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In this episode of Parra Pods Katherine, Nisa & Sandra share some laughs, while discussing some of the entertaining reads they recently read.
The business of making people laugh dates back far into antiquity.
Kitty Flanagan excelled at it on The Project, David Mitchell does a fine job through his comic rants, Celeste Barber gives joy to many on Instagram and David Ayoade has kept it going through the IT Crowd and beyond. Join Katherine, Nisa and Sandra for an upbeat chat about books recently written by all four.
City of Parramatta Libraries are proud to introduce a new series of promotional material to help our community connect with books 24/7, especially while we are closed. We have been very busy behind the scenes producing online content and purchasing additional Online Library items. Our ever popular eBooks, eAudio & eMagazines have been getting a real workout.
‘Click & Read’ postcards are an alternative to our in-library bookmarks and are designed to make it a little easier to find authors in your favourite genre. Each postcard lists a number of great authors who write eBooks/eAudio in popular genres or subjects. Simply click on the author name to display a listing of available titles via our library catalogue, choose a title you wish to read and borrow it via our Wheelers ePlatform or Bolinda BorrowBox apps. Why not download the first set of ‘Click & Read’ postcards by clicking on a genre now?
On Tuesday 12 May 2020 the ‘Miles Franklin Literary Award 2020 longlist was announced. This is something I look forward to each year, as one of my passions is to read books written by Australian Authors.
I didn’t realise it was a passion until I looked back over my ‘Books Read’ list and noticed there was a distinct pattern, 97% were written by Australian Authors. At the time my choices were unconscious; I always picked the books I read by the cover, and I still do to this day, although I now actively look for books written by Australian Authors.
Needless to say each year I eagerly await all the title announcements of the different Australian Literary Awards, of which there are so many. I won’t list them all here, rather I will tell you my top three which are: ‘The Miles Franklin‘, ‘The Stella Prize‘ and the ‘Australian Book Industry Awards‘. I will just quickly mention I love checking out the State Literary Awards too.
Anyway, I can see I am about to lose focus again so returning to ‘The Miles Franklin Award’. Each year I try to read as many of the titles on the longlist as I can, pick my favourites then eagerly await the shortlist announcement, then the winner. Most years my colleague Katherine manages to read all the titles, because she is a reading machine, literally I think she might be a robot, no human can read that many books! Oh, then again my other colleagues Kate, Amanda and Sarah seem to read non stop too, hmm makes you wonder doesn’t it! Oh I did it again didn’t I, went off on a tangent. Right back on topic.
Normally, Katherine & Nisa our resident Podcasting Librarians discuss some of the ‘Miles Franklin’ titles on our Parra Pods podcast. This year, to make things a little different I was thinking to ask more of my book loving colleagues to get involved and see if we can manage to get through the whole longlist and vote for our favourites before the shortlist is announced on 17 June 2020.
Sounds like fun to me. Hopefully I get some takers otherwise I will be very busy reading. Contrary to belief Librarian’s do not spend all day reading! Although maybe I can get special permission just this once, you never know!
I will keep you all updated on my progress via our Twitter account. If you feel like reading along and sharing your thoughts with us that would be great. We have most of the longlist available via our online Library platforms, and quite a few are ‘MULTICAP’. Which means we have multiple copies so we can all read along together.
Happy Reading!
I look forward to seeing how many titles everyone manages to read.
It has been one month since we launched our ‘Parra Reads Online Book Club’. Thank you to everyone who is participating and ‘Reading Together’.
I managed to finish both of our April titles, ‘Alice to Prague’ and ‘The Mother-in-Law’. You can read my review here.
The titles our ‘Parra Reads’ group, painstakingly debated over and finally agreed upon are….’The Sunday Story Club’ by Doris Brett & Kerry Cue &The Nowhere Child’ by Christian White.
A Parra Reads Book Club title for May 2020. ‘Alice to Prague’ was one of two titles picked for our newly established online book club and it was an enjoyable read!
In it, Tanya shares her personal experiences as she leaves behind her life as a lawyer in Alice Springs to teach English in the Czech Republic. With no prior teaching experience or grasp of the language, Tanya certainly shows us she is a person of considerable determination with an unstoppable strength of spirit.
Alice to Prague is a well-rounded read with a good balance of ‘something for everyone’ through the story. History and travel, a life adventure and even love.
Well worth a read!
Keep an eye out for Tanya’s new book ‘An Alice Girl’
Sally Hepworth’s ‘The Mother-in-Law’ is one of those reads that grabs you from the first page, and doesn’t let go. Told from two points of view, daughter-in-law Lucy, and mother-in-law Diana, and spanning alternate timelines, it is fast-paced and engaging.
From the moment Lucy met Diana, she was kept at arm’s length. Diana is extremely polite, but Lucy knows, even after marrying her son Oliver, that they’ll never have the closeness she’d been hoping for. Diana is picture perfect. The pillar of the community, an advocate for social justice, the matriarch of a loving family. And yet, while Lucy tries time and again to please her, Diana remains cold and distant.
That was ten years ago. Now, Diana has been found dead, leaving a suicide note. But the autopsy reveals evidence of suffocation. And everyone in the family is hiding something…
Creating a character that you both love and hate is never an easy feat, but Sally Hepworth manages to do just that. I found myself conflicted, changing my opinion of Diana constantly between chapters, which is refreshing. In fact, I liked the nuanced character of Diana more than I did Lucy. As Sally Hepworth peeled back the details of the experiences that shaped her personality I wanted more. She seemed very reflective of the time in which she was born, and recognisable.
While people expecting to read a thriller might find themselves disappointed, I found the book to be an ideal mix of thriller and domestic drama.
