Monthly Archives: April 2020

There is no such thing as ‘Too Many Books!’ Or is there?

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I am happy to admit that I ‘love reading and books’ but sometimes, well if I am honest, most of the time I find it extremely hard to read. Does that make sense? What I am trying to say is that while I want to read, I find it hard to concentrate and make a decision on what to read. You can only re-read Harry Potter and Jasper Jones so many times!

You might think working in a library would make this decision easier, well it doesn’t. In fact it makes it one thousand times harder. When your job requires you to be up to date with what new titles are coming out and provide reading suggestions on an almost daily basis, having to then decide what books you want to read can prove almost impossible.

I find my interest is influenced by what I am working on at the time. For example while providing personalised reading suggestions for one of our recent Parra Reads Match requests; which was for thriller recommendations. I thought to myself you know what, I think what I feel like reading is a, thriller!

You might think this story ended there and I picked up the perfect thriller. Well it didn’t. I did choose four wonderful books to read and read the first few pages of each. Then put them all down. Not because they weren’t good, it was because I had already moved on to working on some ‘Chick Lit’ or you might like to call them, ‘Rom Com’ title recommendations for our library readers.

Hopefully you can now understand my dilemma. Or maybe you are thinking how hard is it to pick just one book to read. Or you might be wondering if I finally managed to choose a book to read.

Well unfortunately I haven’t actually managed to read any book yet. I have however managed to pick some amazing titles which, fingers crossed I will eventually read!

Until that time, I hope that you might find a great book to read or listen too among my ‘Wish List’.

Happy Reading, fingers crossed!

Jody

Jody’s Wish List

House of Earth and Blood, Crescent City Book 1 by Sarah J Maas

Jacinda Ardern by Michelle Duff

The Redhead by the Side of the Road by Anne Tyler

Maggie’s Going Nowhere by Rose Hartley

The Dictionary of Lost Words by Pip Williams

The Nowhere Child by Christain White

The Secrets She Keeps by Michael Robotham

The Mother-In-Law by Sally Hepworth, (Parra Reads Online Book Club)

Alice to Prague by Tanya Heaslip, (Parra Reads Online Book Club)

The Switch by Beth O’Leary.

Stella Prize Winner 2020

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Congratulations! 2020 ‘Stella Prize’ Winner Jess Hill for her novel ‘See What You Made Me Do: Power, Control and Domestic Abuse’.

The ‘Stella Prize’ is one of our favourtie awards here at City of Parramatta Libraries. With each year being a celebration of the talent and quality of Australian women’s writing in our every growing community of Australian Writers.

Each year the ‘Parra Reads Group’ of book-crazy Librarian’s get together and read all the books that make it to the ‘Stella’ shortlist and of course discuss each one. For the past two years we have featured that discussion on our podcast, Parra Pods. This year in episode 33 Nisa and Sandra read and discussed ‘See What You Made Me Do’; which stood out among the other titles as a “gripping & essential read”. I can remember Nisa very passionately telling anyone who would listen that they had to read ‘See What You Made Me Do’.

If you missed our special ‘Stella Prize’ episode of Parra Pods you can listen anytime on Podbean, Apple Podcasts and Google Play, or here!

As a special promotion for Book Clubs and our wider reading community, ‘See What You Made Me Do’ is available as an eBook with NO WAITING, NO HOLDS! Available to download from our rbDigital app. Just download the app to start ‘Reading Together’, at home!

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Podcast Episode 34 – Wellbeing

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Find ways to relax, to meditate, to pursue balance, to consider gratitude, to engage in kindness, to strive for positivity…. all of these are important considerations for those interested in creating a sense of wellbeing for themselves and those around them.

Join Nisa & Antonia as they talk about some books that explore this and more!

The books discussed in this episode of Parra Pods include:

In Search of Happiness: following mindful paths to fulfillment by Mike Annesley. Worth Press, October 2018.

Smart Girls Screw Up Too: the no-nonsense guide to creating the life you want by Bella Zanesco. John Wiley & Son, January 2018. 

Unwind Your Mind: the life changing power of ASMR by Emma WhispersRed. Ebury Publishing, September 2019.

Happy Listening!

Book Review – The Choke by Sofie Laguna

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The Choke by Sofie Laguna

Published by Allen & Unwin, 2017.

About the Book

I never had words to ask anybody the questions, so I never had the answers.
Abandoned by her mother and only occasionally visited by her secretive father, Justine is raised by her pop, a man tormented by visions of the Burma Railway. Justine finds sanctuary in Pop’s chooks and The Choke, where the banks of the Murray River are so narrow it seems they might touch – a place of staggering natural beauty. But the river can’t protect Justine from danger. Her father is a criminal, and the world he exposes her to can be lethal.

Justine is overlooked and underestimated, a shy and often silent observer of her chaotic world. She learns that she has to make sense of it on her own. She has to find ways to survive so much neglect. She must hang on to friendship when it comes, she must hide when she has to, and ultimately she must fight back.

The Choke is a brilliant, haunting novel about a child navigating an often dark and uncaring world of male power and violence, in which grown-ups can’t be trusted and comfort can only be found in nature. This compassionate and claustrophobic vision of a child in danger and a society in trouble celebrates above all the indomitable nature of the human spirit.

Sofie Laguna, winner of the 2015 Miles Franklin Literary Award for The Eye of the Sheep, once again shows she is a writer of rare empathy, originality and blazing talent.

From Allen & Unwin

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Parra Reads, Online Book Club

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Online we can all ‘Read Together’.

Joining a book club is a great way to socialise with like-minded people while discovering new authors and books!

But what do you do when an in-person book club doesn’t work? Maybe you have work commitments, or your friends don’t live nearby, or maybe it’s April 2020 and COVID-19 and social distancing has resulted in your monthly book club meetings being ‘put on hold’ until the world rights itself!

Given the current situation and because we have been wanting to do this for a while we thought it would be the perfect time to start up an online book club, and we called it ‘Parra Reads’ of course!

Every month, a book-crazy group of Librarians will select two books they love and share them with readers.

Join in the online discussion on the ‘Parra Reads’ forum page, or share your thoughts via Twitter using #parrareadsbookclub

The books selected will include a mixture of both fiction and non-fiction and include newer and older titles.

The two titles chosen for April are:

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