Author and photographer Jan Latta has been visiting Parramatta City Library and its branches. These are some photos taken at Parramatta City Library. She talks about her books and animals.

What’s new at Parramatta City Library so far? Well, across all genres, here are some titles for your information.

General Fiction

The drowing girl by Margaret leroy – stories of mothers and daughters

The gourmet by Muriel Barbara – stories of food habits

Hummingbirds by Joshua Gaylord – stories of teacher – student relationships

Lanterns on their horns by Radhika Jha – stories of rural poor in India

Life sentences by Laura Lippman – stories of female authors

The man in the shed by Lloyd Jones – Stories of New Zealand

The sad tale of the brothers Grossbart by Jesse Bullington – stories of brothers

The ship of brides by Jojo Moyes – stories of Australia

Lovesong by Alex Miller – seeking shelter in a Parisian cafe from a sudden rainstorm, John Patterner meets the exotic Sabiha and his carefully mapped life changes forever.

Winners and losers by Linda Sole – when Sarah Jenkins meets Con band and soon is blamed for assulting a woman, can he prove his in nocence? Meanwhile, Frances Danby has discovered that she has a tumour close to her brain and her pride won’t let her go to her sister for help…

New Fantasy/Supernatural

I am Scrooge by Adam Roberts – a zombie story for Christmas

Fallen by Lauren Kate

The final empire by Brandon Sanderson

Heaven can wait by Cally Taylor

The rats and the ruling sea by Robert V. S. Redick

New Historical Fiction

Galileo’s dream by Kim Stanley Robinson – Stories about Galileo Galilei

If the dead rise not by Philip Kerr

King Arthur : Warrior of the West by M. K. Hume

Pirate latitudes by Michael Crichton – about Japanese sailing

Red lotus by Pai Kit Fai – a novel set in China in the 1920s about Siu Sing, the daugher of a Chinese mother and the foreign devil ship’s captain who rescured her from the death. Raised until the age of twelve by an elderly Taoist sage who is master of the White Crane and trained as one of his last disciples, she is sold into slavery after he’s assassinated…

Secretum by Monaldi & Sorti – July 1700, Rome, Atto Melani once a celebrated castrato soprano, now a spy in the service of King Louis XIV, the Sun King mingles with other high-ranking guests at the villa of Cardinal Spada…

New Detective Fiction

Between the plums: visions of sugarplums, Plum lovin and plum I lucky by Janet Evan ovich – female detectives

True blue by David Baldacci – Mason ‘Mace’ Perry series

cut & run by Alix Bosco – Suspense

Get real by Danald E. Westlake – Crime

The gigolo murder by Mehmet Mural Somer – Turkey, Istanbul

The hua shan hospital murders by David Rotenberg – Detective in Shanghai

The secret shopper unwrapped by Kate Harrison – mystery

The Shakespeare curse by J. L. Carrell – thriller

The surrogate by Tania Carver – Suspense

Tell tale by Sam Hayes – family secrets

U is for undertwo by Sue Grafton – Kinsey Millhone series

Original sin by Tasmina Perry – stunning Olivia Asgill is about to marry into one of the richest and most powerful families in the US. But the Asgills are not all they seem and the past is riddled with lles,. Renowned pulist Tess Garrisen has no easy task keeping secrets locked away until the big day is over, secrets always resurface when least expected.

Occupied city by David Peace – dramatises and exploes the rumours of complicity, conspiracy and cover-up that surroung the chilling case of the Teikoku Bank Massacre…

Corpus delicti by Keith McCarthy – Eisenmenger’s relationship with Helena Flemming has deteriorated to the point that Helena wants it to end, leaving Eisenmenger devastated. Eisenmenger throws himself back into the work as a forensic pathologist and is immediately consumed by disturbing discovery…

The Christmas break was a reading week for me. So much there and so little time for reading. However I managed to finish a few readings and really enjoyed it. Here are some reviews  

Man in the dark by Paul Auster

Who is the man in the dark? He is a man with insomnia who can’t sleep. He has had a car accident and his injuries have limited his ability to move. He lives in his daughter’s home. He misses his wife all the time, the wife whom he betrayed and has remarried. His daugher is divorced and his grandaughter lost her boyfriend in a brutal murder. It’s all  just too much for him to cope and so he stays wake in the dark.

The man, Augaust Brill is an old man, but he’s a writer, so he creates stories in the dark. America is at war but not with Iraq or Afghanistan, but with itself – state by state, have each broken away for independence and are fighting with the federation – the dark moment of American humanity the author dares to think.

