Shelf Life May-August 2012 - QLDC Libraries

SHELF LIFE Central Otago & Queenstown Lakes Libraries’ News No. 27

http://libraries.codc-qldc.govt.nz

May-Aug 2012

RIGHT ROYAL READS REVEALED!

Shelf Life No. 27 May-Aug 2012 – Page 2

The Hustle : One Team and Ten Lives in Black and White By Doug Merlino The experiment was dreamed up by two fathers, one white, one black. What would happen, they wondered, if they mixed white players from an elite Seattle private school and black kids from the inner city on a basketball team? Would exposure to privilege give the black kids a chance at better opportunities? Would it open the eyes of the white kids to a different side of life? The team’s season unfolded like a perfectly scripted sports movie: the ragtag group of boys gelled together to win the league championship. The experiment was deemed a success. But was it? How did crossing lines of class, race, and wealth affect the lives of these ten boys? Two decades later, journalist, Doug Merlino, who played on the team, returned to find his teammates. His search ranged from a prison cell to a hedge fund office, street corners to a shack in rural Oregon, a Pentecostal church to the records of a brutal murder. The resulting story captures the ways race, money and opportunity shape our lives. Shelved: 796.3236209797772 MER

Moto GP : Yesterday & Today – By Michael Scott A visual study of motorcycle grand prix racing's past and present. It features vintage photographs that are shown alongside related images from the modern era. It covers themes such as: the legendary champions, famous tracks, great races, and life away from the track. Written by leading Moto GP journalist, Michael Scott, this book reveals how much the sport has changed over the years, but also how many of the fundamentals of motorcycle racing remain unaltered. Shelved: 796.75 SCO

strategy Cyber-Bullying is Never Alright : Dealing with the Pain of Cyber-Abuse By Debbie Roome Cyber-bullying takes schoolyard bullying to a new level with the use of information technology. Looks at the ways cyber-abuse is perpetrated, its effects and the best way to stop it.

Family Trusts : The MustHave New Zealand Guide By Martin Hawes ‘In my experience, 75 per cent of family trusts in NZ are so badly arranged or managed that they could easily be attacked and overturned in court.’ Revised edition includes up-to-date advice with real-life examples.

Kiss That Frog! By Brian Tracy Our negative thoughts, emotions, and attitudes can threaten to keep us from achieving all that we're capable of. The authors provide a set of practical, proven strategies anyone can use to turn those negative frogs into positive princes.

Shelved: 302.343 ROO

Shelved: 346.93059 HAW

Shelved: 158.1 TRA

Rushing Woman’s Syndrome By Libby Weaver Describes the biochemical and emotional effects of constantly being in a rush. ‘Rushing Woman's Syndrome is a scenario I witness daily in my clients. It truly changes everything when you get on top of it, from fat burning to energy production and sleep patterns.’ Shelved: 616.98 WEA


FOOD FOR THOUGHT

HISTORY The Dodger : The Extraordinary Story of Churchill’s Cousin and the Great Escape By Tim Carroll. The story of Johnny Dodge, a wartime hero immortalised in the legendary Hollywood film. Of all the Allied prisoners who broke out of Goering's 'escape proof' camp in March 1944, Johnny Dodge was the most intriguing. American-born Dodge was a cousin by marriage of Winston Churchill. When WW2 broke out, he volunteered for the Army, but was quickly captured after the debacle of Dunkirk. He became a POW and an inveterate escapologist and troublemaker. Surviving the Gestapo, he was thrown into a VIP compound of Sachsenhausen concentration camp on Himmler’s orders, but escaped again. After recapture, Johnny was spirited away by the SS to a meeting in Berlin with Hitler's interpreter who sent him on a clandestine mission to his cousin in Downing Street. Shelved: 940.547252092 KRI


The Time Traveller’s Guide to Elizabethan England By Ian Mortimer. We think of Queen Elizabeth 1 as ‘Gloriana’: the most powerful English woman in history. We think of her reign (15581603) as a golden age of maritime heroes like Sir Walter Raleigh, Sir Richard Grenville and Sir Francis Drake; and of great writers, such as Edmund Spenser, Christopher Marlowe, Ben Jonson and William Shakespeare. But what was it actually like to live in Elizabethan England? If you could travel to the past and walk the streets of London in the 1590s, where would you stay? What would you eat? What would you wear? Would you really have a sense of it being a glorious age? And if so, how would that glory sit alongside the poverty, diseases, violence, sexism and famine of the time? Answers the key questions a prospective traveller to late 16th century would ask. Shelved: 942.055 MOR

In Love and War : Kiwi Soldiers Romantic Encounters in Wartime Italy – By Susan Jacobs. When NZ forces arrived in Italy following the 1943 Armistice with the Allied forces, it was inevitable they would mingle with the local population. The Italians opened their homes and hearts to the NZ soldiers, who delighted in finding young Italian signorinas everywhere. The author tells of the liaisons and love affairs of Kiwi soldiers and their Italian sweethearts during WW2. For some, the result was marriage, leading to a new and often strained life for the Italian war brides on the other side of the world. For others, their wartime romance ended in heart-breaking separation when the Kiwi soldiers were posted else-where or returned home. Unknowingly, some left behind children who would grow up without ever meeting their natural fathers. While the commanding officers did their best to curtail fraternisation between Kiwi soldiers and the civilian population, for servicemen starved of female company, relationships were easy to fall into. These stories of their romantic wartime encounters reveal the human side of war. Shelved: 940.548193 JAC

The Troopers’ Tale : The History of the Otago Mounted Rifles – Edited by Don Mackay. Formed in 1864, the men of the Otago Mounted Rifles (OMR) trained as a mobile force able to gallop to Southern coasts to meet a foreign invader and hold them at bay until reinforcements arrived. During the South African War, OMR troopers fought with great dash on the veldt. Designated as divisional cavalry during the First World War, the OMR had a different war from other NZ mounted rifles regiments. At Gallipoli, an advance guard of the OMR were the first mounted riflemen to arrive at Anzac Cove, and first NZ troops to land at Cape Helles. They were the only NZ mounted troops to fight on the Western Front and were part of the unique ANZAC Mounted Regiment. In the final months of the war, they operated as scouts ahead of the infantry to locate enemy guns, often acting as decoys to draw enemy fire. Shelved: 357.1099391 TRO

The Second World War Antony Beevor. The Second World War began in August 1939 on the edge of Manchuria and ended there exactly six years later with the Soviet invasion of northern China. The war in Europe appeared completely divorced from the war in the Pacific and China, and yet events on opposite sides of the world had profound effects. With its truly global reach, this greatest disaster in history has dominated succeeding generations and their perceptions more than any other conflict. Beevor assembles the whole narrative which extends from the North Atlantic to the South Pacific, from the snowbound steppe to the North African desert, to the Burmese jungle, SS Einsatzgruppen in the borderlands, Gulag prisoners drafted into punishment battalions, and to the unspeakable cruelties of the Sino-Japanese War. Moral choice forms the basis of all human drama, and no other period in history has presented greater dilemmas, both for leaders and ordinary people. Shelved: 940.54 BEE

RESCUE MISSIONS 72 Hours : The Royal Navy’s Dramatic Race to Save the Crew of a Trapped Russian Submarine By Frank Pope. August 5 2005. On a secret mission to an underwater military installation thirty miles off the coast of Kamchatka, Russian Navy submersible AS-28 ran into a web of cables and stuck fast. With 600 feet of freezing water above them, there was no escape for the seven crew. For more than twenty-four hours the Russian Navy tried to reach them. Finally, they requested international assistance. On the other side of the world, Commander Ian Riches, leader of the Royal Navy’s Submarine Rescue Service, got the call: there was a sub down. Tells the extraordinary, real-life story of a dramatic rescue mission. Shelved: 363.123810916452


