book
club
guide
thanks for reading our book club booklet This guide has been created by your library for our wonderful book clubs. It contains services your library offers, guidelines and helpful advice on how to run book clubs, and a comprehensive list of all the kits available. We love our book clubs because of the benefits they create for our library members. You can use them as an excuse to gather with your friends, share your love of books, and discover our wide collection of stories. If you’re new to book clubs ask our friendly staff how to join an existing group or alternatively, start your own.
acknowledgment of country We acknowledge the Bundjalung, Gumbaingirr and Yaegl peoples, the traditional custodians of the lands which lie within the Clarence Valley Council and Bellingen Shire Council boundaries and pay tribute and respect to the Elders both past, present and emerging.
contents 6
guidelines and advice
10 10
new releases
22
book club kits
137
contacts
Clarence Regional Library | reglibn@crl.nsw.gov.au | (02) 6641 0111 | www.crl.nsw.gov.au
be social with us and find out what’s happening
events, book chats, new titles, reading suggestions & library news look for “Clarence Regional Library”
guidelines membership Each book club registers as a library ‘member’ designating the name and details of a nominated contact person. The contact person is responsible for: The book club borrowers card Reserving kits Liaising with library staff for questions Ensuring kits are returned on time and complete Answer enquiries about others joining their group
lending Kits are packaged in library bags with a single barcode on a swing tag attached to the bag. These kits usually consist of multiple (normally 10) copies of a single title. Only book club kits can be borrowed on the book club library card. Clubs can borrow a maximum of 2 kits at a time for up too 6 weeks and can only be renewed twice. Only complete kits will be accepted when returned. Overdue kits will accumulate fines. Book clubs with overdue items will be unable to borrow.
support your library by annually donating an agreed title to help build the book club collection
advice Pick 8 to 15 people for your group to keep discussions varied but not overwhelming Make it fun and relaxing. A book club is not a test - there are no right or wrong answers Choose books that make a good discussion. Liking the book is secondary Encourage participants to come even if they haven’t finished the book It’s not necessary to have book reviews or a list of questions. Each reader can bring a question they want answered Use audiovisuals if they fit the discussion
legend aboriginal
historical
adventure
horror
australian
mystery
award winner
paranormal romance
biography
romance
classic
science ďŹ ction
erotica
short stories
fantasy
suspense
LGBT+
western
In the case of all good books, the point is not to see how many of them you can get through, but rather how many can get through to you. - Mortimer J. Adler
new arrivals
The cedar tree Bernardine Evaristo
379 pages
fiction
ALE
2020
In 1864 cousins Brandon and Sean O'Riain fled their tenant farms in County Tipperary as wanted criminals. Now, three years on, they are working as cedar-cutters in New South Wales's lush-green Richmond Valley. But while Brandon embraces the opportunities this new country offers, Sean refuses to let go of the past. And one of them is about to make a dangerous choice ... Nearly a century later, in the spring of 1949, Stella O'Riain is also fleeing her home - a sheep property on the barren edge of the Strzelecki Desert. She leaves behind her husband Joe and a baby daughter. With no money and limited options, Stella accepts her brother-in-law Harry's offer to live at the O'Riain family cane farm in the Richmond Valley. However Harry's refusal to discuss Joe - or the row that tore the brothers apart - leaves Stella with more questions than answers. In particular, why does she feel someone is watching her from a distance? And what is the real reason she is banned from speaking to the owner of the farm next door?
Going back Munjed Al Muderis
298 pages
nonfiction
ALM
2019
Munjed's new book is once more a journey, but this time in taking him across the world on a quest to save others rather than himself. In Munjed Al Muderis's bestselling memoir Walking Free, he described his experience as a refugee fleeing Saddam Hussein's Iraq, his terrifying sea journey to Australia and the brutal mandatory detention he faced in the remote north of Western Australia. The book also detailed his early work as a pioneering orthopaedic surgeon at the cutting edge of world medicine. In Going Back, Munjed shares the extraordinary journey that his life-changing new surgical technique has taken him on. Through osseointegration, he implants titanium rods into the human skeleton and attaches robotic limbs, allowing patients genuine, effective and permanent mobility. Munjed has performed this operation on hundreds of Australian civilians, wounded British soldiers who've lost legs in Iraq and Afghanistan, and a survivor of the Christchurch earthquake in New Zealand. But nothing has been as extraordinary as his return to Iraq after eighteen years, at the invitation of the Iraqi government, to operate on soldiers, police and civilian amputees wounded in the horrific war against ISIS. These stories are both heartbreaking and full of hope, and are told from the unique perspective of a refugee returning to the place of his birth as a celebrated international surgeon.
Girl, woman, other Bernardine Evaristo
452 pages
fiction
EVA
2020
Welcome to Newcastle, 1905. Ten-year-old Grace is an orphan dreaming of the mysterious African father she will never meet. Cornwall, 1953. Winsome is a young bride, recently arrived from Barbados, realising the man she married might be a fool. London, 1980. Amma is the fierce queen of her squatters' palace, ready to Smash The Patriarchy with a new kind of feminist theatre. Oxford, 2008. Carole is rejecting her cultural background (Nigeria by way of Peckham) to blend in at her posh university. Northumberland, 2017. Morgan, who used to be Megan, is visiting Hattie who's in her nineties, who used to be young and strong, who fights to remain independent, and who still misses Slim every day. Welcome to Britain and twelve very different people mostly women, mostly black - who call it home. Teeming with life and crackling with energy, Girl, Woman, Other follows them across the miles and down the years. With vivid originality, irrepressible wit and sly wisdom, Bernardine Evaristo presents a gloriously new kind of history for this old country: ever-dynamic, ever-expanding and utterly irresistible.
The truths and triumphs of Grace Atherton Anstey Harris
330 pages
ďŹ ction
HAR
2019
For fans of The Keeper of Lost Things, The Truths and Triumphs of Grace Atherton is the story of a woman who has her heart broken, but then puts it back together again in the most uplifting and exquisite way. Between the simple melody of running her violin shop and the full-blown orchestra of her romantic interludes in Paris with David, her devoted partner of eight years, Grace Atherton has always set her life to music. Her world revolves entirely around David, for Graces own secrets have kept everyone else at bay. Until, suddenly and shockingly, one act tips Graces life upside down, and the music seems to stop. It takes a vivacious old man and a straight-talking teenager to kickstart a new chapter for Grace. In the process, she learns that she is not as alone in the world as she had once thought, that no mistake is insurmountable, and that the quiet moments in life can be something to shout about...
A country nurse Thea Hayes
224 pages
nonfiction
HAY
2020
Thea Hayes spent twenty years living and working on Wave Hill Station in the Northern Territory. She arrived as a naive nineteen-year-old trainee nurse from Sydney, but when she left in 1979 she was married with four children and eager for her next adventure. And what twists and turns her new life in rural Queensland had in store. From a stint running a corner shop in the small town of Toogoolawah to dairy and cattle farming and working as a nurse in hospitals and nursing homes, Thea's life was eternally colourful. At the age of sixty-five, after losing her beloved husband Ralph, Thea moved to London to work as a nurse and travel around Europe. Back home in Australia, she found a second chance at love with a country boy from WA, and her new life with Bob began with a caravan, a dangerous farming floodplain and a swag full of laughs. A Country Nurse charts Thea's rich and inspiring life, from Wave Hill to North Stradbroke Island; London to the Riverina in NSW, and just about everywhere in between. This is the story of an ordinary girl from Sydney who has lived her extraordinary life to the fullest.
Mullumbimby Melissa Lucashenko
285 pages
ďŹ ction
LUC
2013
When Jo Breen uses her divorce settlement to buy a neglected property in the Byron Bay hinterland, she is hoping for a tree change, and a blossoming connection to the land of her Aboriginal ancestors. What she discovers instead is sharp dissent from her teenage daughter, trouble brewing from unimpressed white neighbours and a looming Native Title war between the local Bundjalung families. When Jo unexpectedly ďŹ nds love on one side of the Native Title divide she quickly learns that living on country is only part of the recipe for the Good Life.
Where the crawdads sing Delia Owens
370 pages
fiction
OWE
2019
For years, rumors of the "Marsh Girl" have haunted Barkley Cove, a quiet town on the North Carolina coast. She's barefoot and wild; unfit for polite society. So in late 1969, when handsome Chase Andrews is found dead, the locals immediately suspect Kya Clark. But Kya is not what they say. Abandoned at age ten, she has survived on her own in the marsh that she calls home. A born naturalist with just one day of school, she takes life lessons from the land, learning from the false signals of fireflies the real way of this world. But while she could have lived in solitude forever, the time comes when she yearns to be touched and loved. Drawn to two young men from town, who are each intrigued by her wild beauty, Kya opens herself to a new and startling world until the unthinkable happens.
To the island
123 pages
ďŹ ction
A828 TOT
2019
Welcome to The long way home's 2019 edition of Stories from the Clarence Valley. We're delighted to present this new collection of stories by Clarence Valley writers. Storytelling takes courage, imagination, and eort. This year nearly 200 people reached into themselves, found a story to tel, and took the time to writed it down. We're so grateful and proud of all the writers who entered a story. This book gives you a selection of some of the best of those stories. ... We are delighted, as with last year, so many Indigenous storytellers have written excellent stories. Our shortlists shive bright with Indigenous storytellers and themes. We're particularly proud of Maclean High School's Kaia Mercy. She won the high schools section with her heartfelt story about Ulgundahi Island.
