Wellington City Libraries' Fiction Web Page - Previous new fiction books

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JULY 2009 Now that mid winter is upon us, the best way to pass the short wet days and long cold nights, is with a good gripping read. This month we will highlight some brilliant murder mysteries that will not only provide hours of exciting reading, but guarantee an escape from the winter blues. The authors we have chosen are from the Scandinavian countries and Iceland; all have new translations, recently received by Wellington City Libraries. Crime fiction from this part of the world has become very popular, with work from old and new writers being translated for a wider western audience. Nearly all have received national awards for their crime novels, with several being nominated and one winning the Crime Writers Association Gold Dagger award. Information about our highlighted crime novelists, other Scandinavian crime writers, interviews and reviews on new publications can be found at the Scandanavian Crime Fiction Blog. All of the six new crime novels we have chosen, show exceptional talent and craftsmanship and will provide hours of suspenseful, very satisfying reading. Unfortunately all are set in the harsh northern arctic winter, but this should only make us glad we are in the southern hemisphere where are our winters are relatively mild in comparison.
	Arctic Chill by Icelandic writer Arnaldur Indridason is his seventh crime novel. He has become the most popular writer in his country, and now all his novels are translated and published in 26 countries. He won The Crime Writers Association Gold Dagger award in 2005 for his novel Silence of the Grave and his novel Jar City published in 2004, was recently adapted to film, showing at the 2008 Wellington Film Festival. His first novel was published in 1997and he lives in Reykjavik were most his novels are set. Police detective Erlendur, at times a brooding, complex but likeable character features in all his novels. In Arctic Chill, when a young dark-skinned boy, is found frozen to the ground in a pool of his own blood, with a fatal stab wound in his stomach, Erlendur and his team embark on their investigation with little to go on but the news that the boy's Thai half-brother is missing. The investigation soon unearths tensions simmering beneath the surface of Iceland's outwardly liberal, multicultural society. Erlendur is also forced to confront the tragedy in his own past.
	What Never Happens by Norwegian Anne Holt is set in Oslo, again in winter and features husband and wife police detectives, Adam Stubo and Johanne Vik. They are reluctantly called in to investigate as several celebrities have been found dead in the most macabre, horrific positions. Although Adam leads the investigation, it's Johanne who remembers a haunting pattern from her FBI days, a time she has tried to forget. As she attempts to discover whether the Norwegian police are facing an avenging angel or a simple copycat, time is running out, and suddenly Johanne realizes that she and Adam may be next on the killer's list. Anne Holt was born in 1958 in Larvik, Norway. After graduating with a law degree in 1986 she worked for the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation and then for the Oslo Police Department, for two years giving her the right to practise as a lawyer. She started her own law practice in 1994. Her first novel was published in 1993 and has published ten others since, in 25 other countries. She is one of the most successful crime novelists in Norway.
	To Steal Her Love by Finnish writer Matti Joensuu is his second novel to published in translation, the first being The Priest of Evil. Both feature the Detective Sergeant Timo Harjunpaa, who is a credible, pleasant, humane family man. To steal her love is set in Helsinki and tells of a strange nocturnal visitor called Tweety, a skilful picker of locks who tiptoes through apartments in Helsinki. Nothing is stolen, nothing is destroyed. Numerous women wake to an unknown presence in their bedroom, but in the light of morning, it all seems a dream. At first the police take little notice, and the women themselves begin to doubt their own sanity. But evidence accumulates, and as the net closes, Tweety, falls in love with one of his night-time women. He shadows her, daring to approach her secretly only at night. As Detective Sergeant Timo Harjunpaa, investigates, this and other crimes, he is forced in his private life to reassess his values, the significance of those dearest to him, and the nature of love and guilt. Matti Joensuu was born in 1948 and works as an Inspector in the Helsinki Police Department.
	The Black Path by Asa Larsson is her fourth novel. Born in Uppsala, Sweden in 1966, she worked at tax lawyer before becoming a full time writer, with her first novel Sun Storm being published in 2006. This novel was awarded the Swedish Crime Writer's Association Prize for best debut novel. The sequel The Blood Spilt was chosen as the Best Swedish Crime Novel of 2004. All her novels feature heroine Rebecka Martinsson, a tax lawyer. In The Black Path, a woman is found on a frozen lake, her body showing evidence of extreme torture. As Inspector Anna-Maria Mella investigates she realises she will need help as the dead woman was a key figure in a mining company, who has interests around the world. So it isn't long until Attorney Rebecka Martinsson is prying into the company's business affairs. A tangled drama of secrets, perversion and criminality are soon discovered.
	The Redeemer by Norwegian Jo Nesbo is the fourth of his novels to be translated into English. Born in Oslo in 1960 he graduated from the Norwegian School of Economics and began his working career as a freelance journalist and stockbroker before becoming a full time writer. His first novel published in 1997 became a best seller and introduced the tough detective Harry Hole, who is the main character in all his crime novels. He has also written a series of books for children, and four stand alone novels. He has received many literary awards, including national awards for the other Harry Hole novels, Redbreast and Nemesis. The Redeemer is set in Oslo in mid winter. On a street, a man in uniform falls to the ground, after being shot at point blank range in the head. Harry Hole and his team have little to work with: no immediate suspect, no weapon and no motive. But when the assassin discovers he has shot the wrong man, Harry Hole's troubles have only just begun, and after some exceptionally shrewd detective work, the team begins to close in on a suspected hit man, who becomes more and more desperate to eliminate the right target.
	My Soul to Take by Icelandic writer Yrsa Sigurardottir is her second novel to be translated into English. Born in 1968, Yrsa Sigurardottir lives in Reykjavik where she works as a civil engineer. She began writing in 1998, and has published both crime novels and children's fiction. Her central character is Thora Gudmundsdottir, an Attorney. In My Soul to Take, a horrific murder is committed at a health resort situated in a recently renovated farmhouse, which turns out to be notorious for being haunted. Thora is asked by the owner of the resort, the prime suspect, to represent him. Her investigations uncover some very disturbing occurrences at the farm decades earlier, things that have never before seen the light of day.
MAY 2009 Recently the short lists for two major book prizes were announced. The International IMPAC prize, the world's largest literary prize, selected 8 novels from 146 that were nominated by 157 public libraries around the world. The winner, who will receive £100,000, will be announced on 11th June. A Full list of all submitted novels with synopsis of each, the shortlist and links to the nominating libraries can be found at the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award website. The second short list, recently announced was for the Orange Prize for Fiction. This prize of £30,000 is awarded annually for the best original full-length novel by a female writer, of any nationality written in English and published in the United Kingdom the preceding year. The purpose of the award was to move away from the more literary awards and therefore encourage readers with an enjoyable, satisfying reading experience. The first award was made in 1996 amid controversial claims of sexism, but it has now become one of the United Kingdom's most prestigious awards. In 2005 a new award was added, the Orange Award for New Writers, again for works of fiction, but including short story collections and novellas. The winner of the Orange Prize for Fiction will be announced 3rd June 2009. The long list, short list, author's profiles, previous winners and book cub information can be found at the Orange Prize for Fiction 2009 website. This month we will highlight the novels short listed for the Orange Prize. Several of theses novels we have recently received. The following six novels promise great reading with themes, style and structure as diverse as the nationalities of their authors.
	Scottsboro is the second novel written by Ellen Feldman and is a gripping fictional account of one of America's historical miscarriage of justice. Set in Alabama in1931, nine black youths are arrested, originally for fighting with white youths, but two young girls accuse them of rape. One girl eventually drops the rape allegations, but the other continues to say she is telling the truth. The story is told from the perspective of a young journalist, who battles to save the youths from the electric chair and make the girl repent her lie. This case of injustice, that involves racism, sexism and anti-Semitism shocked America at the time and was reported around the world. Ellen Feldman, is a 2009 Guggenheim fellow, a highly regarded lecturer and much sought-after speaker. She was raised in New Jersey and has a B.A and an M.A in modern history. She did further graduate studies in History at Columbia University. She writes both fiction and social history and lives in New York City.
	The Wilderness by Samantha Harvey is her first novel. It tells the story of Jake Jameson an architect who in his early 60s. Unfortunately he is not the man he used to be. He has lost his wife, his son is in prison, and he is about to lose his past. Jake has the beginnings of Alzheimer's. As the disease takes hold of him, Jake struggles to hold on to his personal story, to his memories and identity, but they become increasingly elusive and unreliable. As Jake, assisted by 'poor Eleanor', a childhood friend with whom for some unfathomable reason he seems to be sleeping, the key events of his life keep changing as he tries to grasp them, and what until recently seemed solid fact is melting into surreal dreams or nightmarish imaginings. Eventually we realise that even Jake's clearest memories may not be true. Samantha Harvey was born in Kent, England in 1975. She has an M.A. in philosophy and a M.A. in Creative Writing. She has travelled extensively and has taught in Japan. She currently lives in Bath, England.
	The Invention of everything else by Samantha Hunt is set in New York in 1943 and tells the story of a young chambermaid, Louisa who works at the Hotel New Yorker. From the moment Louisa first catches sight of the strange man who occupies a forbidden room on the thirty-third floor, she is determined to befriend him. Unbeknownst to Louisa, he is Nikola Tesla, inventor of AC electricity and wireless communication, and he is living out his last days at the Hotel New Yorker. Winning his attention through a shared love of pigeons, she eventually uncovers the story of Tesla's life as a Serbian immigrant and a visionary genius, a man who, though esteemed by many, forbade himself human connection. Before the week is out, Louisa must come to terms with her own understanding of love, death, and the power of invention. Samantha Hunt lives in New York City and this is her second novel. The first, The Seas won the 2006 National Book Foundation award for writers under thirty-five. Her fiction has been published in The New Yorker and McSweeney's.
	Molly Fox's birthday by Deirdre Madden is set in during the midsummer in Dublin and is told over the course of one day. While away in New York, the celebrated actor Molly Fox has loaned her house to a playwright friend who is struggling to write a new work. The playwright reflects upon her own life, Molly's, and that of their mutual friend Andrew, who she has known since university. She wonders why Molly never celebrates her own birthday, which falls upon this day? How do relationships evolve over the course of many years? Exploring family, friendship and love, this is a novel about identity. Querying the ideas that we hold about who we are, and showing how the past informs the present in ways we might never have imagined. Deirdre Madden was born in Belfast, Northern Ireland in 1960. She received her B.A .at Dublin University and her M.A. at the University of East Anglia in 1985. She is the author of five previously published novels and winner of several literary prizes, including the Somerset Maugham award in 1989.
	Home by Marilynne Robinson follows on from her Pulitzer Prize winning novel Gilead, and is a variation on the parable of the prodigal son's return. The son is Jack Boughton, one of the eight children of Robert Boughton, the former Gilead, Iowa, pastor, who now, in 1957, is a widowed and dying man. Jack returns home shortly after his sister, 38-year-old Glory, moves in to nurse their father, and it is through Glory's eyes that we see Jack's drama unfold. When Glory last saw Jack, she was 16, and he was leaving Gilead with a reputation as a thief and a scoundrel, having just gotten an underage girl pregnant. By his account, he'd since lived as a vagrant, drunk and jailbird until he fell in with a woman named Della in St. Louis. By degrees, Jack and Glory bond while taking care of their father, but when Jack's letters to Della are returned unopened, Glory has to deal with Jack's relapse into bad habits and the effect it has on their father. Marilynne Robinson was born in Idaho, America and after receiving her B.A. at Pembroke College she went on to study at the University of Washington, where in 1977 she received here PhD. in English. She has been writer-in-residence or visiting professor at numerous universities in America. She teaches at the Iowa Writers' Workshop and lives in Iowa City.
	Burnt shadows, the fifth novel published by the author Kamila Shamsie, is the story of Hiroko Tanaka, twenty-one and in love with the man she is to marry, Konrad Weiss. But one morning as she steps onto her veranda, wrapped in a kimono with three black cranes swooping across the back, her world is suddenly and irrevocably altered. In the numbing aftermath of the atomic bomb that obliterates everything she has known, all that remains are the bird-shaped burns on her back, an indelible reminder of the world she has lost. In search of new beginnings, two years later, Hiroko travels to Delhi. It is there that her life will become intertwined with that of Konrad's half sister, Elizabeth, her husband, James Burton, and their employee Sajjad Ashraf, from whom she starts to learn Urdu. With the partition of India, and the creation of Pakistan, Hiroko will find herself displaced once again, in a world where old wars are replaced by new conflicts. But the shadows of history, personal and political, are always cast over the interrelated worlds of the Burtons, the Ashrafs, and the Tanakas. Kamila Shamsie was born in 1973 in Pakistan and did her university study in America. Her first novel, In the city by the sea was published in 1998 and received the Prime Minister's Award for Literature in Pakistan in 1999. Her novels have been translated into many languages. She and also works as a reviewer and columnist, mainly for the Guardian newspaper and lives in London.
