What’s on Press Reader? History & Science Magazines!

Pressreader is one of our great eLibrary resources that is accessible for free with your library card. It offers unlimited access to thousands of newspapers and magazines from more than 100 countries in over 60 languages. Within this blog series, we will be showcasing some of the titles that are currently available on PressReader. This month, we will focus on history and science magazines!

With new information constantly being updated, magazines are an excellent way to keep up with the news coming through from the science and history fields. Learn about astronomy, cave painting or time. You can discover so much about the past, present and future within these magazines. Check out below some of the magazines available on Pressreader.

If you want to read PressReader content and haven’t before, here’s how to get started:

    • Visit PressReader.com, and click the sign in button (top left corner)
    • Select the ‘Library Card’ option and search for ‘Wellington City Libraries’
    • Enter your Library card number, and your ‘PIN’ (the default is the last 4 numbers of your phone number) then click the ‘Sign in’ button – you’re all set!

Continue reading “What’s on Press Reader? History & Science Magazines!”

February’s New Music for Te Awe Part 3

You can check out our first round up of new music for February here and part 2 here.

Albion / Harp (Musical group)
Neil Says: Albion is well named, as former Midlake frontman Tim Smith and his new musical partner Kathi Zung (who is also a puppet maker who has worked with the likes of Guillermo del Toro) have created a work immersed in lonely, windswept, bittersweet English landscapes where the misty moors are shrouded in perpetual twilight. They sought lyrical inspiration from the poetry of William Blake and musically inspiration from the likes of dream pop pioneers The Cocteau Twins and Fleetwood Mac. There are also, unsurprisingly, a few moments that suggest Tim’s previous band Midlake. A dreamy 80’s dream-pop inspired creation that also encompasses English pastoral music, and has a loneliness and eerie sadness running through it.

Gold / Sol, Cleo
Mark Says: Having released Heaven in September last (which made the Best of 2023 list of one of our colleagues), she followed it up with the surprise release of another album ‘Gold’ later that month. As always her music combines the best elements of neo-soul, classic 70’s soul, Jazz & spiritual touches. There’s just something about her music that makes her stand out from the other (too numerous to list) female artists currently mining the same retro sound. Perhaps it’s the organic minimalism of the music that leaves plenty of space for her brand of hopeful personal lyrics, the lack of processing around her vocals, or the way the albums function as a whole to create a sense of soothing calm and quiet strength. Another winner.
Neil Says: Wow, what an album. Intense, intimate, soulful, euphoric, languid and chilled; but it doesn’t achieve this at the expense of ignoring the darker aspects of life. The lyrics are as strong as the music and vocal delivery; everything about it fits and works perfectly. What makes it even more remarkable, is that it just a part of a creative explosion Cleo Sol is undergoing at the moment. She released another album barely a month before this, and is a core part of the phenomenal Sault outfit. It’s neo-soul with strong gospel influences, with a 70’s feel to the musical arrangements that, in places, reminded me of the mercurial Aretha Franklin. As I said at the start: Wow.

Continue reading “February’s New Music for Te Awe Part 3”

Villainous Newtown: crime writers author talk 22 March

 

The Ngaio Marsh Awards, in association with Wellington City Libraries, invites booklovers to an unmissable crime and thriller event coming up, as part of the build up to the 2024 Ngaio Marsh Awards.

The event features two Ngaio Marsh Award winners, one finalist and one of the hottest debut crime writers around!

When: Friday 22 March 6.00 – 7.00pm

Where: Newtown Library

Villainous Newtown Ngaio Marsh Awards Facebook Event

This is a free event, featuring:

Debut author and 2024 entrant Nick Davies, author of El Flamingo

Ngaio Marsh Best First Novel finalist and 2024 entrant Kim Hunt, author of The Quarry

Ngaio Marsh Best First Novel winner Jennifer Lane, author of Miracle

and, rounding this incredible panel off:

Ngaio Marsh Best Novel winner 2023 Charity Norman, author of Remember Me

Continue reading “Villainous Newtown: crime writers author talk 22 March”

Sports Stories: Books from Te Pataka

This blog collects stories and writings of New Zealand sports people, from sportsmen on the field to TVNZ’s sports journalists, from dark horses to well-known champions. This blog also provides unique perspective to some significant sports people and events in New Zealand. Whether you are interested in rugby, cricket, rowing, soccer or Olympics, you will find something interesting to read.

