News Blog @ Wellington City Libraries

Every month our staff at Wellington City Libraries publish over thirty lists of newly available books, CDs and DVDs on our Library Blogs.

Subjects covered range from Arts to Travel, including Computing, Literature, and Sports.

We are now offering you the opportunity to subscribe to these lists via email. No need to check our blogs to see what is new, the information comes to you directly via email on a monthly basis. We even link to our online catalogue so you can reserve the title that interests you online and pick it up from one of our libraries.

To learn more about this new service, go to our eNewsletter page and start subscribing!

Did you know the school holidays are happening soon!? We librarians have been thinking really hard about some fun activities for your kids to do in the holidays. Here’s a sneak peek at what will be going on…

What a weird place this world of ours is. How weird? Find out with strange, weird and wacky activities going on at your library. There will be martial arts, world records, languages and strange new countries, weird facts and strange stories. You’ll experience all things World Wide Weird at your library in the July Holidays.

For times & locations, check our online calendar.

Here are some new Mysteries to hit the shelves at Wellington City Libraries…

Drawing conclusions / Donna Leon.
“When a young woman returns from holiday to find her elderly neighbour dead, she immediately alerts the police. Commissario Brunetti is called to the scene but, though there are signs of a struggle, it seems the woman has simply suffered a fatal heart attack. Vice-Questore Patta is eager to dismiss the case as a death from natural causes, but Brunetti believes there is more to it than that. His suspicions are further aroused when the medical examiner finds faint bruising around the victim’s neck and shoulders, indicating that someone might have grabbed and shaken her. Could this have caused her heart attack? Was someone threatening her? With the help of Inspector Vianello and the ever-resourceful Signorina Elettra, Brunetti is determined to get to the truth and find some measure of justice…” (Adapted from Amazon.co.uk)

The red coffin / by Sam Eastland.
“It is 1939. The world stands on the brink of Armageddon. In the Soviet Union, years of revolution, fear and persecution have left the country unprepared to face the onslaught of Nazi Germany. For the coming battles, Stalin has placed his hopes on a 30-ton steel monster, known to its inventors as the T-34 tank, and, the ‘Red Coffin’ to those men who will soon be using it. But the design is not yet complete. And when Colonel Nagorski, the weapon’s secretive and eccentric architect, is found murdered, Stalin sends for Pekkala, his most trusted investigator…” (Adapted from Amazon.co.uk)

The king of diamonds / Simon Tolkien.
“J.R.R. Tolkien’s grandson continues to burnish his credentials as a solid writer in his own right with his second suspense novel featuring Oxford Det. Insp. William Trave (after The Inheritance). In 1958 at London’s Old Bailey, David Swain is on trial for the murder of Ethan Mendel, the man who he believed horned in on his relationship with Katya Osman. Thanks to Trave’s testimony, Swain is convicted and sentenced to a life term, but Trave is unable to rid himself of nagging doubts about the case. Two years later, Trave’s marriage has fallen apart. His wife, Vanessa, finds support in the unlikely person of Titus Osman, Katya’s uncle, unaware that Titus is keeping Katya a virtual prisoner in her own home. Meanwhile, an embittered Swain plots an escape from prison to get his revenge on his former girlfriend…” (Adapted from Publishers Weekly)

Shatter the bones / Stuart MacBride.
‘You will raise money for the safe return of Alison and Jenny McGregor. If you raise enough money within fourteen days they will be released. If not, Jenny will be killed.’ Alison and Jenny McGregor – Aberdeen’s own mother-daughter singing sensation – are through to the semi-finals of TV smash-hit Britain’s Next Big Star. They’re in all the gossip magazines, they’ve got millions of YouTube hits, everyone loves them. But their reality-TV dream has turned into a real-life nightmare. The ransom demand appears in all the papers, on the TV, and the internet, telling the nation to dig deep if they want to keep Alison and Jenny alive. The media want action; the public displays of grief and anger are reaching fever-pitch. Time is running out, but DS Logan McRae and his colleagues have nothing to go on…’’ (Adapted from Amazon.co.uk)