Bridge of clay Markus Zusak
583 pages
fiction
ZUS
2018
Let me tell you about our brother. The fourth Dunbar boy named Clay. Everything happened to him. We were all of us changed through him. The Dunbar boys bring each other up in a house run by their own rules. A family of ramshackle tragedy, their mother is dead, their father has fled, they love and fight, and learn to reckon with the adult world. It is Clay, the quiet one, who will build a bridge; for his family, for his past, for his sins. He builds a bridge to transcend humanness. To survive. A miracle and nothing less. Yes, always for us there was a brother, and he was the one, the one of us amongst five of us, who took all of it on his shoulder. At once an existential riddle and a search for redemption, this tale of five brothers coming of age in a house with no rules brims with energy, joy and pathos.
unearth your family history get free access to within your local library and while you’re there check out our local studies section
book club kits
Ripper Isabel Allende; trans Ollie Brock
478 pages
fiction
ALL
2015
For Amanda Martin and her friends, Ripper was all just a game. But when security guard Ed Staton is found dead in the middle of a school gym, the murder presents a mystery that baffles the San Francisco police, not least Amanda's father, Deputy Chief Martin. Amanda goes online, offering 'The Case of the Misplaced Baseball Bat' to her fellow sleuths as a challenge to their real-life wits. And so begins a most dangerous obsession. The murders begin to mount up but the Ripper players, free from any moral and legal restraints, are free to pursue any line of enquiry. As their unique power of intuition lead them ever closer to the truth, the case becomes all too personal when Amanda's mother suddenly vanishes. Could her disappearance be linked to the serial killer? And will Amanda and her online accomplices solve the mystery before it's too late?
The house of the spirits Isabel Allende; trans Magda Bogin
490 pages
ďŹ ction
ALL
1985
Spanning four generations, Isabel Allende's magniďŹ cent family saga is populated by a memorable, often eccentric cast of characters. Together, men and women, spirits, the forces of nature, and of history, converge in an unforgettable, wholly absorbing and brilliantly realised novel that is as richly entertaining as it is a masterpiece of modern literature.
Bird country Claire Aman
273 pages
ďŹ ction
AMA
2017
Bird Country is a collection of stories that are steeped in the rural Australian landscape and the Australian psyche. The things we don't say and the relationships we yearn for hover between the lines of these moving and evocative stories, as do the smell and feel of the mud and grass plains, roads and roadhouses, and the pubs and kitchen tables of country life. These are tales of love and loss, of friendship and betrayal, and of happiness and pain. Claire Aman is a strong new voice in Australian ďŹ ction.
The truth and other lies Sascha Arango; trans Imogen Taylor
232 pages
ďŹ ction
ARA
2015
Famous bestselling author, loving husband, generous friend - Henry Hayden is a pleasant person to have around. Or so it seems. And when his mistress, who is also his editor, becomes pregnant, his carefully constructed life threatens to fall apart. So Henry works out an ingenious plan.
Mosaic Diane Armstrong
598 pages
nonďŹ ction
ARM
2009
This remarkable true story begins in the Polish city of Krakow in 1890 and spans one hundred years and four continents. God blessed Lieba and the devout Jewish patriarch Daniel Baldinger with eleven children, and this richly textured portrait follows their lives down the decades, through the terrifying years of the Holocaust, to the present time. Lives that personify the struggles and hopes of their century. MOSAIC is compelling storytelling at its best: from the fascinating detail of Polish-Jewish culture and the rivalries and dramas of family life, to its moving account of lives torn apart by war and persecution, this is an extraordinary story of a family, and of one woman's journey to reclaim her heritage.
The exotic booze club Brian Armstrong
318 pages
nonfiction
ARM
2013
It was a club created in flagrant violation of his employer's rules. A club for intrepid film-makers to share their hair-raising stories - of deadly snakes, acid lakes, enormous crocodiles and other examples of nature at its most dangerous - over a glass (or ten) of rotgut booze from the world's most dangerous zones. A memoir of alcoholic proportions!
The birdman's wife Melissa Ashley
389 pages
fiction
ASH
2016
Inspired by letters from Elizabeth found tucked inside her famous husbands research, The Birdmans Wife takes the form of an intimate memoir of a woman whose talent and adventurous spirit led her from the glittering salons of London to the wilds of Van Diemans land and New South Wales. Artist Elizabeth Gould spent her life capturing the sublime beauty of birds the world had never seen before. But her legacy was eclipsed by the fame of her husband, John Gould. This book at last gives voice to a passionate and adventurous spirit who was so much more than the woman behind the man. Elizabeth was a woman ahead of her time, juggling the demands of her artistic life with her roles as wife, lover, helpmate, and mother to an ever-growing brood of children. In a golden age of discovery, her artistry breathed wondrous life into countless exotic new species, including Charles Darwin's Galapagos finches. In this book, a naïve young girl who falls in love with an ambitious genius comes into her own as a woman, an artist and a bold adventurer who defies convention by embarking on a trailblazing expedition to the colonies to discover Australia's curious birdlife. This is an indelible portrait of an extraordinary woman overlooked by history until now.
Hag-seed Margaret Atwood
293 pages
ďŹ ction
ATW
2016
Felix is at the top of his game as Artistic Director of the Makeshiweg Theatre Festival. His productions have amazed and confounded. Now he's staging a Tempest like no other: not only will it boost his reputation, it will heal emotional wounds. Or that was the plan. Instead, after an act of unforeseen treachery, Felix is living in exile in a backwoods hovel, haunted by memories of his beloved lost daughter, Miranda. And brewing revenge. After twelve years, revenge ďŹ nally arrives in the shape of a theatre course at a nearby prison. Here, Felix and his motley crew of inmate actors will put on his Tempest, and snare the traitors who destroyed him. But will it remake Felix as his enemies fall?
A man called Ove Fredrik Backman; trans Henning Koch
295 pages
fiction
BAC
2015
There is something about Ove. At first sight, he is almost certainly the grumpiest man you will ever meet. He thinks himself surrounded by idiots neighbours who can't reverse a trailer properly, joggers, shop assistants who talk in code, and the perpetrators of the vicious coup d'etat that ousted him as Chairman of the Residents' Association. He will persist in making his daily inspection rounds of the local streets. But isn't it rare, these days, to find such old-fashioned clarity of belief and deed? Such unswerving conviction about what the world should be, and a lifelong dedication to making it just so? In the end, you will see, there is something about Ove that is quite irresistible...The word-of-mouth bestseller causing a sensation across Europe, Fredrik Backman's heartwarming debut is a funny, moving, uplifting tale of love and community that will leave you with a spring in your step - and less ready to judge on first impressions a man you might one day wish to have as your dearest friend.
The sense of an ending Julian Barnes
163 pages
ďŹ ction
BAR
2011
The Sense of an Ending is narrated by a retired man named Tony Webster, who recalls how he and his clique met Adrian Finn at school and vowed to remain friends for life. When the past catches up with Tony, he reects on the paths he and his friends have taken.
The boy in the headlights Samuel Bjork; trans Charlotte Barslund
BJO
2016
Winter 1999. An old man is driving home when his headlights catch an animal on the empty road up ahead. He stamps hard on the brakes. But it is not an animal at all. It is a young boy, frightened and alone, with a set of deer antlers strapped firmly to his head. Fourteen years later, a body is found in a mountain lake. Within weeks, three people have died. Each time, the killer has left a clue, inviting Special Investigations Detectives Munch and Krüger to play a deadly game -- a game they cannot possibly win. Against the most dangerous and terrifying kind of serial killer. One who chooses their victims completely at random. To find the killer they must look deep within their own dark pasts, but how can you stop a murderer when you cannot begin to predict their next move?
An ice-cream war William Boyd
395 pages
ďŹ ction
BOY
1982
As millions are slaughtered on the Western Front, a ridiculous and littlereported campaign is being waged in East Africa - a war they continued after the Armistice because no one told them to stop.
Lion Saroo Brierley
261 pages
nonfiction
BRI
2016
A true story of survival and triumph against incredible odds. When Saroo Brierley used Google Earth to find his long-lost home town half a world away, he made global headlines.Saroo had become lost on a train in India at the age of five. Not knowing the name of his family or where he was from, he survived for weeks on the streets of Kolkata, before being taken into an orphanage and adopted by a couple in Australia. Despite being happy in his new family, Saroo always wondered about his origins. He spent hours staring at the map of India on his bedroom wall. When he was a young man the advent of Google Earth led him to pore over satellite images of the country for landmarks he recognised. And one day, after years of searching, he miraculously found what he was looking for.Then he set off on a journey to find his mother. This is a moving and inspirational true story that celebrates the importance of never letting go of what drives the human spirit.
People of the book Geraldine Brooks
372 pages
ďŹ ction
BRO
2008
When Hannah Heath gets a call in the middle of the night in her Sydney home about a Jewish praybook manuscript which has been discovered in war-torn Sarajevo, she knows she is about to embark on the experience of a life time.
Year of wonders Geraldine Brooks
321 pages
ďŹ ction
BRO
2002
When an infected bolt of cloth carries plague from London to an isolated mountain village, a housemaid named Anna Frith emerges as an unlikely heroine and healer. Through Anna's eyes we follow the story of the plague year, 1666, as her fellow villagers make an extraordinary choice: convinced by a visionary young minister, they elect to quarantine themselves within the village boundaries to arrest the spread of the disease. But as death reaches into every household, faith frays. When the villagers turn from payers to murderous witch-hunting, Anna must confront the deaths of family members, the disintegration of her community, and the lure of illicit love. As she struggles to survive, a year of plague becomes instead an annus mirabilis, a 'year of wonders'.
The Master and Margarita Mikhail Bulgakov; trans Diana Burgin
369 pages
ďŹ ction
BUL
1995
One hot spring, the devil arrives in Moscow, accompanied by a retinue that includes a beautiful naked witch and an immense talking black cat with a fondness for chess and vodka. The visitors quickly wreak havoc in a city that refuses to believe in either God or Satan. But they also bring peace to two unhappy Muscovites: one is the Master, a writer pilloried for daring to write a novel about Christ and Pontius Pilate; the other is Margarita, who loves the Master so deeply that she is willing literally to go to hell for him.
The miniaturist Jessie Burton
432 pages
ďŹ ction
BUR
2014
On an autumn day in 1686, eighteen-year-old Nella Oortman knocks at the door of a grand house in the wealthiest quarter of Amsterdam. She has come from the country to begin a new life as the wife of illustrious merchant trader Johannes Brandt, but instead she is met by his sharp-tongued sister, Marin.