Scent of the Missing : Love & Partnership with a SearchAnd-Rescue Dog By Susannah Charleson. In the wake of the Oklahoma City bombing, Susannah Charleson clipped a photo from the newspaper: an exhausted canine handler, face buried in the fur of his search-and-rescue dog. A dog lover and pilot with search experience herself, she was so moved by the image, that she decided to volunteer with a local canine team, and soon discovered first-hand, the long hours, nonexistent pay, and often heart-wrenching results they face. The story of Charleson's adventures with her search-and-rescue dog and the bond they form, as they help pursue the rescue and recovery of human victims fallen prey to crime, misadventure, or catastrophe. Shelved: 636.70886 CHA

The People Smuggler : The True Story of Ali Al Jenabi, The ‘Oskar Schindler of Asia’ By Robin de Crespigny. When Ali Al Jenabi flees Saddam Hussein’s torture chambers, he is forced to leave his family behind in Iraq. A story of daily heroism, bringing to life the forces that drive people to put their lives in unscrupulous hands, and a portrait of a man cut loose from the protections of civilisation, attempting to retain his dignity and humanity, while taking whatever path he can out of an impossible position. Shelved: 345.0237 DEC

The Rescue of Belle & Sundance By Birgit Stutz. In December 2008, two abandoned pack horses are spotted by snowmobilers in the remote mountains of the Canadian Rockies. Starving and exhausted, they've trampled the snow into a deep white closet, with walls towering over them. Others manage to reach the horses, bringing hay, but also a gun, in case the horses are too far gone. A slight sign of life in the horses' eyes gets them the hay. The story of their 8-day rescue, involving a trench dug by dozens of volunteers a kilometre long, a 30 kilometre descent for the frostbitten humans and wretchedly weak and emaciated horses in minus 40 degrees temperatures, and a Christmas Eve transfer to a foster farm. Shelved: 636.108320971182 STU

A Street Cat Named Bob By James Bowen. When an injured, ginger street cat curled up in the hallway of his sheltered accommodation, James had no idea just how much his life was about to change. He was living hand to mouth on the streets of London, and the last thing he needed was a pet. Yet James couldn’t resist helping the strikingly intelligent tom cat, whom he christened Bob. He slowly nursed Bob back to health and then sent the cat on his way, imagining he would never see him again. But Bob had other ideas. Shelved: 636.800929 BOW

The God Species : Saving the Planet in the Age of Humans – By Mark Lynas. We are told the world is doomed. Not so, argues the author. What if some of the core tenets of mainstream environmentalism are simply wrong? Lynas is no corporate lobbyist or climate change denier; he has worked for more than a decade to raise awareness of the threats posed by global warming. He argues that we can sustain a world of nine billion at higher living standards than today, but only if we take a more scientific approach to recognizing the real ecological limits of Earth. And that means taking a clear-eyed, rational look – stripped of any political, religious, or social partiality – at a host of issues that the green movement has campaigned on, such as organic farming, genetically engineered crops, and nuclear power. The author proposes that ‘Greens’ are not wrong about everything. The ecological limits that campaigners have worried about for decades are real and can be defined scientifically, thanks to recent leaps forward in Earth system science. He also suggests that we must phase out fossil fuels entirely, tear down many large dams, and properly protect the planet’s biodiversity. Lynas presents a radical manifesto that calls for the increased use of controversial technologies, such as genetic engineering and nuclear power, as part of a global effort to protect and nurture the biosphere. Shelved: 304.28 LYN


Prince William, Born to be King By Penny Junor. As Diana’s eldest son, Prince William was her playmate and confidant. While the tabloids eagerly lapped up the lurid details of his parents’ divorce, William lived painfully through it. He suffered the embarrassment, the humiliation and the divided loyalties. He watched his father denounced on prime time television; he met the lovers. And when he was just fifteen his beautiful, loving mother was suddenly, shockingly snatched from his life forever. The nation lost its Princess that day and its grief threatened the very future of the monarchy. What was almost forgotten in the clamour was that two small boys had lost their mother. His childhood was a recipe for disaster, yet as he approaches his thirtieth birthday, William is as wellbalanced and sane a man as you could hope to meet. He has an utter determination to do the right thing and to serve his country as his grandmother has so successfully done for the last sixty years. Shelved: 941.085092 WIL

Second Chance : The Autobiography – Mark Todd. When Mark Todd ‘retired’ from competing in eventing in 2000, he had already been named ‘Rider of the Century’ for his natural empathy with a horse and his extraordinary success, which included back-to-back Olympic gold medals, five Burghley wins and three Badminton victories. He returned to train racehorses in New Zealand eight years later, but within eight months, he was riding at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, and in 2011 he hit the headlines by becoming the oldest rider to win Badminton. He is now at the forefront of NZ’s resurgence ahead of the London Olympic Games. The story of his progress, from dairy farmer to world renown, is told with typically laid-back humour, revealing fierce determination, discipline and personal sacrifice behind the relaxed outlook. Shelved: 798.2092 TOD

BIOGRAPHY Wembley and Beyond : My Incredible Journey Barry Briggs. It started on a cold, frosty morning in 1951 in Christchurch, New Zealand, with a seventeen-year-oldboy, a crate of sheeps’ kidneys and a dream. The boss of the city’s Belfast Meatworks had arrived an hour early to set up for the day, when he noticed one of his workers packing up a crate on the countertop. The young lad was battling to move it, so the boss went over to help. When asked what time he’d started, the boy replied, ‘Five o’clock this morning’. Stunned and amused, the boss told him he’d be earning a good bonus at the end of the week, and wondered aloud what he’d spend it on. But the boy knew, and immediately replied, ‘I’m going to race speedway in England’. And he did. The boy was Barry Briggs, and it was just the start of his great adventure. Little did he know, he was soon to become the legendary speedway racer, more commonly known as Briggo, and later as Barry Briggs, MBE. From dangerous encounters in the jungles of Liberia to teaching Steve McQueen to slide a speedway bike, Briggo’s incredible story is one of strength, determination and a life lived firmly in the fast lane.

Dave Gallaher : The Original All Black Captain – Matt Elliott. Dave Gallaher was an Irish immigrant who became one of the most famous people in his adopted land, a man whose skills and character were crucial in shaping rugby and our national team. Gallaher captained the 1905 All Blacks team the first New Zealand national rugby team to tour the United Kingdom and North America. It is still considered the most important tour undertaken by the All Blacks, with only one game controversially lost out of 35 played. Historians point to Gallaher as the template for All Black captains: tough, uncompromising, letting his deeds on the field do his talking, never asking anyone to do a job he wouldn't do himself, and having an astute mind for the way the game is played. Like many of his teammates, he served in the First World War. This was an age when a sense of loyalty to the Empire meant men chose to serve on battlefields 12,000 miles from home. He lied about his age to volunteer for more war service at the age of 43. The story of Dave Gallaher's peacetime success on the football field and his wartime service in the NZ Army.

Shelved: 796.75092 BRI

Shelved: 796.33092 ELL

ECONOMICS


The $12 million Stuffed Shark : The Curious Economics of Contemporary Art and Auction Houses By Don Thompson. This is the Tipping Point or Freakonomics for the art world. It will appeal to anyone interested in art, but also for anyone who has wondered 'yes, but, is it art?' This is the first book to look at the economics and marketing strategies which power the contemporary art market. It offers a behind the scenes look at what makes or breaks an artist and the branding which drives this lucrative market. Contains exclusive interviews with artists, collectors, auctioneers and exhibitors. Shelved: 709.04 THO

Aerotropolis : The Way We’ll Live Next By John Kasarda. From Dubai to Amsterdam, Memphis to South Korea, a new phenomenon is reshaping the way we live and transforming the way we do business: the aerotropolis. A combination of giant airport, planned city and business hub, the aerotropolis will be at the heart of the next phase of globalization. Drawing on a decade's worth of cuttingedge research, John Kasarda and Greg Lindsay offer a visionary look at how the metropolis of the future will bring us together - and how to make the most of this opportunity.