Shaken : a Jack Daniels thriller / J.A. Konrath.
“Chicago cop Jacqueline “Jack” Daniels has chased, and caught, dozens of dangerous criminals over the course of her career. But she’s about to meet her match. When Jack wakes up in a storage locker, bound and gagged, she knows with chilling certainty who her abductor is. He’s called “Mr. K.” More than two hundred homicides have been attributed to him. His victims have died in the most horrible ways imaginable. He’s the essence of evil. Some think he’s just an urban legend. But he’s real. Jack has tangled with him twice in the past, and both times he managed to slip away. Now Jack will finally have a chance to confront the maniac she’s been hunting for over twenty-five years. Unfortunately, it won’t be on her terms. In less than two hours, Mr. K is going to do to Jack what he’s done to countless others. And Jack is going to learn that sometimes the good guys don’t win…” (Syndetics summary)

The redeemed : a Jenny Cooper mystery / M. R. Hall.
“The body of a dead man is discovered in an overgrown cemetery in Bristol, the sign of the cross gouged into his flesh. At first it seems to coroner Jenny Cooper that all the evidence points to a horrific, if routine, suicide. Then an enigmatic young priest, Father Lucas Starr, arrives on Jenny’s doorstep, entreating her to hold an inquest into the death of Eva Donaldson, a high profile political campaigner whose past life continued to haunt her. A young man, Paul Craven, has recently been sentenced for Eva’s brutal murder. But despite Craven’s conviction and the evidence against him, Father Lucas is convinced of the man’s innocence…” (Adapted from Amazon.co.uk)

Scones & bones / Laura Childs.
“Charleston tourist notes enhance Childs’s charming 12th tea-themed cozy featuring Theodosia Browning, proprietor of the city’s Indigo Tea Shop (after 2010’s The Teaberry Strangler). During the Heritage Society’s Pirates and Plunder show, someone steals a diamond-embedded skull cup possibly fashioned from the skull of pirate Edward Teach (aka Blackbeard) right beneath the noses of Theo and Drayton Conneley, Theo’s master tea blender. Even worse, the robber fatally stabs college kid Rob Commers, the society’s history intern, and assaults Camilla Hodges, the society’s office manager. While plucky Theo, her faithful shop employees, and CPD’s Det. Burt Tidwell chase a nasty killer, Theo feels romantically torn between her boyfriend, chef Parker Scully, and an attractive newcomer, Max Scofield, a local museum’s PR director. As usual, everyone finds time for abundant tea breaks…” (Adapted from Publishers Weekly)

This month we have interesting new history books for you to borrow:

Romantic revolutionary / Robert Harvey.
“Simon Bolivar was the archetypal romantic revolutionary. Born into privilege and nurtured in the Rousseau’s philosophy of the Homme Sauvage, it was not until the young colonial visited Europe that the taper of revolution was lit that sent the young man on a death-defying quest to fight for the people of his homeland, and eventually liberate the whole of continental South America.” (Syndetics summary)

Behind the palace doors : five centuries of sex, adventure, vice, treachery, and folly from royal Britain / Michael Farquhar.
“From the truth behind the supposed madness of King George to Queen Victoria’s surprisingly daring taste in sculpture, Behind the Palace Doors ventures beyond the rumors to tell the unvarnished history of Britain’s monarchs, highlighting the unique mix of tragedy, comedy, romance, heroism, and incompetence that has made the British throne a seat of such unparalleled fascination.” (Syndetics summary)

Red heat : conspiracy, murder, and the Cold War in the Caribbean / Alex von Tunzelmann.
“America’s secret war in the Caribbean during the Cold War is revealed as never before in this riveting story of the machinations and blunders of superpowers.” (Syndetics summary)