A hospital bed at home Janene Carey
236 pages
nonďŹ ction
CAR
2014
'A hospital bed at home' is a linked collection of true stories about the experience of being a carer during the weeks, months and years that can stretch between the day someone you love is diagnosed with an incurable, fatal disease and the day of his or her death. Couples facing separation after forty years together; a workaholic with three small children and a dying, angry wife; an Irish immigrant called home to nurse an ailing father who cannot, or will not, eat; a Buddhist couple striving for serene acceptance of a brain tumour... The patients and carers proďŹ led in these stories bring to their challenging situations the gamut of typically human strengths and weaknesses, plus all the baggage of their preexisting relationships. The narratives are intensely personal and biographical, but the insights and information they contain about illness, caregiving and dying at home have profound and general relevance. The author's reections on these topics are woven throughout, linking the individual stories and concluding with a gritty memoir about caring for her own mother, an anxious optimist who was ravaged by cancer.
Await your reply Dan Chaon
348 pages
ďŹ ction
CHA
2010
Longing to get on with his life, Miles Cheshire nevertheless can't stop searching for his troubled twin brother, Hayden, who has been missing for ten years. Hayden has covered his tracks skillfully, moving stealthily from place to place, managing along the way to hold down various jobs and seem, to the people he meets, entirely normal. But some version of the truth is always concealed. A few days after graduating from high school, Lucy Lattimore sneaks away from the small town of Pompey, Ohio, with her charismatic former history teacher, They arrive in Nebraska, in the middle of nowhere, at a longdeserted motel next to a dried-up reservoir, to ďŹ gure out the next move on their path to a new life, But soon Lucy begins to feel quietly uneasy.
Personal Lee Child
468 pages
ďŹ ction
CHI
2015
Jack Reacher walks alone. Once a go-to hard man in the US military police, now he's a drifter of no ďŹ xed abode. But the army tracks him down. Because someone has taken a long-range shot at the French president. Only one man could have done it. And Reacher is the one man who can ďŹ nd him. This new heartstopping, nailbiting book in Lee Child's number-one bestselling series takes Reacher across the Atlantic to Paris - and then to London. The stakes have never been higher - because this time, it's personal.
Deeper water Jessie Cole
346 pages
ďŹ ction
COL
2014
A profound and sensuous novel of grace and beauty from a stunning young Australian talent. Innocent and unworldly, Mema is still living at home with her mother on a remote, lush hinterland property. It is a small, conďŹ ned, simple sort of life, and Mema is content with it. One day, during a heavy downpour, Mema saves a stranger from a raging creek. She takes him into her family home, where, marooned by rising oods, he has to stay until the waters recede.
Light and shadow Mark Colvin
310 pages
fiction
COL
2017
Light and Shadow is the incredible story of a father waging a secret war against communism during the Cold War, while his son comes of age as a journalist and embarks on the risky career of a foreign correspondent. Mark covered local and global events for the ABC for more than four decades, reporting on wars, royal weddings and everything in between. In the midst of all this he discovered that his father was an MI6 spy. Mark was witness to some of the most significant international events, including the Iranian hostage crisis, the buildup to the first Gulf War in Iraq and the direct aftermath of the shocking genocide in Rwanda. But when he contracted a life-threatening illness while working in the field, his world changed forever.Mark Colvin's engrossing memoir takes you inside the coverage of major news events and navigates the complexity of his father's double life. Light and Shadow was published seven months before Mark's death, and he had the pleasure of seeing it become a bestseller. Award-winning ABC journalist Tony Jones pays tribute to his friend in an afterword.
The trout opera Matthew Condon
567 pages
ďŹ ction
CON
2007
After several lifetimes of living anonymously in the outback, Wildred Lampe is ďŹ nally marked out for greatness in his hundredth year by the Sydney Olympic Committee who need an Australian everyman for their opening ceremony. On the verge of becoming a legend, Wilfred is in his paddock when a freak accident looks likely to rob him of his chance.
Lost & found Brooke Davis
308 pages
fiction
DAV
2014
A seven years old, Millie Bird realises that everything is dying around her. She wasn't to know that safter she had recorded twenty-seven assorted creatures in her Book Of Dead Things her dad would be a Dead Thing, too. Agatha Pantha is eighty-two and has not left her house since her husband died. She sits behind her front window, hidden by curtains and ivy, and shouts at passers-by, roaring her anger at complete strangers. Until the day Agatha spies a young girl across the street. Karl the touch typist is eightyseven when his son kisses him on the cheek before leaving him in the nursing home. As he watches his son leave, Karl has a moment of clarity. He escapes the home and takes off in search of something different.
Birds without wings Louis de Bernières
624 pages
fiction
DEB
2004
Birds Without Wings tells of the inhabitants of a small coastal town in South West Anatolia in the dying days of the Ottoman empire: Iskander the Potter and fount of proverbial wisdom; Philothei, a Christian girl of legendary beauty who is courted almost from infancy by Ibrahim the Goatherd, their great love culminating in tragedy and madness; Karatavuk and Mehmetçik, childhood friends who play in the hills above the town, Mehmetçik teaching the illiterate Karatavuk how to write Turkish in Greek letters; the two holy men of different faiths, Father Kristoforos and Abdulhamid Hodja, who greet each other with the words 'infidel efendi'; the landlord Rustem Bey, his wife's adultery and stoning, and his journey to Istanbul in search of a Circassian mistress. It tells also of Mustafa Kemal, the man of destiny, who by virtue of military genius and sheer bloody-mindedness defeats the Franks and reshapes the whole region in his image.
The hare with amber eyes Edmund de Waal
418 pages
nonfiction
DEW
2010
264 Japanese wood and ivory carvings, none of them bigger than a matchbox: Edmund de Waal was entranced when he first encountered the collection in his great uncle Iggie's Tokyo apartment. When he later inherited the 'netsuke', they unlocked a story far larger and more dramatic than he could ever have imagined. From a burgeoning empire in Odessa to fin de siècle Paris, from occupied Vienna to Tokyo, Edmund de Waal traces the netsuke's journey through generations of his remarkable family against the backdrop of a tumultous century.
The language of flowers Vanessa Diffenbaugh
322 pages
fiction
DIF
2011
In Vanessa Diffenbaugh's powerful first novel, a damaged young woman, Victoria Jones, who can only communicate through the Victorian language of flowers, goes from being homeless to a sought after wedding floral designer. The Victorian language of flowers was used to express emotions: honeysuckle for devotion, azaleas for passion, and red roses for love. But for Victoria Jones, it has been more useful in conveying feelings like grief, mistrust and solitude. After a childhood spent in the foster care system, she is unable to get close to anybody, and her only connection to the world is through flowers and their meanings. Now eighteen, Victoria has nowhere to go, and sleeps in a public park, where she plants a small garden of her own. When her talent is discovered by a local florist, she discovers her gift for helping others through the flowers she chooses for them. But it takes meeting a mysterious vendor at the flower market for her to realise what's been missing in her own life, and as she starts to fall for him, she must decide whether it's worth risking everything for a second chance at happiness.
The happiest refugee Anh Do
232 pages
nonďŹ ction
792 DO
2010
Anh Do nearly didn't make it to Australia. His entire family came close to losing their lives on the sea as they escaped from war-torn Vietnam in an overcrowded boat. This book tells the incredible, uplifting and inspiring life story of one of our favourite personalities. Tragedy, humour, heartache and unswerving determination - a big life with big dreams. Anh's story will move and amuse all who read it.
All the light we cannot see Anthony Doerr
531 pages
ďŹ ction
DOE
2015
An epic novel set during WW2, from the prize-winner Anthony Doerr. When Marie Laure goes blind, aged six, her father builds her a model of their Paris neighborhood, so she can memorize it with her ďŹ ngers and then navigate the real streets.
Room Emma Donoghue
400 pages
ďŹ ction
DON
2011
It's Jack's birthday and he's excited about turning ďŹ ve. Jack lives with his Ma in Room, which has a locked door and a skylight, and measures 11 feet by 11 feet. He loves watching TV but he knows that nothing he sees on screen is truly real. Until the day Ma admits that there's a world outside.
Precious things Kelly Doust
307 pages
ďŹ ction
DOU
2016
Normandy, France, 1891: a young woman painstakingly sews an intricate beaded collar to her wedding dress, the night before her marriage to someone she barely knows. Yet Aimee longs for so much more.... Shanghai, 1926: dancing sensation and wild child Zephyr spies what looks like a beaded headpiece lying carelessly discarded on a ballroom oor. She takes it with her to Malaya where she sets her sights on a prize so out of reach that, in striving for it, she will jeopardise everything she holds dear.... Precious Things tells the story of a collar - a wonderful, glittering beaded piece - and its journey through the decades.
The midnight watch David Dyer
323 pages
fiction
DYE
2016
Sometimes the smallest of human failings can lead to the greatest of disasters. As the Titanic was sinking slowly in the wretchedly cold North Atlantic, she could see the lights of another ship on the horizon. She called for help by Morse lamp and the new Marconi telegraph machine, but there was no response. Just after midnight the Titanic began firing distress rockets. The other ship, the Californian, saw these rockets but didn't come. Why not? When the story of the disaster begins to emerge, it's a question that Boston American reporter John Steadman cannot let go. As soon as he lays eyes on the Californian's captain and second officer, he knows a story lurks behind their version of events. So begins his strange journey towards the truth. Haunted by the fifteen hundred who went to their deaths in those icy waters, and by the loss of his own baby son years earlier, Steadman must either find redemption in the Titanic's tragedy or lose himself. Based on true events, The Midnight Watch is at once a heart-stopping mystery and a deeply knowing novel - about the frailty of men, the strength of women, the capriciousness of fate and the price of loyalty.
A week in December Sebastian Faulks
392 pages
ďŹ ction
FAU
2009
London, the week before Christmas, 2007. Over seven days we follow the lives of seven major characters: a hedge fund manager trying to bring o the biggest trade of his career; a professional footballer recently arrived from Poland; a young lawyer with little work and too much time to speculate; a student who has been led astray by Islamist theory; a hack book-reviewer; a schoolboy hooked on skunk and reality TV; and a Tube train driver whose Circle Line train joins these and countless other lives together in a daily loop. With daring skill, the novel pieces together the complex patterns and crossings of modern urban life. Greed, the dehumanising eects of the electronic age and the fragmentation of society are some of the themes dealt with in this savagely humorous book.