The Moral Molecule : The Source of Love and Prosperity By Paul J. Zak. Are humans good or evil? Can money or religion make us more – or less – moral? Why do we trust our lives to strangers? Is morality universal? Why do men cheat more than women? Why do we get taken in by cons? How can we be happier? The author answers these essential questions about human nature and the way we live.

What she found was shocking. The destruction of Australia’s precious natural resources – farmland, water, forests – was on a scale staggering beyond expectation. And so was the secret toll to the Australian people. From broken rivers to broken hearts, shattered health and displaced lives, the long-term and permanent negative impacts of coal and CSG mining are explored here.

The Lean Startup By Eric Ries. Most startups are built to fail. But those failures, according to the author, are preventable. Startups don't fail because of bad execution, or missed deadlines, or blown budgets. They fail because they are building something nobody wants. Whether they arise from someone's garage or are created within a mature Fortune 500 organization, new ventures, by definition, are designed to create new products or services under conditions of extreme uncertainty. Their primary mission is to find out what customers ultimately will buy. Ries offers a way of getting continuous feedback from customers so that the company can shift directions or alter its plans inch by inch, minute by minute. Shelved: 658.11 RIE Why Nations Fail : The Origins of Power, Prosperity and Poverty By Daron Acemoglu. Why is North Korea ten times poorer than South Korea? Why do the people of Nogales, Arizona earn three times as much as their neighbours across the fence in Nogales, Sonora in Mexico? Why are some nations more prosperous than others? The author argues that it is due, not to climate, geography or culture, but institutions. Drawing on a range of examples, Acemoglu shows that to invest and prosper, people need to know that if they work hard, they can make money and actually keep it – and this means sound institutions that allow virtuous circles of innovation, economic expansion, more widely-held wealth, and peace.

Shelved: 333.7650994 MUN

Shelved: 330 ACE

Shelved: 302 ZAK

Rich Land, Wasteland : How Coal is Killing Australia By Sharyn Munro. Distressed by what was happening to her Hunter Valley region, writer and ‘concerned grandma’ Sharyn Munro set off on a factfinding journey throughout Australia to see and hear how other families and communities were affected by Australia’s headlong rush to mine and drill for ever more coal and coal seam gas.

Shelved: 307.76 KAS

Handy Hints

KIWI FICTION Dinner at Rose’s By Danielle Hawkins. In the wake of an unfortunate best-friendand-boyfriendcaughthaving-sexin-a-chair incident, Jo Donnelly flees her civilised city life to take up a job at the physiotherapy clinic in her small home town. Life would seem a bit grim, if not for Jo’s eccentric, honorary Aunty Rose, who lives up the valley with her pet piglet, four dogs and two sheep. Rose was a wise and infinitely patient friend to both Jo and her bona fide nephew Matthew, as they were growing up. And when Rose is hit by illness, Jo moves in to look after her, while Matt helps out as much as his farming duties allow. But illness aside, it’s not long before the mischievous Rose is playing cupid...


The Forrests By Emily Perkins. Dorothy Forrest is immersed in the sensory world around her; she lives in the flickering moment. From the age of seven, when her odd, disenfranchised family moves from New York City to the wide skies of Auckland, to the very end of her life, this is her great gift and possible misfortune. Through the wilderness of a commune, to falling in love, to early marriage and motherhood, from the glorious anguish of parenting to the loss of everything worked for and the unexpected return of love, Dorothy is swept along by time. Her family looms and recedes; revelations come to light; death changes everything, but somehow life remains potent and joyful.

The Open World By Stephanie Johnson. Elizabeth Smith seems a respectable widow, sailing to New Zealand in 1841, along with a group of early settlers and missionaries. Under the watchful and disapproving eye of Bishop Selwyn and Judge Martin, Elizabeth tries to establish herself in this new country, helping run a hospital for local Maori, while acting as both father and mother to her two sons. But she has secrets in her past, secrets that she won't reveal even to her sons, despite their eagerness to know about their father. It is only on her return to London that the truth might be revealed...

The Gathering of the Lost By Helen Lowe. Follows The Heir of Night: Five years after the Darkswarm assault on her stronghold home, Malian of Night remains missing, believed dead in the wilds of Jaransor. But not all accept her death and now her enemies are on the hunt. Suspicion falls on the heralds Tarathan and Jehane, who are caught in a web of intrigue and murder during the Ijiri Festival of Masks. They flee bearing a word of a death on the Wall – and a call to duty and honour that Malian must answer or be forsworn. Yet after years of searching, the legendary weapons of the Derai’s greatest hero remain lost. Without them, a return to the Wall of Night promises defeat and death.

Skylark By Jenny Pattrick. The little French girl, Lily Alouette, was singing and dancing almost as soon as she could walk. When she is left an orphan in an unfamiliar country after her parents have emigrated to the goldfields, it is performing in a circus that offers survival. Later she takes to the stage in New Zealand and Australia, where she attracts the attention of two men. One is the faithful Jack Lacey; the other is the renowned pirate Bully Hayes. While Jack has to compete with both Bully and the theatre to win Lily’s attention, Lily finds she must share Jack, too.

Collecting Cooper – By Paul Cleave People are disappearing. Cooper Riley, a psychology professor, doesn't make it to work one day. Emma Green, one of his students, doesn't make it home. When ex-cop Theodore Tate is released from a four-month prison term, he's begged by Emma's father to help find his daughter. After all, Tate was in jail for nearly killing her in a drink-driving accident the year before, so Tate owes him. What neither of them knows is that a former mental patient is holding people prisoner as part of his growing collection of serial killer souvenirs. Now he's trying to acquire the ultimate collector's item - an actual killer. The further Tate looks, the more he keeps coming back to Grover Hills, the mental institution on the outskirts of the city that closed down three years ago. Bad things happened there over the years, down in the basement which the patients called the Scream Room. Tate is going to have to delve into Grover Hills' past if there is any chance of finding Emma Green and Cooper Riley alive.

HOT OFF THE PRESS NON-FICTION


Something for everyone! Android Phones for Dummies Dan Gookin. How to: Set up your phone and explore amazing Android features; Email, text, share photos, and enjoy movies, games and music; Load your Android phone with the latest apps from the Android Market. Plus how to command your phone using your voice; conference calls; Apps you can’t live without; Managing texts, Google Talk, Skype + more.Shelved:004.167 GOO

Birth Stories : Real and inspiring accounts from Australian Women Nineteen stories about the triumphs, challenges and delights of childbirth from a wide range of mothers-to-be: first-time mums, women having their second or third child, women seeking to have a natural childbirth after a previous caesarean delivery, and women having babies after suffering traumatic births.

The Complete Guide to Treehouses Few building projects garner as much excitement as a treehouse; built for fun and built to last, a treehouse can provide you and your loved ones a memorable place to rest and play for years to come. Information and techniques for all skill levels with complete walk-throughs for two distinct treehouses, as well as detailed designs for six more.

The French Dog Rachael McKenna. Born and raised in New Zealand, the author’s unique viewpoint has made her one of the most successful animal photographers in the world today. When she recently embarked on a new life in France, it was inevitable that she would turn her insatiable photographer's lens to capturing the unexplored world around her.

Shelved: 618.40994 BIR

Shelved: 690.89 COM

Shelved: 636.7 MCKE

Handspun : New Spins on Traditional Techniques – Lexi Boeger. Covers a handful of traditional styles for the spinner to master and then turn on their ear, with the many uses of one-of-a-kind yarns demonstrated here. Learn the basics, adapt styles, be inspired, and includes 20 fashion-forward accessories.

Huia Histories of Maori : Nga Tahuhu Korero Richly illustrated, comprehensive history of Aotearoa New Zealand written entirely from Maori viewpoints providing a range of fresh views on past events. Written by sixteen Maori scholars, including two Knights of the Realm, all specialists in their fields, the book covers histories of descent, the land, people, and autonomy.