MARCH 2009 We are now well into the New Year, a year that may prove to be a challenge to much of the world. It seems doom and gloom is predicted daily, but an easy method of escape is to be immersed into another world, with some exciting new fiction. Already this year, Wellington City Libraries has received a large amount of new fiction and here we will highlight some of the best that may provide a much needed distraction to daily life. More inspiration can be found on Wellington City Libraries My Library pages at www.wcl.govt.nz/mylibrary/index.html. Another great source for finding great reading material is the long list for the IMPAC Dublin Award 2009 that has just been released. This is one of the largest international awards for fiction. This year having 146 novels nominated from 117 countries, the long list includes synopses and brief author information; there is something for every one. The shortlist will be announced on 2nd April followed by the winner on 11th June. We hope that each of these resources will provide many hours of enjoyable reading.
	The China Lover is the debut novel of award winning journalist Ian Buruma. This is a novel about one woman's struggle to survive in the face of war and occupation during the Second World War. Much to his delight Sidney Vanoven is sent to Japan, in the immediate aftermath of the Second World War, to take the post of film censor. He works in the censor's office watching Japanese films by day and at night he immerses himself in Tokyo's sensual pleasures. His job leads him into the circle of a beautiful film star Shirley Yamaguchi, a passionate and indomitable woman, whose wartime secrets hint at deception and betrayal. As her story unfolds, it seems to point at the dark heart of Japan itself. This is a captivating novel, populated with extraordinary characters, a saga of war, politics, art and erotic fantasy. Ian Buruma was born in 1951 in Holland. He studied Chinese literature and than Japanese film in Tokyo. He began his career as a journalist in the 1980's and his work since, has been much acclaimed and awarded. He has helded many prestigious positions which include Cultural Editor for The Far Eastern Economic Review and Foreign Editor of the Spectator. He was voted one of the Top 100 Intellectuals by the Foreign Policy/Prospect magazines in 2008
	All in the mind by Alastair Campbell is another debut novel. Alistair Campbell is the award winner author of the The Blair Years published in 2007 about his time as press secretary, then official spokesman and director of communications and strategy for Tony Blair and the British Labour Party. Born in 1957 he graduated from Cambridge University where he studied modern languages, then began a career in journalism. In 1986, through alcoholism he suffered a breakdown and after extensive treatment his health was restored. This experience of mental health issues enabled his to write this his first novel. All in the mind is set over a life changing weekend. It tells the story of Martin Sturrock a psychiatrist who is in need of help himself, but is dedicated to his patients. These include Emily is a traumatised burns victim, Arta a Kosovan refugee recovering from a rape, David Temple is a longterm depressive, and while the Rt Hon Ralph Hall MP who lives in terror of his drink problem being exposed. None of these patients realise the Martin Sturrock has hidden demons of his own, and that his life is rapidly falling apart. This is a brilliantly compelling, yet compassionate and at times funny novel
	Nikolski is the debut novel of writer Nicolas Dickner. This multi award winning novel begins in 1989, three young people, born thousands of miles apart, each cut themselves adrift from their birthplaces and set out to discover what , or who, might anchor them in their lives. They each leave almost everything behind, apart from the accumulated memories of their own lives and family histories, and eventually settle in Montreal. Over the course of the next ten years, their paths will sometimes cross and sometimes they narrowly miss each other, as they all pass through the neighbourhoods of Montreal. Their stories weave in and out of other wondrous tales, stories about such things as fearsome female pirates, urban archaeologists, unexpected floods, fish of all kinds, a mysterious book without a cover and a dysfunctional compass whose needle obstinately points to the remote Aleutian village of Nikolski. It is in the accumulation of those details around the edges of their lives that we begin to know these individuals as part of a greater whole. This is a fascinating novel, well crafted and a pleasure to read. Nicolas Dickner was born in 1972 in Quebec. He studied visual arts and literature at university and after travelled extensively. He has published a children's book and two collections of short stories.
	Once on a moonless night is the most recent novel by Dai Sijie author of Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress. When Pu Yi, the last emperor, was exiled to Manchuria in the early 1930s, it is said that he carried an ancient silk scroll inscribed with a lost Buddhist sutra. Eventually, the scroll would be sold illicitly to an eccentric French linguist named Paul d'Ampere, a transaction that would land him in prison, where he would devote his life to studying the ineffably beautiful ancient language of the scroll. The narrator of this novel is an unnamed French woman studying in China in the 1970s, and she hears this story from the greengrocer Tumchooq, who has recently returned from three years of re-education. She visits Tumchooq's stall near the gates of the Forbidden City, many times as she is drawn to the young man and his stories of an estranged father. But when d'Ampere is killed in prison, Tumchooq disappears, abandoning the narrator, now pregnant with his child. As she goes in search of her lost love, she will at last find the missing scroll and discover the truth of the Buddha's lesson that begins "Once on a moonless night". This is a novel full of tales within tales and worlds within worlds, ranging from ancient Chinese empires through communist China to modern Beijing. Dai Sijie was born in China in 1954, now lives in Paris, leaving China in 1984 for France on a scholarship. He eventually became a film director, making three critically acclaimed films before turning to writing.
	The Island at the end of the world is the third novel by Sam Taylor. He was born in Britain and studied at Hull University, then North Carolina University where he read American Studies. He became a journalist for The Observer for eight years, and then in 1921 he moved with his family to rural France and became a full time writer. The island at the end of the world tells the story from eight year old Finn's perspective. He lives with his father, sisters Alice and Daisy on the wreck of an ark on a remote and isolated island. The last remaining survivors of the flood, they rely on this tight-knit family unit for emotional and practical support. For Finn, the island and his relationship with his father encompass his entire world. But Alice, a teenager growing increasingly frustrated and suspicious of the stories their father tells of their past, begins despairingly to seek contact with the outside world. When a boy, a stranger, is washed up on the shore, it appears they may not be alone after all. This is a compelling book, part disturbing thriller, part dark family drama, a riveting read.
	Land of marvels is the sixteenth novel by writer Barry Unsworth. Set in 1914 in Mesopotamia, later to become Iraq, this historical novel is a brilliant commentary on imperial ambition in the Middle East. Sommerville a British archaeologist is excavating a long-buried Assyrian palace. The site lies directly in the path of a new railroad to Baghdad, and he watches nervously as the construction progresses, threatening to destroy his discovery. The expedition party includes Somerville's beautiful, bored wife, Edith; Patricia, a smart young graduate student; and Jehar, an Arab man-of-all-duties whose subservient manner belies his intelligence and ambitions. Posing as an archaeologist, an American geologist from an oil company arrives one day and insinuates himself into the group. But he's not the only one working undercover to stake a claim on the country's rich oil fields. Barry Unsworth was born in 1930 in Durham and now lives in Italy. His first novel The Partnership was published in 1966. His novels have received many awards, the most well know, the Sacred Hunger which was joint winner of the 1992 Booker Prize.
JANUARY 2009 Once again another very busy year has drawn to a close. As with most previous years the collection has again increased by well over 2, 500 new titles and judging by the Readers' Choice reviews, most new books have found appreciative readerships. As we mentioned this time last year, this is a time to look back over all we have read over the past year and remember the novels we enjoyed the most. Many newspapers and magazines that review fiction ask selected guests to list their favourite books of the year. Some can be found at The New York Times best 10 books of 2008, Contemporary Literature Best of 2008 and also at Goodreads' Best Books of 2008. We have asked members of the Wellington City Libraries staff to name their favourite novel of the year also. Many had trouble this year recalling their favourites, which proves the best way to remember what you have read throughout the year is to keep a small journal, listing title and authors, with relevant comments. In years to come it can be a marvellous resource, to check new material by those authors listed, or even to find a similar theme or genre that you enjoyed. It can also remind you of the situations in which you read a particular title, and memories of that time. Our staff chose very different types of fiction, but they were all totally enthusiastic about the books they selected. We hope that you will find something new to read in their selections and that you enjoy them as much as we have.
	The household guide to dying / Debra Adelaide (2008) This was a very enjoyable, satisfying read. (Joy)
	Swan Peak / James Lee Burke (2008) Perfectly delineated characters all cross paths as this novel moves towards a violent confrontation that ties the myriad of plot lines together, as Burke serves up another concoction of vivid, lyrical prose, street wise criminals and woozy existentialism. (Mark)
	A partisan's daughter / Louis de Bernières (2008) This is a novel that unfolds slowly and subtly, and although the reader knows that the relationship is doomed, the characters and stories build in rich layers towards an inevitable conclusion. (Neil)
	Born yesterday : the news as a novel / Gordon Burn (2008) The British news, over a year is transformed into a novel and it is amazingly crafted by a skilled writer. This is a truly gripping novel full of coincidences, quirky detail and intelligent perception. (Linda)
	Falling man : a novel / Don DeLillo (2007) This is a clever, subtle, deep very thoughtful and rewarding read. (Bridget)
	The brief wondrous life of Oscar Wao / Junot Díaz (2008) This is a chronicle of the "cursed" lives of super nerd Oscar, his sister and mother in the Dominican Republic and America. Packed with ill-intended foot notes, this is a free-wheeling, surprising, and multilayered joy to read. (Carmel and Monty)
	Runt / Niall Griffiths (2008) Niall Griffiths produces another powerful and disturbing novel, with its own language and rhythms, and the inevitable violent culmination. (Neil)
	The gone-away world / Nick Harkaway (2008) This is a dazzlingly brilliant debut novel. It's hilarious, gloomy, utterly perplexing and completely mesmerizing. (Craig)
	Tethered : a novel / Amy MacKinnon (2008) A rather different style of writing and theme, I thought it was great. A funny little play on botanical names throughout and a wee bit of a strange denouement, but I really enjoyed it. (Ann)
	Lost paradise / Cees Nooteboom ; translated from the Dutch by Susan Massotty (2008) This was a delightful, charming novel. (Linda)
	Death at intervals / José Saramago; translated from the Portuguese by Margaret Jull Costa. (2008) Death at Intervals is a brilliantly witty novel from a great writer who never disappoints. (Linda)
	The almost moon / Alice Sebold (2007) I loved this novel the first time I read it, but was surprised at how much more it moved me on the second. (June)
	Without a backward glance / Kate Veitch (2008) This is an Australian story about the adult lives of four siblings who were deserted by their mother when they were children. The characters are understandable and plausible and the plot works too. (Sheila)
	The road home / Rose Tremain (2007) A well written, moving novel, that shows the extreme difficulties new immigrants face with language and cultural differences. (Julie)
November 2008 The popular author Kate Atkinson recently visited Wellington and the evening event with her was well supported by avid fans of her many books. This author tour of course was to promote her latest work, which is the final part of what is described as a trilogy, but is really the just the continuing development of some of her original characters. These three novels are classified as murder mysteries, they all fill the criteria for this genre, which is, there is a central mystery not necessary a murder, a group of suspects, a detective, either professional or amateur intent on solving the crime, and a final solution that the reader could arrive at by the logical deduction of clues. Murder Mysteries are the most popular genre in our fiction collection and over the years this genre has become as diverse in theme, character and style as the novels in the general fiction section. This diversity includes themed crime mysteries from chocolate making to scrap booking, embroidery to gardening. There are many historical mysteries, translated mysteries, historical and modern, environmental, Gay and Lesbian, cosy and hardboiled. The location settings are as varied as the themes and many of course follow the lives and careers of one main character who solves the crime. All these types of murder mystery can be found on our Fiction subject help page, where you can search for Murder Mystery books by sub genre. This is month we are highlighting recent novels by six popular crime writers. All are great examples of the diversity of the murder mystery genre and provide excellent entertainment that could easily become addictive.