The woman in the window A. J. Finn
FIN
It isn't paranoia if it's really happening... Anna Fox lives alone -- a recluse in her New York City home, drinking too much wine, watching old movies... and spying on her neighbors. Then the Russells move next door: a father, a mother, their teenaged son. The perfect family. But when Anna sees something she shouldn't, her world begins to crumble -- and its shocking secrets are laid bare. What is real? What is imagined? Who is in danger? Who is in control? In this gripping Hitchcockian thriller, no one and nothing are what they seem. This is a smart, sophisticated novel of psychological suspense that recalls the best of Hitchcock.
The narrow road to the deep north Richard Flanagan
448 pages
fiction
FLA
2015
What would you do if you saw the love of your life, whom you thought dead for a quarter of a century, walking towards you? Richard Flanagan's story, of Dorrigo Evans, an Australian doctor haunted by a love affair with his uncle's wife, journeys from the caves of Tasmanian trappers in the early twentieth century to a crumbling pre-war beachside hotel; from a Thai jungle prison to a Japanese snow festival; from the Changi gallows to a chance meeting of lovers on the Sydney Harbour Bridge. Taking its title from 17th-century haiku poet Basho's travel journal, The Narrow Road To The Deep North is about the impossibility of love. At its heart is one day in a Japanese slave labour camp in August 1943. As the day builds to its horrific climax, Dorrigo Evans battles and fails in his quest to save the lives of his fellow POWs, a man is killed for no reason, and a love story unfolds.
Extremely loud & incredibly close Jonathan Safran Foer
326 pages
fiction
FOE
2006
Nine-year-old Oskar Schell is an inventor, amateur entomologist, Francophile, letter writer, pacifist, natural historian, percussionist, romantic, Great Explorer, jeweller, detective, vegan, and collector of butterflies. When his father is killed in the September 11th attacks on the World Trade Centre, Oskar sets out to solve the mystery of a key he discovers in his father's closet. It is a search which leads him into the lives of strangers, through the five boroughs of New York, into history, to the bombings of Dresden and Hiroshima, and on an inward journey which brings him ever closer to some kind of peace.
The hidden hours Sara Foster
371 pages
fiction
FOS
2017
Arabella Lane, senior executive at a children’s publisher, is found dead in the Thames on a frosty winter’s morning after the office Christmas party. No one is sure whether she jumped or was pushed. The one person who may know the truth is the newest employee at Parker & Lane the office temp, Eleanor. Eleanor has travelled to London to escape the repercussions of her traumatic childhood in outback Australia, but now tragedy seems to follow her wherever she goes. To her horror, she has no memory of the crucial hours leading up to Arabella’s death, memory that will either incriminate or absolve her. As Eleanor desperately tries to remember her missing hours and uncover the events of that fateful night, her own extended family is dragged further into the dark, terrifying terrain of blame, suspicion and guilt. Caught in a crossfire of accusations, Eleanor fears she can’t even trust herself, let alone the people around her. And soon, she’ll find herself in a race against time to find out just what happened that night and discover just how deadly some secrets can be.
We are all completely beside ourselves Karen Joy Fowler
323 pages
ďŹ ction
FOW
2014
Rosemary's young, just at college, and she's decided not to tell anyone a thing about her family. So we're not going to tell you too much either: you'll have to ďŹ nd out for yourselves what it is that makes her unhappy family unlike any other. Rosemary is now an only child, but she used to have a sister the same age as her, and an older brother. Both are now gone - vanished from her life... There's something unique about Rosemary's sister, Fern. So now she's telling her story; a looping narrative that begins towards the end, and then goes back to the beginning. Twice... It's funny, clever, intimate, honest, analytical and swirling with ideas that will come back to bite you. We hope you enjoy it, and if, when you're telling a friend about it, you do decide to spill the beans about Fern, don't feel bad. It's pretty hard to resist.
All that I am Anna Funder
369 pages
ďŹ ction
FUN
2011
Ruth Becker, deďŹ ant and cantankerous, is living out her days in the eastern suburbs of Sydney. She has made an uneasy peace with the ghosts of her past - and a part of history that has been all but forgotten. Another lifetime away, it's 1939 and the world is going to war. Ernst Toller, self-doubting revolutionary and poet, sits in a New York hotel room settling up the account of his life. When Toller's story arrives on Ruth's doorstep their shared past slips under her defences, and she's right back among them - those friends who predicted the brutality of the Nazis and gave everything they had to stop them. Those who were tested - and in some cases found wanting - in the face of hatred, of art, of love, and of history.
This house of grief Helen Garner
300 pages
ďŹ ction
GAR
2014
Anyone can see the place where the children died. You take the Princes Highway past Geelong, and keep going west in the direction of Colac. Late in August 2006, soon after I had watched a magistrate commit Robert Farquharson to stand trial before a jury on three charges of murder, I headed out that way on a Sunday morning, across the great volcanic plain. On the evening of 4 September 2005, Father's Day, Robert Farquharson, a separated husband, was driving his three sons home to their mother, Cindy, when his car left the road and plunged into a dam. The boys, aged ten, seven and two, drowned. Was this an act of revenge or a tragic accident? The court case became Helen Garner's obsession. She followed it on its protracted course until the ďŹ nal verdict. In this utterly compelling book, Helen Garner tells the story of a man and his broken life. She presents the theatre of the courtroom with its actors and audience, all gathered for the purpose of bearing witness to the truth, players in the extraordinary and unpredictable drama of the quest for justice. This House of Grief is a heartbreaking and unputdownable book by one of Australia's most admired writers.
Eat, pray, love Elizabeth Gilbert
349 pages
nonfiction
GIL
2010
IIt's 3 A.M. and Elizabeth Gilbert is sobbing on the bathroom floor. She's in her thirties, she has a husband, a house, they're trying for a baby - and she doesn't want any of it. A bitter divorce and a turbulent love affair later, she emerges battered and bewildered and realizes it is time to pursue her own journey in search of three things she has been missing: pleasure, devotion and balance.
The signature of all things Elizabeth Gilbert
582 pages
ďŹ ction
GIL
2014
From the moment Alma Whittaker steps into the world, everything about life intrigues her. Instilled with an unquenchable sense of wonder by her father, a botanical explorer and the richest man in the New World, Alma is raised in a house of luxury and curiosity. It is not long before she becomes a gifted botanist in her own right. But as she ourishes and her research takes her deeper into the mysteries of evolution, the man she comes to love draws her in the opposite direction - into the realm of the spiritual, the divine and the magical.
Flesh wounds Richard Glover
285 pages
ďŹ ction
GLO
2015
A mother who invented her past, a father who was often absent, a son who wondered if this could really be his family. Richard Glover's favourite dinnerparty game is called 'Who's Got the Weirdest Parents?'. It's a game he always wins.
Maestro Peter Goldsworthy
156 pages
ďŹ ction
GOL
2014
Against the backdrop of Darwin, that small, tropical hothouse of a port, halfoutback, half-oriental, lying at the tip of northern Australia, a young and newly arrived southerner encounters the 'maestro', a Viennese refugee with a shadowed past. The occasion is a piano lesson, the ďŹ rst of many...
Memoirs of an imaginary friend Matthew Green
458 pages
ďŹ ction
GRE
2012
Budo is Max's imaginary friend. But though only Max can see him, he is real. Budo and the other imaginary friends watch over their children until the day comes that the child stops imagining them. And then they're gone. Budo has lasted a lot longer than most imaginary friends - four years - because Max needs him more. His parents argue about sending him to a special school. Then Max mysteriously disappears from the school. Budo knows he must ďŹ nd him and rescue him.
Water for elephants Sara Gruen
335 pages
ďŹ ction
GRU
2006
When Jacob Jankowski, recently orphaned and suddenly adrift, jumps onto a passing train, he enters a world of freaks, swindlers and misďŹ ts in a second-rate circus struggling to survive.
Ape house Sara Gruen
321 pages
ďŹ ction
GRU
2010
When a family of bonobo apes is kidnapped from a language laboratory, their mysterious appearance on a reality TV show calls into question our assumptions about these animals who share 99.4% of our DNA.
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The dressmaker Rosalie Ham
269 pages
ďŹ ction
HAM
2015
Tilly Dunnage has come home to care for her mad old mother. She left the small Victorian town of Dungatar years before, and became an accomplished couturier in Paris. Now she earns her living making exquisite frocks for the people who drove her away when she was ten. Through the long Dungatar nights, she sits at her sewing machine, planning revenge. The Dressmaker is a modern Australian classic, much loved for its bittersweet humour. Set in the 1950s, its subjects include haute couture, love and hate, and a cast of engagingly eccentric characters. It is now a major motion picture, starring Kate Winslet and ďŹ ne Australian actors including Judy Davis, Hugo Weaving, Liam Hemsworth and extras from the author's hometown of Jerilderie.
The year of the farmer Rosalie Ham
HAM
In a quiet farming town somewhere in country New South Wales, war is brewing. The last few years have been punishingly dry, especially for the farmers, but otherwise, it's all Neralie Mackintosh's fault. If she'd never left town then her ex, the hapless but extremely eligible Mitchell Bishop, would never have fallen into the clutches of the truly awful Mandy, who now lords it over everyone as if she owns the place. So, now that Neralie has returned to run the local pub, the whole town is determined to reinstate her to her rightful position in the social order. But Mandy Bishop has other ideas. Meanwhile the head of the local water board - Glenys 'Gravedigger' Dingle - is looking for a way to line her pockets at the expense of hardworking farmers already up to their eyes in debt. And Mandy and Neralie's war may be just the chance she was looking for...
The colour of Bee Larkham's murder Sarah Harris
HAR
Whatever happens, don't tell anyone what you did to Bee Larkham... Jasper is not ordinary. In fact, he would say he is extraordinary. Synaesthesia paints the sounds of his world in a kaleidoscope of colours that no one else can see. But on Friday, he discovered a new colour the colour of murder. He's sure something has happened to his neighbour, Bee Larkham, but no-one else seems to be taking it as seriously as they should be. The knife and the screams are all mixed up in his head and he's scared that he can't quite remember anything clearly. But where is Bee? Why hasn't she come home yet? Jasper must uncover the truth about that night including his own role in what happened.