Shelved: 746.432041 BOE

Shelved: 305.899442 HUI

New Age Nanas : Being a Grandmother in the 21st Century Doreen Rosenthal. A resource for grandmothers and their families, interweaving the rich and diverse views of 1000 Australian grandmothers with the authors’ expert advice as psychologists, researchers in the women’s health area, and grandmothers themselves. Insights into feelings, changing relationships, conflicts and special issues faced by grandmothers. Shelved: 306.8745 ROS

Norman Parkinson : Portraits in Fashion The portfolio of one of the 20th century's great fashion photographers, featuring dazzling original prints from Parkinson's own archive. Parkinson's long association with Vogue and his numerous assignments for Harper's Bazaar, Queen, and other magazines brought him fame and recognition--in return he gave the fashion world ineffable style and unforgettable images. Shelved: 779.2092 PAR

Improve Your Eyesight Naturally Leo Angart. Strategies designed to improve your eyesight by exercising your ability to see. Leo’s approach is very specific and targets each type of vision problem. He explains how you can tone your eye muscles, release tension and build up energy in order to regain your natural eyesight. Includes simple vision tests you can use yourself to verify your level of vision. Shelved: 617.7 ANG Pathfinder A Special Forces Mission Behind Enemy Lines David Blakely. The true story of nine men, the British Army’s 16 Air Assault Brigade’s Pathfinder Platoon, deployed to Iraq in 2003, operating alone and unsupported, fifty miles ahead of a US Recon Marine advance and heading straight into a hornet’s nest, teeming with thousands of heavilyarmed enemy forces, left with no option but to fight their way out. Shelved: 956.7044342 BLA

Mary Quant Mary Quant defined the 60s as a renowned fashion designer and allround style icon, most famous for inventing the miniskirt and hot pants. Not afraid of novelty or experimentation, she showed a generation of women how to dress to please themselves. Quant's career was fulsome and varied - from opening up a clothes shop on the King's Road called Bazaar, to her vast cosmetics company, Mary Quant Limited. Shelved:746.92092 QUA Teach Yourself Henna Tattoo Brenda Abdoyan.

Mehndi, also known as henna tattoo, is a traditional Middle

Eastern art used to adorn the body for weddings and other special celebrations. Includes patterns, projects and illustrated, step-by-step instructions for wood, leather and other surfaces, as well as the body. Shelved: 391.6 ABD

HOT OFF THE PRESS FICTION Alpha – Greg Rucka. Jonathan ‘Jad’ Bell worked for the US army for twenty years. He was the kind of soldier they could rely on: able to go anywhere and secure his mission objective without fail. But then the army decided it didn't need him anymore. Jad takes the advice of his former commander and moves to the private sector, to head up the security force at Wonderland, the nation's most famous amusement park. So when the worst-case-scenario comes to pass and a group of terrorists lay siege to the theme park, Jad and his team stand between a band of ruthless killers and 1000 civilians. The Hunter – John Lescroart. PI Wyatt Hunt has never been interested in finding his birth parents but the discovery that his mother was murdered and the main suspect was his father, leaves him with no choice but to take on the case. The Lost Girls of Rome Donato Carrisi. A girl has disappeared in Rome. As rain lashes the ancient streets, two members of the Penitenzieri – a unique Italian team linked to the Vatican, and trained in the detection of true evil, sit in a café and pore over the case details. With the help of a forensics expert, they uncover a terrible, secret world, perfect, but evil… Talking to the Dead – Harry Bingham. For DC Fiona Griffiths, her first murder is a case of jumping in at the deep end – a woman and her six-year-old daughter killed with chilling brutality in a dingy flat. The only clue: the platinum bank card of a long-dead tycoon, found amidst the squalor – the rookie DC must figure out why.

Funeral Note – Quintin Jardine. After a tipoff, a man’s body is exhumed from a shallow grave in Edinburgh. Murder surely, yet he died from natural causes, so, case closed? Indeed was there ever a case? But Chief Constable Skinner and his people keep on digging. Who was the man, why was he buried so reverentially, and by whom? Meanwhile, corruption is discovered within the force, and an investigation launched. Immersed in crises, his marriage heading for the rocks, Skinner finds his very career hanging in the balance, its fate beyond his control. Some Kind of Fairy Tale : A Tale of Enchantment – Graham Joyce. It is Christmas afternoon and Peter Martin gets an unexpected phone call from his parents. It pulls him into a bewildering mystery. His sister, Tara, has come back home. Not so unusual you might think, this is a time when families get together. But twenty years ago Tara took a walk into the woods and never came back, and as the years have gone by with no word from her, the family has, unspoken, feared that she was dead. Now she’s back, full of stories about twenty years spent travelling the world. But her stories don’t quite hang together and the intervening years have been very kind to Tara. There is something about her. A haunted, otherworldly quality. Some would say it’s as if she’s off with the fairies. And as the months go by, Peter begins to suspect that the woods around their homes are not finished with Tara and his family…

Park Lane – Frances Osborne. London, 1914. Two young women dream of breaking free from tradition and obligation. Suffragettes are on the march and war looms, but at 35 Park Lane, Lady Masters, head of a dying dynasty, insists that life is about service and duty The Purple Shroud – Stella Duffy. Once, Theodora was little more than a slave, the daughter of a bear-keeper, running barefoot through Constantinople’s streets. Now she is Theou doron, ‘the Gift of God’, Empress of byzantine Rome and most powerful woman in the world.

The Taliban Cricket Club – Timeri N Murari. Rukhsana, a spirited young journalist in Kabul, is summoned to the infamous Ministry for the Propagation of Virtue and Prevention of Vice to face its terrifying minister, Zorak Wahidi. A cricket tournament is announced, with the winning team to travel to Pakistan for training and then represent Afghanistan at an international level. In reality, the idea is ludicrous. The Taliban will never embrace a game rooted in civility, fairness and equality. And no one in Afghanistan even knows how to play cricket, except Rukhsana. But the tournament offers hope - a means of escape for her brother and young cousins. And for Rukhsana, escape is essential - Wahidi wants to marry her, a frightening proposition which will enslave her in his home. With the help of her cousins, Rukhsana devises an audacious plan that could ensure their freedom. All they have to do is learn to play cricket – and win.


Mission to Paris – Alan Furst. Frederic Stahl, a Hollywood film star, travels from Beverly Hills to the boulevards of Paris. It is a dangerous, seductive time. Europe is about to explode, and the Parisians are living every night as though it were their last. As filming progresses, Stahl is drawn into a clandestine world of foreign correspondents, embassy officials, and spies. His engagements take him from Paris bistros to back alleys of Morocco; from a Hungarian castle to the chilling heart of the Third Reich. But can he survive as German operatives track him across Paris? Wicked Business Janet Evanovich. Lizzy Tucker’s once normal life as a pastry chef in Salem, Massachusetts, turns upside down as she battles both sinister forces and an inconvenient attraction to her unnaturally talented but offlimits partner, Diesel. When Harvard University English professor and dyed-inthe-wool romantic Gilbert Reedy is mysteriously murdered and thrown off his fourth-floor balcony, Lizzy and Diesel take up his twenty-year quest for the Luxuria Stone, an ancient relic believed by some to be infused with the power of lust. Following clues contained in a cryptic nineteenth century book of sonnets, Lizzy and Diesel tear through Boston catacombs, government buildings, and multimillion-dollar residences. Diesel’s black sheep cousin, Gerwulf Grimoire, also wants the Stone. On their way they’ll leave behind a trail of robbed graves, public disturbances, and general mayhem.

CHICK LIT


The Angel at No. 33 Polly Williams. Some love stories never end. One evening, Sophie Brady kisses her husband, Ollie, and young son Freddie goodbye, closing the door on number thirtythree. At ten pm she's with her best friend Jenny, polishing off a second bottle of wine. By midnight, she's dead. Except she doesn't feel dead...How can she leave the people she loves? Ollie is a man who once watered a houseplant for a year before realising it was plastic. Freddie is so little. And Jenny? There's something she desperately needs to know...