	When Will There Be Good News by Kate Atkinson, follows on from, Case Histories (2004) and One Good Turn (2006), although is easily read separately. Each novel in this series starts with a horrendous crime, and in the latest a six-year-old Joanna witnesses the brutal killing of her mother and siblings by a knife-wielding madman in the British countryside. We then move to thirty years later and Joanna is now a Doctor and mother living in Edinburgh. Sixteen-year-old Reggie, wise beyond her years, works as her nanny When Dr. Joanna Hunter goes missing, Reggie seems to be the only person who is worried. On the other side of the city, Detective Chief Inspector Louise Monroe, who has appeared in the previous novel, is also looking for a missing person, unaware that hurtling towards her is an old friend, Jackson Brodie, himself on a journey that is about to be fatally interrupted. This is a gripping, fast paced and at times witty novel. The character of Jackson Brodie has appeared in all three novels, and easily endears himself to readers, with his good fortune and evitable bad. Kate Atkinson lives in Edinburgh, but was born in York. She earned her Master Degree in English Literature from the University of Dundee in 1975. Her first novel Behind the Scenes at the Museum won the 1995 Whitbread Book of the Year. She has six published novels, a play and a collection of short stories.
	The Joys of My Life: a Hawkenlye mystery by Alys Clare is the twelfth book in this historical mystery series set in Medieval England. Alys Clare is the pseudonym for Elizabeth Harris, who was born in 1944. She studied archaeology at the University of Kent. The Hawkenlye series of murder mystery are all set in and around the Abbey of Hawkenlye in the twelfth century. It is on the main road form London to the coast. Abbess Helewise is one of the central characters in each novel, along with the Knight Josse D'Acquin. Together they form a strange but successful detective partnership. This latest novel is set in May 1199 and begins as a party of five from Hawkenlye Abbey who have journeyed hundreds of miles for more than three weeks, reach their destination at the Ile d'Oleron. Queen Eleanor has summoned Abbess Helewise and her party to discuss the building of a chapel at the abbey, dedicated to the well-being of the soul of her dear son King Richard. Meanwhile Sir Josse d'Acquin receives secret orders of a very different kind that sets him on the trail of a group of mysterious knights rumoured to be devil worshippers. As with all Alys Clare's novels, the characters are brilliantly drawn, the historical detail is fascinating and the plots believable and exciting.
	The Private Patient by P. D. James is her twentieth published novel. These include a series of books featuring the Scotland Yard policeman Commander Adam Dalgliesh. In this latest novel he is called in to investigate a murder at Mr Chandler-Powell's private clinic in Dorset. A notorious investigative journalist Rhoda Gradwyn, was to have a disfiguring and long-standing facial scar removed. She was planning on the success of this to be the beginning of a new life. Unfortunately she was murdered and not long after Dalgliesh begins his investigation, there is another murder. P.D. James is one of the most successful English detective novelists. Born in 1920, she began work as a full time writer in 1979. Since then she has published twenty novels, and received thirteen crime genre awards. Her work has been published in many countries and translated into fourteen languages. She was awarded an OBE in 1983 and created a Life Peer (Baroness James of Holland Park) in 1991.She has received seven honorary degrees from university in the United Kingdom and was made an Honorary Fellow of Downing College in Cambridge in 1986. Three other Honorary Fellowship follow form other distinguished universities. P.D. James is acknowledged for giving a literary dignity to the murder mystery genre, but all her novels explore the darker and disturbing workings of the human mind.
	The Laughter of Dead Kings by Elizabeth Peters is the sixth novel in her Vicky Bliss character series. Vicky Bliss is an American professor of art history who gets involved in international crime. In this novel the mummy of King Tut has been stolen from Egypt's Valley of the Kings, and Vicki's sometime boyfriend, Sir John Smythe, is a prime suspect. Vicky is unsure that he hasn't returned to his old habits, stealing antiquates and art objects. But with his help she sets out to prove his innocence, although being pursued by Interpol, the Egyptian police and rival gangs of illicit antiquities thieves. The trail for the real criminals and the hunt for the missing object lead them on a wild chase through Europe and Egypt. Elizabeth Peters is the pseudonym of Barbara Mertz, who also writes under the name Barbara Michaels. Born in 1927 she received a Ph. D from the University of Chicago in Egyptology when she was 23. She has been a published writer since 1964. She is best known for her Amelia Peabody series of murder mysteries all set in Egypt from the late 1800 to just after the First World War. There are eighteen books in this series, the most recent being Tomb of the Golden Bird (2006). As Barbara Michaels she has written 20 novels mainly gothic and supernatural thrillers.
	Doors Open by Ian Rankin is his first stand alone thriller in nearly ten years. Last year saw the end of his famous detective Inspector Rebus of the Edinburgh Police, although in this novel there are a few slight references to him. Doors open was originally published in serial form in The New York Times in 2007 and is the reverse of the Inspector Rebus series, as the perspective in this novel is from the criminal side and the dark underworld of Edinburgh. Mike Mackenzie is a self-made who is looking for something to liven up the days. A chance encounter at an art auction offers him the opportunity to do just that as he settles on a plot to commit a 'perfect crime'. He intends to rip-off one of the most high-profile targets in the capital, the National Gallery of Scotland. So, together with two close friends from the art world, he devises a plan to a lift some of the most valuable artwork around while persuading the world no crime was ever committed. This is a fast paced, action packed novel. It is well plotted and witty with the brilliant dialogue. Ian Rankin was born in 1960, after graduating from Edinburgh University he moved to London for four years, then to France where he started his writing career. He is most famous for the seventeen crime novels that feature the character Inspector Rebus, a great favourite with readers. Another series featuring the character Jack Harvey were also successful. Ian Rankin now lives in Edinburgh. He has received four Honorary Doctorates and in 2002 he received an OBE for services to literature.
	Devil Bones by Kathy Reichs is her eleventh novel featuring the forensic anthropologist Temperance Brennan. In this novel she is called in when a careless plumber accidentally knocks through a wall, and finds a secret chamber that holds the remains of a ritualistic display, slain chickens, a goat and a human skull with part of the jaw missing. The forehead is darkened by an irregular stain the exact red-brown of dried blood, and lined with remnants of desiccated tissue. Age, race and sex indicators confirm the skull as that of a young, black female. Just as Temperance is working to determine the post-mortem interval, another body is uncovered. This time the corpse is headless, and the torso is carved with Satanic symbols. Kathy Reichs is one of only seventy-seven certified forensic anthropologist in the United States. She was born in Chicago and received her Ph.D in physical anthropology from Northwestern University in 1975. She is Professor of anthropology at the University of North Carolina. Her first novel, Deja Dead won the 1997 Arthur Ellis Award for Best First Novel.
August 2008 Interestingly four of the authors long-listed for the www.themanbookerprize.com (ultimately won by Aravind Adiga) were recently chosen as part of the Hay 21 list of authors to watch. This list was to celebrate 21 years of the Guardian Hay Literary Festival, held in Hay-on-Wye in Wales. Originally the Festival started with 50 speakers and 2,400 members of the audience, this has grown to this year having 768 speakers/performers and an audience of 140,000. Many famous writers have actually begun their careers at the Festival, and for the young writers listed on the Hay 21 which includes Emily Perkins from New Zealand this is quite an achievement. The complete list with author profiles and some book extracts can be found @ www.ahyfestival.com/wales/hay21.aspx This month we will highlight six of these young writers, showing not only the diversity of their nationalities as the differences in their writing styles and genre.
	Edward Docx has been literary editor and Sunday columnist for the London Express and also a satirical columnist for the London Times. He was born in 1972 and his first novel, The Calligrapher was published with much acclaim in 2003. His second novel, Self Help was published in 2007; this was long-listed for the Man Booker prize that year and won the 2007 Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize for a novel. But with his highly praise third novel, Pravda, published this year he has proved his consistency and ability, therefore has been included in the Hay 21 list. Inspired by the author's own family history, this is a novel of suspicion and loss, love and loyalty and the destructive legacy of deceit. When Gabriel Glover arrives in St. Petersburg to find his mother dead in her apartment, still reeling from grief, Gabriel and his twin sister, Isabella, arrange the funeral without contacting their father, Nicholas, a brilliant and manipulative libertine. Unknown to the twins, their mother had long ago abandoned a son, Arkady, a pitiless Russian predator now determined to claim his birthright. Aided by an ex-seminarian whose heroin addiction is destroying him, Arkady sets out to find the siblings and uncover the dark secret hidden from them their entire lives. Edward Docx is able to capture the feel of St. Petersburg, London, New York and Paris which adds depth to this portrait of a family in turmoil. As the mystery of their mother's life and death is revealed, this haunting story rushes toward a startling conclusion.
	A case of exploding mangoes by Hanif Mohammed is his debut novel. He has been included in the Hay 21 list and his novel has been long-listed for the 2008 Man Booker Prize. Mohammed Hanif was born in Pakistan in 1965; he graduated from the Pakistan Air Force Academy as Pilot Officer, but left to pursue a career in journalism. He has written plays for stage and BBC radio where he is currently head of the BBC's Urdu Service. He lives in London. A case of exploding mangoes is a clever, provocative and funny novel that re-imagines the conspiracies and coincidences that lead to the mysterious 1988 plane crash that killed Pakistan's dictator General Zia ul-Haq. At the centre of this novel is the narrator Ali Shigri, a Pakistan Air Force pilot. His father, one of Zia's colonels, committed suicide under suspicious circumstances. Ali is determined to understand what or who pushed him to such desperation and to avenge his death. What he quickly discovers is a tangle of events: Americans in Pakistan, Soviets in Afghanistan and dollars in every hand. He mounts his elaborate plot for revenge with an ever changing band of accomplices that include a hashish smoking American lieutenant, the chief of Pakistan's secret police, the Air Force squadron's laundryman and a mango besotted crow. This is a darkly comic book about love, betrayal, tyranny and family.
	Another debut novel, God's own country by Ross Raisin, has ensured the author has been included in the Hay 21 list of authors to watch. In this novel the fine line between sanity and insanity are explored which is chilling but entirely convincing. Sam Marsdyke is an awkward late teenager who was thrown out of school after being accused of attempting to rape a schoolmate. Sam now works his family's farm along with his father, and there he notices Josephine Reeves, a 15-year-old whose family has moved from London to the Yorkshire village where Sam resides. From that moment on, Sam's carefully constructed protections begin to crumble and what starts off as a harmless friendship between an isolated loner and a defiant teenage girl takes a most disturbing turn as Sam's tenuous grip on reality slips away. The novel uses much Yorkshire dialect and a stream-of-consciousness narration, which adds to the authenticity of the story. Ross Raisin was born in 1980 and holds an MFA from Goldsmiths College in London, where he resides.
	Child 44 by Tom Rob Smith is another debut novel, placing the author on the Hay 21 list and also on the 2008 Man Booker prize long-list. He was born in 1979, and began writing plays at school and continued at St John's College, Cambridge. He became assistance story editor for Channel 5, after working on several soap operas; he later took a job in Phnom Penh with the BBC, story lining Cambodia's first soap opera. Child 44 has been regarded at a prequel to Martin Cruz Smith's classic mystery Gorky Park. Set in the Soviet Union in 1953, war hero Leo Stepanovich Demidov, a rising star in the MGB, the State Security force, is assigned to look into the death of a child. Leo is annoyed, first because this takes him away from a more important case, but, more importantly, because the parents insist the child was murdered. In Stalinist Russia, there's no such thing as murder; the only criminals are those who are enemies of the state. After attempting to curb the violent excesses of his second-in-command, Leo is forced to investigate his own wife, the beautiful Raisa, who's suspected of being an Anglo-American sympathizer. Demoted and exiled from Moscow, Leo stumbles onto more evidence of the child killer. This is a suspenseful, surprising unexpected novel of love and family, of hope and resilience.
	Sasa Stanisic was born in 1978 in eastern Bosnian. In 1992 their home town was besieged by Serbian troops, he fled with his parents and an uncle to southern Germany where they have remained. He has published short stories and essays. How the soldier repairs the gramophone was short-listed for The German Book Award, as well as winning several other major prizes. The author is the recipient of the Graz and Iowa writing fellowships and has been included in the Hay 21 list. How the soldier repairs the gramophone is a moving, powerful story of a young Bosnian refugee named Aleksandar Krsmanovic. Aleksandar is the apple of his family's eye, but his sheltered childhood ends when ethnic wars brewing in the surrounding republics make their way to his hometown in the spring of 1992. As Serbian troops storm the village, Aleksandar's family hides, but nowhere is safe. The violence forces the family to Germany, where they struggle to adjust to their new lives as refugees. Although this novel captures the catastrophe of war through a child's eyes it contains much natural, witty humour. The semi-autobiographical the hero, Aleksandar, is talkative, precocious and determinedly optimistic in the face of heartbreaking losses, forever making startling little observations on life that somehow get it all wrong and yet sort of right.
