Sutherland Shire Libraries News

The winners of the 14th Australian Book Industry Awards  were announced in Sydney last Friday night, 23 May.
 General Fiction book of the Year
The Rosie Project
Don Tillman is getting married. He just doesn’t know who to yet.
But he has designed the Wife Project, using a sixteen-page questionnaire to help him find the perfect partner. She will most definitely not be a barmaid, a smoker, a drinker, or a late-arriver.
Rosie Jarman is all these things. She is also fiery and intelligent and beautiful. And on a quest of her own to find her biological father—a search that Don, a professor of genetics, might just be able to help her with.
The Wife Project teaches Don some unexpected things. Why earlobe length is an inadequate predictor of sexual attraction. Why quick-dry clothes aren’t appropriate attire in New York. Why he’s never been on a second date. And why, despite your best scientific efforts, you don’t find love: love finds you.

Literary fiction book of the year
Burial Rites by Hannah Kent
In northern Iceland, 1829, Agnes Magnusdottir is condemned to death for her part in the brutal murder of two men.
Agnes is sent to wait out the time leading to her execution on the farm of District Officer Jon Jonsson, his wife and their two daughters. Horrified 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 ill-fated tale of longing and betrayal begins to emerge. And as the days to her execution draw closer, the question burns: did she or didn't she?
Based on a true story, Burial Rites is a deeply moving novel about personal freedom: who we are seen to be versus who we believe ourselves to be, and the ways in which we will risk everything for love. In beautiful, cut-glass prose, Hannah Kent portrays Iceland's formidable landscape, where every day is a battle for survival, and asks, how can one woman hope to endure when her life depends upon the stories told by others?


General non fiction book of the year
The stalking of Julia Gillard by Kerry Anne Walsh

This is the story about one of the most extraordinary episodes in recent Australian political history. It focuses on Team Rudd and the media's treatment of its slow-death campaign of destabilisation, with its disastrous effect on Gillard and the government's functioning. It is about a politician who was never given a fair go; not in the media, not by Rudd, not by some in caucus.


Illustrated book of the year
I quit sugar by Sarah Wilson

Sarah Wilson was a self-confessed sugar addict, eating the equivalent of 25 teaspoons of sugar every day, before making the link between her sugar consumption and a lifetime of mood disorders, fluctuating weight issues, sleep problems and thyroid disease. She knew she had to make a change.
What started as an experiment soon became a way of life, then a campaign to alert others to the health damages of sugar.

Biography of the year
The crossroad by Mark Donaldson VC
On 2 September 2008, in a valley in eastern Afghanistan, Trooper Mark Donaldson made a split-second decision that would change his life. His display of extraordinary courage that day saw him awarded the Victoria Cross for Australia, making him the first Australian to receive our highest award for bravery in wartime since Keith Payne in 1969.
Yet Mark's journey to those crucial moments in Afghanistan was almost as exceptional as the acts that led to his VC.
He was a rebellious child and teenager, even before the death of his father - a Vietnam veteran - when Mark and his brother were in their mid-teens. A few years later, their mother disappeared, presumed murdered. Her body has never been found.
Mark's decisions could have easily led him down another path, to a life of self-destructiveness and petty crime. But he chose a different road: the army. It proved to be his salvation and he found himself a natural soldier, progressing unerringly to the SAS, the peak of the Australian military.
From his turbulent early years to the stark realities of combat in the mountains and valleys of Afghanistan, Mark's book is the frank and compelling story of a man who turned his life around by sheer determination and strength of mind.

Book of the year for younger children
The 39 Storey Treehouse by Andy Griffiths and Terry Denton

Join Andy and Terry in their astonishing 39-storey treehouse! Jump on the world's highest trampoline, toast marshmallows in an active volcano, swim in the chocolate waterfall, pat baby dinosaurs, go head-to-trunk with the Trunkinator, break out your best moves on the dance floor, fly in a jet-propelled swivel chair, ride a terrifying rollercoaster and meet Professor Stupido, the world's greatest UN-inventor. Well, what are you waiting for? Come on up! 

Book of the year for older children 
Weir Do by Anh Do
My parents could have given me any first name at all, like John, Kevin, Shmevin . . . ANYTHING. Instead I’m stuck with the worst name since Mrs Face called her son Bum.
Meet Weir Do. No, that’s not a typo, that’s his name! Weir Do’s the new kid in school. With an unforgettable name, a crazy family and some seriously weird habits, fitting in won’t be easy . . . but it will be funny!




International book of the year
The Luminaries by Eleanor Catton
It is 1866, and Walter Moody has come to make his fortune upon the New Zealand goldfields.  On arrival, he stumbles across a tense gathering of twelve local men, who have met in secret to discuss a series of unsolved crimes.  A wealthy man has vanished, a whore has tried to end her life, and an enormous fortune has been discovered in the home of a luckless drunk.  Moody is soon drawn into the mystery: a network of fates and fortunes that is as complex and exquisitely patterned as the night sky.




