Tag Archives: Staff picks

Librarians’ Choice – April 2018

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The top 10 April 2018 release books as voted for by library staff around Australia is here. There are a nice mix of books, mainly fiction, a very interesting non fiction and a title (Amelia Westlake) described as “a queer yA rom-com”. Click on a title to reserve a copy now.

The Lace Weaver – Lauren Chater (Librarians’ Choice Favourite)

A breathtaking debut about love and war, and the battle to save a precious legacy.
Each lace shawl begins and ends the same way – with a circle. Everything is connected with a thread as fine as gossamer, each life affected by what has come before it and what will come after. 1941, Estonia. As Stalin’s brutal Red Army crushes everything in its path, Katarina and her family survive only because their precious farm produce is needed to feed the occupying forces. Fiercely partisan, Katarina battles to protect her grandmother’s precious legacy – the weaving of gossamer lace shawls stitched with intricate patterns that tell the stories passed down through generations.

While Katarina struggles to survive the daily oppression, another young woman is suffocating in her prison of privilege in Moscow. Yearning for freedom and to discover her beloved mother’s Baltic heritage, Lydia escapes to Estonia. Facing the threat of invasion by Hitler’s encroaching Third Reich, Katarina and Lydia and two idealistic young soldiers, insurgents in the battle for their homeland, find themselves in a fight for life, liberty and love.

The Paris Seamstress – Natasha Lester
Sunburn – Laura Lippman
Amelia Westlake – Erin Gough
The Death Of Noah Glass – Gail Jones
Circe – Madeline Miller
Every Note Played – Lisa Genova
Dear Mrs Bird – AJ Pearce
The Colour Of Bee Larkham’s Murder – Sarah J Harris
Growing Up Aboriginal In Australia – Anita Heiss (ed)

Librarians’ Choice – March 2018

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The top 10 March 2018 release books as voted for by library staff around Australia is here. There are some by some well known favourites such as Tim Winton, Nicola Moriarty and Fiona McCallum as well as some lesser known talents. Click on the title to reserve a copy now.

The lost flowers of Alice Hart – Holly Ringland (Librarians’ Choice Favourite)
Alice survives a devastating family tragedy when she is just 9 years old, then goes to live on a flower farm where she learns the language of Australian native flowers – a way to say the things that are too hard to speak. The story celebrates Australia’s beautiful landscape, moving between the lush sugar cane fields by the sea, a native Australian flower farm, and a celestial crater in the central desert.  Continue reading →

All About Books – Autumn 2018

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The latest issue of our reading guide – ALL ABOUT BOOKS – is out now. Pick up your free copy at any of our library branches or click on the cover to download a copy. It’s filled with lots of amazing fiction and non-fiction books that are being published in the next 3 months. Reserve these pre-publication titles before the rush!

Staff Picks

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Have a look at what library staff have been reading this week.

 

Cat out of hell by Lynne Truss
About a librarian overcome with grief for his wife’s death who unwittingly becomes involved in a murder mystery featuring talking cats… – 3/5

Who Do You Love by Jennifer Weiner
Andy & Rachel meet one night in the ER when they are kids, a love story spanning 3 decades it’s a story about how they keep finding each other throughout the different stages of their lives and how they overcome different backgrounds. A nice easy holiday read – 3/5

The invasion of the Tearling by Erika Johansen
Book two in the Queen of the Tearling trilogy follows Kelsea as she deals with the fallout from stopping the shipments to Mort and the inevitable invasion by the Mort army. We also meet Lily, a woman from pre crossing era – 5/5
Four: a Divergent collection by Veronica Roth
Story starts 2 years before we meet Beatrice Prior in Divergent, we hear Four’s story and how he came to be in Dauntless, eventually merging with Beatrice’s story – a bit of a pointless book, only for devout divergent fans – 2/5
The Sun in Her Eyes by Paige Toon
Amber is an Australian living in the UK, after being made redundant she learns her father back in Aus has had a stroke, leaving her husband Ned behind she flies to Australia to help her dad in his recovery. There she reconnects with Ethan, a boy she has been in love with since she was 8 years old. Ambar must choose between her husband and the man she’s always loved… A slight side story, when Amber was 3 she was involved in a car accident which killed her mother, we meet the stranger who stopped to help and holds her mother’s last words. It’s well written, but hard to like and relate to the main character Amber, so only – 3.5 stars
Ready by Kate

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The Gilded Hour – Sara Donati

A well-written, well-researched story about life as a female doctor in 19th Century New York. Sara Donati captures this period beautifully, touching on poverty, wealth, racism, and a women’s right to choose, which made me very grateful to live in this place, in this century – 5 stars

Tower of Thorns – Juliet Marillier

I always love Juliet Marillier’s books, but I’m worried they’re starting to follow a bit of a formula. This one seemed a bit same-same. I still enjoy her gentle writing though and her fairy-tale-like plot. Fingers crossed for the next one! – 3 stars.

 

We Never Asked for Wings – Vanessa Diffenbaugh

I read and loved The Language of Flowers a few years ago so picked up this one eagerly. It reminded me that sometimes we put our mothers up on pedestals when really, they are often as troubled, and have as much baggage, as the next person – 4 stars

The Natural Way of Things – Charlotte Wood

I know there has been a lot of press around this book and it is receiving some amazing reviews, but I just found I couldn’t get into it. Maybe it’s just not my kind of story, or I’ll go back to it one day and love it. For now though…2 stars.

The Readers of Broken Wheel Recommend – Katarina Bivald

A lovely, light book for all the book-lovers out there. A great one for the summer, I think! – 4 stars

Read by Amanda

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Happy Reading!

 

 

Spirits of the Ghan

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Spirits of the Ghan by Judy Nunn

 

Book Extract

It is 2001 and as the world charges into the new Millennium, a century-old dream is about to be realised in the Red Centre of Australia: the completion of the mighty Ghan railway, a long-lived vision to create the ‘backbone of the continent’, a line that will finally link Adelaide with the Top End.

 

Comments

Well I just finished Spirits of the Ghan by Judy Nunn; due out the end of October 2015. I was lucky enough received access to a pre-publication ebook via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

And I absolutely love it! Spirits of the Ghan is the first book I have read by Judy and it definitely won’t be my last.

I know it sounds cliché but from the very first page I was hooked. I wanted to keep reading and that didn’t change throughout the whole book.

Spirits of the Ghan has everything a great read needs; an intriguing storyline, interesting characters, history, culture, friendship, family, heartbreak and a little romance.

I loved the fact that throughout the book it was told from the points of view of different characters. This allowed me to get to know and love each character and become engrossed in their story.

I was enjoying the book so much and was worried the end half of the book would let me down; but it didn’t. I thoroughly enjoyed the story right to the very end and couldn’t have asked for a better way for the book to be wrapped up.

Two days after I finished the book I find myself still thinking about it.

 

Rating – 5/5

 

Ready by – Jody