	Lastly another Man Booker Prize long-listed title and Hay 21 author to watch is Australian Steve Toltz and his debut novel titled, A fraction of the whole. Steve Toltz was born in Sydney and has lived in Montreal, Vancouver, New York, Barcelona, and Paris working in a variety of jobs, including English teacher and screenwriter. Most of his life, Jasper Dean couldn't decide whether to pity, hate, love, or murder his certifiably paranoid father, Martin, a man who overanalyzed anything and everything and imparted his self-garnered wisdom to his only son. But now that Martin is dead, Jasper can fully reflect on the crackpot who raised him in intellectual captivity, and what he realizes is that, for all its lunacy, theirs was a grand adventure. As he recollects the events that led to his father's demise, Jasper recounts a boyhood of outrageous schemes and shocking discoveries, about his infamous outlaw uncle Terry, his mysteriously absent European mother, and Martin's constant losing battle to make a lasting mark on the world he so disdains. It's a story that takes them from the Australian bush to the cafes of bohemian Paris, from the Thai jungle to strip clubs, asylums, labyrinths, and criminal lairs. This is an amazing, satirical novel that is funny and very entertaining.
Jun/July 2008 Recently the winner of the ninth Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize for Comic Fiction was announced at the annual Guardian Hay Festival held in Hay-on-Wye, Wales. This award has become a highlight of the festival with the winner being presented with a case of Bollinger Champagne, 52 volumes of the Everyman Wodehouse edition and a live Gloucestershire Old Spot pig. This year's winner, from a short list of six novels was Will Self for his novel The Butt. The other eight previous year's winners have included Jasper Fforde, Christopher Brookmyre, Michael Fran and Jonathan Coe. Marina Lewycka has been other only female winner, taking the prize in 2005 for A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian. Although this event occurs at the beginning of summer for the northern hemisphere, we thought we could highlight the winner's novel, along with new humorous fiction we have recently received, to warm and cheer our cold dark days of winter reading.
	A short Gentleman is the second comic novel by Jon Canter, the first, Seeds of Greatness was published in 2006. Canter was born and brought up in the Jewish community of Golders Green, north London. He studied law at the University of Cambridge, and after a short time in advertising copywriting he became a freelance scriptwriter. He became the principal writer for comedian Lenny Henry and also writing for Dawn French, Mel Smith and Griff Rhys Jones. The short gentleman in this novel is Robert Purcell, whose life for a long time, went according to plan. He got a first in Law and then enjoyed a distinguished career as a barrister and a judge. But his life fell apart when he committed a crime. He went to prison. Now he's out, his wife suggested he write an account of who he is and what drove him to his crime. Confession is not an easy task for an English gentleman, but this is what this novel is. Robert has to struggle to come to terms with the forces that brought him down: Elizabeth, the wife who wanted him to change, Judy Page, the ex-girlfriend who came back to haunt him, Pilkington, the childhood bully who grew into an adult bully, Mike Bell, the old friend Robert was always happy to patronise. Finally, there's his father, who proved, at the end of his life, not to be the man Robert thought he was. This is a series of funny, sometimes hilarious, incidents elegantly written with a wickedly dry wit.
	Karen Joy Fowler was born in 1950 in Indiana; Wit's End is her sixth novel. She received her masters in Political Science from the University of California at Davis. She started writing science fiction stories, with her first collection titled Artificial Things being published in 1986. This was followed by several more collections of stories, anthologies edited by her and five novels that include the best known, The Jane Austen Book Club, published in 2004 and recently made into a movie. Wit's End is set in contemporary Santa Cruz. The novel centres on Rima Lanisell, a young woman at loose ends, having just lost her father to cancer. She travels to coastal California at the request of her godmother, Addison Early, who once knew Rima's father well, perhaps too well. Rima is on a mission to discover just what that relationship was really about. But her godmother, a bestselling mystery writer, is secretive and feisty. Over the years, she has tried to protect her work and her privacy as her passionate fans have become ever more intrusive In this age of the Internet, with its blogs, chat rooms, websites, its Wikipedia, false personas, and hidden identities, those fans have begun to take over the plot lines and the life of her famous fictional detective. For many, he is more real than Addison herself. This is a highly inventive take on the way dedicated readers appropriate their favourite books, perhaps the one act of theft applauded the world over, except by authors. This novel is quietly witty and highly inventive with characters that are both oddball and endearing.
	Pontoon : a Lake Wobegon novel by Garrison Keillor was one of the six novels selected for the short list of the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize. Garrison Keillior was born in Minnesota, United States in 1942 and began his broadcasting career, for which he has become so well known, while he was at high school. He graduated with a degree in English from the University Of Minnesota in 1966. Although he has written many novels and stories, based around the fictitious town of Lake Wobegon, he is also known as a columnist, writing for the New Yorker and Atlantic Monthly, musician, satirist, and most popularly as the host of the radio show A Prairie Home Companion, which began in 1974. He wrote the screen play for the movie version of this in 2006. Pontoon as the title says is set in Lake Wobegon and is filled with many wonderful wacky characters and situations. Evelyn Peterson, a sprightly 82-year-old whose secret life of romance and adventure is revealed after her death. Her daughter, Barbara, a please-everyone type with a fondness for chocolate liqueur, finds Evelyn dead in bed. Barbara plans to carry out her mother's strict instructions for a cremation ceremony involving a bowling ball filled with her ashes, and events escalate from there. This is an entertaining very funny novel, in true Keillor style.
	Another very funny novel we have recently received is Deaf Sentence by David Lodge. In it we follow the life of Professor Desmond Bates, who took early retirement from the Department of Linguistics when the university merged it with the English department. He misses the purposeful routine of the academic year, and has lost his appetite for research. His wife Winifred's career is rapidly progressing and he has been reduced to an escort and househusband. The monotony of his days is relieved only by wearisome journeys to London to check on the welfare of his eighty-nine-year-old father, an ex-dance musician who stubbornly refuses to move from the house he is patently unable to live in with safety. But these discontents are nothing compared to the affliction of hearing loss, which is a constant source of domestic friction and social embarrassment. It is through his deafness that Desmond inadvertently gets involved with a young woman whose wayward and unpredictable behaviour threatens to destabilize his life completely. This is a wickedly comic but moving novel about one man's attempts to come to terms with deafness and death, ageing and mortality. David Lodge is an award winning author of fifteen novels and eleven non-fiction works of literary criticism and theory, mainly concerning American and English novels. He has also written adaptations of novels for television and two plays for theatre. He received his degree and masters at the University College London and his PhD at the University of Birmingham where still lives. He taught English until 1987 when he retired to become a full time writer. He retains the title of Honorary Professor of Modern English Literature at Birmingham University.
	The winning novel, The Butt by Will Self is set in a rather distorted world, in a country that is part Australia, part Iraq, part Greenland, a modern day heart of darkness. Tom Brodzinski finally decides to give smoking; a moment's inattention to detail becomes his undoing. Flipping the butt of his final cigarette off the balcony of the holiday apartment he's renting with his family, Tom is appalled when it lands on the head of one his fellow countrymen, Reggie Lincoln. The elderly Lincoln is badly burnt, and since the cigarette butt passed through public space before hitting him, the local authorities are obliged to regard Tom's action as an assault, despite his benign intentions. Worse is to follow: Lincoln is married to a native from one of the rigorous, mystical tribes of the desert interior, and their customary law is incorporated into the civil statute. In order to make reparations to Mrs Lincoln's people, Tom will have to leave his family behind, and carry the appropriate goods and chattels deep into the arid heart of this strange, island continent. This is an imaginative allegorical novel, with a wonderful use of metaphor, typical of Will Self's writing. Since graduating from Oxford University he worked briefly as a cartoonist and began writing fiction. He now has over eighteen published works that include novels, short stories collections and non-fiction and two collections of journalism. He is a regular broadcaster on television and radio, contributor to many magazines and newspapers. He lives in London.
	The autobiography of the Queen : a novel by Emma Tennant is a true-to-life account of the Queen's disappearance, we learn of the monarch's journey (Upper Class Virgin Atlantic) to the Caribbean island of St Lucia, where she has bought a house off-plan. Here, after more than half a century on the throne, she will recall the years of her reign in peace and tranquillity. The story of the Queen's stay on St Lucia is a funny and touching account of the friendship, sometimes contentious and on occasion baffling, between Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth and a young St Lucian, Austin Ford. How the Queen reacts to her new life and how she changes as a result, make this a hilarious and moving tale, a delightful novel. Emma Tennant was born in 1937, educated in London and in the 1950s and 1960s worked as a travel writer for Queen magazine and an editor for Vogue. Her first novel, The Colour of Rain was published in 1964 under the pseudonym Catherine Aydy, and since then shehas published many books in a wide variety of genres, which include thrillers, children's books, fantasies and several revisionist takes on classic novels such as Adele : Jane Eyre's Hidden Story published in 2002, biography and travel.
APRIL 2008 The shortlist of titles for one of the world's largest literary prize, the International IMPAC Dublin prize has been announced. Much to our disappointment Wellington writer Lloyd Jones did not reach the short list for his novel Mister Pip. The eight novels chosen from 137 novels submitted, give a truly international flavour to this award. All were nominated from a total of 161 libraries in 121 cities. The winner, who will receive €100,000, will be announced on 12 June. Full details of all submitted novels, the shortlist and links to nominating libraries can be found at www.impacdublinaward.ie. Recently we have received several new titles from past winners of the Nobel Prize for literature. It is very exciting to think that writers of such acclaim are still producing work that will inspire, enlighten and entertain old and new readers alike. The Nobel Prize began in 1901 is and awarded each year to an author whose body of work meets "the most outstanding work of idealistic tendency" as stated in the will of Alfred Nobel. The full list of past winners, biographies and details of the prize can be found on the Nobel Prize website. The following new material from past recipients of this major award showcases the diversity, skill, and craftsmanship each have developed in their writing and the pleasure they continue to give readers.
	J.M. (John Maxwell) Coetzee was born in South Africa 1940 where he was educated, and graduated from the University of Cape Town with honours degrees in Mathematics and English. In 1968 he received his PhD in English, Linguistics and Germanic Languages from the University of Texas at Austin. He remained in the United States, where he held many teaching positions. His first novel was published in 1969, and since then has been a prolific author of fiction, essays and autobiography, winning the Booker Prize twice. In 2002 he emigrated to Australia, where he holds an honorary position at the University of Adelaide. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2003. Diary of a bad year is his most recent work, and is about friendship, loneliness and the possibility of love. An aging writer asked to contribute to a collection of political essays, keeps a diary of his opinions, which are very strong and topical. After meeting a young unemployed woman, he engages her as his typist. She begins to challenge all his beliefs and opinions. The job and the writer's not unwelcome attraction to her is a much needed distraction, but unfortunately her smart money-making boyfriend has other plans. This novel is written using the three voices in separate sections throughout, but is very thought-provoking, funny and quite moving.
	Nadine Gordimer is another South African born writer who received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1991. She was born in 1923 and has lived all her life in South Africa. Her first novel was published in 1953 and has been followed constantly by thirteen others, eleven collections of short stories, and four books on writing and African literature. Beethoven was one-sixteenth black : and other stories, is the title of her latest collection. The thirteen stories in this collection offer demonstration of how people's origins, inheritances and histories, and the loss of them, are inescapable. The title story centres on the white, twice-divorced academic descendant of a London diamond prospector who visits his forebear's mine in Kimberly, South Africa, and wonders who in the township, black and white, he may be related to. The narrator of "Dreaming of the Dead" is haunted by famous former companions. The daughter of "A Beneficiary", meanwhile, finds an unsettling letter among the effects of her late mother, an actress. Cultural inheritance shadows the marriage of a Hungarian couple that emigrates to South Africa in "Alternate Endings". Always the author puts big, sweeping disasters (the Holocaust, apartheid) in the pasts of flawed, ill-equipped characters and shows how their choices have been little more than wing beats against history. The results are terrifying, sometimes acidly funny and often beautiful.
