birth lawsuit against her obstetrician for compensation that might ensure a lifetime of care for Willow. But it means that Charlotte has to say in a court of law that she would have terminated the pregnancy if she’d known about the disability in advance. And the obstetrician she is suing isn’t just her physician – she’s her best friend…’ [Cover].

   “The good thief” by Hannah Tinti

‘Young Ren is missing both his parents and his hand. Worse still, he doesn’t know what happened to any of them. All he knows is Saint Anthony’s, the cold New England orphanage in which he has grown up. And he is beginning to fear that no one will claim him: that his dream of a family will come to nothing. But one day an exciting stranger arrives at the orphanage. To Ren’s astonishment, the glamorous Benjamin Nab says that he is his brother, come to bring him home. And even when Benjamin’s stories grow more extraordinary, when he puts Ren’s life in danger again and again and sets him first to theft and then to grave-robbing, Ren cannot quite abandon hope that one day all the hunger and danger and unwanted excitement will be worth it, that he will find a family. But whether Benjamin is to be trusted is another story… Set in the wild, seamy and extremely strange America of the nineteenth century…’ [Cover].

   “William Morris in applique” by Michele Hill

‘Past meets present in this amazing collection of unique applique quilts by Michele Hill. Inspired by the genius of William Morris, each magnificent quilt captures the beauty and richness of nature so exquisitely interpreted by Morris. Michele’s use of colours and patterns and her ability to translate the sumptuous style of William Morris into simple forms appropriate for applique is outstanding. Made from more than forty individual patterns, the six main projects are accompanied by clear and easy to follow instructions and coloured diagrams. Easy to use, full size templates are included on tear out pattern sheets. For those new to applique and quilting a chapter of essential basic  start to finish step-by-step instructions are included’ [Cover].

Other titles on display this week:

“Corsair” by Clive Cussler

“Just take my heart” by Mary Higgins Clark

“The best of times” by Penny Vincenzi

“Memoirs” by Nana Moskouri

“The spend less handbook” by Rebecca Ash

“A reliable wife” by Robert Goolrick

“The gate of air” by James Buchan

“Stray sock sewing” by Daniel.

 

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

Sylvia