Monday 30 November 2015

Podcasts: the non-fiction audiobook revolution!

After what feels like years, a few months ago I finally gave in and listened to my first Podcast. For years I didn’t understand what a Podcast was. I didn’t understand why there was a Podcast app on my phone and iTunes. To be honest, the idea of them annoyed me.

I started by subscribing to one podcast consisting of one half an hour episode a week. This quickly escalated and I now subscribe to over fifteen podcasts, some which upload multiple times a week, others whose episodes are consistently over 90 minutes long. I have even found myself drawn to audiobooks since discovering Podcasts.

I find myself learning about topics and events that I normally would never explore left to my own devices, topics that I would normally overlook as I believed that I wouldn’t find them interesting. I was never one to spend a lot of time pouring through non-fiction books but I feel like this is the audio version of this. I now listen to Podcasts while I am driving, cooking, cleaning and even while I am trying to go to sleep.

Let me share some of my favourite FREE Podcasts with you:

No Such Thing As A Fish
Frequency: weekly
No such thing as a fish is brought to you by the QI elves, the research team behind the BBC show QI. The elves gather around the microphone to share the most interesting fact they have learnt that week. Facts over the years include that it would cost $850 quadrillion to build the Death Star, J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S.Lewis both went to a party dressed as polar bears - it was not a fancy dress party- and the world puddle jumping championships bans fizzy drinks in case they improve the participant’s performance.






Stuff You Should Know
Frequency: a few episodes a week
Josh and Chuck cover a wide variety of topics from how manhunts work to how Tupperware works and how internet censorship works. Josh and Chuck have a great chemistry which makes them easy to listen to as you make your way through the over 300 topics they have already covered.









Explain Things To Me
Frequency: weekly
Each week Anna and Brad invite a special guest onto the show to help explain their field of expertise to their audience. Previous guests include an alternative mortician, TV news presenters, chefs, reverends and even a NASA engineer.










Dear Hank and John (with John and Hank Green)
Frequency: Weekly
Hank and John Green are YouTube superstars with millions of viewers, and John is an award winning author in his own right. In this podcast Hank and John answer listeners’ questions and give them dubious advice as well as giving listeners all the latest news from Mars and AFC Wimbledon (the player owned 4th tier British football club).

Sunday 29 November 2015

Old Filth by Jane Gardam

In her novel, Old Filth, Jane Gardam tackles a little regarded aspect of British colonial history: the plight of what were called Raj orphans. These were children born in distant parts of the British Empire who were sent ‘home’ for schooling and care, often with strangers.

Edward Feathers, or Filth as he becomes known (Failed In London, Try Hong Kong), is born in Malaya, but shipped off to England at a young age to board with the unpleasant Ma Didds in Wales. The reader gets a hint early on of some terrible events here which colours Edward’s relationships with people for the rest of his life. Virtually abandoned by his family, Edward’s attempts to make a life for himself are at times poignantly sad.

Thank goodness for ‘Sir’, the headmaster who takes him under his wing, and the Ingoldby family who adopt him for holidays, but with war just around the corner, Edward’s future is up in the air again. By 1945, London is still rebuilding after the Blitz and Edward jumps at the chance to better himself in Hong Kong.

While Old Filth concerns serious matters, it is written with Gardam’s usual droll wit, brilliantly batty characters and quirky dialogue. If you haven’t read Gardam before, I suggest you start with Old Filth before tackling the rest of the Filth trilogy, The Man in the Wooden Hat and Last Friends, which fill in some gaps and provide the stories of Filth's wife Betty and his arch rival, Terry Veneering. A wonderful series from a very unique voice.

Posted by JAM

Catalogue Link: Old Filth

Thursday 26 November 2015

State of Wonder by Ann Patchett

State of Wonder is one of those books that seem to have everything: an original and at times jaw-dropping storyline, an engaging and bewildered heroine, sharp and witty prose plus plenty to make you stop and think about - I was in a state of wonder at its cleverness.

When Anders Eckman dies of fever in the Amazonian jungle the details of his death are scantily noted on an Aerogram sent to his employer at Vogel pharmaceuticals. Is maverick scientist, Annick Swenson, who has been using up a ton of Vogel capital on her own research project, hiding something?

Anders’s colleague, Marina Singh, the narrator of the story, makes the journey to Manaus to track down Dr Swenson and discover the truth. She has her own murky past involving Dr Swenson, is reluctant to leave Minnesota, loses her luggage and has to cope with nightmares caused by the anti-malarial drugs she takes.