Book of the year 
The Rosie Project by Graham Simsion

 Its Reconciliation week 27 May-3 June. The theme for 2014 is Lets walk the talk.
What is National Reconciliation week?  
"a time for all Australians to learn about our shared histories, cultures and achievements and explore how each of us can join the national reconciliation effort" NWA website. 
Check out these ten books,  written by indigenous authors, all available from the Library. 

Grace beside me by Sue Mc Pherson
Life is not ordinary for Fuzzy Mac, but it should be. What could possibly be exciting about growing up with her nan and pop in a small country town? Rivalry, romance, Nan's mysterious premonitions, an encounter with a particularly unusual kind of ghost and the mix of characters who live in this high-country town make Fuzzy's life far from boring.



A most peculiar act by Marie Munkara
The story follows the trials and tribulations of Sugar, a 16 year-old Aboriginal fringe-camp dweller. Set in Darwin during the Japanese bombing raids, we meet characters such as: Horatio Humphris (Horrid Hump), Chief Protector of Aborigines, teetotaller and 42 year old virgin; Ralphie Brown, who has the unedifying honour of being the only public servant to ever be sacked; Drew Hepplewaite, redneck racist and female patrol officer armed with balls of steel; and the Administrator's wife, Penelope, who has a fetish for anything oriental. Then there's Sugar's mate Nig Nog, who teaches Sugar a few useful tricks of the "trade" while they do time at the Half-Caste Compound; Fuel Drum's suspicious death at the hands of his six-month-old granddaughter, Honey; and Horseshoe with his wayward and slutty wife, Brumby. With the Aboriginal Ordinances Act and the 'White Australia' policy set as a backdrop, Sugar's resistance to assimilation and the attempts by Horrid Hump and his henchmen to enforce it becomes a protracted battle that ends at the Christmas party from Hell. Interspersed with illicit affairs, stolen children, leprosy and "fucking foreigners," this story sees Sugar and her oppressors finally meet on a level playing field that none of them ever expected - a Japanese bombing raid. 

Calypso Summer by Jared Thomas
 Calypso Summer is a story told by Calypso, a young Nukunu man, fresh out of high school in Rastafarian guise. After failing to secure employment in sports retail, his dream occupation, Calypso finds work at the Henley Beach Health Food shop where his boss pressures him to gather Aboriginal plants for natural remedies. Growing up in urban Adelaide and with little understanding of his mother's traditional background, Calypso endeavours to find the appropriate native plants. This leads him to his Nukunu family in Port Augusta and the discovery of a world steeped in cultural knowledge.

Ruby Moonlight by Ali Cobby Eckermann
Ruby Moonlight, a novel of the impact of colonisation in mid north South Australia around 1880. The main character, Ruby, refugee of a massacre, shelters in the woods where she befriends an Irishman trapper. The poems convey how fear of discovery is overcome by the need for human contact, which, in a tense unravelling of events, is forcibly challenged by an Aboriginal lawman. The natural world is richly observed and Ruby's courtship is measured by the turning of the seasons.   



Us mob Walawurru by David Spillman and Lisa Wilyuka
 Us Mob Walawurru takes place in the 1960s in an Aboriginal community in Central Australia. Told through the eyes of Ruby, a Luritja girl, the story revolves around the new zsilver bullety school and the cultural challenges faced by both the community members and the well-meaning schoolteacher. Ruby tells of her own awakening and she experiences some of the momentous events of the time, including the 1967 Aboriginal citizenship referendum and the buy-back of pastoral leases. With perception and humor, this ground-breaking novel deals with issues of culture, ownership, and reconciliation that are just as pertinent today, while providing insight into the cultural challenges faced by Aboriginal communities and their non-Aboriginal people.


Infamy by Lenny Bartulin

 Taking a Deadwood meets Cormac McCarthy-style approach to recreating history, Alluvium tells the story of William Burr, former English soldier of fortune who is lured to the colony of Tasmania by Lieutenant Arthur Phillip as a bounty hunter, charged to find and capture a notorious escaped felon, Brown George Coyne, who has established a camp in the bush populated with desperates, renegade Aborigines and other escaped convicts. As Burr ventures further into the wilderness on his trail, Coyne grows increasingly mad in a Colonel Kurtz kind of way and declares himself king of the frontier, growing wealthier by the day from ambushes and raiding party forays into Hobart. With most of the armed forces concerned with clearing the land of its aboriginal population, Coyne's influence spreads and threatens to destabilise the entire colony. Coyne's men take a wounded Burr hostage, along with the wife of a corrupt army officer, and together they must try to escape the heart of darkness and warn Phillip that is colony is on the brink of anarchy. A steamy love story, breathtaking action, cut-throat villains and corrupt and deadly officials galore, this is a brilliant and hugely enjoyable recreation of Tasmanian history by a local who is not only a terrific storyteller but also a skilled and evocative writer. It's Kate Grenville meets Cormac McCarthy in a rollicking, galloping tale that's also sensitive and faithful to history. 

