Tag: BorrowBox

Treasures in the box – BorrowBox eBooks and eAudioBooks

Xinxin

Find these hidden gems of eAudiobooks and eBooks by New Zealand authors on BorrowBox. Immerse yourself in the storylines that are read by the authors’ own voices. You can download the app from AppleStore or GooglePlay for a better experience.

cover imageMoney in the Morgue : Unabridged edition / Ngaio Marsh, Stella Duffy Read by Stella Duffy
“Shortlisted for the CWA Historical Dagger Award 2018. Mr Glossop’s car breaks down he is stranded for the night at the isolated Mount Seager Hospital. Trapped with him are a group of quarantined soldiers with a serious case of cabin fever, three young employees embroiled in a tense love triangle, a dying elderly man, an elusive patient whose origins remain a mystery … and a potential killer. ” (Adapted from BorrowBox)

cover imageThe Luminaries / Eleanor Catton Read by Mark Meadows
“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.” (Adapted from BorrowBox)

cover imageThe Parihaka Woman / Witi Tame Ihimaera Read by Shavaughn Ruakere, Jim Moriarty
“Richly imaginative and original, weaving together fact and fiction, it sets the remarkable story of Erenora against the historical background of the turbulent and compelling events that occurred in Parihaka during 1870-80. As Erenora’s world is threatened by war and land confiscation, Erenora must take up her greatest challenge and save her exiled husband, Horitana.” (Adapted from BorrowBox)

cover imageThe 10pm Question / Kate de Goldi Read by Stig Wemyss
“The 10pm Question is an award-winning novel which defies all age categories. It does so with a sparkling wit and an operatic cast of characters so delightful and maddening they become dear to us. Frankie Parsons is twelve going on old man, a talented boy with a drumbeat of worrying questions: animals, flu, and cancer. Only Ma answers his 10pm questions, but it is Ma who is the cause of the most worrying question of all. ” (Adapted from BorrowBox)

cover imageDisplaced / Cristina Sanders
“Eloise and her family must leave Cornwall on a treacherous sea journey to start a new life in 1870s colonial New Zealand. On the ship across, Eloise meets Lars, a Norwegian labourer travelling below decks, and their lives begin to intertwine. When her brother disappears, her father leaves and the family are left to fend for themselves in their new home, Eloise must find the strength to stand up. An enthralling historical novel of immigration, courage and first love from an award-winning New Zealand author.” (Adapted from BorrowBox)

cover imageAccess Road / Maurice Gee Read by Heather Bolton
“As she watches her brother losing the battle with his memories, Rowan wonders how long she can keep her own past at bay. Rowan was safe in her ‘upper crusty’ suburb, now drawn more strongly ‘out west’. Clyde Buckley – violent as a boy; enigmatic, subterranean as an old man – returns to his childhood territory. What does he want? What crimes does he hide? And how is Lionel involved? Rowan must find out. ” (Adapted from BorrowBox)

cover imageMister Pip / Lloyd Jones Read by Susan Lyons
“After the trouble starts and the soldiers arrive on Matilda’s island, there comes a time when all the white people have left. Only Mr Watts and his wife remains. As Mr Watts stands before the class and reads the only book left to him, Great Expectations ‘by my friend Mr Dickens’, Dickens’s hero, Pip, starts to come alive in Matilda’s imagination. And on an island at war, the power of the imagination can be a dangerously provocative thing.” (Adapted from BorrowBox)

cover imageA Conversation With My Country / Alan Duff Read by Alan Duff
“A fresh account of New Zealand from one of our hardest-hitting writers. Following Once Were Warriors, Alan Duff wrote Maori: The Crisis and the Challenge. His controversial comments shook the country. A quarter of a century later, New Zealand and Maoridom are in a very different place. Alan never shies away from being a whetstone on which others can sharpen their opinions.” (Adapted from BorrowBox)

Audible audiobooks through BorrowBox

Monty

Did you know that Audible audiobooks are available to library users through Wellington City Libraries’ eLibrary app BorrowBox?

Download the BorrowBox app, choose Wellington City Libraries as your preferred library, enter your card number and pin — and you have access to over 400 Audible original audiobook titles!

Audible are ‘the largest producer and provider of spoken word entertainment, with genre-bending audible originals, and binge-worthy audiobooks’, and having sampled many of their meticulously recorded, carefully constructed audio productions, we think they do a wonderful job!

To set you on your way, here are 7 favourite Audible original titles available now through our BorrowBox service. Listen well!

I’ll Be Gone in the Dark /Gillian Flynn

For more than 10 years, a mysterious and violent predator committed 50 sexual assaults in Northern California before moving south, where he perpetrated 10 sadistic murders. Then he disappeared, eluding capture by multiple police forces and some of the best detectives in the area.