In the Amazon tributary where Dr Swenson conducts her research, Marina will face a raft of new challenges, including encounters with anacondas, poison arrow shooting tribesmen as well as winning the confidence of Dr Swenson, before she finds out what really happened to Eckman. The research Swenson is undertaking also creates some startling plot twists.

Marina is a complex but likeable character, Swenson a terse and difficult colleague and the Amazonian tribespeople as mischievous as they are mysterious.The possibility of a wonder drug throws up some interesting moral dilemmas, while Marina has her own emotions to navigate. State of Wonder is a rich, amusing, vastly entertaining and intelligent novel. I enjoyed this book so much I was sorry to finish it - one of my top reads for 2015.

Posted by JAM

Catalogue links (print copy): State of Wonder

Ebook: State of Wonder



Monday 23 November 2015

Misconception: A true story of love and infertility by Jay-Jay Feeney

This book was written a couple of years ago, but when I saw a new copy I picked it up and then could not put it down until it was finished!  Jay-Jay Feeney is part of the top rating Edge breakfast radio show, alongside her husband Dom Harvey.

After her husband's fertility was affected by testicular cancer, the couple begin IVF treatment. Feeney wrote the book partly because she could not find information about this experience written by someone actually going through it.

Jay-Jay holds nothing back in sharing this very personal and at times heart breaking journey. Feeney describes her harrowing childhood - finding her father was not the man she thought, time spent in women's refuges, and sexual abuse from the age of six. Later she takes on care of her young nephew when her drug addicted brother is sent to jail. She also gives an insight into the busy and stressful world of breakfast radio: the early starts, maintaining ratings, and being cheerful when IVF is not working.

She describes with honesty and humour the medical procedures involved for the couple as well as the decision to share their experiences so that others going through a similar situation have somewhere to turn for insight and companionship.

Catalogue link: Misconception

Friday 20 November 2015

The Death of the Poet by N Quentin Woolf

This book almost needs a red-stickered note of caution on the cover warning that parts of it are very scary and difficult to read.

It describes the relationship between a woman and a man with (female on male) serious domestic abuse over many years, portraying throughout in chilling detail the woman's actions (while obviously within the grips of mental illness) and the descent of the life of her partner.

He, at the beginning of the book, is a well-known, successful DJ in California; he meets his partner through his job and falls in love with her firey nature when a political debate boils over in his studio, and he makes a promise never to leave her. Their life, their child, the woman's past life, partner and child are all wound up within - the latter in an endearing section in the latter part of the book.

The story also unexpectedly involves a World War 1 poet and how this is woven together is intriguing. It is a complicated, devastating book which even now, several weeks after I finished it moves me with its violence and it's passion.

The author is a writer and broadcaster who has previously published short fiction, runs a number of literary groups, presents a weekly talk show for londonist.com and also hosts literary podcast The Wireless Reader.

Posted by CC.

Catalogue link: The Death of the Poet 

Thursday 19 November 2015

Life Class by Pat Barker

Pat Barker must surely be the master of World War One fiction, being the author of the acclaimed Regeneration trilogy. Her more recent war-themed series features three young artists who meet at the Slade school of art as war clouds are gathering. The first in this trilogy is Life Class which begins in the lazy balmy summer of 1914.

Paul Tarrant is struggling to impress his life-class teacher, while he is attracted to the infinitely posher and more talented Elinor Brooke, who remains friendly but aloof. Paul throws himself into an affair with a life model with disastrous results. Kit Neville has made a name for himself with his avant-garde style of painting, and is besotted with Elinor as well. A country house party is full of sexual tension between the three, but all anybody can talk about is the coming war.

Both Kit and Paul find themselves at the front, Paul working as a Red Cross orderly while Elinor steadfastly refuses to think about the war effort and concentrates on her painting. And yet it is the horror of what Paul must confront every day that encourages him to draw – but is what he creates fit for public viewing?

Barker recreates the atrocities and dreadful ironies of the front – the language is sparse and direct leaving the facts to speak for themselves, amplified through the empathy she creates in the reader for eye-witness Paul. The question of what the role of art should be in times of war runs through the book adding another layer. There is more to tell, and the characters have more to learn about life, love and art, as well as war. The follow-up books are Toby’s Room and Noonday; the last of these was released earlier this year.