	Detective story is the latest novel form 2002 Nobel Prize winner for Literature, Imre Kertesz. Born in Budapest in 1929 of Jewish descent, he was deported to Auschwitz in 1944 and from there to Buchenwald, where he was liberated in 1945. He worked for a short time on a Budapest newspaper, and after two years of military service became an independent writer and translator of German language authors. Only three of his works have been translated into English. His semi-biographical novel Fateless, published in 1992 and then again as Fatelessness in 2004 was made into a film, of the same title and was released in 2005. Detective story is a political allegory that takes a subtle look at the price of the war on terror. The story is told by Antonio Martens, a policeman in an unnamed Latin American country, who is awaiting trial for multiple counts of murder after the regime that employed him, was toppled. Martens tells how he was transferred from the criminal investigative branch of the police to the Corps, a security unit, where, free by any meaningful restraints, he pursued the case of Federigo and Enrique Salinas, a father and son who operated the country's leading department store chain and were suspected of plotting treason. Any means were justified to reach the regime's chosen end, the destruction of an entire liberal class. Inside Marten's mind, we inhabit the rationalizing world of evil and see firsthand the inherent danger of inertia during times of crisis.
	Doris Lessing is the most recent recipient of the Nobel Prize for Literature being awarded in 2007. She was born in 1919 in Iran, and with her family moved to Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) in 1925. When her second marriage ended in divorce in 1949 she moved with her son to London, where she has remained. Her first novel was published in 1950, and has been a prolific writer since, writing fiction, science fiction, short stories, plays, essays and autobiographies. She has received numerous awards for her work. She has been a member of the British Communist party, and an active participant in opposing racial and sexual prejudices. Her latest work, The Cleft, is a strange, at times disturbing but fascinating novel. An old Roman senator, contemplative at his late stage of life, embarks on what will likely be his last endeavour: the retelling of the story of human creation. He recounts the history of the Clefts, an ancient community of women living in an Edenic, coastal wilderness. A society free from sexual intrigue, free from jealousy, free from petty rivalries: a society free from men. The Clefts have no need nor knowledge of men, childbirth is controlled, like the tides that lap around their bodies, through the cycles of the moon, and their children are always female. But with the unheralded birth of a strange, new child, a boy, the harmony of their community is suddenly thrown into jeopardy.
	Death at Intervals is the most recently published novel by Jose Saramago. Born in Portugal in 1922, he left school early and trained as a mechanic. After several different types of employment he finally settled at a publishing company, where he worked for twelve years. From there he moved to newspaper work, becoming an assistant editor until 1975. He supported himself from that time on as a translator, and eventually in the 1980's as a writer, with his first international success in 1982 with Baltasar and Blimunda. Nine other novels have been translated and published internationally, but his work in Portuguese includes poetry and essays. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1998. Death at intervals is a witty, original satire. It begins on the first day of the New Year, when no one dies. This understandably causes great consternation amongst religious leaders, if there's no death, there can be no resurrection and therefore no reason for religion and what will be the effect on pensions, the social services, hospitals, Funeral directors? Life insurance policies become meaningless. Amid the general public, on the other hand, there is initially celebration as they have achieved the great goal of humanity, eternal life. But will death's disappearance benefit the human race, or will this sudden abeyance backfire? This is Jose Saramago at his magical best.
FEBRUARY 2008 With the best summer weather still to come and more outdoor activities being possible, leaving less time for long and involved reading, we have decided to highlight a selection of new Short Stories collections by some old and some new exciting writers. Short stories are a popular genre with many readers, as they can be de a show case for the skills of the writer. The plot and character development has to quick and precise using an economy of words. A good short story will always leave the reader wanting more and some can be remembered for years. We have slipped in a graphic novel of stories, for those readers who have yet to experience this genre. It gives a different aspect to the short story form, although sparing in text, the old adage "every picture tells a story" really applies. This type of genre can be as complex and thought provoking as the usual short story. So for an entertaining, satisfying read that will take only a brief amount of time, try something from our selection, hopefully you will be pleasantly surprised.
	Missing Kissinger is the fourth collection of short stories from Israeli writer Etgar Keret. He was born in Tel Aviv in 1967 and since starting writing in 1992 has become a well known and much admired, award winning writer in Israeli literature and cinema. Along with short stories, which have been translated into 22 different languages, he has written plays, children's books and graphic novels. He lectures at the Tel Aviv University's School of Film. Missing Kissinger is a collection of 46 stories, that are fierce, funny, full of energy and insight, and also sometimes dark, tragic and often very poignant. Many of the characters in these stories are waiting for something to change their lives, many of them can't quite reach ultimate happiness, some of them are sick, and some are abandoned, most have trouble communicating. The unexpected can, and usually does happen. These stories are very short with every word being the right one, but all will leave the reader wanting more.
	Miranda July, a performance artist, musician, writer, actress and film director, has published her first collection of short stories, titled No One Belongs Here More Than You: Stories. Miranda was born in 1974, in Vermont, but grew up in Berkley California. She moved to Portland, Oregon after leaving college where she began her performance art. Her musical career began in 1996 and by 1998 she had released three full length LPs. In 2005 she completed her first full length feature film titled, Me and You and Everyone We Know, in which she acted, directed and wrote the screenplay. The stories in here collection have all been previously published in a variety of magazines, including Harper's Magazine and the New Yorker. They are at times funny, dark and very whimsical, with a diverse range of situations and characters.
	Bloodletting & Miraculous Cures is the first collection of stories by Canadian writer and medical doctor Vincent Lam. Born in Ontario in 1974 he did his medical training at the University of Toronto and works as an emergency physician and also does air evacuation work and expedition medicine on Artic and Antarctic ships. His first novel is soon to be published. This debut collection of stories won Canada's most prestigious literary award, the Scotiabank Giller Prize for 2006. The twelve interlinked stories introduce us to a group of medical students over ten years, as they make the transition from medical school to hospital life. The stories span the unique challenges faced by young, inexperienced doctors, having to decide during a first human dissection whether it is more important to follow the anatomy textbook or keep a tattoo intact. They also delve into their private lives, their relationships and family histories, their fears and motivations. Told with black humour, the stories investigation both common and extraordinary moral dilemmas, and a give a sometimes shockingly realistic portrait of today's medical profession. Bloodletting & Miraculous cures is a well written, riveting collection.
	Sadly the great American playwright Arthur Miller died in 2005 and this collection of short stories titled, Presence: Stories had been posthumously published. Of the twenty plays he wrote, the most famous were Death of a Salesman, and the Crucible, for which he wrote the screenplay. The misfits would be his most well known screen play, as it was the last movie made starring his former wife Marilyn Munroe. All six of the stories in this collection have previously appeared in magazines such as The New Yorker, Harper's, and Esquire, and all in different ways celebrate redemption through love. The stories have been arranged along the arc of a life, from the sexual awakening of a young Brooklyn teenager, through a middle-aged writer's creative and marital troubles, ending with an old man's beachside ruminations. This collection is a brief example of Arthur Miller's writing skill, a skill that will be remembered and celebrated for many years to come.
	William Trevor was born in 1938 in Ireland. He attended Trinity College, Dublin and moved to England in 1953. He has been a prolific writer over the years, writing 29 novels 8 collections of short stories, and has won many literary prizes. Cheating at Canasta is his 9th collection, containing 12 short stories. Two of the stories have already won the O. Henry Award, though the volume contains seven unpublished stories as well, and as with all his writing shows a timeless quality. His writing is precise and gives unflinching insights into the hearts and lives of ordinary people. From a chance encounter between two childhood friends to the memories of a newly widowed man to a family grappling with the sale of their ancestral land, all are examined with grace and skill. These stories stay in the mind long after they're finished, because of the subtlety and power that shapes and directs them toward their solemn, sometimes harsh conclusions.
	The Loudest Sound and Nothing is the debut collection of short stories by Clare Wigfall. She was born in 1976 in London and graduated from Manchester University in 1998, after which she moved to Prague where she still lives. She teaches creative writing to children and adults, and runs a face painting and party clown company and a community figure-drawing workshop. The characters these nineteen stories are all searching for something missing, something absent. As they live their seemingly ordinary lives, the dark undercurrent of life, with all its complications and imperfections, is gradually revealed. One long hot summer, Evelyn drowns a wasps' nest, and while digging among the tiny corpses makes a sinister discovery. A university professor arrives unannounced at the door of an Arizona fortune-teller, little knowing how this woman will alter his life and over a Coca-Cola in a village bar in Andalusia a woman hears from a stranger the worst thing a mother can do. They are all extraordinarily compelling, and skilfully constructed miniature masterpieces.
	The Squirrel Mother Stories, although the second collection of graphic shorts by Megan Kelso, it is the first received by Wellington City Libraries. Megan Kelso was born in 1968 in Seattle, Washington and started writing in the 1990's with graphic novels. She has won many awards for her work, including in 2002 the Ignatz Award for Outstanding Artist. From April to September, 2007 she published a weekly comic strip for the New York Times. All the graphic short stories in this collection have been previously published in a wide range of magazines and anthologies. The subjects of these 15 stories can be divided into two types, the semi autobiographical and personal stories of her childhood and adolescence and stories about the idea of America and American history. In each story with just a few panels emotions and ideas are captured that expand well beyond the pages. The work is charming, witty, nuanced, slightly elusive, and sharply observed. Some stories are narrative, some just show the emotion of a single moment in time, but none truly end by the last page. This collection of stories is diverse, clever and a fun read.
NOVEMBER 2007 Once again another very busy year is drawing to a close. As with most previous years the collection has again increased by well over 2,500 new titles and judging by the Readers' Choice reviews, most new books have found appreciative readerships. It has been an exciting year for New Zealand Literature, with many new authors being published and Lloyd Jones' novel Mister Pip winning the Montana Medal for Fiction or Poetry, the Commonwealth Writer's Prize and being short listed for the Man Booker Prize. As we mentioned this time last year, this is a time to look back over all we have read over the past year and remember the novels we enjoyed the most. As newspapers and magazines that review fiction ask selected guests to list their favourite books of the year, we have done the same with members of the Wellington City Libraries staff. They were limited to a very brief reason why they enjoyed the books they chose. Although they chose very different types of fiction, they were all totally enthusiastic about the books they selected. We hope that you will find something new to read in their selections and that you enjoy them as much as we have.
	The Yacoubian building, Alaa Al Aswany ; translated by Humphrey Davies. (2007, c2002) Set in modern day Cairo at the start of the Iraq War, this novel gives a fascinating insight into the lives of the tenants in one of the city's apartment buildings. Through their interactions and relationships in the building and the influences from outside, a wonderful picture is drawn of modern Muslim Society. (Julie)
	One good turn : a jolly murder mystery, Kate Atkinson (2006) Should a murder mystery make you laugh? A wry, clever story and an interesting take on genre. (Bridget)
	Moral disorder, Margaret Atwood (2007). Dreadful cover aside, this was my absolute favourite read of 2007. I am convinced that it is autobiographical even though we were never told so. It is wonderfully written in form of eleven stories, most memorable for me being 'The White Horse' in which we meet Gladys. (Marilyn)
	The uncommon reader, Alan Bennett (2007) The Queen discovers reading in a big way and starts to neglect her official duties in this very funny short novel, which examines the monarchy, the class system, and the power of books to change people's lives (Neil).