Naomi’s Wish Rachael Herron. It had always been Dr Naomi Fontaine’s dream to practise small-town medicine – an ambition that has brought her to the tight-knit community of Cypress Hollow. But no matter how hard she tries, the locals still treat her with suspicion. Then, ruggedly handsome Rig Keller walks into town and Naomi’s heart stops for all the wrong reasons. For, a few months back, Rig was a riproaring, throw-caution-to-the-wind, one-night-stand. Now he’s her partner at the practice. Will the instantly popular new medic wreck her dreams or make her wish come true?

This is How it Ends Kathleen MacMahon. Dublin, 2008. Bruno, an American, middle-aged banker has come to Ireland to escape the financial meltdown in his own country and search for his roots. Addie, an out-of-work architect, is recovering from heartbreak while taking care of her infirm father. Childless and isolated, her life seems to be on a downward spiral. When their worlds collide, they experience a connection unlike any they’ve previously felt, but soon their newfound love will be tested in ways they never imagined possible.

Recipe for Love Katie Fforde. Take one aspiring cook, one judge, and a spoonful of romance… When Zoe Harper wins a coveted place in a televised cookery competition, she’s thrilled. It’s a chance to cook her way to fame and fortune and the little delicatessen she’s set her heart on. The first task has hardly begun when she finds herself with rather too much on her plate. Not only has she got to contend with the fiercely competitive and downright devious Cher, but she’s fast developing an inconvenient crush on one of the judges – the truly delicious Gideon Irving. All too soon, there’s more than canapés, cupcakes and cordon bleu at stake. Will Zoe win the competition, or is Gideon one temptation too far? And is Zoe really prepared to risk it all for love?

Sister Pact Ali Ahearn & Ros Baxter. Two very different sisters. Once inseparable, they have long been estranged after an unimaginable betrayal. Organised and uptight Frances married the only man she'd ever slept with. But no one told her that seven years later she'd be having sexual fantasies about everyone from the pizza delivery guy to Denis Thatcher. Scatterbrained, animallover Joni never knew she was so attached to her kneecaps until she thought she might have to say goodbye to them forever. After their beloved grandmother, a game-show addict, dies, they discover that they have each been left one million pounds in her will. They can only inherit if they participate as a team in a gruelling reality TV programme, Endurance Island. They can survive the jungle. They can survive the humiliating challenges. But can they survive each other?

Stella Makes Good Lisa Heidke. Stella Sparks is on good terms with her exhusband, Terry, despite the fact he left her for another woman. Stella is philosophical – the marriage had run its course, they remain friends and the wellbeing of their kids is central to both of them. Stella’s two closest friends, Carly and Jesse, envy her togetherness and wish they could emulate it. Jesse’s husband is a control freak, but she has two small children and can’t see a way out. Carly, meanwhile, suspects her husband is having an affair. Stella’s life takes a distinctly upward turn when she meets a handsome, apparently single – no ring, anyway – father at her son’s school speech night. For Carly and Jesse, however, the search for happiness and fulfilment proves more elusive.

NORDIC NOIR


The Black Path The Drowning Hour of the Wolf By Asa Larsson By Camilla Lackberg By Hakan Nesser A body on the ice… Christian Thydell’s dream has come In the dead of night, in the pouring rain, true: his debut novel, The Mermaid, is The frozen body of a woman is found in a drunk driver smashes his car into a a fishing hut on a frozen lake in far published to rave reviews. So why is he young man. He abandons the body at northern Sweden. She has been as distant and unhappy as ever? the side of the road, but the incident will tortured, but the killing blow was clumsy, When crime writer Erica Falck, who set in motion a chain of events which will almost amateur. discovered Christian’s talents, learns he change his life forever. The body is quickly identified, raising has been receiving anonymous threats, Soon, Chief Inspector Van Veeteren, hopes of an open-and-shut case. she investigates not just the messages, now retired from the Maardam police But when a six-month-old suicide is but also the author’s mysterious past. force, will face his greatest trial yet as disinterred, Rebecka Martinsson and Meanwhile, one of Christian’s closest someone close to him is, inexplicably, Anna-Maria Mella find themselves friends is missing. Erica’s husband, murdered. investigating corruption at the heart of Detective Patrik Hedstrom, has his worst When another body is found, Van one of Sweden’s biggest mining suspicions confirmed as the mindVeeteren’s former colleagues struggle to companies – one with powerful enemies games aimed at Christian and those decipher the clues to these appalling of its own… around him become a disturbing reality. crimes. Last Will The Last Good Man By Liza Marklund. By A. J. Kazinski. A frosty December night It is said that there are in Stockholm. thirty-six righteous Inside the City Hall, over people on earth who a thousand guests protect mankind. The attend the prestigious thirty-six do not know Nobel Prizewinners’ who they are, but without dinner. them, humanity would With a lavish meal laid perish. on to the backdrop of a In Venice, disgraced full orchestra, this is one policeman Tommaso di of the city’s most Barbera sits waiting for a glamorous annual phone call. He’s unevents. covered a chilling trend – But things are different good people, known for this year. their philanthropy, are Two shots are fired on dying mysteriously all the dance floor. over the world, each Crime reporter Annika body bearing the same Bengtzon is there, strange mark. covering the event for the Evening Post. In Copenhagen, reclusive detective Niels Bentzon is the one The police realize she caught a glimpse of the suspect, but to pick up the Interpol report. Convinced it’s nothing but a she is far more interested in getting back to the newsroom. wild-goose chase, Niels halfheartedly calls Tommaso. But neither speaks the other’s language and Niels is unable to When more brutal murders follow, Annika finds herself in the middle of something far larger and dangerous than she had travel, suffering from a rare phobia which means he can’t anticipated. leave Denmark. When Niels encounters Hannah Lund, a No longer just a reporter, but also a vulnerable key witness, brilliant astrophysicist mourning her son, he begins to piece she begins to close up the gaps linking these crimes, just as the puzzle together. A pattern emerges. If Hannah’s code is the suspect starts closing the net on Annika herself… right, they know the exact time and location of the next death.

HISTORICAL FICTION Bring up the Bodies – By Hilary Mantel. Sequel to Wolf Hall: By 1535 Thomas Cromwell, the blacksmith’s son, is far from his humble origins. Chief Minister to Henry VIII, his fortunes have risen with those of Anne Boleyn, Henry’s second wife, for whose sake Henry has broken with Rome and created his own church. But Henry’s actions have forced England into a dangerous isolation, and Anne has failed to do what she promised: bear a son to secure the Tudor line. When Henry visits Wolf Hall, Cromwell watches as he falls in love with the silent, plain Jane Seymour. The minister sees what is at stake: not just the king’s pleasure, but the safety of the nation.

Empress of Rome – By Kate Quinn. Divided by birth, entwined by destiny. The fate of the Empire lies in their hands...Under its beloved Emperor Trajan, the Roman Eagle spreads its wings, advancing ever further into the untamed world. But neither Trajan nor his reign can last for ever...Gladiator turned soldier Vix is back in Rome to make his fortune. Sabina, the wayward daughter of a senator, craves adventure. United by their devotion to the Emperor, Vix and Sabina are unaware that the wolves are gathering. Trajan’s enigmatic Empress has her own plans for Sabina. And the aristocratic Hadrian, the Empress’s protégé, conceals dark ambitions rooted in a secret prophecy. When Trajan falls, the hardened warrior, the adventurous girl, the shadowy empress and the scheming politician are caught in a deadly whirlwind that threatens to seal all their fates – and that of the Roman Empire itself. Sequel to Mistress of Rome


HHhH – By Laurent Binet. Prague, 1942. This is Operation Anthropoid: two Czechoslovakian parachutists sent on a daring mission by London to assassinate Reinhard Heydrich - chief of the Nazi secret services, 'the hangman of Prague', 'the blonde beast', 'the most dangerous man in the Third Reich'. His boss is Heinrich Himmler, but everyone in the SS says 'Himmler's brain is called Heydrich', which in German spells HHhH. All the characters in HHhH are real. All the events depicted are true. But alongside the nerve-shredding preparations for the attack runs another story: when you are a novelist writing about real people, how do you resist the temptation to make things up?

