Librarians’ Choice – June

1. The Nowhere Child by Christian White

Kim Leamy is approached by a stranger investigating the disappearance of a little girl from her Kentucky home twenty-eight years earlier. He believes Kim is that girl.
As the mystery of Sammy’s disappearance unravels and the town’s secrets are revealed, this superb novel builds towards a tense, terrifying, and entirely unexpected climax.

2. The Book Ninja by Ali Berg & Michelle Kalus
3. Less by Andrew Sean Greer
4. Burning Fields by Alli Sinclair
5. Boy swallows Universe by Trent Dalton
6. The kiss Quotient by Helen Hoang
7. The Love that I have by James Moloney
8. April in Paris, 1921 by Tessa Lunney
9. Eggshell skull by Bri Lee
10. Waiting for Elijah by Kate Wild

source: Librarian’s Choice

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New Magazines at the Library

Blue Mountains Library has added two new magazines titles to the collection, and they couldn’t be more different!

Blackheath Library now has a subscription to Quadrant, an Australian literary and cultural magazine which publishes articles, opinion pieces, fiction and poetry. It has had numerous notable contributors and editors in its over 60 years of publication. Quadrant is politically conservative in its focus, but states that “Although it retains its founding bias towards cultural freedom, anti-totalitarianism and classical liberalism, its pages are open to any well-written and thoughtful contribution.” 

Meanwhile, Lawson and Katoomba libraries have new subscriptions to Spectacle. Spectacle is a quarterly illustrated fiction and lifestyle magazine, and covers the world of speculative fiction and popular culture. It is full of articles, short stories and illustrations, often humorously presented, but also covers more serious issues in our modern society. Spectacle is fully illustrated – which means no photos at all, including the ads! The first issue was published in February 2018.

Remember, you can place any magazine on hold from across the branches. We have a great collection, which you can browse in the catalogue.

 

Alison’s Picks – June

 

Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman – The unique voice is what strikes you first. It’s the voice of an oddball young woman, her face disfigured by scarring, her social skills non-existent, her possibly psychopathic mother incarcerated.  Clever Eleanor, who lives alone, has conceived a passion for a musician who has no notion she exists, but whom she is going to pursue. I am ¼ way into this novel, and am enjoying being teased by the scraps of truth this first-time author gradually reveals about Eleanor.

 

The Break by Marian Keyes – I enjoy the Irish accent that rings loudly through all that Keyes writes. Here we have a relationship in trouble: husband suddenly decides to take a six-month break from his wife and family; wife tailspins, and tries to remake her life without its absolute and necessary centre. Keyes is not afraid to critique a society that offers narrow-minded judgments of people who find themselves outside the pale of the ‘normal’… whatever that is.

2018 Women’s Prize for Fiction winner

Kamila Shamsie has won the 2018 Women’s Prize for Fiction. Her novel Home Fire revolves around two Muslim families whose lives are entangled by politics and conflict, and is set largely in London. “[a] suspenseful and heartbreaking story of a family ripped apart by secrets and driven to pit love against loyalty, with devastating consequences.” The novel has received excellent reviews, and was also long listed for the Man Booker Prize in 2017.

Reserve your copy now from the Blue Mountains Library catalogue.

Carolyn’s Books of the Month – June

Best Read: The Lost Wife by Alyson Richman

There on her forearm, next to a small brown birthmark, were six tattooed numbers.’Do you remember me now ‘ he asked, trembling.She looked at him again, as if giving weight and bone to a ghost.’Lenka, it’s me,’ he said. ‘Josef. Your husband.’During the last moments of calm in prewar Prague, Lenka, a young art student, falls in love with Josef.

Crime: Two Kinds of Truth by Michael Connelly 

Harry Bosch is back as a volunteer working cold cases for the San Fernando police and is called out to a local drug store where a young pharmacist has been murdered. Bosch and the town’s 3-person detective squad sift through the clues, which lead into the dangerous, big business world of pill production and prescription drug abuse.

Australian Author: The Tea Gardens by Fiona McIntosh 

Dr Isla Fenwick has a life that most modern women of 1933 might envy – her career gives her status, her pedigree adds freedom, and her oldest crush, Jovian Mandeville, has reappeared in her life with a marriage proposal.