The dry Jane Harper
324 pages
ďŹ ction
HAR
2016
"Who really killed the Hadler family? Luke Hadler turns a gun on his wife and child, then himself. The farming community of Kiewarra is facing life and death choices daily. If one of their own broke under the strain, well ... When Federal Police investigator Aaron Falk returns to Kiewarra for the funerals, he is loath to confront the people who rejected him twenty years earlier. But when his investigative skills are called on, the facts of the Hadler case start to make him doubt this murder-suicide charge. And as Falk probes deeper into the killings, old wounds are reopened. For Falk and his childhood friend Luke shared a secret ... A secret Falk thought long-buried ... A secret which Luke's death starts to bring to the surface ..."
The party Robyn Harding
341 pages
fiction
HAR
2017
Sweet sixteen. It's a coming of age, a milestone, a rite of passage. Of course Jeff and Kim Sanders will throw a party for their daughter, Hannah. She's a good kid with good grades and nice friends. And it isn't going to be a big, indulgent affair. Just four girls coming over for pizza and cake, movies and a sleepover. What could possibly go wrong? But things do go wrong, horrifically wrong. After a tragic accident, Jeff and Kim's flawless life in a wealthy San Francisco suburb begins to unravel. The injured girl's mother, Lisa, files a lawsuit that turns friends into enemies, reveals dark secrets in the Sanders' marriage, and exposes the truth about their perfect daughter, Hannah. Lisa's determination to make the Sanders pay stems from a fierce love for her only child and Lisa's own dark and damaged past.
Force of nature Jane Harper
380 pages
ďŹ ction
HAR
2017
Five women reluctantly pick up their backpacks and start walking along the muddy track. Only four come out the other side. The hike through the rugged Giralang Ranges is meant to take the oďŹƒce colleagues out of their airconditioned comfort zone and teach resilience and team building. At least that is what the corporate retreat website advertises. Federal Police Agent Aaron Falk has a particularly keen interest in the whereabouts of the missing bushwalker. Alice Russell is the whistleblower in his latest case - and Alice knew secrets. About the company she worked for and the people she worked with. Far from the hike encouraging teamwork, the women tell Falk a tale of suspicion, violence and disintegrating trust. And as he delves into the disappearance, it seems some dangers may run far deeper than anyone knew.
The storyteller Lian Hearn
263 pages
fiction
HEA
2014
TOKYO 1884: Sei has devoted his life to storytelling, captivating audiences with his tales. But now he is starting to wonder if the new world has left him behind. Just when he thinks he will never write again, his own life and the lives of the people around him begin to spiral out of control - providing the inspiration for the greatest story he has ever told. A story of love, jealousy, intrigue, and betrayal. Set against the background of Japan's first incursions into Korea, Sei offers a wise and witty reflection on the nature of storytelling, its perils and delights, its lies and, ultimately, its truth.
Catch-22 Joseph Heller
523 pages
ďŹ ction
HEL
1961
At the heart of Joseph Heller's bestselling novel, ďŹ rst published in 1961, is a satirical indictment of military madness and stupidity, and the desire of the ordinary man to survive it. It is the tale of the dangerously sane Captain Yossarian, who spends his time in Italy plotting to survive.
Girl on the Edge Kim Hodges
129 pages
nonfiction
HOD
2016
Detailing her upbringing in the small NSW country town of Coolah, Girl on the Edge shares Kim’s experiences through exploring gender roles, class divisions, religion, wealth and poverty, violence, culture, power and powerlessness, mental health and the lack of a mother-daughter relationship all within a small town context. The story is told through a 16-18 year old teenager lens, and personal reflections from Kim as an adult are embedded in the writing.
The keeper of lost things Ruth Hogan
309 pages
fiction
HOG
2017
Once a celebrated author of short stories now in his twilight years, Anthony Peardew has spent half his life lovingly collecting lost objects, trying to atone for a promise broken many years before. Realising he is running out of time, he leaves his house and all its lost treasures to his assistant Laura, the one person he can trust to fulfil his legacy and reunite the thousands of objects with their rightful owners. But the final wishes of the Keeper of Lost Things have unforeseen repercussions which trigger a most serendipitous series of encounters...
Eleanor Oliphant is completely ďŹ ne Gail Honeyman
HON
Eleanor Oliphant has learned how to survive - but not how to live. Eleanor Oliphant leads a simple life. She wears the same clothes to work every day, eats the same meal deal for lunch every day and buys the same two bottles of vodka to drink every weekend. Eleanor Oliphant is happy. Nothing is missing from her carefully timetabled life. Except, sometimes, everything. One simple act of kindness is about to shatter the walls Eleanor has built around herself. Now she must learn how to navigate the world that everyone else seems to take for granted - while searching for the courage to face the dark corners she's avoided all her life. Change can be good. Change can be bad. But surely any change is better than... ďŹ ne?
The remains of the day Kazuo Ishiguro
258 pages
ďŹ ction
ISH
2011
An elderly butler is on a ďŹ ve-day motoring trip through the West Country in the 1950s. The climax of his journey is to be a reunion with his former housekeeper. This 1989 Booker Prize-winner attempts to capture a period in British history and draw a portrait of a man in old age.
The snow child Eowyn Ivey
423 pages
ďŹ ction
IVE
2012
Scope and content: Alaska, 1920: a brutal place to homestead, and especially tough for recent arrivals Jack and Mabel. Childless, they are drifting apart--he breaking under the weight of the work of the farm; she crumbling from loneliness and despair. In a moment of levity during the season's ďŹ rst snowfall, they build a child out of snow. The next morning the snow child is gone--but they glimpse a young, blonde-haired girl running through the trees. This little girl, who calls herself Faina, seems to be a child of the woods. She hunts with a red fox at her side, skims lightly across the snow, and somehow survives alone in the Alaskan wilderness. As Jack and Mabel struggle to understand this child who could have stepped from the pages of a fairy tale, they come to love her as their own daughter. But in this beautiful, violent place things are rarely as they appear, and what they eventually learn about Faina will transform all of them.
Me, myself and Lord Byron Julietta Jameson
249 pages
fiction
JAM
2011
Mad, bad and dangerous to know', Lord Byron was not just one of England's finest poets, he was also history's first true rock star, living a life of abundant extravagance and shocking scandal that led eventually to self-imposed exile in Europe. Through his travels, Byron carved out a new life, remaining true to himself to the end. So when journalist Julietta Jameson is compelled by emotional crisis to embark on her own personal exile, whose footsteps better to follow than those of her beloved Byron? Her suitcase filled with his verse, Julietta traces the path of this luminary poet through the Alps, across Italy and over the Mediterranean, and in doing so, learns to live her life in truth, just as he did. ... is a story of parallel journeys ... Julietta explores the flipside of Byron's celebrity-his insecurities, fears and regrets.
A brief history of seven killings Marlon James
365 pages
ďŹ ction
JAM
2014
Jamaica, 1976: Seven men storm Bob Marley's house with machine guns blazing. The reggae superstar survives, but leaves Jamaica the following day, not to return for two years. On 3 December 1976, just weeks before the general election and two days before Bob Marley was to play the Smile Jamaica Concert to ease political tensions, seven gunmen from West Kingston stormed his house with machine guns blazing. Marley survived and went on to perform at the free concert, but the next day he left the country, and didn't return for two years. Not a lot was recorded about the fate of the seven gunmen, but much has been said, whispered and sung about in the streets of West Kingston. Inspired by this near-mythic event, A Brief History of Seven Killings takes the form of an imagined oral biography, told by ghosts, witnesses, killers, members of parliament, drug dealers, conmen, beauty queens, FBI and CIA agents, reporters, journalists, and even Keith Richards' drug dealer.
Just between us
344 pages
fiction
JUS
2013
In this collection of fiction and non-fiction stories, Australia's best women writers put their friendships - and themselves - under the spotlight as they reveal the truth about female friendship in all its complexity, heartache and hilarity. Their stories tackle every stage of life and a range of scenarios - from netball to family, school and work, from sharing secrets to sharing boyfriends. With its uncompromising honesty, raw emotion and laugh-outloud wit, Just Between Us shows how our friendships with other women define us and shape our lives, even when they end...
Burial rites Hannah Kent
338 pages
ďŹ ction
KEN
2013
Agnes is sent to wait out the time leading to her execution on the farm of District OďŹƒcer Jon Jonsson, his wife and their two daughters. HorriďŹ ed to have a convicted murderess in their midst, the family avoids speaking with Agnes. Only Toti, the young assistant reverend appointed as Agnes's spiritual guardian, is compelled to try to understand her, as he attempts to salvage her soul. As the summer months fall away to winter and the hardships of rural life force the household to work side by side, Agnes's illfated tale of longing and betrayal begins to emerge. And with it the family's terrible realisation that all is not as they assumed.
The invention of wings Sue Monk Kidd
437 pages
ďŹ ction
KID
2014
Sarah Grimke is the middle daughter. The one her mother calls diďŹƒcult and her father calls remarkable. On Sarah's eleventh birthday, Hetty 'Handful' Grimke is taken from the slave quarters she shares with her mother, wrapped in lavender ribbons, and presented to Sarah as a gift. Sarah knows what she does next will unleash a world of trouble. She also knows that she cannot accept. And so, indeed, the trouble begins ...
The poisonwood Bible Barbara Kingsolver
616 pages
fiction
KIN
1998
The Poisonwood Bible is a story told by the wife and four daughters of Nathan Price, a fierce, evangelical Baptist who takes his family and mission to the Belgian Congo in 1959. They carry with them everything they believe they will need from home, but soon find that all of it -- from garden seeds to Scripture -- is calamitously transformed on African soil. What follows is a suspenseful epic of one family's tragic undoing and remarkable reconstruction over the course of three decades in postcolonial Africa.