A tingling catch : a century of New Zealand cricket poems, 1864-2009
“Edited by cricket follower Mark Pirie and foreword (and a poem) by well-known cricket historian, former national selector and former president of NZ Cricket, Don Neely. From Samuel Butler’s classic description of the visiting All-England XI in 1864 to Arnold Wall’s widely known First World War piece, ‘A Time Will Come’, to the ‘underarm incident’ of 1981 and more recent cricket poems. This book is sure to appeal to cricket lovers and poetry readers.” (Adapted from the Catalogue)

The Awa book of New Zealand sports writing
“Triumphs, disasters, magic moments, and controversies abound in this collection of writing by top New Zealand sportswriters, including Edmund Hillary’s conquest of Everest, Jack Lovelock’s famous 1,500-meter victory in the shadow of Hitler at the 1936 Berlin Olympics, and Jean Batten’s daring, first solo flight from England to New Zealand. Politics and sports come together in a gripping account of the protests, arrests, and controversy surrounding the South African rugby team’s 1981 tour of New Zealand.” (Adapted from Amazon.com)

A life in sport / Telfer, Brendan
” New Zealand’s best known sports broadcaster Brendan Telfer looks back on his career and deals with the Olympic Games, test rugby, international athletics, apartheid in sport, and radio and television broadcasting since 1974. In this book he covers many controversial topics and provides a personal account of working in the field. Stories include the Goodwill Games, TVNZ insider’s view, and comments about Peter Snell, Murry Halberg, Ted Turner, Jane Fonda, Carl Lewis, Bob Charles, Alan Jones and more.” (Adapted from the Catalogue) Continue reading “Sports Stories: Books from Te Pataka”

Adventurous Huts of NZ: books from Te Pataka

This blog explores huts in the high mountains, dramatic Fiordland or icy Antarctica. Some huts are located on this country’s beautiful landscape and make an internationally distinctive statement and icon, some are functional for local farming and mining, while others mark scientific importance across the ages.

A tramper’s journey : stories from the back country of New Zealand / Pickering, Mark
“A celebration of the culture and spirit of tramping in New Zealand. Mark Pickering takes both a serious and humorous look at tramping from a personal perspective. This is one of the few books on tramping which attempts to explain the appeal of an activity which can be strenuous, uncomfortable and often dangerous, but brings its own unique rewards as a result of the effort.” (Catalogue)

Huts : untold stories from back-country New Zealand / Pickering, Mark
“If huts could talk they could tell the whole history of the back country. Of Scottish shepherds who arrived in the high country with the fresh, vivid memories of the Highland Clearances. Of the flush and fury of goldminers and water-racemen in Central Otago. Of the patient and poorly paid jobs of boundary keepers, musterers and roadmen, who lived in tiny huts in the shadow of huge landscapes. Some of the 1500 huts in New Zealand tells the social and mountain history.” (Adapted from the Catalogue)

The daily journal of an Antarctic explorer, 1956-1958 / Warren, Guyon
“Guyon Warren was one of a small group of men who spent 15 consecutive months in the Antarctic in the late 1950s. Warren was a member and geologist of Sir Edmund Hillary’s team travelling from South Pole to the Ross Sea. With his exploration on the ice he helped established Scott Base, right from the construction of the first hut. In this book he rewards you with insights into the day-to-day conditions experienced by himself and his colleagues in the Antarctic.” (Adapted from the Catalogue)

Continue reading “Adventurous Huts of NZ: books from Te Pataka”

Audition: Our March eBook Club pick!

Image of Audition a tablet with a background that is a photograph of space.

eBook Club pick: Audition by Pip Adam

Read the book that everyone wants to read.

For free and without any waiting. Download a copy here through Libby.

 

Welcome to the WCL eBook Club, where each month we highlight a popular eBook in our digital collection and give access to an unlimited number of downloads on Libby. That means no waiting in long reserves queues – you’ll get instant access to our monthly popular pick!

From 1 to 14 March our eBook Club title is the publishing sensation everyone is talking about – Audition by Wellington’s very own Pip Adam.

Author image by Victoria Birkinshaw

Pip Adam is the author of four novels: AuditionNothing to See, which was shortlisted for the Acorn Prize for Fiction, The New Animals, which won the Acorn Foundation Prize for Fiction, and I’m Working on a Building. Her short story collection Everything We Hoped For won the NZSA Hubert Church Best First Book Award for Fiction.

Continue reading “Audition: Our March eBook Club pick!”