General: The vanishing of Audrey Wilde by Eve Chase

Nineteen fifty-nine. The four Wilde sisters, Isla, Violet, Maggie and Dot, are spending the summer in the Cotswolds, at Applecote Manor. Affectionately called the Wildlings, the sisters are exceptionally close, yet this year there’s a sense of nostalgia. Things are changing. Except for Applecote itself, a house that seems frozen in time.

Thriller: The absent One by Jussi Adler-Olsen

Carl Mørck has settled into Department Q and is ready to take on another cold case. This time, it’s the brutal double-murder of a brother and sister two decades earlier. One of the suspects confessed and is serving time, but it’s clear to Mørck that all is not what it seems. Kimmie, a homeless woman with secrets involving certain powerful individuals, could hold the key–if Mørck can track her down before they do…

Thriller: The Good Daughter by Karin Slaughter

Two girls are forced into the woods at gunpoint. One runs for her life. One is left behind … Twenty-eight years ago, Charlotte and Samantha Quinn’s happy small town family life was torn apart by a terrifying attack on their family home. It left their mother dead. It left their father – Pikeville’s notorious defence attorney – devastated. And it left the family fractured beyond repair, consumed by secrets from that terrible night.

Saga/Romance: The Betrayal by Kate Furnivall

Could you kill someone? Someone you love? Paris, 1938.Twin sisters are divided by fierce loyalties and by a terrible secret. The drums of war are beating and France is poised, ready to fall. One sister is an aviatrix, the other is a socialite and they both have something to prove and something to hide.

eAudio Books:

The Tattooist of Auschwitz by Heather Morris

The Tattooist of Auschwitz is based on the true story of Lale and Gita Sokolov, two Slovakian Jews, who survived Auschwitz and eventually made their home in Australia. In that terrible place, Lale was given the job of tattooing the prisoners marked for survival – literally scratching numbers into his fellow victims’ arms in indelible ink to create what would become one of the most potent symbols of the Holocaust. Lale used the infinitesimal freedom of movement that this position awarded him to exchange jewels and money taken from murdered Jews for food to keep others alive. If he had been caught he would have been killed; many owed him their survival.

  eBooks & eAudio from Blue Mountains library

Author Talk – Amanda Hampson

Haven’t we all wished – at one time or another – that we could pack in the life we know and start afresh somewhere new? That an exciting adventure abroad might help us heal? In Amanda Hampson’s superbly crafted new domestic drama, The Yellow Villa, we meet two couples doing their best to make a small village in South-West France their home.

Amanda Hamspon is the best-selling author of The Olive Sisters and The French Perfumer and her new novel explores the ups and downs of swapping one life for another. The Yellow Villa is a delicious, dark, entertaining and, above all, human story full of surprising twists. 

Amanda Hampson was determined to be a writer from an early age. Growing up in rural New Zealand, she moved to London in her twenties. She inherited a love of all things French from her mother, and has visited France many times over the past four decades. She has a special interest in the themes of place, family and the meanings of home. Eventually settling in Australia, she now calls Sydney’s Northern Beaches home.

Join us for a conversation that promises to deliver insights into her writing, her research into France, expat life and the flip side to ‘la belle vie’ – and why it’s not all ‘la vie en rose’!

Tickets include light refreshments, a chance to purchase Amanda’s books and to meet the author and have her sign copies. Book at any library branch, or online.

Get a sneak peak at the first chapter here, or reserve a copy through the library catalogue.

The Golden Man Booker Prize

Fancy voting for the best ever Booker prize winner? To celebrate the 50th anniversary of the awards you can participate in choosing  the winner of the Golden Man Booker prize. The shortlist was selected by 5 judges, each assigned a decade of winners from which to choose the best candidate. The finalist will be chosen by the public, and you can vote here until June 25th 2018. You can watch a video of each judge championing their selection to help with your decision or, if time permits, why not read them all before casting your vote? The winner will be announced on 8^th July 2018.

 

In a Free State by V.S Naipaul (1970s) – chose by Robert McCrum

Moon Tiger by Penelope Lively (1980s) – chosen by Lemn Sissay

The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje (1990s) – chosen byKamila Shamsie

Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel (2000s) – chosen by Simon Mayo

Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders (2010s) – chosen by Hollie McNish