	Jesus out to sea: short stories, James Lee Burke (2007) 'Jesus Out to Sea' collects 11 previously published short stories by James Lee Burke, that range from the haunting title story about hurricane Katrina to a trio of poignant coming-of-age stories on childhood friendship, each one infused with his rich and lyrical prose. (Mark)
	Extremely loud & incredibly close, Jonathan Safran Foer (2005). A highly recommended read. I really enjoyed the very different perspectives of all the characters, and nine-year-old Oskar was a totally believable narrator. (Paula)
	A spot of bother, Mark Haddon (2006). I admire a writer who can "be" a toddler and a 60 year-old (and every age in between) with such authenticity. (Shannon)
	The raw shark texts, Stephen Hall (2007). Very clever, fast paced. (Jason)
	The reluctant fundamentalist, Mohsin Hamid (2007). A taut, compelling monologue runs through this tense, though provoking novel, giving a terrific sense of unease and menace. (Fiona)
	Down river, John Hart (2007). Even better than his acclaimed debut 'The King of Lies', John Hart's 'Down River' tells the story of a wealthy young man who returns to his hometown 5 years after being acquitted of a crime he did not commit, but one which everyman believes he is guilty of. A richly layered, literate, and atmospheric 'southern gothic' about family ties and betrayals, the forces of economic change on small towns, and hard won redemption, 'Dark River' is everything that Donna Tartt's 'The Little Friend' wasn't. (Mark)
	The custodian of paradise, Wayne Johnston (2007). This big fat 2007 novel, a sequel to 'The Colony of Unrequited Dreams' (1999) has everything going for it - a wonderful, eccentric central character, a compelling and somewhat gothic setting (Newfoundland), beautiful, clever prose and at the heart of it all - a mystery - who is the man known as The Provider? And what are Sheilagh Fielding's secrets. (Pauline)
	Day, A.L. Kennedy (2007). The damage, both physical and mental caused by war and the struggle for normalization in peacetime, as revealed through Air force Gunner Day's story. A gripping 'boys own story', written by a great female author. (Linda)
	On Chesil Beach, Ian McEwan (2007). This is a brilliant novella telling the story of Edward and Florence, a young couple spending their honeymoon in a small hotel in Dorset, and the way in which their different backgrounds and expectations combine to disastrous effect. (Neil)
	In the dark, Deborah Moggach (2007). I love all Deborah Moggach's books and this one was an excellent read - it is set in a London boarding house in 1916 and involves the widow who runs it, her young son Ralph, the homely maid Winnie, a host of curious boarders and a dashing but shady butcher who becomes romantically involved with the widow. Warmly recommended, and not just by me - it has received excellent reviews in a host of British newspapers and magazines. (Sue)
	The life of hunger, Amélie Nothomb ; translated from the French by Shaun Whiteside (2006). The Life of Hunger was written in a clever fanciful style that was very engaging. (Carmel)
	Thistle and Twigg, Mary Saums (2007). I really enjoyed this book; it managed to surprise me at the end. I would recommend it. (Kylie)
	A bit of earth, Rebecca Smith (2006). This was an original, charming and very satisfying read. (Joy)
SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2007 Recently the short listed contenders for the Man Booker Prize 2007 were announced and our congratulations go to Lloyd Jones for his novel Mr Pip which joined five other authors selected for this honour. This will be the first time since Keri Hulme won the 1985 Booker Prize for her novel The Bone People that a New Zealand author has been so highly recognised. It is a very prestigious fiction prize, with 92 novels submitted of which 18 were selected for the long list. From the 6 novels chosen from this to make the shortlist, the winner will be announced on 16th October. More information on the Man Booker Prize, past winners, recent nominations and author biographies can be found at www.themanbookerprize.com Each short listed author and novel receives endless publicity, so we have decided to highlight the authors and novels that were selected for the long list, but failed to proceed further. Of these seven writers, four were debut novels, probably the highest number for many years and all show exciting new talent. All the long listed novels provide a great diverse reading experience.
	Peter Ho Davies has previously written award winning shot stories; The Welsh Girl is his first novel. Born in 1966 to Welsh and Chinese parents he has degrees in physics and English and was awarded an MA in Creative Writing from Boston University. After working in Malaysia, Singapore and the United Kingdom, he has settled in the United States. He was named in 2003 by Granta magazine, one of twenty "Best of Young British Writers". His short stories have been published in many anthologies, and his two collections The Ugliest House in the World published in 1988 and Equal Love published 2000 both won several literary prizes. The Welsh Girl is a thought provoking novel set in Snowdonia in 1944. It tells the story of the young daughter of a fierce nationalist shepherd, who yearns to escape the confines of her rural life. A German Jewish refugee is sent to Wales to interview Rudolf Hess and in the nearby POW camp, a young German soldier faces the moral dilemma of his surrender and his loss of honour. All these lives intersect and as a perilous wartime romance begins, all three will question where they belong, and their duty to family, country and each other.
	The Gift of Rain is the debut novel by Tan Twan Eng is also set during the Second World War, but in Malaya, and begins in Penang in 1939. Philip Hutton is 16 years old, his father is English and his mother Chinese, and he finds because of this he does not fit easily into society. He befriends a young Japanese diplomat Hayato Endo, and together they share and explore each others' cultures and beliefs. But when the Japanese invade Malay, Philip realises everything he holds dear is threatened with destruction. He also learns that his once trusted friend has been harbouring a devastating secret and to save all that he loves from being placed in mortal danger, he must risk everything. This is a haunting story of betrayal, barbaric cruelty, courage and love. Tan Twan Eng was born in Penang. He studied Law and worked as an advocate and solicitor in Kuala Lumpur. He currently lives in Cape Town.
	Nikita Lalwani was born in Kota, Rajasthan in 1973, and was raised in Cardiff. She worked for the BBC directing documentaries before she started writing fiction. Gifted is her first novel and tells the story of Rumi Vasi, born with a talent for mathematics, who at the age of 8 on a trip to India acquires what seems like a supernatural power with numbers. On returning home to Cardiff her parents decide that the genius of their daughter will be strictly disciplined and that through her they will leave their mark on their adopted country. All goes according to plan, until as a young teenager Rumi starts to rebel and in doing so numbers start loosing their magic for her. As her longing for normality and her parents will to succeed deepen, so too does the gap between the generations widen. This is a dazzling, very funny novel about teenage dislocation, parental expectation and family love.
	The fourth debut novel long listed was What was Lost by Catherine O'Flynn. This novel was also long listed for the 2007 Orange Broadband Prize for Fiction. Beginning in the 1980's we are introduced to a young girl, Kate Meaney, who likes playing detective. With her friend Adrian, the Newsagent's son, they follow imaginary suspects through the newly opened Green Oaks Shopping Centre. When Kate suddenly disappears, Adrian is suspected and driven from his home by the news media. Then in 2004 we meet Lisa, Adrian's sister, who works at the Shopping Centre in a music store. Through boredom she forms an unlikely relationship with a security guard, Kurt and while watching his CCTV screens she becomes entranced by the images of a little girl who keeps reappearing throughout the centre. With Kurt she tries to discover if the sightings of the young girl are linked in any way to the strange history of the Green Oaks Shopping Centre. This clever novel is both funny and sad. It reflects on the ridiculous consumer society we now all belong to.
	Self Help by Edward Docx is set in London and St Petersburg. It is the story of a family half-English and half-Russian. Gabriel Glover lives in London and struggles to hold together a self help magazine he despises. One night Gabriel receives a distressing phone call from his mother Masha who lives in St Petersburg. Bothered by the worrisome sound of her voice he races to Russia only to find her dead in her apartment. With his twin sister Isabella they must discover who their mother really was and more pressingly, who they are themselves. Amidst their quest, their despised philandering father Nicholas must admit some secrets which both he and Masha carefully withheld from their children. Masha's illegitimate son Arkady holds the key to breaking the silence between the father and his grieving children. In the last hundred pages of this absorbing gripping novel, the threads all come together to unearth some surprising revelations and a heart-breaking climax. Edward Docx was born in 1972 and was educated at St Bede's College, Manchester and Christ's College, Cambridge. He is a British newspaper columnist, broadcaster and writer. His first novel, The Calligrapher was published in 2003.
	Michael Redhill was born in 1966 in Baltimore, but has lived most of his life in Toronto. He is best known as a Poet and Playwright, although his first novel Martin Sloane published in 2002 was awarded many literary prizes. His long listed novel is titled Consolation and is his second novel. Set in Toronto, it seamlessly weaves the past and future together. In 1856 a photographer named Hallam took many photographs of the city as it was developing and took these to exhibit in England. On his return, his ship sunk on Lake Ontario and the strongbox holding the photographs was lost. A century and a half later David Hollis is convinced with the changing shoreline to the harbour over the years, this important historic record of the city could be located and retrieved. This is a skilfully crafted novel, with humour, charm and emotion.
	Winnie and Wolf by A. N. Wilson is again another historical novel, this time from a prolific well known author. Winnie and Wolf is the story of the extraordinary relationship between Winifred Wagner and Adolf Hitler that took place during the years 1925-40, as seen through the eyes of the secretary at the Wagner house in Bayreuth. Winifred, an English girl, brought up in an orphanage in East Grinstead, married at the age of eighteen to the son of Germany's most controversial genius, is a passionate Germanophile, a Wagnerian dreamer, a Teutonic patriot. Like Winnie, Hitler was an outsider. Like her, he was haunted by the impossibility of reconciling the pursuit of love and the pursuit of power. Both had known the humiliations of poverty. Both felt angry and excluded by society. Both found each other in an unusual kinship that expressed itself through a love of opera. This dramatic yet philosophical novel relates a fascinating entertaining story. A. N. Wilson was born in 1950 and educated at Rugby and New College Oxford. He is an award winning biographer and writer of nineteen other novels, which include The Lampitt Chronicles, a sequence of five novels. His non-fiction includes The Victorians, After the Victorians and God's funeral : The decline of Faith in Western Civilization.
JULY/AUGUST 2007 The winners of the Montana Book Awards were announced on Monday 27th July 2007. Lloyd Jones won the Montana Medal for Fiction or Poetry for his novel Mr Pip. This was also voted winner of the reader's Choice award. The full list of awards and winners can be found at www.booksellers.co.nz The long list has been announced for the 2007 Man Asian Literary Prize. This is a new major literary prize, intended to give recognition to Asian literature. The long list was drawn from 240 nominations, with the inaugural winner being announced in November. Further information, with the selected long list of titles and authors can be found at www.manasianliteraryprize.org
	The 2007 Orange Broadband Prize for Fiction went to Nigerian writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie for her novel Half of a Yellow Sun, and for this she has received much praise, fame and acclaim. But we are looking at the lesser well known prizes for 2007, and the 2007 Orange Broadband Award for New Writers was given to Karen Connelly for her novel The Lizard Cage. This award was made for the first time in 2005 to coincide with the 10th anniversary of The Orange Prize for Fiction. The winner receives £10,000 to provide greater freedom to continue writing. Karen Connelly is the author of many volumes of poetry and non-fiction, including an award winning travel book titled 'Touch the Dragon: a Thai Journal'. She spends her time living between Toronto and Greece. 'The lizard cage' tells the story of Teza who once electrified the people of Burma with his protest songs against the dictatorship. Arrested by the Burmese secret police in the days of mass protest, he is seven years into a twenty-year sentence in solitary confinement, cut off from his family and contact with other prisoners. Enduring the harsh conditions with resourcefulness, Buddhist patience and humour, he searches for news and human connection in every being and object that is grudgingly allowed into his cell. Despite his isolation, Teza has a profound influence on the world of the cage and he knows he has the power to transfigure one small life, and send a message of hope and resistance out of the cage. Karen Connelly has visited Burma many times and had lived for two years on the Thai-Burma border. This is a beautiful, very human novel which she says is her contribution to the largely unwritten history of kindness. For more information on the Orange Broadband Prize winners, past and present go to www.orangeprize.co.uk.
	Every year the Edgar Allan Poe Awards are announced by the Mystery Writers of America at www.mysterywriters.org to honour the best in mystery fiction, non-fiction, television and film published the previous year. This year the best mystery novel award was presented to Jason Goodwin for The Janissary Tree. Jason Goodwin was born in 1964 and lives in Sussex with his wife and four children. He speaks French and German. He studied Byzantine history at Cambridge University and has written several previous works of non-fiction, including the much acclaimed Lords of the Horizon: A History of the Ottoman Empire. The Janissary Tree is set in 19th Century Istanbul and is the first of a promised series featuring Yashim, a Eunuch and Ottoman detective. As the Sultan plans radical reforms for his Empire a concubine is strangled in the palace harem and a young Janissary cadet is found butchered in the street. Yashim discovers some people will go to any lengths to keep the traditions of the old Ottoman Empire. This is a thrilling, richly detailed historical mystery, with an amazing array of characters, from mystics, archivists, to soup-makers and seductive women. But the darkest of all is the mysterious person who controls the Sultan's harem.
	Nova Swing by M. John Harrison has won the Arthur C Clarke Award 2007 for best Science Fiction Literature. This is the United Kingdom's premiere award for science fiction with the winner receiving a prize of £2007. The Arthur C Clarke Awards can be found at www.clarkeaward.com. Michael Harrison was born in 1945 and writes as M. John Harrison. He published his first story in 1966, and has worked as a literary editor and regular fiction reviewer for several major British newspapers. His work includes non-fiction, short stories and novels, mainly in the science fiction and fantasy genre, although one novel titled Climbers, won the Boardman Tasker Prize for Mountain Literature. Nova Swing is his eighth novel and a well deserved winner. It is set in the Kefahuchi Tract, in a city called Raintown, where the major industry is now tourism. The Tract has begun to expand and change, but more seriously pieces of it have started to fall to earth and onto Beach planets. Next to Raintown is the event site, the zone, from out of which pour new, inexplicable artefacts, organisms and escapes of living algorithm. The wrong physics loose in the universe can cause plague and change. An entire department of the local police, Site Crime, exists to stop them being imported into the city by adventurers, opportunists and the men known as "Travel Agents", profiteers who can manage, or think they can manage all the bad physics, skewed geographies and psychic onslaughts of the event site. Unfortunately a new class of semi-biological artefact is finding its way out of the site, and this may be more than anyone can handle, including the Site Crime police. This is a thrilling, chilling but highly imaginative novel and although a sequel to his 2002 novel Light, it easily stands alone.