The boat Nam Le
315 pages
ďŹ ction
LE
2009
A dazzling, emotionally riveting debut collection: the seven stories in Nam Le's The Boat take us across the globe as he enters the hearts and minds of characters from all over the world. Whether Nam Le is conjuring the story of 14-year-old Juan, a hit man in Colombia; or an aging painter mourning the death of his much-younger lover; or a young refugee eeing Vietnam, crammed in the ship's hold with 200 others, the result is unexpectedly moving and powerful.
A delicate truth John Le Carré
309 pages
fiction
LEC
2013
2008. A counter-terrorist operation, codenamed Wildlife, is being mounted on the British crown colony of Gibraltar. Its purpose: to capture and abduct a high-value jihadist arms-buyer. Its authors: an ambitious Foreign Office Minister, a private defense contractor who is also his bosom friend, and a shady American CIA operative of the evangelical far-right. So delicate is the operation that even the Minister's personal private secretary, Toby Bell, is not cleared for it. Cornwall, UK, 2011. A disgraced Special Forces Soldier delivers a message from the dead. Was Operation Wildlife the success it was cracked up to be--or a human tragedy that was ruthlessly covered up? Summoned by Sir Christopher ("Kit") Probyn, retired British diplomat, to his decaying Cornish manor house, and closely observed by Kit's beautiful daughter, Emily, Toby must choose between his conscience and duty to his Service. If the only thing necessary to the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing, how can he keep silent?
To kill a mockingbird Harper Lee
309 pages
ďŹ ction
LEE
1960
Classic ďŹ ction. Shoot all the bluejays you want, if you can hit 'em, but remember it's a sin to kill a mockingbird.' A lawyer's advice to his children as he defends the real mockingbird of Harper Lee's classic novel - a black man charged with the rape of a white girl. Through the young eyes of Scout and Jem Finch, Harper Lee explores with exuberant humour the irrationality of adult attitudes to race and class in the Deep South of the thirties. The conscience of a town steeped in prejudice, violence and hypocrisy is pricked by the stamina of one man's struggle for justice. But the weight of history will only tolerate so much. To Kill a Mockingbird is a coming-of-age story, an antiracist novel, a historical drama of the Great Depression and a sublime example of the Southern writing tradition.
A short history of tractors in Ukrainian Marina Lewycka
325 pages
ďŹ ction
LEW
2005
For years, Nadezhda and Vera, two Ukrainian sisters, raised in England by their refugee parents, have had as little as possible to do with each other and they have their reasons. But now they ďŹ nd they'd better learn how to get along, because since their mother's death their aging father has been sliding into his second childhood, and an alarming new woman has just entered his life. Valentina, a bosomy young synthetic blonde from the Ukraine, seems to think their father is much richer than he is, and she is keen that he leave this world with as little money to his name as possible.
The Golden Age Joan London
242 pages
ďŹ ction
LON
2015
This is a story of resilience, the irrepressible, enduring nature of love, and the fragility of life. From one of Australia's most loved novelists. He felt like a pirate landing on an island of little maimed animals. A great wave had swept them up and dumped them here. All of them, like him, stranded, wanting to go home. Perth, 1954.
The history of bees Maja Lunde; trans by Diana Oatley
337 pages
fiction
LUN
2015
England, 1852. William is a biologist and seed merchant, who sets out to build a new type of beehive that will give both him and his children honour and fame. United States, 2007. George is a beekeeper and fights an uphill battle against modern farming, but hopes that his son can be their salvation. China, 2098. Tao hand paints pollen onto the fruit trees now that the bees have long since disappeared. When Tao's young son is taken away by the authorities after a tragic accident, and is kept in the dark about his whereabouts and condition, she sets out on a gruelling journey to find out what happened to him. The History of Bees joins these three very different narratives into one story that is just as much about the powerful relationships between children and parents as it is about our very relationship to nature and humanity.
The unlikely voyage of Jack de Crow A. J. Mackinnon
350 pages
nonďŹ ction
MAC
1963
'A couple of quiet weeks sailing the River Severn was the intention. Somehow things got out of hand - a year later I had reached Romania and was still going . . . ' Truly hilarious books are rare. Even rarer are those based on real events. Join A.J. Mackinnon, your charming and eccentric guide, on an amazing voyage in a boat called Jack de Crow. Equipped with his cheerful optimism and a pith helmet, this Australian Odysseus in a dinghy travels from the borders of North Wales to the Black Sea - 4,900 kilometres over salt and fresh water, under sail, at the oars, or at the end of a tow-rope - through twelve countries, 282 locks and numerous trials and adventures, including an encounter with Balkan pirates. Along the way he experiences the kindness of strangers, gets very lost, and perfects the art of slow travel.
Long walk to freedom Nelson Mandela
630 pages
nonďŹ ction
MAN
1995
In Long Walk To Freedom, Nelson Mandela at last shares the story of his life. It is an epic saga of struggle, setback and ultimate triumph.
The rúin Dervla McTiernan
MCT
Galway 1993: Young Garda Cormac Reilly is called to a scene he will never forget. Two silent, neglected children - fifteen-year-old Maude and five-yearold Jack - are waiting for him at a crumbling country house. Upstairs, their mother lies dead. Twenty years later, a body surfaces in the icy black waters of the River Corrib. At first it looks like an open-and-shut case, but then doubt is cast on the investigation's findings - and the integrity of the police. Cormac is thrown back into the cold case that has haunted him his entire career what links the two deaths, two decades apart? As he navigates his way through police politics and the ghosts of the past, Detective Reilly uncovers shocking secrets and finds himself questioning who among his colleagues he can trust. What really did happen in that house where he first met Maude and Jack? The Ruin draws us deep into the dark heart of Ireland and asks who will protect you when the authorities can't - or won't.
Foal's bread Gillian Mears
361 pages
ďŹ ction
MEA
2011
Set in hardscrabble farming country and around the country show highjumping circuit that prevailed in rural New South Wales prior to the Second World War, Foal's Bread tells the story of two generations of the Nancarrow family and their fortunes as dictated by the vicissitudes of the land.
The penguin lessons Tom Michell
224 pages
ďŹ ction
MIC
2015
When schoolteacher Tom Michell pulls a penguin from an oil slick o the coast of Uruguay he has no idea what to do. Back at his apartment, Tom cleans him, but upon returning to the beach the penguin refuses to return to the ocean. Tom has one option: to smuggle the penguin over the Argentinian border to the prestigious boarding school Tom calls home. There follows a heart-warming story of one remarkable penguin, who adapts to boarding school life. Whether it's as team mascot or swimming coach extraordinaire - Juan Salvador the penguin transforms the lives of all he meets.
Coal creek Alex Miller
292 pages
ďŹ ction
MIL
2013
Bobby Blue is caught between loyalty to his only friend, Ben Tobin, and his boss, Daniel Collins, the new Constable at Mount Hay. 'Ben was not a big man but he was strong and quick as a snake. He had his own breed of pony that was just like him, stocky and reliable on their feet.' Bobby understands the people and the ways of Mount Hay; Collins studies the country as an archaeologist might, bringing his coastal values to the hinterland. Bobby says, 'I do not think Daniel would have understood Ben in a million years.' Increasingly bewildered and goaded to action by his wife, Constable Collins takes up his shotgun and his Webley pistol to deal with Ben. Bobby's love for Collins' wilful young daughter Irie is exposed, leading to tragic consequences for them all. Miller's exquisite depictions of the country of the Queensland highlands form the background of this simply told but deeply signiďŹ cant novel of friendship, love, loyalty and the tragic consequences of misunderstanding and mistrust. This book is a wonderfully satisfying novel with a gratifying resolution. It carries all the wisdom and emotional depth.
The husband's secret Liane Moriarty
406 pages
ďŹ ction
MOR
2013
The story of a woman who ďŹ nds a letter from her husband. It says: For my wife, Cecilia Fitzpatrick. To be opened only in the event of my death. Her husband is very much alive. Should she open it? Would YOU open it?
Three cups of tea Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin
349 pages
nonfiction
MOR
2006
'Here we drink three cups of tea to do business; the first you are a stranger, the second you become a friend, and the third, you join our family, and for our family we are prepared to do anything - even die' - Haji Ali, Korphe Village Chief, Karakoram mountains, Pakistan. In 1993, after a terrifying and disastrous attempt to climb K2, a mountaineer called Greg Mortenson drifted, cold and dehydrated, into an impoverished Pakistan village in the Karakoram Mountains. Moved by the inhabitants' kindness, he promised to return and build a school. Three Cups of Tea is the story of that promise and its extraordinary outcome. Over the next decade Mortenson built not just one but fifty-five schools - especially for girls - in remote villages across the forbidding and breathtaking landscape of Pakistan and Afghanistan, just as the Taliban rose to power. His story is at once a riveting adventure and a testament to the power of the humanitarian spirit.
The opal desert Di Morrissey
406 pages
fiction
MOR
2012
Three women, facing uncertain futures, form an unlikely friendship in Australia's remote opal fields. Kerrie, in her 40s, has just lost her famous sculptor husband who had been the centre of her existence and for whom she made many sacrifices and she now finds her life has lost direction. Shirley, approaching 80, was betrayed by her lover many years before and has retreated from the world, becoming a recluse living in an underground dugout.
The lure of the horizon Barbera Moret
257 pages
nonfiction
MOR
2016
In 1957 BARBERA MORET left a Europe that was still recovering from the devastation of World War II. Her native Holland had experienced five years of Nazi occupation and a decade of post-war rebuilding. She moved to Australia – far distant from the upheavals of military conflict and the Cold War. Here she established a new life and a safe haven for her growing family. But the impact of cataclysmic events is inevitably profound, and in Barbera’s case, repercussions from her war experiences lingered long after her arrival. The history of post-war immigration from Europe to Australia is full of tales of trauma and heart-ache, of optimism and achievement. Barbera’s life is typical, and THE LURE OF THE HORIZON is her story.
After you Jojo Moyes
409 pages
fiction
MOY
2016
Lou Clark has lots of questions. Like how it is she's ended up working in an airport bar, spending every shift watching other people jet off to new places. Or why the flat she's owned for a year still doesn't feel like home. Whether her close-knit family can forgive her for what she did 18 months ago. And will she ever get over the love of her life. What Lou does know for certain is that something has to change. Then, one night, it does. But does the stranger on her doorstep hold the answers Lou is searching for - or just more questions? Close the door and life continues: simple, ordered, safe. Open it and she risks everything. But Lou once made a promise to live. And if she's going to keep it, she has to invite them in.