Posted by JAM

Catalogue link: Life Class

Tuesday 17 November 2015

Not a Drop to Drink by Mindy McGinnis

An excellent debut novel from Mindy McGinnis, an author I hope we will see much more from. She is a Young Adult librarian who lives in Ohio, USA. She dedicated this book as follows: "For my parents. They read to me. "

This is another Young Adults dystopian novel which could easily sit on the adult fiction shelf; I loved it. It's main theme of the need to protect one's own water source in a completely deconstructed and messed-up world is a very real one, and the way it is handled in this gave me pause for thought. I hope more people read it and think about it.

It is a story of survival, and what it takes to do that in a world that has forgotten most of what their parents, and certainly their grandparents knew. It is a deeply human, moving story beautifully written.

Posted by CC.

Catalogue link: Not a Drop to Drink 

Friday 13 November 2015

Books Change Lives!


Recently we had a library customer tell us that while reading a memoir she realised that the author was an unknown relative. Her decision to read that particular book and subsequent decision to contact the author has indeed been life changing.

“In books I have travelled, not only to other worlds, but into my own.” - - Anna Quindlen

A colleague of mine was kind enough to share how her love of reading began at the age of eight, when a family friend dropped off a sack full of old books to her home. Classic children’s stories like Anne of Green Gables and The Famous Five were read and re-read countless times. They opened up her world and imagination.

We see this every day in our libraries too as children rush in clutching their returns and race off to find their next book. These are children that are curious and questioning and excited to see and do and think.

“I read because one of these days I'm going to get out of this town, and I'm going to go everywhere and meet everybody, and I want to be ready.” - - Richard Peck

I was also told how thrilled a friend’s children were when writer Margaret Mahy answered their letters in her own hand and with illustrations! This is a memory and keepsake they will have for life.

For me, as a collector of books, their physical presence on my bookshelf (or should I say shelves) is important in itself. For each one reminds me of a person, place or moment in time. When a loved one died a few years ago many books that were important to her became important to me. I shall be happy to be surrounded by these memories for many years to come and curse my collection only when I move house!

“To build up a library is to create a life. It's never just a random collection of books.” - - Carlos MarĂ­a DomĂ­nguez

Books may profoundly affect us with their message, teach us a new skill, or simply let us escape to another world for a brief period of time. Whatever their impact, for us as readers, our relationship with books and their authors is significant and lasting.

Books really do change lives!

Please let us know how books have changed your life.

Posted by CP.

Thursday 12 November 2015

The Rosie Effect by Graeme Simsion

The Rosie Project was one of my favourite books from 2013, a story about a genetics professor and his quest for love. Don Tillman isn’t your average Aussie bloke by any means. Incredibly brainy, he’s socially inept with a tendency to turn everyday activities into a spreadsheet or timetable.

The Rosie Effect is the sequel, and deals with Don and Rosie’s life together in New York where Don has a post at Colombia University and Rosie is studying medicine. But while their relationship seems to be going well - Rosie has set some ground rules about Don’s overzealous planning – his equilibrium is upset when Rosie announces her pregnancy.

This sets in motion a hilarious train of events: Don is sent to anger management classes at the risk of deportation, and they are thrown out of their apartment. However, Don manages to keep all this secret from Rosie and solves their problems in his uniquely inventive way. But as the baby’s birth approaches, Rosie seems to be doubting Don as good father material and the two begin to draw apart. Don is desperate to keep Rosie and calls upon the advice of his growing number of friends, who all somehow have problems of their own.

What makes these books work so well is the slapstick comedy on the one hand and the bighearted nature of Don on the other, who not only wants to fix his own relationship, but help his friends too. The story builds to an action-packed climax and a denouement that is both surprising and hilarious. Does The Rosie Effect live up to the promise of Simsion’s first book? I would say unequivocally yes, and I can only wonder if in a year or two we will have The Baby Effect to look forward to. Here’s hoping.

Posted by JAM

Catalogue link: The Rosie Effect

Wednesday 11 November 2015

Museum of Extraordinary Things by Alice Hoffman

Water. Fire. Love. Man's inhumanity to man. History. Love of animals. This beautifully written novel by New Yorker Alice Hoffman weaves all of these elements into a fascinating tale set in New York in 1911.

We learn of early photographic practices, Coney Island and its fun-fair development, The Triangle Fire, early Union/Worker's Rights movements and the Hudson River and its banks at that time.