Yira Boornak Nyining by an old story retold by Kim Scott, Hazel Brown Roma Winmar and the Wirlomin Noongar Language and Stories Project with artwork by by Anthony (Troy) Roberts.
 Presented bilingually in English and Aboriginal Noongar language text, Yira Boornak Nyininy is an Indigenous Australian story about forgiveness and friendship. Left stranded in a tree by his wife, a Noongar man has to rely on his Wadjela friend to help him back down. Yira Boornak Nyininy came from the wise and ancient language of the First People of the Western Australian south coast - the Noongar people. Inspired by a story told to the American linguist Gerhardt Laves around 1931, Yira Boornak Nyininy has been workshopped in a series of community meetings as a part of the "Wirlomin Noongar Language & Stories Project" to revitalize an endangered language. This story is written in old Noongar, along with a literal English translation, as well as English prose styled by Kim Scott. 


The swan book by Alexis Wright 
 This book is set in the future, with Aboriginals still living under the Intervention in the north, in an environment fundamentally altered by climate change. It follows the life of a mute teenager called Oblivia, the victim of gang-rape by petrol-sniffing youths, from the displaced community where she lives in a hulk, in a swamp filled with rusting boats, and thousands of black swans driven from other parts of the country, to her marriage to Warren Finch, the first Aboriginal president of Australia, and her elevation to the position of First Lady, confined to a tower in a flooded and lawless southern city. The Swan Book has all the qualities which made Wright's previous novel, Carpentaria, a prize-winning best-seller. It offers an intimate awareness of the realities facing Aboriginal people; the wild energy and humour in her writing finds hope in the bleakest situations; and the remarkable combination of storytelling elements, drawn from myth and legend and fairy tale. 

Dark Emu: Black seeds: Agriculture or accident? by Bruce Pascoe
Dark Emu puts forward an argument for a reconsideration of the hunter-gatherer tag for precolonial Aboriginal Australians. The evidence insists that Aboriginal people right across the continent were using domesticated plants, sowing, harvesting, irrigating and storing-behaviours inconsistent with the hunter-gatherer tag. Gerritsen and Gammage in their latest books support this premise but Pascoe takes this further and challenges the hunter-gatherer tag as a convenient lie. Almost all the evidence comes from the records and diaries of the Australian explorers, impeccable sources.

Tiddas by Anita Heiss
 Five women, best friends for decades, meet once a month to talk about books … and life, love and the jagged bits in between. Dissecting each other’s lives seems the most natural thing in the world – and honesty, no matter how brutal, is something they treasure. Best friends tell each other everything, don’t they? But each woman carries a complex secret and one weekend, without warning, everything comes unstuck. Izzy, soon to be the first Black woman with her own television show, has to make a decision that will change everything. Veronica, recently divorced and dedicated to raising the best sons in the world, has forgotten who she is. Xanthe, desperate for a baby, can think of nothing else, even at the expense of her marriage. Nerida, so successful at writing other people’s stories, is determined to blot out her own. Ellen, footloose by choice, begins to question all that she’s fought for. When their circle begins to fracture and the old childhood ways don’t work anymore, is their sense of sistahood enough to keep it intact? How well do these tiddas really know each other?  

Do you regard it as greedy to read more than one book at once?
Do you believe books should be given the respect they deserve, to be savoured, with your entire focus on the story at hand. For you, is it all about quality over quantity? (Or maybe you're just reading a book you simply can't put down!).
When it comes to reading, maybe greed is good. So many books, so little time. You get to read lots of books at once! Granted, it may take you longer to get through each individual book, but overall you will probably get through more of that ever growing TBR pile of books more quickly. Really, its all about options.  Having multiple books on the go is very practical, as this ensures you have something to read no matter where you are and how much time you have. You may have an e-book on your phone, a lightweight paperback tucked in your bag and a weightier tome at your bedside.  Reading more than one book at once also means you never get bored and you can switch books to suit your every mood.  It's flexible and efficient. Or is it? Could this potentially cause confusion with the fiction characters meshing together or the storylines becoming entangled?  Could one of the less engaging books get overlooked and remain unread?
What is your viewpoint on this? Do you enjoy reading multiple books simultaneously? Or do you faithfully read one book at a time?

 Join us for our Seven deadly sins discussion about GREED.
Wednesday, 18 June, 2.00pm
Engadine Library
Book online or call 9548 6003.

When it comes to reading, greed is good, right? 

Books, books and more books...

There's nothing wrong with having a stack of books on your bed side table, the absolute maximum of  30 books checked out on your library card (along with some requests awaiting collection from the library hold shelves), not to mention  your TBR (to be read) list growing longer every day… 

Are you the kind of person who devours the works of favourite authors greedily, always waiting impatiently for their next book?  Do you prefer to read a series simply because that means the story doesn’t end after merely one book, there’s more (and more, depending on the series)  to keep reading?  Do you ever find yourself up to the early hours of the morning reading just one more page, one more chapter? If you answered yes to these questions,  come along to Engadine Library to share and discover lots of books. Old books, new books, more books! Challenge yourself to read as many books as you can before this event. The more books, the better! Bring along as many reading suggestions as you can!