"Man in the Dark" is very contronting, from the way it describes ordinary people’s daily life, such as Brill and his family, to the picture it creates of the war on ‘something.’ Keeping with as Auster‘s usual style, he writes story within stories, and mixes up reality with fictional characters. In a story the main character Owen Brick is supposedly to kill a man called Augaust Brill (the character of this book) in a parallel world. The scenario of the world that Brill lives in is full of bloodshed, tyranny and death which echo the reality of the war in this real world after September eleventh. The author moves in and out from different world with ease.  The feeling it creates is quite surreal but it is very nicely written and worth the read.  

 The message I took away was that whatever happens, the weired world rolls on, a conclusion drawn by the author at the end of the book.

The hollow tree by Jacob g. Rosenberg  

 It’s a love story and a tale of tragedy. Jan and Milena are lovers but they are from different families. Worse, they live in a world of war. Jews are constantly jailed or killed. But that doesn’t stop young lovers longing for each other. They grab whatever joy they have, while fear for their life.   

Beautifully written, this poignant story does draw at the heart strings, I couldn’t help but walk away from it sadden. Not simply a romantic tale but a story of humanity during the worst time of barbarianism. 

The moster in the box by Ruth Rendell

For those who love Ruth Rendell, you will probable be disappointed in this latest title. All I could think was Wexford (the main character of a detective in the series) was older and slower, or maybe it is the author who is older and slower. In comparing with her other titles in this series, it is certainly not the best one. But in true Rendell style, she still is able to reflect the current issues in society as whole – immigration, multiculturalism and political correctness.   

 Wexford is sure Targo was gulity of murder almost four decades ago. Now Targo is back is he going to kill again? There is only one problem for Wexford… where is the evidence? One can not perform justice on a hunch alone and while Wexford reminiscences about the past, a young Muslim student, Tamima, quits her studies suddenly and goes missing. Is she a victim of old traditions – forced marrige,  honour killing or simply like any other teens, running wild? Wexford has to find the evidence to catch Targo and to convice his junior officer Hannah to let Tamima case go. If only she would…

After reading it through, perhaps it’s not as bad as I thought in the beginning.  

The Bilderberg Group by Daniel Estulin 

Imagine stepping into the lift and almost dropping tens meters to the ground and the lift has no floor! It’s a thought which chills everyone, even just reading about it. Hold on, this is not a fiction, it’s what the author experienced on one of many occasions when he was investigating this particular group –

‘The Bilderberg Group’. Who are they and what have they done? Well, it’s simple; they are the wealthest men on the earth and have grouped together since 1954 to decide how the world should be run. This book will leave you without a doubt – of course they behind all the big events that have changed history. They control every area of the world, from finance, to politics, to trading and all western govertments. According to the author they are the ones who decide which government should be turned over, and which president should be scandalised for a new one, how economic should work, where to start a war, the list goes on and on. The author even presents a lot photos and achieves to support his claim. 

So is everything true or fictional? Well, you just have to read it and judge for yourself.

This Wednesday, the reading group held its first meeting in 2010 and they discussed the book ‘Dreams from my father’ by Barack Obama. It’s Barack Obama’s memoir and initially was published in 1995. It is a story of race and inheritance.

Most reading group members enjoyed the reading and thought it was compassionat, insightful, especially the first half of the book and things about community development. It was easy to read. Some thought the second half of the book was not relevant to a wider audience. Some members felf surprised what was happening in Africa.

Some didn’t think Obama is really a Black American. some felt sad about the ghetto living of Black Americans, about Africa. Some thought American ownership of guns equated to fear of Black Americans.

Some members thought Obama who had a humble beginning and will deliever a better America. Obama had both a local and a global vision, and will be reelected.

Some commented that it was a historical book written by a very intelligent man who made a lot of people want to vote.

Jan Latta, a writer and photographer, who’s gone to Africa to take photos and record wild animals for years and made Diary of a Wildlife Photographer, for ABC. Here is some information from her own website http://www.truetolifebooks.com.au/index.htm

"In 1994, Jan came face to face with a mountain gorilla in Rwanda. The experience changed her life. When her guide said there were only 600 mountain gorillas left in the world, she decided to create books for children on endangered animals.

The first book in the True to Life series, Grandy the Gorilla, is now out of print, but Jan wants to return when it’s safe to take additional photographs. Jan went back to Africa six times to follow, lions, elephants, rhinos, giraffes, cheetahs and she went into the jungle with chimpanzees. Each time she followed animals for weeks, taking photographs and writing about the animals’ habitat. For the tiger book she travelled to India for a month and China twice for the panda book.

In 2007 the ABC asked her to write Diary of a Wildlife Photographer. All her adventures for the last 14 years have been recorded with over 300 photographs she has taken in the wild.

She is guest speaker at schools, libraries, and festivals in Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong, China and Singapore.

Jan is a popular guest speaker at schools and libraries, showing 100 unique photographs, talking about endangered animals and her adventures in the wild."

Parramatta City Library is expecting Jan for the author talk on 12 January. The library has purchase all those beautiful photographic books for its children’s collection written by Jan Latta.