At no time does it falter, it swims seamlessly on with an extraordinary tale, told predominantly by a young woman who, from a very young age, is trained to be an act in her father's exhibition of freaks of nature. He adds her to his cast which includes Siamese twins, a tattooed lady and a hirsute man.

I wholeheartedly agree with Jodi Picoutt's comment "Many novels these days are called "stunning'', but this one truly is: part love story, part mystery, part history, and all beauty.''

Posted by CC.

Catalogue link: Museum of Extraordinary Things

Friday 6 November 2015

Instruments of Darkness by Imogen Robertson

There’s nothing like a good historical mystery series to get your teeth into and Imogen Robertson makes a terrific beginning with her Westerman and Crowther series debut: Instruments of Darkness. The story opens when Harriet Westerman, the wife of a naval Commander, discovers a murder victim on her estate. She should notify the squire and leave all the inquiries to the authorities. 

But Harriet isn’t like that. Instead she bangs on the door of Gabriel Crowther who, with his nocturnal habits and a reputation for body snatching, is tucked up in bed and reluctant to see visitors. A note to the maid whets his curiosity and soon he and Harriet are peering at the corpse. Harriet wonders if it might be the long lost son of the Earl of Sussex, a nasty piece of work now bedridden. He’d fallen out with his heir, Alexander Thornleigh, years before and the body possesses a ring bearing the Thornleigh crest.

The setting switches between the mystery in Sussex and a music shop in London. Here a widower and his children are bothered by a missing ring and a suspicious stranger, while outside anti-Catholic riots bring London to a standstill. It isn't long before the two stories collide as the plot races towards a thrilling finish and the rising body count suggests a merciless killer .

Robertson has recreated the atmosphere and social mores of 1780 and there are enough twists and subplots to make for an absorbing historical read. I particularly liked the two main characters: Harriet, while missing her beloved husband off defending the realm, is intelligent and doesn’t take no for an answer. Crowther, a dark horse with a mysterious past, adds the CSI element with a touch of Sherlock Holmes.

Instruments of Darkness is the first of five novels featuring this duo and I’ll be looking in again to see what dark and devious crimes throw them together again.

Posted by JAM

Catalogue link: Instruments of Darkness

Thursday 5 November 2015

Self Portrait by Marti Friedlander

A delightful and interesting book told in the first person. I read it as though sitting next to Marti, listening to her. Hugo Manson is a Senior New Zealand Oral Historian and if, as I imagine he has, he has lead Marti to talk about certain things - beginnings, being Jewish, immigrating to New Zealand, other couples and people of the time including artists, politicians, writers and events e.g. The Springbok Tour of NZ 1981 - you can't see his hand, or words, in it.

The stories read as if you were chatting one afternoon over a cup of tea, not at all meant in any sense other than easily heard and absorbed. I loved this book and the insights it gave me into our history of that time. Marti's photographs have already done that; I believe we are very fortunate to have her record of these last 50 or so years of New Zealand life. And now with this book, her gift to New Zealand, her adopted country, is magnified.

Her 2001 major retrospective exhibition at The Auckland Art Gallery brought her photographic work to a wider audience and this book brings her to a new, potentially greater audience again. Along with life, times and people, she speaks of her photographic process, telling of taking individual photos. She also speaks of her main reason for the memoir which is to answer the public's curiosity about her and, to answer: "Yes, she is still taking photos".

Posted by CC.

Catalogue link: Self Portait

Tuesday 3 November 2015

My Top Ten Picture Books (in no particular order)

Picking only ten picture books is a form a medieval torture! Because of this I am sure you will see more of my lists coming your way. These are all books that I have used with many groups of children (sharing them with only one group is just not an option). From babies to teenagers, these titles were enjoyed by all.

1. The Book With No Pictures by B. J Novak


Who would have thought that a picture book with no pictures would be so enjoyable and appealing to children (and adults) of all ages? Caution: This book will make you say and do silly things so be ready to channel your inner child!










2. The End (Almost) by Jim Benton

Donut is your average bear, excited to star in a story all on his own. I bet you didn’t expect the story to be over in two pages and one burp? Neither does Donut. Follow and laugh along as Donut desperately begs and pleads his case with the author, to varying degrees of success.








3. The Day Louis Got Eaten by John Fardell


Louis and his big sister, Sarah, are walking through the woods one day when poor Louis is gobbled up by a Gulper. Desperate to get Louis back, Sarah sets off on an adventure which puts her in the path of many hungry beasts.