The Shoemaker’s Wife – By Adriana Trigiani. The majestic beauty of the th Italian Alps at the turn of the 20 century is the setting for the first meeting of Enza and Ciro, who meet as teenagers growing up in villages just a few miles apart. But when Ciro catches the local priest in a scandal, he is banished from his village and sent to hide in America as an apprentice to a shoemaker in Little Italy. Without explanation, he leaves a bereft Enza behind. Soon Enza’s family faces disaster and she too, is forced to go to America with her father to secure their future. The two young people both build fledgling lives in America until fate intervenes and reunites them. But it is too late: Ciro has volunteered to serve in World War One, and Enza, determined to forge a life without him, begins an impressive career as a seamstress at the Metropolitan Opera House and into the life of international singing sensation, Enrico Caruso.

A Ship of War – By Sean Thomas Russell. 1794 – The height of the French Revolution as the Reign of Terror continues to ravage France. The British are desperate for a victory to restore confidence in their campaign. Captain Charles Hayden has orders to destroy a French frigate sailing from Le Havre and to gather intelligence from a royalist spy. On discovering French plans for an imminent attack on British soil, Hayden must return with haste to Portsmouth to give warning. But the enemy have been lying in wait for him, and so begins a dangerous chase in the Atlantic into the midst of a powerful French squadron. After a failed attempt to masquerade as French sailors, Hayden and his officers are taken prisoner. A shipwreck and a case of mistaken identity befall Hayden and his men as they try in desperation to escape to warn the Lords of the Admiralty. Failure will mean the invasion of England – and the guillotine for Hayden.


Beastly Things – Donna Leon. When a body is found floating in a canal, strangely disfigured and with multiple stab wounds, Commissario Brunetti is called to investigate and is convinced he recognises the man. However, with no identification except for the distinctive shoes the man was wearing, and no reports of people missing from the Venice area, the case cannot progress. Brunetti soon realises why he remembers the dead man, and asks Signorina Elettra if she can help him find footage of a farmers’ protest the previous autumn. But what was the victim’s involvement with the protest, and what does it have to do with his murder? Acting on the fragile lead, Brunetti and Inspector Vianello set out to uncover the man’s identity. Their investigation takes them to a slaughterhouse on the mainland, where they discover the origin of the crime, and the blackmail and corruption that surrounds it.

The Witness – Nora Roberts. Abigail Lowery has a dark and terrifying secret. Aged just sixteen, she witnessed a shocking mafia murder. Narrowly escaping with her life, she was forced to leave her old identity – even her real name – behind for good. Fifteen years later Abigail is still hiding from the world – a semi-recluse in the quiet, rural town of Bickford, Arkansas. She has convinced herself that this is all she needs: peace, safety…and her faithful guard dog, Bert. Perhaps now, at last, she can stop running. But Brooks Gleason, the local chief of police, has other ideas. Abigail intrigues him – and he’d like nothing better than to break through the walls she has built around herself. His persistence and determination to uncover the truth is unsettling, exciting – and dangerous. One way or another, it will change both their lives for ever.

KILLER THRILLERS

Every Vow You Break – Julia Crouch The Wayland family – Lara, Marcus and their three children – is leaving England to spend a long, blisteringly hot summer in Trout Island, upstate New York. Marcus has been offered the lead in a play and Lara, still reeling from the abortion Marcus insisted on, hopes the time away from home will help her to love her husband again. A chance meeting at the play’s opening night party reacquaints the family with an old actor friend of Marcus’s. Stephen is everything Marcus is not: attractive, successful – and interested in Lara. As Lara feels herself increasingly drawn to him she knows it’s a dangerous game she’s playing. What she doesn’t know is that it’s also a deadly one.

The Killing Room – Richard Montanari

In the heart of Philadelphia’s badlands, Homicide Detectives Byrne and Balzano are called out to a particularly chilling crime scene. Once the pillar of the neighbourhood, an abandoned church has become a killing room. At first it looks like a random act of violence. But then a second body is found, and a third. Each crime scene more disturbing than the last, each murder more brutal. And it soon becomes horrifyingly clear that a cold, calculating and terrifyingly precise mind is at work. With very few leads, and a mastermind who always seems to be one step ahead, Byrne and Balzano are faced with unimaginable challenges as they race against time to hunt down their killer.

Not Dead Yet – Peter James For LA producer Larry Brooker, this is the movie that could bring the fortune that eluded him. For rock superstar Gaia, desperate to be taken seriously as an actor, this is the role that could get her an Oscar nomination. For Brighton and Hove, the publicity value of a major Hollywood movie being filmed on location, about the city’s greatest love story – between King George IV and Maria Fitzherbert, is incalculable. For DS Roy Grace of Sussex CID, it is a nightmare unfolding in front of his eyes. An obsessed stalker is after Gaia. One attempt on her life is made days before she leaves her Bel Air home to fly to Brighton. Now, he has been warned, the stalker may be at large in his city.

RECOMMENDED FICTION AUTHORS


The Red House – Gone Girl – The Mountain Mark Haddon. Gillian Flynn. Drusilla Modjeska. After his mother's Just how well can In 1968 Papua New death, Richard, a you ever know the Guinea is on the newly remarried person you love? brink of independhospital consultant, This is the question ence, and change. decides to build that Nick Dunne Amidst the turmoil bridges with his must ask himself on film-maker Leonard estranged sister, the morning of his arrives from England inviting Angela and fifth wedding anniwith his Dutch wife, her family for a versary, when his Rika, to take up a week in a rented house on the Welsh wife Amy suddenly disappears. The university post and film an isolated border. Four adults and four children, a police immediately suspect Nick. Amy’s village high in the mountains. The single family and all of them strangers. friends reveal that she was afraid of him, villagers’ customs and art have been Seven days of shared meals, log fires, that she kept secrets from him. He passed down through generations, and card games and wet walks. But in the swears it isn’t true. An examination of Rika is immediately struck by their quiet and stillness of the valley, ghosts his computer shows strange searches. paintings on cloth made of bark. But it is begin to rise up – family, friends, He says they aren’t his. So what really when Rika meets brothers Jacob and enemies, victims, saviours. did happen to Nick’s beautiful wife? Aaron that all their lives change for ever. Fault Line – Robert Goddard. The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Not all scars are visible. Jonathan Fry – Rachel Joyce. Kellaway needs no reminding of that Since his retirement, Harold Fry has on the verge of his retirement from done nothing but mow the lawn, and china clay conglomerate interinfuriate his wife by filling in the easy continental Kaolins. The company has answers on her crossword. Then an left its mark in pits and spoil heaps unexpected letter arrives from a around the world. But it has also left woman he hasn't seen in twenty years a no less enduring mark on some of who's dying of cancer. Harold realises those who have worked for it, that sending a reply isn't good enough. Kellaway included. Its past, as well He is going to walk; all the way from as its future, is a treacherous place. Devon to Berwick on Tweed. So Kellaway is surprised when IK's So long as he keeps walking, his friend founder and former chairman, Greville Lashley, sets him a Queenie will keep living. Harold Fry's epic and unplanned final task before he quits. The academic hired by the board to journey north will cover over 500 miles. write the company's history has discovered a gap covering He will meet some good people, and some not good ones; he several years in the records of the small Cornish china clay will briefly become a national celebrity, and he will almost lose outfit Lashley started with and where Kellaway also began his his way altogether. career. He is despatched to Cornwall to learn what has But it is his awakened faith in the power of one human being become of the missing documents. to help another that is the heart of the book.