Still me Jojo Moyes
MOY
Louisa Clark arrives in New York ready to start a new life, confident that she can embrace this new adventure and keep her relationship with Ambulance Sam alive across several thousand miles. She is thrown into the world of the superrich Gopniks: Leonard and his much younger second wife, Agnes, and a never-ending array of household staff and hangers-on. Lou is determined to get the most out of the experience and throws herself into her job and New York life within this privileged world. Before she knows what's happening, Lou is mixing in New York high society, where she meets Joshua Ryan, a man who brings with him a whisper of her past. In Still Me, as Lou tries to keep the two sides of her world together, she finds herself carrying secrets-not all her own--that cause a catastrophic change in her circumstances. And when matters come to a head, she has to ask herself Who is Louisa Clark? And how do you reconcile a heart that lives in two places?
The ship of brides Jojo Moyes
482 pages
ďŹ ction
MOY
2005
The year is 1946, and all over the world young women are crossing the seas in their thousands en route to the men they married in wartime, and an unknown future. Strict rules are enforced but the men and brides ďŹ nd their lives intertwined in ways the Navy could never have imagined. Sometimes the journey is more important than the destination.
Me Before You Jojo Moyes
481 pages
ďŹ ction
MOY
2016
Lou Clark knows lots of things. She knows how many footsteps there are between the bus stop and home. She knows she likes working in The Buttered Bun tea shop and she knows she might not love her boyfriend Patrick. What Lou doesn't know is she's about to lose her job or that knowing what's coming is what keeps her sane.
Can you hear the sea? Brenda Niall
276 pages
nonfiction
NIA
2017
Brenda Niall has turned her biographer’s eye to a personal subject—her grandmother, Aggie. She tells the story of a fiercely independent and intelligent woman who braved a new country as a single woman, teaching in a country school, before marrying a Riverina grazier, whose large powerful family was wary of the newcomer with ideas of her own. Aggie dealt with hardships and loneliness after the early and drawn-out death of her husband, and brought up her seven children to be happy—all with a calm determination. But it was the memory box and her longing for the sea that captured the imagination of her granddaughter.
Dreams from my father Barack Obama
442 pages
nonďŹ ction
OBA
2004
In this lyrical, unsentimental, and compelling memoir, the son of a black African father and a white American mother searches for a workable meaning to his life as a black American. It begins in New York, where Barack Obama learns that his father - a ďŹ gure he knows more as a myth than as a man - has been killed in a car accident. This sudden death inspires an emotional odyssey - ďŹ rst to a small town in Kansas, from which he retraces the migration of his mother's family to Hawaii, and then to Kenya, where he meets the African side of his family, confronts the bitter truth of his father's life, and at last reconciles his divided inheritance.
Boy, lost Kristina Olsson
258 pages
nonďŹ ction
OLS
2013
A powerful family memoir from the award-winning author of The China Garden Kristina Olsson's mother lost her infant son, Peter, when he was snatched from her arms as she boarded a train in the hot summer of 1950.
Warlight
OND
Just after World War II, Nathaniel and his older sister Rachel stay behind in London when their parents move to Singapore, leaving them in the care of a mysterious ďŹ gure named The Moth and his eccentric crew of friends. These friends are men and women joined by a shared history of unspeciďŹ ed service during the war, all of whom seem, in some way, determined now to protect and educate Rachel and Nathaniel. Their mother returns after months of silence-- without their father, explaining nothing. A dozen years later, Nathaniel begins to uncover all that he didn't know and understand in that time.
The one who got away Caroline Overington
332 pages
ďŹ ction
OVE
2016
Perfect couple; perfect lie. The not-to-be-missed new psychological thriller from Caroline Overington. We all keep secrets. Some are deadly. Loren Wynne-Estes appears to have it all: she's the girl from the wrong side of the tracks who's landed a handsome husband, a stunning home, a eet of shiny cars and two beautiful daughters ...Then one day a fellow parent taps Loren on the shoulder outside the grand school gate, hands her a note ...and suddenly everything's at stake. Loren's Facebook-perfect marriage is spectacularly exposed - revealing an underbelly of lies and betrayal. What is uncovered will scandalise a small town, destroy lives and leave a family divided. But who is to be believed and who is to blame? Will the right person be brought to justice or is there one who got away.
Dark Emu Bruce Pascoe
PAS
"Dark Emu argues for a reconsideration of the 'hunter-gatherer' tag for precolonial Aboriginal Australians and attempts to rebut the colonial myths that have worked to justify dispossession. Accomplished author Bruce Pascoe provides compelling evidence from the diaries of early explorers that suggests that systems of food production and land management have been blatantly understated in modern retellings of early Aboriginal history, and that a new look at Australia’s past is required.
Commonwealth Ann Patchett
322 pages
ďŹ ction
PAT
2016
This is a powerful story of two families brought together by beauty and torn apart by tragedy. It is 1964: Bert Cousins shows up at Franny Keating's christening party uninvited and notices a heart-stoppingly beautiful woman. When he kisses Beverly Keating, his host's wife, he sets in motion the joining of two families whose shared fate will be deďŹ ned on a day seven years later. In 1988, Franny Keating, now twenty-four, has dropped out of law school and is working as a cocktail waitress in Chicago. When she meets the famous author Leon Posen one night at the bar, and tells him about her family, she unwittingly relinquishes control over their story. Told with equal measures of humour and heartbreak, Commonwealth is a powerful tale of a family's farreaching bonds of love and responsibility - and a meditation on inspiration, interpretation and the ownership of stories.
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The pagoda tree Claire Scobie
371 pages
ďŹ ction
SCO
2013
The Pagoda Tree is an epic, sensual novel set in 18th century India. It begins in 1765 in the beautiful temple city of Tanjore, and traces the story of Maya, a young girl destined from birth to be a temple dancer, or devadasi.
The lovely bones Alice Sebold
328 pages
fiction
SEB
2002
“My name was Salmon, like the fish, first name, Susie. I was fourteen when I was murdered on December 6, 1973. My murderer was a man from our neighborhood. My mother liked his border flowers, and my father talked to him once about fertilizer.” This is Susie Salmon, speaking to us from heaven. It looks a lot like her school playground, with the good kind of swing sets. There are counsellors to help newcomers to adjust, and friends to room with. Everything she wants appears as soon as she thinks of it - except the thing she wants most: to be back with the people she loved on earth.
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society Mary Ann Shaffer & Annie Barrows
274 pages
fiction
SHA
2008
January 1946: London is emerging from the shadow of the Second World War, and writer Juliet Ashton is looking for her next book subject. Who could imagine that she would find it in a letter from a man she's never met, a native of the island of Guernsey, who has come across her name written inside a book by Charles Lamb. As Juliet and her new correspondent exchange letters, Juliet is drawn into the world of this man and his friends - and what a wonderfully eccentric world it is. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society - born as a spur-ofthe-moment alibi when its members were discovered breaking curfew by the Germans occupying their island - boasts a charming, funny, deeply human cast of characters, from pig farmers to phrenologists, literature lovers all.
South Ernest Shackleton
418 pages
nonďŹ ction
SHA
1919
Sir Ernest Shackleton's South is one of the greatest survival stories of all time. In 1914, Shackleton led a party of men hoping to be the ďŹ rst to traverse the Antarctic, but when their ship became crushed by ice 350 miles from land, the expedition soon became a matter of life and death.
Jasper Jones Craig Silvey
397 pages
fiction
SIL
2010
Late on a hot summer night in the tail end of 1965, Charlie Bucktin, a precocious and bookish boy of thirteen, is startled by an urgent knock on the window of his sleepout. His visitor is Jasper Jones, an outcast in the regional mining town of Corrigan. Rebellious, mixed-race and solitary, Jasper is a distant figure of danger and intrigue for Charlie. So when Jasper begs for his help, Charlie steals into the night by his side, terrified but desperate to impress. Jasper takes him through town to his secret glade in the bush, and it's here that Charlie bears witness to Jasper's horrible discovery.
The Rosie project Graeme Simsion
329 pages
ďŹ ction
SIM
2013
A ďŹ rst date dud, socially awkward and overly fond of quick dry clothes, Don Tillman has given up on love. Until a chance encounter gives him an idea.
The Rosie eect Graeme Simsion
415 pages
ďŹ ction
SIM
2014
Don Tillman and Rosie Jarman are back. The Wife Project is complete, and Don and Rosie are happily married and living in New York. But they're about to face a new challenge because - surprise - Rosie is pregnant.
Two steps forward Graeme Simsion and Anne Buist
353 pages
fiction
SIM
2017
Zoe, a sometime artist, is from California. Martin, an engineer, is from Yorkshire. Both have ended up in picturesque Cluny, in central France. Both are struggling to come to terms with their recent past—for Zoe, the death of her husband; for Martin, a messy divorce. Looking to make a new start, each sets out alone to walk two thousand kilometres from Cluny to Santiago, in northwestern Spain, in the footsteps of pilgrims who have walked the Camino—the Way—for centuries. The Camino changes you, it’s said. It’s a chance to find a new version of yourself. But can these two very different people find each other? In this smart, funny and romantic journey, Martin’s and Zoe’s stories are told in alternating chapters by husband-and-wife team Graeme Simsion and Anne Buist.
Mr Wigg Inga Simpson
296 pages
fiction
SIM
2013
It's the summer of 1971, not far from the stone-fruit capital of New South Wales, where Mr Wigg lives on what is left of his family farm. Mrs Wigg has been gone a few years now and he thinks about her every day. He misses his daughter, too, and wonders when he’ll see her again. He spends his time working in the orchard, cooking and preserving his produce and, when it's on, watching the cricket. It’s a full life. Things are changing though, with Australia and England playing a one-day match, and his new neighbours planting grapes for wine. His son is on at him to move into town but Mr Wigg has his fruit trees and his chooks to look after. His grandchildren visit often: to cook, eat and hear his stories. And there's a special project he has to finish. Trouble is, it's a lot of work for an old man with shaking hands, but he’ll give it a go, as he always has.
