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Out of the Box!: New Arrival Highlights

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Each month behind the scenes at City of Parramatta Libraries staff work tirelessly to get thousands of new items onto the Library’s shelves each month! Providing library members with a wide range of titles and material to choose from.

Below is a small snapshot of just some of the items to arrive on the shelves in May 2019; including new publications and top-up titles.

Reserving your copy is easy and free, click on the book cover and have your library card and password/pin handy!

Adult Fiction

So many varied and interesting titles including thrillers, fantasy, historical fiction and more!

ADULT NON-FICTION

We have you covered with the following non-fiction titles; so many varied subjects to choose from!

FOR KIDS

A great selection of board books, picture books, junior fiction and non-fiction.

YOUNG ADULT

It does not seem to matter if I am browsing through ‘All About Books’ or checking our recent additions; I always seem to end up with too many Young Adult titles on my TBR list. I hope the following titles allow you to grow your own TBR pile!

Podcast Memorable Memoirs

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In this episode of Parra Pods Katherine & Nisa asked themselves why do some memoirs resonate so much with people?

Michelle Obam’s ‘Becoming was City of Parramatta Libraries most borrowed non-fiction title so far in 2019. Her spouse Barak Obama was the President of the United States for eight years, yet it is she who has garnered both popular and critical acclaim for this “tell it like it is” memoir.

Sally Fields is a Hollywood legend and, an Oscar recipient, here is her memoir about growing up in a dysfunctional family, overcoming the limitations of  her early career playing the “Flying Nun” & “Gidget”.  Finally forging a career that has afforded her longevity as an actress, but more importantly finding peace with the dark secret that cast a shadow over her life.

Some of the books discussed in this podcast include:

  • Becoming by Michelle Obama. London, Viking, 2018
  • In Pieces by Sally Fields London, Simon & Schuster, 2018

May’s Reads: Book Clubs & Reading Groups

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As usual it has been a busy month for all of City of Parramatta Libraries Book Clubs and Reading Groups.

The month of May saw twenty seven Book Club Kits delivered to our Library Branches, making it simple for our wider reading community to pick up their Book Club Kits. Thanks to the Library’s wonderful courier, Vic who never gets upset when each day he arrives and there are more Book Club Kits waiting for him to deliver.

This month Book Clubs and Reading Groups read a wide range of titles, including both fiction and non fiction. Popular titles this month included ‘Bridge of Clay’ by Markus Zusak, and First Person by Richard Flanagan; both of which were read by four clubs.

Book Review: The Wife Drought

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The Wife Drought by Annabel Crabb

Book Summary

‘I need a wife’

It’s a common joke among women juggling work and family. But it’s not actually a joke. Having a spouse who takes care of things at home is a Godsend on the domestic front. It’s a potent economic asset on the work front. And it’s an advantage enjoyed – even in our modern society – by vastly more men than women. 

Working women are in an advanced, sustained, and chronically under-reported state of wife drought, and there is no sign of rain.

But why is the work-and-family debate always about women? Why don’t men get the same flexibility that women do? In our fixation on the barriers that face women on the way into the workplace, do we forget about the barriers that – for men – still block the exits? 

The Wife Drought is about women, men, family and work. Written in Annabel Crabb’s inimitable style, it’s full of candid and funny stories from the author’s work in and around politics and the media, historical nuggets about the role of ‘The Wife’ in Australia, and intriguing research about the attitudes that pulse beneath the surface of egalitarian Australia.

Crabb’s call is for a ceasefire in the gender wars. Rather than a shout of rage, The Wife Drought is the thoughtful, engaging catalyst for a conversation that’s long overdue. 

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