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Librarian’s Choice – August
Have you ever asked your librarian for a book recommendation? Well here are the top 10 favourite books for August as voted by librarians across Australia on the Librarians’s Choice website.
1. The inaugural meeting of the Fairvale Ladies Book Club by Sophie Green
In 1978 the Northern Territory has begun to self-govern. Cyclone Tracy is a recent memory and telephones not yet a fixture on the cattle stations dominating the rugged outback. Life is hard and people are isolated. But they find ways to connect. Five different women come together for a book club, united by one need: to overcome the vast distances of Australia’s Top End with friendship, tears, laughter, books and love.
2. Crossing the lines by Sulari Gentill
When Madeleine d’Leon conjures Ned McGinnity as the hero in her latest crime novel, she makes him a serious writer simply because the irony of a protagonist who’d never lower himself to read the story in which he stars, amuses her. When Ned McGinnity creates Madeleine d’Leon, she is his literary device, a writer of detective ction who is herself a mystery to be unravelled. As Ned and Madeleine play out their own lives while writing the other’s story, they nd themselves crossing the lines that divide the real and the imagined. This is a story about two people trying to hold onto each other beyond reality.
3. The beautiful miscellaneous by Dominic Smith
Nathan Nelson is the average son of a genius. His father, a physicist of small renown, has prodded him toward greatness from an early age—enrolling him in whiz kid summer camps, taking him to the icy tundra of Canada to track a solar eclipse, and teaching him college algebra. But despite Samuel Nelson’s efforts, Nathan remains ordinary.
4. Every lie I’ve ever told by Rosie Waterland (memoir)
It was all going so well for Rosie Waterland. Until it wasn’t. Until, shockingly, something awful happened and Rosie went into agonising free fall. Until late one evening she found herself in a hospital emergency bed, trembling and hooked to a drip. Over the course of that long, painful night, she kept thinking about how ironic it was, that right in the middle of writing a book about lies, she’d ended up telling the most significant lie of all. A raw, beautiful, sad, shocking – and very, very funny – memoir of all the lies we tell others and the lies we tell ourselves.
5. 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 defense attorney – devastated. And it left the family fractured beyond repair, consumed by secrets from that terrible night.
6. The making of Christina by Meredith Jaffe
Interior designer Christina Clemente is caught off guard by an intense affair with her charismatic client, Jackson Plummer. He quickly becomes the cure to Christina’s loneliness and a surrogate father to her young daughter Bianca. When Jackson suggests moving to a rundown farm in the mountains, Christina soon forgets her initial hesitation and absorbs herself in restoring the rambling century-old house, Bartholemews Run, becoming obsessed with solving its mysterious history. But while living on the isolated farm, her once effervescent child transforms into a quiet sullen teenager and Christina increasingly struggles to connect with her. Because Bianca has a secret. And the monstrous truth threatens to destroy them all.
7. Taboo by Kim Scott
A group of Noongar people who revisit, for the first time in many decades, a taboo place: the site of a massacre that followed the assassination, by these Noongar’s descendants, of a white man who had stolen a black woman. They come at the invitation of Dan Horton, the elderly owner of the farm on which the massacres unfolded. He hopes that by hosting the group he will satisfy his wife’s dying wishes and cleanse some moral stain from the ground on which he and his family have lived for generations. But the sins of the past will not be so easily expunged.
8. How to stop time by Matt Haig
Tom Hazard has a dangerous secret. He may look like an ordinary 41-year-old, but owing to a rare condition, he’s been alive for centuries. From Elizabethan England to Jazz Age Paris, from New York to the South Seas, Tom has seen a lot, and now craves an ordinary life. Always changing his identity to stay alive, Tom has the perfect cover – working as a history teacher at a London comprehensive. Here he can teach the kids about wars and witch hunts as if he’d never witnessed them first-hand. He can try and tame the past that is fast catching up with him. The only thing Tom mustn’t do is fall in love. How to Stop Time is a wild and bittersweet story about losing and finding yourself, about the certainty of change and about the lifetimes it can take to really learn how to live.
9. On the Java Ridge by Jock Serong
On the Java Ridge, skipper Isi Natoli and a group of Australian surf tourists are anchored beside an idyllic reef off the Indonesian island of Dana. In the Canberra office of Cassius Calvert, Minister for Border Integrity, a Federal election looms and (not coincidentally) a hardline new policy is being announced regarding maritime assistance to asylum-seeker vessels in distress. A few kilometres away from Dana, the Takalar is having engine trouble. Among the passengers fleeing from persecution are Roya and her mother, and Roya’s unborn sister. The storm now closing in on the Takalar and the Java Ridge will mean catastrophe for them all.
10. Because of you by Pip Harry (Young Adult)
Tiny is homeless. Nola has everything she could ask for. They meet when Nola is forced into volunteer work for the writers’ group at the homeless shelter where Tiny is staying, and at first it seems impossible that two people who are so different could ever be friends. But despite her initial prejudice, Nola quickly learns that there isn’t much separating her from the people who live on the streets. And Tiny begins to see that falling down doesn’t mean you never get back up. Because of You is a story about homelessness, prejudice and the power of words to provide a little hope. At its heart is the friendship between Tiny and Nola, and how this relationship changes both girls at the core. Pip Harry doesn’t shy away from some heavy topics—Tiny’s story is heartbreaking and the details about life on the streets of Sydney is horrifying—but Because of You is ultimately a hopeful story about human resilience and the life-changing power of discovering your best friend.