	Iris and Ruby by Rosie Thomas has won the 2007 Romantic Novel of the Year Award. This award is made yearly by the Romantic Novelists' Association, www.rna-uk.org and the winner receives £5,000. Rosie Thomas was born in 1947 and lives in London. She is a prolific writer with twenty fiction titles and one non-fiction tile published to date. She previously won the same award in 1985 for her novel Sunrise. Iris and Ruby is set around Cairo and tells of a family relationship spanning three generations; it moves from 1942 to the present day. Iris is eighty-two, frail and forgetful and lives a quiet claustrophobic live in Cairo, under the care of her manservant, Mamdooh. Her life is suddenly disrupted by the unexpected arrival of her troubled and wilful granddaughter, Ruby, who has run away from England to seek solace with the grandmother she hasn't seen for many years. An unlikely bond arises as the two women open themselves up to one another and Ruby helps Iris document her deteriorating memories of the vibrant life she enjoyed in Cairo during World War Two, a time when she lost her heart to her one true love, Captain Xan Molyneux and then lost him to the ravages of the war. This leads Iris to a disastrous marriage and the birth of Ruby's mother, an event which has shaped all their lives. This is deeply atmospheric novel with a skilfully intertwined narrative.
	Salmon Fishing in the Yemen by Paul Torday won the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize for Comic Fiction 2007. This award is made each year for comic writing and is named in honour of P.G. Wodehouse. The winner receives no money, but a case of vintage Bollinger champagne and the honour of having a pig named after him, all befitting of the late P. G. Wodehouse. Previous winners can be found at www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/awards/wodehouse.htm. Salmon Fishing in the Yemen tells the story of Dr Alfred Jones, a fisheries scientist, who leads a very predictable uneventful life until he finds himself reluctantly involved in a project to bring salmon fishing to the highlands of the Yemen. Not only will this project change his life, but it will also change the course of British political history for ever. With characters such as a visionary Sheik, a toady spin doctor, bumbling bureaucrats and thousands of salmon spawn, this is a wonderfully entertaining satire about dreams and belief. Paul Today was born in 1946 and read English literature at Oxford; he lives in Northumberland and is a keen salmon fisherman. He only started writing a few years ago, and his second novel is due for publication in 2008.
MAY/JUNE 2007 In 1983 Granta magazine announced twenty "Best of Young British Novelists" and devoted an entire issue of the magazine to their fiction. The writers had to be less than 40 years of age, British citizens and were chosen from a list of nominees, by a panel of judges. This was a great innovation, giving the writers necessary publicity by bringing them and their work to the attention of the reading public. It also meant that readers became aware this new and exciting fiction and could watch their future progress and development. Some of these young writers could go on to write future classics. The first list of the then young writers included Martin Amis, Salman Rushdie and Ian McEwan. This was the beginning a much anticipated literary event that would occur every decade. In 1993, Louis de Bernieres, Alan Hollinghurst and Iain Banks were some of the writers named and in 2003 they included Monica Ali, Andrew O'Hagan and Zadie Smith. In 1996 Granta magazine announced the Best Young American Novelists, twenty were chosen from many nominated and these included Sherman Alexie, Jeffrey Eugenides, Jonathan Franzen, and Lorrie Moore. This too has become a much acclaimed, discussed and observed event for the American public, all fiction readers and writers. Recently the second American list was announced, nearly ten years since the first. We have decided to highlight six of the writers listed, as their fiction has recently been received and we are sure you will find it as exciting and innovative work, well worth reading. The full list of Best young American Novelists can be found here.
	Daniel Alarcon is originally from Lima, Peru but now lives in Oakland, California. He has won many awards for his fiction and non-fiction writing, including a Fulbright Scholarship in 2001, a Whiting Award in 2004 and a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2007. His short story collection War by Candlelight was a finalist for the PEN/Hemingway Foundation Award in 2006. Lost City Radio is his first novel. It is a powerful and intense look at war's damaging effect on society and the individual. Set in South America, it tells the story of Norma who has not seen her husband since the beginning of the civil war, ten years ago. She presumes he is dead. She starts a radio show where each week she reads out the names of the missing, those who vanished in the clamour and brutality of the drawn-out conflict, with the hope of reuniting the few survivors with their families. Successes are few; her true gift is the offer of hope. Although her face is unknown to her listeners, she becomes a celebrity. Her life is suddenly changed when a young boy from a jungle village enters her radio studio and provides a connection to the husband she thought lost. This is a very moving novel which shows the wide reaching effects war has on a society and the emotional impact on the individual.
	Extremely loud and Incredibly Close is the second novel by the much celebrated Jonathan Safran Foer. He was born in 1977 in Washington DC. , he attended Princeton University where he studied Literature and Philosophy. He is married to the writer Nicole Krauss and they live in Brooklyn, New York but are at present temporarily residing in Berlin, on an American Academy Scholarship. Jonathan Safran Foer has won many prizes for his writing and is best known for his first novel; Everything is Illuminated, published in 2002, which won the Guardian First Book Award and the National Jewish Book Award. In 2005 it was adapted to film. Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close was published in 2005 and uses the events of September 11th attacks on the World Trade Centre as a backdrop for the story of nine-year-old Oskar Schell. Oscar is child genius, an inventor, amateur entomologist, Francophile, letter writer, pacifist, natural historian, percussionist, romantic, Great Explorer, jeweller, detective, vegan, and collector of butterflies. When his father is killed in the Twin Towers attack, he sets out to solve the mystery of a key he discovers in his father's closet. It is a search which leads him into the lives of strangers, through the five boroughs of New York, into history, to the bombings of Dresden and Hiroshima, and on an inward journey which brings him ever closer to some kind of peace. This is an enchanting, deeply sensitive novel.
	Nell Freudenberger was born in 1975 in New York, where she still lives. She has a B.A. from Harvard University and a M.F.A. from New York University. In her early twenties she travelled in India and Thailand where she taught English. Her first book, a collection of short stories, titled Lucky Girls, published 2005 draws on the cultural differences between Americans abroad and their Asian hosts, something which the writer herself experienced. This collection was awarded several prizes including the Pen/Malamud Award for excellence in short fiction and the Sue Kaufman Prize for First Fiction in 2004. Her first novel is titled Dissident and again draws on cultural differences, and is set in Los Angeles and Beijing. A famous Chinese performance artist and political activist takes up an artist's residency in Los Angeles, where he is to stay with a wealthy Beverly Hills family. From the moment he arrives, however, it becomes clear that all is not what it seems, on either side. The dissident seems strangely reluctant to talk about his past, and is happier teaching than working on his own projects; his hosts appear, on the surface at least to be a happy, nuclear family, yet their relationships are, in fact, fraught with rivalries and tensions. What happens when these two very different cultures, one Chinese man living many falsehoods and the other, an American family about to break apart finally collide makes this a great read. The Dissident is written with amazing skill and talent.
	Olga Grushin was born in Moscow and spent her early childhood in Prague. She returned to Moscow to study and achieved a full scholarship to Emory University and became the first Russian citizen to enrol in and complete the four year programme. She has worked as an interpreter for President Jimmy Carter and the World Bank. She is citizen of both Russian and the United States and lives in Washington D.C. Olga Grushin's short fiction has appeared in many publications including the Partisan Review and The Massachusetts Review. Her first novel The Dream Life of Sukhanov was published in 2006. It tells of fifty-six year-old Anatoly Sukhanov who has everything a man could want: a glittering career, a beautiful wife and two children, and a grand apartment in the smartest part of Moscow. He thinks he has achieved his dream to make his own small secure world, and therefore has achieved true happiness. Then Perestroika dawns and the rigid structures of the world in which Sukhanov has thrived begin to crumble and he is beset by heartbreaking visions from his past, when he was a struggling young artist. He wonders if he had ever made the right choices in his life. This is a deeply moving tale of hope and fear, youth and old age, written with great style by a new young talent.
	A Family Daughter is the debut novel of Maile Meloy who was born in Montana in 1972 and now lives in California. She received her M.F.A. in Fiction at the University of California in 2000. Her first collection of short stories titled Half in Love was published in 2002 received the Pen/Malamud Award for Excellence in Short Fiction and the Rosenthal Award. Her second collection of short stories, Liars and Saints was published in 2003. A Family Daughter is set in Argentina in 1979, and is a wonderful tale of the close-knit Santerres family. The novel begins with the youngest member of the family, seven-year-old Gabby, who is forced to stay indoors, during a heat wave as she has chickenpox. What she hears through the open windows and the events that are set in motion that summer will span decades and continents, change the Santerres forever, and surprise and amaze everyone. This is a rich, full novel about passion and desire, fear and betrayal. It illustrates both the joys and complications of contemporary life, and the relationship between truth and fiction.
	Gary Shteyngart was born in 1972 in Leningrad, USSR. His family left the Soviet Union when he was seven. He graduated from Stuyvesant High School in Manhattan and Oberlin College Ohio where he received a degree in politics. He now lives in New York and has taught at Columbia University. His debut novel, The Russian Debutante's Handbook, published in 2003, won the Stephen Crane Award for First Fiction and the National Jewish Book Award for Fiction. His short fiction and essays have appeared in many magazines including the New Yorker and Esquire. Absurdistan is his second novel and was published in 2006 It is a satire about the new Russian oligarchy, the American lifestyle and the two countries' shared megalomania, consumerism and appetite for exploiting small countries. The narrator, son of the 1,238th-richest man in Russia, is Misha Vainberg, an obese 30-year-old with an unrestrained appetite for whiskey, women and sturgeon. He was sent to the United States, to study and become a normal prosperous American. But during a trip back to Russia, his Mafioso father is charged with having murdered an Oklahoma businessman and then assassinated himself. Under those circumstances, Misha can not obtain a visa to return to his beloved USA, or his Brooklyn girlfriend. In desperation, he buys Belgian citizenship and a passport in Absurdistan, a new country being forged out of a staged war between the Sevo and Svani peoples in a small territory between Iran and Russia. The founding fathers of Absurdistan are gangsters working with a large American corporation; here Misha must fend for his life as a civil war erupts in the tiny country, to the concern of almost no one else in the world. This novel is very funny and the author manages to include most aspects of 21st Century life in both Central Asia and America through the main characters sharp insights and observations.
MARCH/APRIL 2007 This month the regional winners of the 21st Commonwealth Foundation's Writers' Book Prize have been announced. As a New Zealand author has won the South East Asian and South Pacific region prize for Best Book, we thought we would highlight the other winners of each region and some of the winners of the Best First Book prizes. The Commonwealth Foundation Writers' Prize was established in 1987 to encourage and reward new fiction writing in the Commonwealth. This also enables the winning fiction to reach a worldwide audience. There are four regions Africa, Canada and the Caribbean, Europe and South Asia, South East Asia and South Pacific, short lists are decided from nominations for Best Book and Best First Book. The two winners of each region receive £1,000 and go through to the final selection by an international panel for the Overall Best Book award of £10,000 and the Overall Best First Book award £5000. This year the overall winners will be announced in May, and the awards present in Jamaica. For more information on the Commonwealth Foundation and the lists of the nominated titles on each region's short list can be viewed on the Commonwealth Foundation's website.
	Wellington's Lloyd Jones has been awarded the South East Asian and South Pacific Region Best Book prize for his novel Mister Pip. Born in 1955, Lloyd Jones has written nine novels, numerous shorts stories, edited many collections and was series editor for Four Winds Press essay publications. His novel, Book of Fame won the 2001 Montana Book Award and has been adapted for theatre. He has also been awarded the Katherine Mansfield Fellowship and recently Creative New Zealand's Berlin Writers' Residency. Mister Pip is set in on the island of Bougainville in 1991 and the story is told through 13 year old Matilda. The coastal village she lives in with her mother is relatively tranquil although war is a short distance away on the other side of the island. When a reclusive New Zealander Mr Watts decides to open the abandoned school, Matilda's world is gradually changed. Mr Watts introduces the children to Great Expectations by Charles Dickens and his characters, especially Mr Pip become as real to Matilda as any living person. But on an island at war, the power of fiction has dangerous consequences that will lead to an unforeseen and shocking climax. This is a powerful novel of survival and the search for understanding that remains in the mind long after the last page is read.