Exorcising Hitler : the occupation and denazification of Germany / Frederick Taylor.
“In Exorcising Hitler, Frederick Taylor tells the story of Germany’s year zero and what came after. As he describes the final Allied campaign, the hunting down of the Nazi resistance, the vast displacement of peoples in central and eastern Europe, the attitudes of the conquerors, the competition between Soviet Russia and the West, the hunger and near starvation of a once proud people, the initially naive attempt at expunging Nazism from all aspects of German life and the later more pragmatic approach, we begin to understand that despite almost total destruction, a combination of conservatism, enterprise and pragmatism in relation to former Nazis enabled the economic miracle of the 1950s.” (Syndetics summary)

Young Henry : the rise to power of Henry VIII / Robert Hutchinson.
“Henry VIII always had problems with women. Born on 28 June 1491, he lived in the shadow of his elder brother Arthur and his dour and autocratic father, Henry VII. Elizabeth of York, Henry’s mother, died when he was twelve and thereafter he lived under the thumb of his formidable grandmother, Lady Margaret Beaufort, who beneath a pious exterior was the arch-conspirator of the last days of the Wars of the Roses. Everything changed when Arthur died of tuberculosis at Ludlow Castle in 1502, less than six months after his marriage to the Spanish princess, Catherine of Aragon.” (Syndetics summary)

Goodbye Sarajevo : a true story of courage, love and survival / Atka Reid & Hana Schofield.
“May, 1992. Hana is twelve years old when she is put on one of the last UN evacuation buses fleeing the besieged city of Sarajevo. Her twenty-one-year-old sister, Atka, staying behind to look after their five younger siblings, is there to say goodbye. Thinking that they will be apart for only a few weeks, they make a promise to each other to be brave. But as the Bosnian war escalates and months go by without contact, their promise to each other becomes deeply significant.” (Syndetics summary)

Wolfram : the boy who went to war / Giles Milton.
“Wolfram Aïchele was nine years old when Hitler came to power: his formative years were spent in the shadow of the Third Reich. He and his parents – free-thinking artists – were to have first hand experience of living under one of the most brutal regimes in history. Wolfram: The Boy Who Went to War overturns all the clichés about life under Hitler. It is a powerful story of warfare and human survival and a reminder that civilians on all sides suffered the consequences of Hitler’s war. It is also an eloquent testimony to the fact that even in times of exceptional darkness there remains a brilliant spark of humanity that can never be totally extinguished.” (amazon.co.uk summary)

The annual international film festival is almost here (July 29 to August 14): time to read or re-read some books that will be making the leap to the big screen. Here are some film festival films based on books, or inspired by books:

Guilty Pleasures. A documentary about the wonders of Mills & Boon! Perfect, since Wellington City Libraries has recently launched its Mills & Boon collection (complete with competition to win a Sony E-Reader – winner announced soon!). Incidentally, the Mills & Boons are fair flying off the shelves: browse for them on the library catalogue here.

Norwegian Wood. Murakami fans take note! Haruki Murakami’s masterpiece, Norwegian Wood, has been made into a film that has caused critics everywhere to wax lyrical. It also features music by Radiohead’s Jonny Greenwood!

Submarine. Based on the novel of the same name by Welsh poet Joe Dunthorne.

The Duel. Based on a novella by Anton Chekov and filmed on location in Croatia.

The Solitude of Prime Numbers. Based on the best selling Italian novel (La solitudine dei numeri primi – which, incidentally, we also have in traditional Chinese) by Paolo Giordano (also incidentally, the author is a particle physicist according to The Guardian).

It looks wonderfully eclectic and interesting! There will of course be much much more in due course. We will let you know when the brochures are out!

Recent picks about languages

The language wars : a history of proper English / Henry Hitchings.
“The English language is a battlefield. Since the age of Shakespeare, arguments over correct usage have been acrimonious, and those involved have always really been contesting values to do with morality, politics and class. THE LANGUAGE WARS examines the present state of the conflict, its history and its future…. grammar rules, regional accents, swearing, spelling, dictionaries, political correctness, and the role of electronic media in reshaping language.” (Globabooksinprint.com)

OK : the improbable story of America’s greatest word / Allan Metcalf.
“It is said to be the most frequently spoken (or typed) word on the planet, more common than an infant’s first word ma or the ever – present beverage Coke. It was even the first word spoken on the moon. It is “OK” — the most ubiquitous and invisible of American expressions, one used countless times every day. Yet few of us know the secret history of OK — how it was coined, what it stood for, and the amazing extent of its influence.”–Publisher’s description. (Syndetics)