The apartment Danielle Steel
323 pages
ďŹ ction
STE
2016
Four young women's lives intersect in the apartment they've shared in Hell's Kitchen: Claire, a shoe designer; Abby, an aspiring novelist; Morgan, a successful ďŹ nancial consultant; and Sasha, a resident in obstetrics. As dierent as they are from one another, the women had become a family by choice. But while their lives had proceeded smoothly in the years they'd lived together, new relationships, job opportunities, and surprising circumstances will test the strength of their bond in and outside the loft that had become their home.
The Sparrows of Edward Street Elizabeth Stead
304 pages
ďŹ ction
STE
2011
It's 1948 and Hanora Sparrow and her teenage daughters, Aria and Rosy, have fallen on tough times. With little more than the suitcases they carry and a few pounds between them, they must move to a housing commission camp on the outskirts of Sydney.
A little tea, a little chat Christina Stead
486 pages
ďŹ ction
STE
2016
Ever since his early manhood, since his marriage, he had bought women; most had been bargains and most had made delivery at once. He never paid in advance- 'I got no time for futures in women'. New York, on the cusp of World War II. Robert Grant, a middle-aged businessman, lives life by his own rules. His chief hobbies are moneymaking and seduction; he is always on the hunt for the next woman to beguile and betray. That is, until he meets his match- Barbara, the 'blondine', a woman he cannot best. A sardonic commentary on sexual relations and war as potent as when it was ďŹ rst published in 1948, A Little Tea, a Little Chat holds up a mirror to the corruption and cravenness of our late-capitalist moment.
The light between oceans M.L. Stedman
406 pages
fiction
STE
2013
Tie-in edition with the film adaptation of the global bestseller, The Light Between Oceans, one of the most successful Australian novels of recent years. Produced by Steven Spielberg's DreamWorks and directed by Derek Cianfrance, the highly anticipated film stars Michael Fassbender, Alicia Vikander and Rachel Weiss. They break the rules and follow their hearts. What happens next will break yours. 1926. Tom Sherbourne is a young lighthouse keeper on a remote island off Western Australia. The only inhabitants of Janus Rock, he and his wife Isabel live a quiet life, cocooned from the rest of the world. Then one April morning a boat washes ashore carrying a dead man and a crying infant - and the path of the couple's lives hits an unthinkable crossroads. Only years later do they discover the devastating consequences of the decision they made that day - as the baby's real story unfolds ...
Ladies in black Madeleine St John
STJ
In the famous F.G. Goode department store, Lisa is the new Sales Assistant (Temporary) in Ladies' Cocktail Frocks. She is about to meet Magda, the glamorous Continental refugee and guardian of the rose-pink cave of Model Gowns.
Letters to my grandchildren David Suzuki
233 pages
nonfiction
SUZ
2015
In this inspiring series of letters to his grandchildren, David Suzuki offers grandfatherly advice mixed with stories from his own remarkable life and explores what makes life meaningful. He challenges his grandchildren -- and us -- to do everything at full tilt. He explains why sports, fishing, feminism, and failure are important; why it is dangerous to deny our biological nature; and why First Nations must lead a revolution. Drawing on his own experiences and the wisdom he has gained over his long life, he decries the lack of elders and grandparents in the lives of many people, especially immigrants, and champions the importance of heroes. And he even has something to say about fashion. The book also provides an intimate look at Suzuki's life as a father and grandfather with letters that are chock-full of anecdotes about his children and grandchildren when they were small. As he ponders life's deepest questions and offers up a lifetime of wisdom, Suzuki inspires us all to live with courage, conviction, and passion.
The kitchen God's wife Amy Tan
415 pages
ďŹ ction
TAN
1991
Focusing on the life of one woman, this book spans the years from preRevolutionary China to present day America. It covers the themes of cultural dierences, the problems of exile, the generation gap and above all the special relationship between mothers and daughters.
An iron rose Peter Temple
269 pages
ďŹ ction
TEM
2012
'When men in police uniforms came to execute me on the roadside, beside dark ďŹ elds, it was a deďŹ nite sign that my new life was over.' A regular at the local pub, a mainstay of the footy team, Mac Faraday is a man with a past living the quiet life of a country blacksmith. But when his best friend Ned Lowey is found hanged, Mac, who has learned the hard way never to accept things at face value, isn't convinced he committed suicide and starts asking questions. Why did Ned keep press cuttings about the skeleton of a girl found in an old mine shaft? What was he doing at Kinross Hall, the local detention centre for juvenile girls? Who was the beaten girl found naked beside a lonely road? As Mac's search for answers pushes deeper into the past, it resurrects the terrifying spectre of what he calls his 'old life', forcing him to turn to long-discarded skills not only to discover why his best friend died, but also to save his own life.
Goodwood Holly Throsby
378 pages
fiction
THR
2016
It wasn't just one person who went missing, it was two people. Two very different people. They were there, and then they were gone, as if through a crack in the sky. After that, in a small town like Goodwood, where we had what Nan called 'a high density of acquaintanceship', everything stopped. Or at least it felt that way. The normal feeling of things stopped...Goodwood is a small town where everyone knows everything about everyone. It's a place where it's impossible to keep a secret...In 1992, when Jean Brown is seventeen, a terrible thing happens. Two terrible things. Rosie White, the coolest girl in town, vanishes overnight. One week later, Goodwood's most popular resident, Bart McDonald, sets off on a fishing trip and never comes home...People die in Goodwood, of course, but never like this. They don't just disappear...As the intensity of speculation about the fates of Rosie and Bart heightens, Jean, who is keeping secrets of her own, and the rest of Goodwood are left reeling...
The slap Christos Tsiolkas
573 pages
fiction
TSI
2008
At a suburban barbecue one afternoon, a man slaps an unruly 3-year-old boy. The boy is not his son. It is a single act of violence, but this one slap reverberates through the lives of everyone who witnesses it happen. In his controversial, award-winning novel, Christos Tsiolkas presents an apparently harmless domestic incident as seen from eight very different perspectives. The result is an unflinching interrogation of our lives today; of the modern family and domestic life in the twenty-first century, a deeply thought-provoking novel about boundaries and their limits.
The visionist Rachel Urquhart
345 pages
fiction
URQ
2014
'It was years before a Visionist came to the City of Hope. How could I have fathomed that her presence in our small, remote sanctuary - as unforeseen to her as to anyone - would change everything?' Massachusetts, 1842. Fifteen-year-old Polly Kimball sets fire to her family farm, killing her abusive father. With his fiery ghost at her heels, Polly and her young brother seek refuge in a local Shaker community - the City of Hope. Polly has much to hide from this mysterious society of believers, with the local fire inspector on her trail and the ever-present daemons from her past. But when they hail her a 'Visionist', the first their community has known, she is subject to overwhelming scrutiny. Despite being fiercely protected by a young Shaker sister named Charity, a girl who has never known the outside world yet will stake her very soul on Polly's purity, Polly finds herself in danger from forces both sides of the City's walls.
The ghost at the wedding Shirley Walker
246 pages
nonďŹ ction
WAL
2010
This is the story of young Australian men who went to the battleďŹ elds of two world wars. Its perspective focuses on the author's mother-in- law, Jessie, whose brother was killed in World War I. Her sweetheart was seriously wounded, and his two brothers were also killed.
Before I go to sleep S. J. Watson
365 pages
ďŹ ction
WAT
2014
Each day, Christine wakes knowing nothing of her life. Each night, her mind erases the day. But before she goes to sleep, she will recover fragments from her past, ashbacks to the accident that damaged her, and then mercifully she will forget.
Extinctions Josephine Wilson
286 pages
ďŹ ction
WIL
2016
He hated the word 'retirement', but not as much as he hated the word 'village', as if ageing made you a peasant or a fool. Herein lives the village idiot. Professor Frederick Lothian, retired engineer, world expert on concrete and connoisseur of modernist design, has quarantined himself from life by moving to a retirement village. His wife, Martha, is dead and his two adult children are lost to him in their own ways. Surrounded and obstructed by the debris of his life - objects he has collected over many years and tells himself he is keeping for his daughter - he is determined to be miserable, but is tired of his existence and of the life he has chosen. When a series of unfortunate incidents forces him and his neighbour, Jan, together, he begins to realise the damage done by the accumulation of a lifetime's secrets and lies, and to comprehend his own shortcomings. Finally, Frederick Lothian has the opportunity to build something meaningful for the ones he loves. Humorous, poignant and galvanising by turns, Extinctions is a novel about all kinds of extinction - natural, racial, national and personal - and what we can do to prevent them.
Eyrie Tim Winton
423 pages
fiction
WIN
2014
Eyrie tells the story of Tom Keely, a man who's lost his bearings in middle age and is now holed up in a flat at the top of a grim highrise, looking down on the world he's fallen out of love with. He's cut himself off, until one day he runs into some neighbours: a woman he used to know when they were kids, and her introverted young boy. The encounter shakes him up in a way that he doesn't understand. Despite himself, Keely lets them in. What follows is a heart-stopping, groundbreaking novel for our times, funny, confronting, exhilarating and haunting, populated by unforgettable characters. It asks how, in an impossibly compromised world, we can ever hope to do the right thing.
I for Isobel Amy Witting
181 pages
ďŹ ction
WIT
1989
This was life: no sooner had you built yourself your little raft and felt secure than it came to pieces under you and you were swimming again. Born into a world without welcome, Isobel observes it as warily as an alien trying to pass for a native. Her collection of imaginary friends includes the Virgin Mary and Sherlock Holmes. Later she meets Byron, W.H. Auden and T.S. Eliot. Isobel is not so much at ease with the esh-and-blood people she meets, and least of all with herself, until a lucky encounter and a little detective work reveal her identity and her true situation in life. I for Isobel, a modern-day Australian classic, was followed by Isobel on the Way to the Corner Shop, winner of the Age Book of the Year Award.
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6641 0111
6655 1744
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Dorrigo library
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