4. This Is A Ball by Beck and Matt Stanton

You know how grown-ups are right all the time? This is the book that will drive kids crazy! Caution: This is the book that has caused many children to ask if I can even read! Am I crazy? And am I just darn right stupid?









5. The Gruffalo by Julia Donaldson


A mouse took a stroll through the deep dark wood. A fox saw the mouse and the mouse looked good. A long-time favourite story about mouse convincing the other creatures not to eat him. He weaves a story about a fictional monster, the Gruffalo, but…what if he’s real?!









6. The Three Little Fish And The Big Bad Shark by Ken Geist and Will Grace

A retelling of the classic three little pigs but, as the title suggests, there are fish, not pigs, and a big bad shark, not a wolf. Kids love this book as they know the story but it has a funny little twist.








7. I Really Want To Each A Child by Sylviane Donnio


Achilles is a baby crocodile who LOVES bananas. Imagine his parents dismay when he refuses bananas because he really wants to eat a child. Who has ever heard of such a preposterous idea?









8. Ugly Fish by Kara LeReau

Ugly fish is big, and mean, and ugly. He loves his driftwood tunnel and his special briny flakes. Imagine his annoyance when a new fish appears in his tank. Will he begin to make friends or does he need to learn to hard way?









9. If You’re Cheeky And You Know It by P. Crumble


Have you ever needed an excuse to get up, act like animals and dance around the room? Well, here it is! Sing along to the cheeky version of if your happy and you know it











10. Open Very Carefully: A Book With Bite by Nick Bromley and Nicola O’Byrne

Imagine your panic (and horror) when you find a crocodile hiding out in your copy of the ugly duckling!  Maybe if you rock him to sleep you can stop him from eating all the words and sentences? This book is a real crowd pleaser.

Running Towards Danger by Tina Clough

It was a treat to come across this psychological thriller written by Hawke's Bay's own Swedish crime writer Tina Clough, who has lived in New Zealand for many years.

Tina has written a novel with an interesting premise, great characters and a fast-paced plot.
The story starts in Auckland, with a shocked Karen witnessing the fatal drive-by shooting of her seemingly quiet lodger. When the dead man's drug associates come looking for Karen she begins to fear for her life, so she flees and eventually settles in Riverton, Hawke's Bay (otherwise known as Clive).

Karen becomes Cara and attempts to construct a life without leaving an electronic trail, (not without difficulty in our digital age and small country) with few possessions and working casual jobs for cash. She begins to settle into her new life and makes friends; including a tentative romantic attachment to Andy, but can she entrust him with information about her past?
Suspense builds as Cara's safety is threatened, with lots of tension and action when danger is imminent.

On a lighter note I can now amuse myself every time I drive through Clive - 'this must be that bridge!', 'this is where the train incident must have been!'

Running Towards Danger is highly recommended and I look forward to watching Tina's future success.

*Havelock Library hosts Tina Clough as a guest speaker at the 2015 Publishers' Book Expo on Wednesday 18 November at 6.45pm (tickets $5 from the libraries).

Posted by Katrina

Catalogue link: Running Towards Danger







The Other Side of the World by Stephanie Bishop


The Other Side of the World is the second novel of this Australian author I had not encountered before. Her first, The Singing, was Highly Commended for the Kathleen Mitchell Award and for which she was named by the Sydney Morning Herald as one of Australia’s Best Young Novelists. Bishop holds a PhD from Cambridge University, lives in Sydney and lectures in creative writing at the University of New South Wales. 

This story deals compellingly with displacement and the life of the emigrant. It follows a couple with two small children as they decide to move from England to Perth, West Australia for a better climate and better lives for themselves and their children. Henry, the father was brought up to be very British in India and upon arrival loves the heat. His wife, Charlotte experiences it differently.

They soon discover the glossy brochure upon which they’d based their hopes for the future had not told the whole story. Their attempts at a garden fail, cockroaches and biting insects make their unwelcome presence known and lurking not at all under the surface is the racism they had not expected to encounter. As the university position Henry was accepted for grows less and less fulfilling for Henry, Charlotte finds other ways to escape her unwanted life on the other side of the world.  

A brave, tender, not at all predictable book that stayed with me for days afterwards. 
Also released under the title Dream England.

Posted by CC.

Catalogue link: The Other Side of the World