Read and write Hindi script / Rupert Snell.
“Read and write Hindi script is a clear step-by-step guide to the written language, with plenty of examples from real-life texts to show how it works in context and lots of exercises to reinforce your learning. This new edition has an easy-to-read page design. You can still rely on the benefits of a top language teacher and our years of teaching experience, but now with added learning features within the course and online.”
(globalbooksinprint.com)

Yufa! : a practical guide to Mandarin Chinese grammar / Wen-hua Teng. “A Practical Grammar of Contemporary Chinese explains the major topics of Mandarin grammar in clear and concise language. Real language examples and plenty of varied and imaginative exercises show how grammar works in practice. This innovative new book facilitates learning by presenting a systematic, jargon-free guide to Mandarin Grammar. The book is broken into three sections: the core structures of Chinese grammar; use of language in context; and useful expressions and patterns.” (Globalbooksinprint.com)

All in a word / Vivian Cook.
“Delve into the Hidden Nature of Words. How do we learn words as a child? How are words born, and why do they die? Why do some never get spoken and others never written? Charmingly illustrated and overflowing with a rich assortment of games, lists, puzzles, and quotes, All in a Word contains everything from polite words to crass words, from p-c words to Shakespeare’s words, from food and wine words to jazz and drug words. It’s an irresistible exploration of the abundance and variety of words. Book jacket.” (Syndetics summary)

Romanian practical dictionary : Romanian-English, English-Romanian / Mihai Miroiu. ” This new dictionary is designed to meet the needs of a wide range of different users, particularly travellers, businesspeople, translators, and students. It is equally useful to English speakers and Romanian speakers.” (Globalbooksinprint.com)

This month a couple of unexpected items plus some classics and a bit of Broadway: from Richter to Pet Shop Boys

Naked Byrd. Two [sound recording].
“This splendid second volume in the Armonico Consort’s Naked Byrd series continues the punning tradition of a cappella versions of choral pieces by composers who, in the words of the Consort’s artistic director Christopher Monks, “wore their hearts on their sleeves”. Thus alongside the familiar repertoire of period religious works ranging from William Byrd to Hildegard of Bingen can be found more recent compositions by John Tavener and the Consort’s own Jonathan Roberts, both of whom contribute moving pieces based around texts by William Blake. But perhaps most moving of all is the “Agnes Dei” section of Samuel Barber’s Adagio for Strings, re-scored by the composer for eight-part harmonies. –The Independent” (Summary from Amazon.co.uk)

The Reich’s orchestra : the Berlin Philharmonic 1933-1945 / Misha Aster.
“There has never been a book written on the subject of the Berlin Philharmonic during the Third Reich, in any language. The historiography is scant, and strewn with rumours and misinformation. This book represents the first comprehensive study of the relationship between Hitler’s regime and its musical crown jewel. The Nazi regime’s patronage afforded the Berlin Philharmonic innumerable privileges unique among German cultural institutions.” (Summary from Globalbooksinprint.com)

The Italian intermezzo [sound recording] : music without words.
“Delivered here with sensitivity and freshness by the BBC Phil’ under Gianandrea Noseada,who approaches each item with relish and stylistic certainty that makes you sit up and listen.The playing,also, is the equivelent of what one might hear in a major opera house,and a good night too. Performance **** Recording **** –BBC Music Magazine,Mar’11″ (Summary from Amazon.co.uk)

Finishing the hat : the collected lyrics of Stephen Sondheim with attendant comments, principles, heresies, grudges, whines and anecdotes / Stephen Sondheim.
“The winner of seven Tonys, seven Grammys, an Oscar, and a Pulitzer Prize, Stephen Sondheim has become synonymous with the best in musical theatre. Now, in Finishing the Hat, he has not only collected his lyrics for the first time, he’s giving readers a rare, personal look into his extraordinary shows and life.Along with the lyrics, both published and unpublished, for all of his productions from 1954 to 1981….” (Summary from Syndetics)

