After announcing their excellent longlist last month, The Booker Prize Foundation has just released the shortlist for the 2019 Booker Prize. We’re very excited to see the list of works that have made the cut, including the latest books by Salman Rushdie and Margaret Atwood. I wonder who will take out the ultimate title? Stay tuned… Nisa
The Woody Creek Series by Joy Dettman
Over the last few weeks I have been lucky enough to escape to the fictional town of Woody Creek, a small timber town set in rural Australia; and what a wonderful time I have had!
Joy Dettman is an Australian author and the very talented writer of the Woody Creek series, which I discovered one day while browsing my local bookstore. Working in a library, I was aware of the books and had wanted to read them for a long time but had never managed to get around to it. On this day, however the bookstore had a display of all the books in the series and they looked so pretty I could not leave them sitting there. I picked up the first two and four weeks later have now finished the whole seven books in the series.
Continue readingLyrebird by Cecelia Ahern
About the Book
She will change your life forever…In the south-west of Ireland, rugged mountains meet bright blue lakes and thick forests. Deep in the woods, a young woman lives alone, forever secluded from the world, her life a well-kept secret. She possesses an extraordinary talent, the likes of which no-one has seen before: a gift that will earn her the nickname Lyrebird.
When Solomon stumbles into Laura’s solitary existence, her life is turned on its head. Pulled from her peaceful landscape to the cacophony of Dublin, she is confronted by a world desperate to understand her.
But while Solomon knows the world will embrace Laura, will it free her to spread her wings – or will it trap her in a gilded cage? Like all wild birds, she needs to fly free…
Lyrebird is a thoughtful, deeply moving love story; a story of the wild heart in us all and the quiet that lies underneath the world’s noise.
Continue readingIn this episode of Parra Pods Katherine & Nisa discuss books about the relationship between humans and technology in this IT-saturated world.
Join them while they talk about the future of AI, the impact of social media, the relationship between our private selves and our digital avatars and eroding trust in traditional institutions.
HAPPY LISTENING!
Some of the books discussed in this podcast include:
Life 3.0: Being Human in the Age of Artificial Intelligence by Max Tegmark. Penguin Random House, 2017.
Net loss: the inner life in the digital age by Sebastian Smee. Quarterly Essay No. 72, 2018
Who can you trust? How technology brought us together and why it might drive us apart by Rachel Botsman. Public Affairs, 2017
About the Book
SHE PLANNED HER OWN FUNERAL. BUT DID SHE ARRANGE HER MURDER?
Buried secrets, murder and a trail of bloody clues lie at the heart of Anthony Horowitz’s page-turning new detective series. If you enjoyed BBC’s Sherlock, you’ll LOVE The Word is Murder!
SHE PLANNED HER OWN FUNERAL. BUT DID SHE ARRANGE HER OWN MURDER?
A woman is strangled six hours after organising her own funeral.
Did she know she was going to die? Did she recognise her killer?
Daniel Hawthorne, a recalcitrant detective with secrets of his own, is on the case, together with his reluctant side-kick – a man completely unaccustomed to the world of crime.
But even Hawthorne isn’t prepared for the twists and turns in store – as unexpected as they are bloody…
Continue reading