The Day of the Lie William Brodrick. In presentday Cambridge Father Anselm, a brilliant Gilbertine monk, receives a visit from an old friend with a dangerous story to tell – the story of a woman betrayed by time, fate and someone close to her, someone still unknown. Anselm is called upon to investigate both her story and a mystery dating back to 1980, to an Eastern Europe in the icy grip of the Cold War. And as he peels back years of history, decades of secrets and a half-century of lies, he uncovers a truth so shocking that some would rather die than see it exposed...

The Underside of Joy Sere Prince Halverson. To Ella Beene, happiness means living in the Northern California river town of Elbow with her husband, Joe, and his two young children. But one summer day a rogue wave descends, drowning not only the man but also his many secrets. For three years, Ella has been the only mother the kids have known and has believed that their biological mother, Paige, abandoned them. But when Paige shows up at the funeral, intent on reclaiming the children, Ella soon realizes there may be more to Paige and Joe’s story.

When Nights were Cold Susanna Jones. At the end of Victoria’s reign, Grace Farringdon dreams of escape from her protective parents and eccentric, agoraphobic sister. When Grace secretly applies to Candlin, a women’s college filled with intelligent, like-minded women, she feels her ambitions taking shape. She forms an Antarctic exploration society and soon the group is defying their times and families climbing the peaks of Snowdonia and planning a bold trip to the perilous Alps. Fifteen years later, Grace is haunted by the terrible events that took place out on the mountains.

FANTASMAGORICAL FICTION

Irenicon – By Aidan Harte. Part one of The Wave trilogy. The River Irenicon was blasted through th the middle of Rasenna in the 1347 year of Our Lady, created overnight by Concordian engineers. But Wave technology is mysterious, even to its creators; they never guessed the river would become conscious – and hostile. Now Giovanni, a guilt-ridden Concordian engineer, has been sent to bridge the Irenicon – not to reunite the sundered city, but to aid Concord’s mighty armies, for they have their sights set firmly on conquest and Rasenna is in their way. Sofia Scaligeri, Rasenna’s young Contessa, knows she has no chance of saving her city from Concordian domination unless she first unites its feuding factions, but this is an impossible task – until Giovannie starts to question his own allegiances. But times are changing, and whether they like it or not, the feuding families of Rasenna are going to have to change too: for Concord is once again preparing to release the Wave…

Silver : Return to Treasure Island – By Andrew Motion. July, 1802. In the marshy eastern reaches of the Thames lies the Hispaniola, an inn kept by Jim Hawkins and his son. Young Jim spends his days roaming the mist-shrouded estuaries, running errands for his father and listening to his stories in the taproom: tales of adventures on the high seas, of curses, murder and revenge, black spots and buried treasure – and of a man with a wooden leg. Late one night, a mysterious girl named Natty arrives on the river with a request for Jim from her father – Long John Silver. Aged and weak, but still possessing a strange power, the pirate proposes that Jim and Natty sail to Treasure Island in search of Captain Flint’s hidden bounty, the ‘beautiful bar silver’ left behind many years before. Silver has chartered a ship and a hardy crew for this purpose, whose captain is waiting only for the map, now locked away at the Hispaniola. Jim and Natty set off in the footsteps of their fathers.

The Rook – By Daniel O’Malley. ‘Dear You, The body you are wearing used to be mine.’ So begins the letter Myfanwy Thomas is holding when she awakes in a London park surrounded by corpses – all wearing latex gloves (and startled expressions). With no memory of who she is, or how she got there, the only way she can discover her identity and escape those who want to destroy her is to follow the instructions in a series of letters left behind by her former self. She learns that she is a Rook, a high-level operative in a secret government agency.


The Wind Through the Keyhole By Stephen King. For readers new to The Dark Tower, a stand-alone novel and introduction to the series. Fans of the existing series will delight in discovering what happened to Roland and his ka-tet between the time they leave the Emerald City and arrive at the outskirts of Calla Bryn Sturgis. The story visits Mid-World's last gunslinger, Roland Deschain, and his ka-tet as a ferocious storm halts their progress along the Path of the Beam. Roland tells a tale from his early days as a gunslinger, in the guilt ridden year following his mother's death. Sent by his father to investigate evidence of a murderous shape shifter, a 'skin man,' Roland takes charge of Bill Streeter, a brave but terrified boy who is the sole surviving witness to the beast's most recent slaughter. Roland, himself only a teenager, calms the boy by reciting a story from the Book of Eld that his mother used to read to him at bedtime, 'The Wind through the Keyhole.' (The novel can be placed between Dark Tower IV and Dark Tower V.)

2312 – By Kim Stanley Robinson. The year is 2312. Earth is no longer humanity’s only home; new habitats have been created throughout the solar system on moons, planets and in between. But in this year, 2312, a sequence of events will force humanity to confront its past, present and future. The first event takes place on Mercury, on the city of Terminator, itself an engineering miracle. It is an unexpected death. For Swan Er Hong, it is an event that will change her life. Swan was once a woman who designed worlds. Now she will be led into a plot to destroy them.


POTENTIAL & PRIZE-WINNING FICTION AUTHORS Eleven Seasons – By Paul D. Carter. Some guys are good at school and telling jokes or they have the latest stuff. Others are cricketers and basketball players: they can do things with the ball that make their classmates talk about them when they’re not around. His thing is football. He becomes the centre of whichever team he plays for: he becomes the advantage. Melbourne, 1985. Jason Dalton sits on his bed and counts his football cards, dreaming of the day he too is immortalised in the public eye. He’s young and gifted, a natural player who can do anything with the ball in his hand. If only everything else in his life was as obvious to him as playing. Gold Coast, 1991. The bottom has fallen out of Jason’s life; he’s now a high-school dropout, tired and wasted, with an explosive family secret still ringing in his ears. He needs to get his life back. But first he needs to find out who he is.

Life, Death, Prizes – By Stephen May. Billy’s Mum is dead. He knows that people die every day in ways that are more random and tragic and stupid than hers, but for nineteenyear-old Billy and his little brother, Oscar, their mother’s death in a bungled street robbery is the most random and tragic and stupid thing that could have happened to them. Now Billy must be both mother and father to Oscar, and despite what his well-meaning aunt, his brother’s headmistress, the PTA mothers, the social services and Oscar’s own prodigal father all think, he knows he is more than up to the job. The boys’ new world, where bedtimes are arbitrary, tidiness is optional and healthy home-cooked meals pile up uneaten in the freezer, is built out of chaos and fierce love. But as Billy’s obsession with his mother’s missing killer grows, he risks losing sight of the one thing that really matters.

Canada – Richard Ford. In 1956, Dell Parsons' family came to a stop in Great Falls, Montana, the way many military families did following the war. His father, Bev, was a talkative man, an airman from Alabama with an optimistic and easy-scheming nature. Dell and his twin sister, Berner, could easily see why their mother might have been attracted to him. But their mother Neeva - from an educated, immigrant, Jewish family - was shy, artistic and alienated from their father's small-town world of money scrapes and living on-the-fly. It was more bad instincts and bad luck that Dell's parents decided to rob the bank. They weren't reckless people. In the days following the arrest, Dell and Berner lock themselves inside the house and wait for the friend their mother said would come. When no-one does, Berner runs away. Dell, a solitary child obsessed with bee-keeping and chess, does not have friends to call on. Dell is saved before the authorities think to arrive. Driving across the Montana border into Saskatchewan his life hurtles towards the unknown.

The Girl Who Fell From the Sky – Simon Mawer. Marian Sutro is an outsider: the daughter of a diplomat, half French, half British, emotionally naïve yet too clever for her own good. But when she is recruited from her desk job by SOE to go undercover in wartime France, it seems her hybrid status – and fluent French – will be of service to a greater, more dangerous cause. Trained in sabotage, deaddrops, how to perform under interrogation and how to kill, Marian parachutes into south-west France, her official mission to act as a Resistance courier. But her real destination is Paris, where she must seek out family friend Clement Pelletier, once the focus of her adolescent desires. A nuclear physicist engaged in the race for a new and terrifying weapon, he is of urgent significance to her superiors. As Marian struggles through the strange, lethal landscape of the Occupation towards this reunion, what completes her training is the understanding that war changes everything, and neither love nor fatherland may be trusted.