Sviatoslav Richter : pianist / Karl Aage Rasmussen ; translated by Russell Dees.
“Sviatoslav Richter (1915-1997) is widely recognized as one of the greatest pianists of the twentieth century. In this translation of the first full-scale biography of Richter, Danish composer Karl Aage Rasmussen combines his artistic appreciation of Richter’s career with a sympathetic telling of the pianist’s life based on family archives and interviews with people who worked and lived with him.” (Syndetics summary)

The most incredible thing [sound recording] / Pet Shop Boys.
“Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe (AKA Pet Shop Boys) write the music for their first ever full-length ballet. The Most Incredible Thing is a collaboration with choreographer Javier De Frutos and Britain’s leading contemporary dance theatre, Sadler’s Wells. Based on the Hans Christian Anderson story of the same title.” (Summary from Syndetics)

It was a rather wet day last Saturday which was just perfect for our first knit in.  We had a nice friendly bunch of people that gathered to knit, chat, check out our knitting books and drink cups of tea.  We had a few international knitters and it was interesting to see although people knit all over the world there are different techniques. The Knit-in ran from 11am-3pm and we had knitters between the ages of 6-86 from beginners to experts.

Thanks to all the knitters who came along and if you missed out don’t dispair we will be holding another knit in on Saturday 22nd July from 11am-3pm.

This selection of new novels illustrates the great diversity of New Zealand fiction.

Cry of the go-away bird / Andrea Eames.
“Elise as a young white girl in 1990s Zimbabwe, her life is idyllic. Her clothes are always clean and ironed, there is always tea in the silver teapot, gin and tonics are served on the veranda, and, in theory at least, black and white live in harmony. However, this dream-world of childhood cannot last. As Elise grows older, her eyes are opened to the complexities of adult life, both through the changes wrought in her family by the arrival of her stepfather Steve, and through her growing understanding of tensions in Zimbabwean society. As Mugabe’s presidency turns sour, the privileged existence of white farmers begins to crumble into anarchy.” (Adapted from Book cover)

The most beautiful man in the world / Jill Marshall.
“What do a housewife from Hampshire, a pole dancer form Taranaki, a London publisher and an LA soap starlet all have in common? All their lives have been impacted by The Most Beautiful Man in the World. It’s only when he is found floating face-down in his Hollywood pool that they discover the ugly truth- about themselves, about each other, and about the man they’ve chased around the world, and across decades.” (Adapted from Book cover)

The Larnarchs / Owen Marshall.
” William Larnach was a politician and self-made man who built the famous ‘castle’ on Otago Peninsula. In 1891, after the death of his first two wives, he married the much younger Constance de Bathe Brandon. But the marriage that began with such happiness was to end in tragedy. The story of the growing relationship between Conny and William’s younger son, Dougie, lies at the heart of Owen Marshall’s subtle and compelling new novel.” (Adapted from Book cover)

The conductor / Sarah Quigley.
”In June 1941, Nazi troops march on Leningrad and surround it. Hitler’s plan is to shell, bomb, and starve the city into submission. Most of the cultural elite are evacuated early in the siege, but Dmitri Shostakovich, the most famous composer in Russia, stays on to defend his city, digging ditches and fire-watching. At night he composes a new work. But after Shostakovich and his family are forced to evacuate, only Karl Eliasberg, a shy and difficult man, conductor of the second-rate radio orchestra, and an assortment of musicians are left behind in Leningrad to face an unendurable winter and start rehearsing the finished score of Shostakovich’s Leningrad symphony.”(Adapted from Book cover)

The end of longing / Ian Reid.
“Frances, a New Zealand woman, is laid to rest in an unmarked grave in Jamaica in 1894. Her enigmatic husband, the Rev. William Hammond, cannot be found. Reports are later sent to her brothers alleging fraud and, perhaps, murder. Frances is not Hammond’s first wife and his movements have always been elusive.” (Adapted from Syndetics summary)