Carolyn’s Books of the Month – August 2017
Best Read: The Miniaturist by Jessie Burton
Non Fiction: When Breath becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi
At the age of thirty-six, on the verge of completing a decade’s training as a neurosurgeon, Paul Kalanithi was diagnosed with inoperable lung cancer. One day he was a doctor treating the dying, the next he was a patient struggling to live.
Australian Author: Barbed Wire and Cherry Blossoms by Anita Heiss
Over 1000 Japanese soldiers break out of the No.12 Prisoner of War compound on the fringes of Cowra. In the carnage, hundreds are killed, many are recaptured, and some take their own lives rather than suffer the humiliation of ongoing defeat. But one soldier, Hiroshi, manages to escape.
At nearby Erambie Station, an Aboriginal mission, Banjo Williams, father of five and proud man of his community, discovers Hiroshi, distraught and on the run. Mary, Banjo’s daughter, is intrigued by the softly spoken stranger, and charged with his care. Love blossoms between Mary and Hiroshi, and they each dream of a future together. But how long can Hiroshi be hidden safely and their bond kept a secret?
General: Two by Two by Nicholas Sparks
At 32, Russell Green has it all: a stunning wife, a lovable six year-old daughter, a successful career as an advertising executive and an expansive home in Charlotte. He is living the dream, and his marriage to the bewitching Vivian is the center of that. But underneath the shiny surface of this perfect existence, fault lines are beginning to appear…and no one is more surprised than Russ when he finds every aspect of the life he took for granted turned upside down.
Thriller: My Husband’s Son by Deborah O’Connor
Heidi and Jason aren’t like other couples. Six years ago, Heidi’s daughter was murdered. A year later, Jason’s son Barney disappeared. Their shared loss brought them together.
By chance, Heidi meets a boy she’s certain is her husband’s long-missing son – but Jason is equally convinced it’s not him. Is Heidi mad? Or is Jason hiding something? And can their fragile marriage survive Heidi’s search for the truth . . .
Thriller: The Keeper by Alastair Gunn
There is something hiding in the forest. A man is found dead near an isolated forest outside of London. When another body is discovered a few days later, DCI Antonia Hawkins knows that she must move fast. The hunt is on. With each passing day, Hawkins struggles to find a pattern in this seemingly random scattering of murders. But who is the hunter?
Saga/Romance: The Midsummer Garden by Kristy Manning
From medieval France to contemporary Tasmania, two remarkable women discover their strengths, passions and loves.Travelling between lush gardens in France, windswept coastlines of Tasmania, to Tuscan hillsides and beyond, The Midsummer Garden lures the reader on an unforgettable culinary and botanical journey.
eBook of the Month – July
Looking for a romance with
both laughs and tears?
This month’s title is rated 4.5 stars on Good Reads.
You will find our eBook collection on two platforms. AXIS360 has over 2500 titles in fiction, non fiction, YA and children’s titles.
BorrowBox has our newer titles and includes the eAudio collection. Find information on how to sign up on the library website, or ask staff for details.
Carolyn’s Books of the Month – July 2017
Best Read : Lyrebird by Cecilia Ahern
Crime : Magpie Murders by Anthony Horowitz
Australian Author : The Better Son by Katherine Johnson
General : Our Song by Dani Atkins
Thriller : The Bone Field by Simon Kernick
Thriller : The Girl Before by Rena Olsen
Saga/Romance : The Chocolate Tin by Fiona McIntosh
Miles Franklin Shortlist 2017
Are you ready for the announcement of the Miles Franklin Award winner in September? The short list was announced this month, and you will find the books at Blue Mountains Library. Each of the authors is a first time nominee and you are bound to find one that appeals.
An Isolated Incident by Emily Maguire – An intriguing exploration of two women, a murder and media and masculinity set in a tough regional town.
The last Days of Ava Langdon by Mark O’Flynn – A warmly empathetic portrayal of a misunderstood but spirited outsider who refuses to concede to society’s conventional expectations.
Their Brilliant Careers by Ryan O’Neill – A rich and entertaining
satire featuring 15 biographies of imagined Australian writers whose bizarre and exaggerated lives are neatly slotted into real literary history.
Waiting by Philip Salom – A deftly executed and very human novel about a pair of odd couples, who are both waiting for something or someone to change their lives.
Extinctions by Josephine Wilson – A clever and compassionate novel exploring ageing, adoption, grief and remorse, rescue and resistance to rescue.
You can find more information about the awards and Miles Franklin herself on the official website.
Carolyn’s Books of the Month – June 2017
Carolyn reads a variety of genres so you’re bound to find something that resonates.
Best Read : The Obsession by Nora Roberts
Crime : My Sister’s Secret by Tracy Buchanan
Australian Author : Fearless by Fiona Higgins
General Fiction : Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi
Thrillers : Marked for Life by Emelie Schepp and Good Me, Bad Me by Ali Land
Saga/Romance : Ruby Flynn by Nadine Dorries