BESTSELLER FICTION The Columbus Affair – Steve Berry. Tom Sagan is staring down the barrel of a gun. He has lost everything he ever loved: his job, his wife, his daughter, his reputation. What hurts most is that he knows his Pulitzer Prize-winning career as a journalist was sabotaged. He was set up, but he can’t prove it. They – whoever they are – have beaten him. So he decides to end his life. But before he can pull the trigger, an enigmatic stranger appears. Zachariah Simon has Tom’s estranged daughter at his mercy. What he wants is something only Tom can supply. It’s the key to a five hundred-year-old mystery, one with explosive consequences in the modern world. The Flight of Gemma Hardy – By Margot Livesey. When her widower father drowns at sea, Gemma Hardy is taken from her native Iceland to Scotland to live with her kind uncle and his family. But the death of her doting guardian leaves Gemma under the care of her resentful aunt, and it soon becomes clear that she is nothing more than an unwelcome guest at Yew House. When she receives a scholarship to a private school, ten-yearold Gemma believes she’s found the perfect solution and eagerly sets out again to a new home. However, at Claypoole she finds herself treated as an unpaid servant. To Gemma’s delight, the school goes bankrupt, and she takes a job as an au pair on the Orkney Islands. ‘Set in the 1950s and 60s, this is a captivating homage to Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre.’


Come Home – Lisa Scottoline. Jill Farrow is a typical suburban mum who has finally gotten her and her daughter's lives back on track after a divorce. She is about to remarry, her job as a paediatrician, though stressful, fulfills her, and her daughter, Megan, is a happily over-scheduled thirteen-year-old juggling homework and the swim team. But Jill's life is turned upside down when her ex-step-daughter, Abby, shows up on her doorstep late one night and delivers shocking news: Jill's ex-husband is dead. Abby insists that he was murdered and pleads with Jill to help find his killer. Jill reluctantly agrees to make a few inquiries and discovers that things don't add up. Force of Nature – By C. J. Box. Ex-special forces serviceman Nate Romanowski’s past is about to catch up with him. A member of his former company has a mind to rewrite history, and that means silencing Nate for good. When the crew sent to kill Nate fails to take him out, it can’t be long before his opponent makes a personal appearance. Nate can trust no one. No one, that is, except Joe Pickett. To save Nate, Joe will become a target in this chase. Facing an enemy who doesn’t play fair, Joe’s hands are tied in this game of vigilante justice, bound by the oath he took to serve the law. But in the wilderness, the only law is the force of nature.

e resources Check out our website: http://libraries.codc-qldc.govt.nz for these new downloadable titles… A small selection of the fantastic fiction now available!  Angels Flight by Michael Connelly  Cheyenne Winter by Richard S Wheeler  The Cypress House by Michael Koryta  The Devil’s Gold by Steve Berry  Harvesting the Heart by Jodi Picoult  Heartbreaker by Karen Robards  Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet by Jamie Ford  The Little Coffee Shop of Kabul by Debor Rodriguez  Red Dust by Fleur McDonald  The Secret River by Kate Grenville  Suicide Run by Michael Connelly  Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen

A taste of the amazing audio titles available to download!  The Cellist of Sarajevo by Steven Galloway  A Cool Breeze on the Underground by Don Winslow  Corsair by Tim Severin  Down to the Wire by David Rosenfelt  High Stakes by Dick Francis  No Angel by Penny Vincenzi  The Road by Cormac McCarthy  Rebel by Bernard Cornwell  Rip Tide by Stella Rimington  Run by Ann Patchett  Run the Risk by Scott Frost  Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortensen (Non-Fiction)

SHELF LIFE

No. 27

May/Aug 2012

BOOKMARK ON MANIOTOTO LIBRARY The Maniototo Community Library opened in June 2000 in partnership with the Maniototo Area School in Ranfurly. The Library, a joint sponsorship between both the School and the Central Otago District Council maximises the availability of resources to pupils and patrons, while providing further access to the Maniototo Community to resources held in all fourteen CQ Libraries. The Maniototo Library collection is both relevant and up-to-date – often being the first Library within the combined Central Otago & Queenstown Lakes districts to offer the latest bestsellers! Approximately 30,000 items are issued each year, evidence of how popular the library is with locals and visitors. The Library has a bright, welcoming atmosphere made colourful by displays of students’ art and schoolwork. The library cat, Krum has made herself at home, greeting patrons and taking part in library activities. Krum was a young stray who was fed by the caretaker on leftovers and yoghurt when the library was located at the back of the school. She wandered into the library one day, curled up in an empty cardboard carton and has been there ever Maniototo Library Manager, Sue Umbers pictured above. since. In her younger days, Krum was a good mouser and was known to drop the odd live mouse into the shoes left outside the library, which caused a bit of a stir! She now has her own microchip, and enjoys a private entrance and cafeteria. Krum attends most of the meetings held in the library and joins in with the Pilates classes twice a week. Now well into her teens, she patrols the school and visits the classrooms. During school holidays, Krum goes on holiday too – with the neighbours at their holiday house. She has nerves of steel and particularly loves the toddlers when they visit. The Library conducts a booksale every year to raise funds for Krum’s food and vet care. As Library Manager, Sue Umbers, says: “She is a valued member of our staff.” The much-loved Maniototo Library cat, Krum

The welcoming interior of Maniototo Library

School Holiday Programmes will be held at Alexandra, Arrowtown, Cromwell, Hawea, Queenstown & Wanaka Libraries during school holidays 2nd to 13th July 2012. Please contact your local library or the CQ website: http://libraries.codc-qldc.govt.nz CQ LIBRARY HOURS CENTRAL OTAGO DISTRICT LIBRARIES’ HOURS: Alexandra Library Clyde Public Library Mon-Thur 10.00am-5.00pm Tues 10.00am-12.30pm Fri 10.00am-6.00pm Fri 2.00-5.00pm Sat. 10.00am-12.00pm Contact: 449 3227 Contact: 448 9412 Millers Flat School/Community Library Omakau School/Community Library Wed 3.30-5.00pm Mon-Thurs 8.30am-3.30pm Sat 10.30am-12.30pm Closed School Holidays Open School Holidays Contact: 447 3837 Contact: 446 6616 QUEENSTOWN LAKES DISTRICT LIBRARIES’ HOURS: Arrowtown Public Library Glenorchy Library Mon-Fri 10.00am-5.00pm Wed 1.30-3.30pm Sat 10.30am-12.30pm Fri 1.30-3.30pm Contact: 442 1607 Contact: 442 4378 Makarora Library Tues 11.30am-12.30pm Thurs 6.30pm–8.30pm Sunday 2-3pm Open School Holidays Contact: 443 8342

Queenstown Public Library Mon-Sat 10.00am-5.00pm Contact: 441 0600

Cromwell Public Library Mon-Fri 10.00am-5.00pm Sat 10.00am-1.00pm Contact: 445 0213

Roxburgh Public Library Mon-Fri 9.00am-4.30pm Contact: 446 8105

Hawea Library Mon 10.00am-12.00noon Tues, Wed 10.00am-5.00pm Sat 10.00am-12.00noon Contact 443 9371 Wanaka Library Mon-Sat 10.00am-5.00pm Contact: 443 0410

Maniototo Community Library Mon-Fri 9.00-11.45am 12.30-4.00pm Fri Evening: 7.00-8.00pm School Holidays: Mon-Fri 1.00-4.00pm Fri 7.00-8.00pm Contact: 444 9348

Kingston Library Tues 3.00-5.00pm Sat 10.00am-12noon Contact: 248 8963