Island / Penelope Todd.
”An island in a bleak harbour; an isolated quarantine station where a group of nurses works tirelessly to care for sailors and immigrants recovering from the effects of the long sea voyage to the new land. Kahu swims ashore, searching for a woman. Young nurse Liesel, caught in a passionate triangle, is faced with choices both harrowing and intoxicating. Martha, who overseas the hospital and guides the community, is making a kind of experiment with life. Some on the island are too sick to live. Others flame with life. The island is cradle and crucible.”(Adapted from Syndetics summary)

The open accounts of an honesty box / Julie Helean.
“Things are heating up in Easy, a Central Otago town. After lobbying unsuccessfully to get their desperately needed public toilet, the women of easy give up on council, conspiring to build it themselves. Luckily Jinx, a visitor in a campervan, has just the right credentials to get them started. When the town’s unofficial Mayoress, Martha, traps her builder in town, she discovers that Jinx, aside from her non-traditional job, is a hard-to manage lesbian, with a penchant for rule breaking of every kind.” (Adapted from Book cover)

Miranda Bay / Susan Tarr.
“ Miranda, a smart, raucous and bolshy young woman, splurges her entire inheritance on a pile of sagging architecture in the Bay of Islands, sight unseen, simply because it bears her name. One step ahead of bankruptcy, the now not-so-proud owner of the old Miranda Bay Sanatorium, must turn her mistake into a profitable beach resort or lose everything.”(Adapted from Book cover)

Check out our new popular non-fiction books on Economics available for borrowing at our libraries:

The price of everything : the cost of birth, the price of death, and the value of everything in between / Eduardo Porter.
“The Price of Everything starts with a simple premise: there is a price behind each choice that we make individual or collective. Whether we’re deciding to buy a cheeseburger, go to church, or enact health care reform, everything has its price. Eduardo Porter sets out to uncover the hidden logic of price and value that drives all our actions. The connections he uncovers are anything but simple they are unexpected, sometimes shocking, always interesting, and ultimately highly enlightening.” (Syndetics)

The future of work / Richard Donkin.
“Changing attitudes, living patterns and technologies are transforming our relationship with work in such fundamental ways that tomorrow’s workplace will be barely recognizable to that of our parents. To help us make sense of these changes Richard Donkin has examined the forces and themes that are influencing what amounts to a silent revolution in social behavior…. Unless we understand these forces, he warns, policies may be poorly fitted to meet the challenges ahead posed by environmental change and shrinking oil reserves.” (Syndetics summary)

End game : the end of the debt supercycle and how it changes everything / John Mauldin and Jonathan Tepper.
“In “The End Game,” Mauldin takes an exhaustive look at world markets and why the economy has been so unpredictable. The “End Game” details the Debt Supercycle and the sovereign debt crisis, and shows that, while there are no good choices, the worst choice would be to ignore the deleveraging resulting from the credit crisis.” (Syndetics summary)

More than good intentions : how a new economics is helping to solve global poverty / Dean Karlan, Jacob Appel.
“A leading economist and researcher report from the front lines of a revolution in solving the world’s most persistent problem. When it comes to global poverty, people are passionate and polarized. At one extreme: We just need to invest more resources. At the other: We’ve thrown billions down a sinkhole over the last fifty years and accomplished almost nothing.”– Provided by publisher. (Syndetics)

Broke : the plan to restore our trust, truth, and treasure / written & edited by Glenn Beck and Kevin Balfe ; illustrations by Paul E. Nunn ; contributors, Peter Schweizer … [et al.].
“”New York Times” -bestselling author Beck’s new work features his distinctive humor — timed for the midterm elections.” (Syndetics summary)

How to change the world : Marx and Marxism 1840-2011 / Eric Hobsbawm.
“…as the free market reaches its extreme limits in the economic and environmental fallout, a reassessment of capitalism’s most vigorous and eloquent enemy has never been more timely. Eric Hobsbawm provides a fascinating and insightful overview of Marxism. He investigates its influences and analyses the spectacular reversal of Marxism’s fortunes over the past thirty years.” (Syndetics)