Three decades later, Michelle McNamara, a true crime journalist who created the popular website True Crime Diary, was determined to find the violent psychopath she called the Golden State Killer. Michelle pored over police reports, interviewed victims, and embedded herself in the online communities that were as obsessed with the case as she was.

I’ll Be Gone in the Dark – the masterpiece McNamara was writing at the time of her sudden death – offers an atmospheric snapshot of a moment in American history and a chilling account of a criminal mastermind and the wreckage he left behind. It is also a portrait of a woman’s obsession and her unflagging pursuit of the truth.

(Adapted from BorrowBox Description)

The Rosie result / Graeme Simsion

Hilarious and thought-provoking, with a brilliant cast of characters, The Rosie Result is the triumphant final instalment of the internationally best-selling series that began with The Rosie Project.
Until 12 years ago, geneticist Don Tillman had never had a second date. Then he developed The Wife Project and met Rosie, ‘the world’s most incompatible woman’. Now, having survived 4,380 days of marriage, Don’s life-contentment graph, recently at its highest point, is curving downwards.

Rosie has just returned to work and is struggling with an obnoxious coworker. Don, meanwhile, is in hot water after his latest lecture goes viral. But their real worry is their son, Hudson, who is having trouble at school: his teachers say he isn’t fitting in with the other kids.
For Don, learning to be a good parent as well as a good partner will require the help of friends old and new. It will mean letting Hudson make his way in the world and grappling with difficult truths about his own identity. It will also mean opening a cocktail bar.

(Adapted from BorrowBox Description)

The Body / Bill Bryson

Bryson turns his attention inwards to explore the human body, how it functions and its remarkable ability to heal itself. Full of extraordinary facts and astonishing stories The Body: A Guide for Occupants is a brilliant, often very funny attempt to understand the miracle of our physical and neurological make up.

A wonderful successor to A Short History of Nearly Everything, this book will have you marvelling at the form you occupy, and celebrating the genius of your existence, time and time again.

(Adapted from BorrowBox Description)

The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle / Stuart Turton

Somebody’s going to be murdered at the ball tonight. It won’t appear to be a murder and so the murderer won’t be caught. Rectify that injustice and I’ll show you the way out.
It is meant to be a celebration but it ends in tragedy.

As fireworks explode overhead, Evelyn Hardcastle, the young and beautiful daughter of the house, is killed. But Evelyn will not die just once. Until Aiden – one of the guests summoned to Blackheath for the party – can solve her murder, the day will repeat itself, over and over again. Every time ending with the fateful pistol shot.
The only way to break this cycle is to identify the killer. But each time the day begins again, Aiden wakes in the body of a different guest. And someone is determined to prevent him ever escaping Blackheath …

(Adapted from BorrowBox Description)

Dishonesty is the Second-Best Policy / David Mitchell

But if you’re determined to give it a go, you might enjoy this eclectic collection (or eclection) of David Mitchell’s attempts to make light of all that darkness. Scampi, politics, the Olympics, terrorism, exercise, rude street names, inheritance tax, salad cream, proportional representation and farts are all touched upon by Mitchell’s unremitting laser of chit-chat, as he negotiates a path between the commercialisation of Christmas and the true spirit of Halloween.

Listen to this book and slightly change your life!

(Adapted from BorrowBox Description)

A Gentleman in Moscow / Amor Towles

On 21 June 1922, Count Alexander Rostov – recipient of the Order of Saint Andrew, member of the Jockey Club, Master of the Hunt – is escorted out of the Kremlin, across Red Square and through the elegant revolving doors of the Hotel Metropol.
Deemed an unrepentant aristocrat by a Bolshevik tribunal, the Count has been sentenced to house arrest indefinitely. But instead of his usual suite, he must now live in an attic room while Russia undergoes decades of tumultuous upheaval.
Can a life without luxury be the richest of all?

(Adapted from BorrowBox Description)

Norse Mythology / Neil Gaiman

The great Norse myths, which have inspired so much of modern fiction, are dazzlingly retold by Neil Gaiman. Tales of dwarfs and frost giants, of treasure and magic, and of Asgard, home to the gods: Odin the all-father, highest and oldest of the Aesir; his mighty son Thor, whose hammer Mjollnir makes the mountain giants tremble; Loki, wily and handsome, reliably unreliable in his lusts; and Freya, more beautiful than the sun or the moon, who spurns those who seek to control her.
From the dawn of the world to the twilight of the gods, this is a thrilling, vivid retelling of the Norse myths from the award-winning, bestselling Neil Gaiman.

(Adapted from BorrowBox Description)