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I can’t believe we are at the end of July already!
How quickly the month has gone, and I must admit to being really behind with my ‘Book Club’ reads for this month. If I am honest this happens to me most months. I am definitely not a person who likes reading to a schedule.
Although July is just about over, I have just started to read one of our July picks, ‘The Promised Land’ by Barry Maitland. ‘The Promised Land’ seemed the best one to start with, considering I have been on a bit of a ‘Thriller’ binge at the moment. So far, I am enjoying the story and characters and am eager to see how the story ties together.
Available in eBook from our rbDigital library. Download the FREE rbDigital Library App from the App Store or Google Play and start reading!
An unputdownable thriller for fans of Liane Moriarty and Caroline Overington. If you were gripped watching The Cry, you’ll be hooked on Six Minutes.
‘Impossible to put down and full of twists and turns you won’t see coming! I loved this fabulous debut novel.’ Liane Moriarty, bestselling author of Nine Perfect Strangers
‘…a suspenseful suburban thriller that steals your time and won’t give it back.’ Crime Book of the Month, Readings.com
How can a child disappear from under the care of four playgroup mums?
One Thursday morning, Lexie Parker dashes to the shop for biscuits, leaving Bella in the safe care of the other mums in the playgroup.
Six minutes later, Bella is gone.
Police and media descend on the tiny village of Merrigang on the edge of Canberra. Locals unite to search the dense bushland. But as the investigation continues, relationships start to fracture, online hate messages target Lexie, and the community is engulfed by fear.
Is Bella’s disappearance connected to the angry protests at Parliament House? What secrets are the parents hiding? And why does a local teacher keep a photo of Bella in his lounge room?
What happened in those six minutes and where is Bella?
The clock is ticking…
This gripping novel will keep you guessing to the very last twist.
Available in eBook from our rbDigital library. Download the FREE rbDigital Library App from the App Store or Google Play and start reading!
Tracks meets Wild in this account of Chinese Australian journalist Monica Tan’s 6 month odyssey though outback Australia.
‘Will I ever really belong to this country? As a Chinese Australian? As a non-Indigenous Australian? . . . I was 32 years old and barely knew the country of my birth. It was time to change that.’
What happens when a 32-year-old first-generation Australian woman decides to chuck in a dream job, pack a sleeping bag and tent, and hit the long, dusty road for six months?
Thirty-thousand kilometres later, Monica Tan has the answer, and it completely surprises her.
In mid-2016, Monica left Sydney, unsure of her place in Australia. As a Chinese Australian city slicker, she couldn’t have felt more distant from powerful mythologies like the Digger, the Drover’s Wife and Clancy of the Overflow. And more importantly, Monica wondered, how could she ever feel she truly belonged to a land that has been the spiritual domain of Indigenous Australians for over 60,000 years?
Stranger Country is the riveting account of the six months Monica drove and camped her way through some of Australia’s most beautiful and remote landscapes. She shared meals, beers and conversations with miners, grey nomads, artists, farmers, community workers and small business owners from across the nation: some Aboriginal, some white, some Asian, and even a few who managed to be all three. The result is an enthralling and entertaining celebration of the spirit of adventure, a thoughtful quest for understanding, and a unique portrait of Australia and all it means to those who live here.
Welcome to our special edition of ‘All About eBook’ for Winter 2020. This season’s reading suggestion guide is a little different than our past ‘All About Books’ guides. The focus for this special edition is our amazing range of titles in our online library. There are eBooks, eAudios, eMagazines and much much more. Many of the titles featured in the guide also have print versions available so don’t forget to ‘click and collect’ your favourites. The ever popular staff picks section and most popular eLoans are also inside this issue. Stay safe and happy reading!
This July, I am going to be exploring some of the thriller titles I have been steadily adding to my TBR pile over the last few months.
I don’t tend to read thriller books all the time, rather I have spurts when I read a few, then don’t pick up another one for six months. Coincidently it always seems like it is around the middle of the year, maybe it is the colder weather!
By no means do I consider myself an expert in recommending thriller titles, so while I have listed some titles I am looking forward to reading. I also enlisted the help of some of our Library’s resident ‘thriller’ aficionados! who have kindly contributed some of their all-time-favourite titles.
I am sure there will be something for everyone to read, from first timers to hard-core fans!
With eBooks & eAudiobooks there are so many reading options available to book lovers. Making it even easier to join in and ‘Read Together’ as part of our Parra Reads Online Book Club.
The titles we have chosen to read in July are, author Barry Maitland’s newest ‘Brock & Kolla’ mystery, ‘The Promised Land‘ and ARIA Award-winning singer and actress Clare Bowditch’s no-holds-barred memoir, ‘Your Own Kind of Girl‘.
Something a little different to last month’s, ‘Bruny‘ by Heather Rose and ‘The Beekeeper of Aleppo‘ by Christy Lefteri.Both amazing books that we all enjoyed reading and would highly recommend. In fact my colleague Anne can’t seem to stop raving about ‘Bruny’, she even convinced her book club to read along too!
Newly promoted Detective Chief Inspector Kathy Kolla investigates a series of brutal murders on Hampstead Heath. Under intense pressure to find answers, she arrests the unlikely figure of Charles Pettigrew, a failing London publisher who lives alone on the edge of the Heath.
Pettigrew’s lawyer calls on recently retired David Brock for advice, and soon, unable to resist the pull of investigation, the old colleagues, Brock and Kolla, are at loggerheads.
At the heart of the gripping mystery of the Hampstead murders lies a manuscript of an unknown novel by one of the greatest literary figures of the twentieth century. Brock believes that its story will unlock the puzzle, but how?
This is the story I promised myself, aged twenty-one, that I would one day be brave enough – and well enough – to write. Clare Bowditch has always had a knack for telling stories. Through her music and performing, this beloved Australian artist has touched hundreds of thousands of lives. But what of the stories she used to tell herself? That ‘real life’ only begins once you’re thin or beautiful, that good things only happen to other people.
YOUR OWN KIND OF GIRL reveals a childhood punctuated by grief, anxiety and compulsion, and tells how these forces shaped Clare’s life for better and for worse. This is a heartbreaking, wise and at times playful memoir. Clare’s own story told raw and as it happened. A reminder that even on the darkest of nights, victory is closer than it seems.
With startling candour, Clare lays bare her truth in the hope that doing so will inspire anyone who’s ever done battle with their inner critic. This is the work of a woman who has found her true power – and wants to pass it on. Happiness, we discover, is only possible when we take charge of the stories we tell ourselves.