	The winner of the Best First Book for the South East Asian and South Pacific Region is by Australian author Andrew O'Connor and is titled Tuvalu. Set in Tokyo is tells the story of Noah Tuttle who is aimlessly living a half kind of life in a cheap rundown hostel in the seamier margins of the city. He teaches mediocre English to disinterested students, sleeps with his girlfriend, Tilly, when she's around, drinks beer when he can afford it, and generally avoids other people and their expectations. Nothing much happens to him, until, that is, he meets the wealthy, captivating and completely self-absorbed Mami Kaketa, a supremely selfish creature who leaves people like so much litter in her wake. This is a dark, funny, inconclusive and strange story of ennui, escape, exile and dreams. It follows the emotional complexities of a young Australian caught between two very different cultures. Andrew O'Connor was born in Victoria, Australia in 1978. After studying Arts at Melbourne University he worked and travelled in central and northern Australia and then Japan.
	Friends of Meager Fortune by David Adams won the prize for Best Book of the Canada and Caribbean region. David Adams is a multi-award winning author, born in 1950 in New Brunswick, Canada. Not only has he written many novels, but also several screen plays, award winning non-fiction and poetry. He has been writer-in- residence at numerous American Universities. The Friends of Meager Fortunes is an engrossing story of fate and the drama of small town life, a transfixing love story and a devastating portrait of a society. It is the story of the lumberjacks who felled the trees by hand and dragged them down mountainsides with horses. Owen Jameson and his men will become part of New Brunswick history, setting up camp on the notoriously dangerous Good Friday Mountain. The teamsters spend months in pitiless ice and snow, daily pitting themselves against nature and risking their lives for scant reward, in the last moments before the coming of mechanization that will make them obsolete. This heroic, brutal life is all Meager Fortune, the camp keeper, knows. This is a book about true greatness and true weakness; about the relentlessness of fate and the evil that men and women do.
	The winner of Best Book for Europe and South Asia is The Perfect Man by Nerrm Murr. In this his third novel he tells story of Rajiv Travers, the child of an Indian mother and English father, is abandoned first to relatives in London and later to the care of his uncle's mistress, Ruth Winters, who lives in a small American town. Ruth is a remote figure who writes romance novels filled with beautiful women who find perfect men. The town, in the backwoods of 1950s Missouri turns out to be as exotic and strange to Rajiv as he is to its inhabitants. But Rajiv, though always an outsider, finds acceptance when he is befriended by four of the town's children. As the children grow older, their friendship becomes increasingly intense, and is complicated not only by desire and shifting loyalties, but also by the personal failings and secrets of the adults around them. One secret in particular is masked by silence and when the silence finally breaks, the violence, anger, and madness that erupts costs one of Rajiv's friends the chance for any real future and draws this novel to a harrowing conclusion. This is a powerful haunting novel. Naeem Murr was born and raised in London, but has lived in the United States of America since 1987. The recipient of numerous awards and scholarships for his writing, he has published a number of prize-winning short stories, novellas and non-fiction pieces in literary journal. His first novel, The Boy published in 1988 was translated into six languages.
	The winner of the Best First Book for the Europe and South Asia region is Hisham Matar, for his novel titled, In the Country of Men. Hisham Matar was born in New York in 1970 and spent his childhood in Cairo. He has lived in London since 1986. This is a breathtakingly emotional novel that becomes utterly gripping, told from the perspective of nine-year old Suleiman, living in Libya in the 1970s under the brutal Qaddafi regime. His world becomes terrifying and bewildering when his best friend's father disappears and is next seen on state television at a public execution; when a mysterious man sits outside the house all day and asks strange questions; when his mother and uncle burn all his father's books when they know what an avid reader he is; and when it seems his father has finally disappeared for good. Soon, the whispers and fears, secrets and lies will become so intense that Suleiman can bear them no longer and in his terrified effort to save his family may end up betraying his friends, his parents and ultimately himself.
	The winner of the Best Book award for the region of Africa was The Native Commissioner by Shaun Johnson. This is a compelling fictional account of the colonial era and the birth of apartheid. Shaun Johnson, who lives in Cape Town, is one of Nelson Mandela's closest associates and one of South Africa's leading political journalist. He worked for many years as a journalist before launching South Africa's Sunday Independent and becoming Managing Director of Independent Newspapers. He then became Chief Executive for the Mandela Rhodes Foundation. The Native Commissioner is based on his Father's papers and tells of George Jameson, who through the 1940s to 1960s was responsible for the natives in his appointed region. He could speak several tribal languages and had a reputation for kindness, fairness and trustworthiness. Then after the 1948 elections he finds that he his moved from one post to another, further and further out into the back areas of South Africa. The laws of apartheid and regulations horrify him, but he continues to do his best as humanely as he can, but gradually it is all too much for him and he sinks into a depression and an early grave at his own hand. This is a fascinating, complex novel about a decent kind man trying to fight the black depression that takes hold of him while trying also to make sense of a world that has turned completely upside down.
FEBRUARY 2007 The first major prize long list to be announced this year is for the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize. This was inaugurated by the British newspaper, The Independent in 1990 to honour fiction translated and published in Britain. It ran for five years and was revived in 2001 with the support of the Arts Council of England. The prize of £10,000 (divided equally between the author and the translator) is awarded to a novel or short story collection that was published in the United Kingdom the year preceding the award. The other stipulation is that the author must be alive at the time the translation is published. This is a unique award as both the writer and the translator are judged equally. From the 86 titles submitted, the judges chose a long list of 20, with a truly international mix, from countries such as Cuba, Norway, Italy, Afghanistan, Albania, and Angola. The short list from this will be decided in March, with the winner being announced a few months later. The 2007 long list, previous year's winners and finalists can be found @ Wikipedia. This month, we have decided to highlight several long listed titles. These books all give great examples of exemplary writing and translation skills and cover a broad range of topics. We guarantee there will be at least one title that you won't be able to put down.
	The book about Blanche and Marie by Per Olov Enquist is a fascinating, extraordinary biographical fiction. It tells the story of Blanche Wittman, who having been diagnosed with hysteria in 1878 was committed to Salpetriere Hospital for sixteen years. She was placed under the care of the famous M. Charcot. Over time the nature her relationship with M. Charcot developed and changed until eventually she graduated from patient to assistant. On leaving the hospital she was hired by Marie Curie to work in her Paris laboratory, where, on 17 February 1898, after successful experiments conducted with the mineral pitchblende, radium was discovered. So enchanted was Marie by its soft blue glow that she took to keeping a glass vial of radium salts at her bedside. For Blanche, the effects were more brutal; exposure to radiation necessitated the amputation of all her limbs, save one. Marie did not escape tragedy altogether; her husband and collaborator Pierre was weakened by illness and subsequently killed having wandered in front of an oncoming horse and cart. Following Pierre's death Marie embarked on an ill-fated love affair which, in 1911, almost cost her a second Nobel Prize. With the use of fact and fiction, the story of Blanche and Marie tells of the relationship of two extraordinary women at a time of tremendous scientific and social change. Per Olov Enquist was born in Sweden in 1930 and is one of Sweden's best known authors internationally. He has worked as a journalist, playwright and novelist. In the nineties he gained international recognition for his novel The Visit of the Royal Physician.
	Atiq Rahimi is an Afghan writer and film-maker who has lived in France since 1985. His second novel The thousand a Rooms of Dream and Fear explores the fractured mind and emotions of a country caught between religion and the political machinations of the world's super powers. Set in 1979 in the early stages of the pro-Soviet coup, it tells the story of Farhad, a typical student with a hedonistic attitude to life who ignores the religious conservatism of his grandfather. One night when out drinking with a friend about to leave for Pakistan, he is beaten and knocked unconscious. He awakens in a strange house and begins to remember what happened. As the outlines of reality start to harden, he realises that if he is to escape the soldiers who wish to finish the job they started, he too must leave everything he loves behind him and find a way to get to Pakistan. Atiq Rahimi's first novella, Earth and Ashes has been made into a feature film.
	Ismail Kadare's novel The Successor won the Booker International Prize in 2005. The Successor is a historical, psychological thriller, based on actual events, set in Albania at an unnamed time. It tells of the repercussions of the death of the regime leader's designated successor; did he kill himself, or was he murdered? When doubt is raised, rumours begin to gather and confusion and tension build. The story is narrated through different voices: the architect of the Successor's home, the minister of the interior and the Successor's bereaved daughter, all influenced by the outwardly benevolent but increasingly sinister Guide, the country's leader. The novel asks questions of the human character's resolve when faced with the iniquities of tyranny. Ismail Kadare was born in 1938 and is a world-renowned Albanian writer. In 1990 immediately before the fall of Communism in Albania he sought asylum in France. He now divides his time between France and Albania. His work has been published in over forty countries and he has been a candidate for the Nobel Prize in Literature.
	Vienna is Eva Menasse's first novel. She was born in 1970 in Vienna and had a successful career as a journalist with a Frankfurt newspaper, becoming their correspondent from Prague and Berlin. She now lives in Berlin and works as a freelance author. Vienna shows the disintegration of history and identity in the twentieth century through the adventures of one family. The half-Jewish Viennese family are split apart by the Nazi invasion and the novel follows the family members for three generations into all parts of the world, from Vienna to the Isle of Man, Burma, Canada and back to England. Vienna is a character-led rather than plot-driven novel that gives a panoramic and sparkling view of family life in Austria and England. There are delightful vignettes of Vienna with its coffee-houses, bridge parties and tennis clubs; and vivid descriptions of wartime and post-war England. It is funny, tragic and compelling.
	Stick out Your Tongue is a collection of short stories by Ma Jian. The stories are all set in Tibet prior to the 1950 Chinese invasion, and the most remarked on feature of these stories is that traditional Tibetan culture is not idealised, but rather depicted as harsh and often inhuman. The stories were written shortly after the author visited Tibet, and are enchanting and horrifying, violent and beautiful, perverse and seductive. Ma Jian was born in China in 1953. He moved to Hong Kong in 1986 after some of his works were banned. In 1997 he moved to Germany and two years later to England, where he now lives. His works included one other novel, The Noodle Maker, and a prize-winning travel memoir, describing his travels in Tibet. This collection of stories was banned in China.
	Linn Ullmann was born in 1966 in Norway and is the daughter of actress Liv Ullmann and the director Ingmar Bergman. After attempting acting, she eventually settled on becoming a journalist. She studied literature for six years in New York, graduating from New York University in 1988 and stated her PhD the same year. In 1992 she moved back to Norway and began work for one of Norways largest newspapers. Eventually she became one of the most prominent journalist in Norway and a highly successful, award winning author. In her 3rd novel, Grace, she tells the story of Johan, who has sometimes been fortunate but never particularly successful. He lost his job for a breach of professional integrity, and he and his son haven't spoken in eight years. His greatest happiness (his grace) is his competent, confident wife Mai, who loves him unreservedly. When he discovers he has only six months to live he is determined with the help of his beloved Mai that his passing will be controlled and dignified. But when the time comes everything is not as he imagined. This is a touching, complex, and intelligent novel that shows even the most ordinary lives can be unexpectedly touched by grace.
DECEMBER 2006 We have almost arrived at the end of another year and on reflection, a busy time in Fiction with over 2,400 new fiction titles having been added to the collection, giving Wellington City Libraries patrons a wonderful reading choice. This is also a time to look back over all that we have read during the past year and remember the books that we enjoyed the most. At the end of each year many newspapers and magazines that review fiction publish lists of books that selected guests have enjoyed throughout the year. So we asked staff members of Wellington City Libraries to nominate a book that stood out from all the others they had read this year. Most had trouble recalling one book they preferred above all others. Maybe it was just the nature of publishing this year, with the vast number of titles available the choices are almost limitless. Here is our selection, starting with a graphic novel; we hope you will enjoy them as much as we have.
	Ministry of Space, writer, Warren Ellis; artist, Chris Weston. An alternative history with teeth, updated Dan Dare artwork. What price progress justifies the means? (Karl)
	The Penelopiad by Margaret Atwood. The myth of Penelope and Odysseus brought to life in great Atwood style, lyrical with a contemporary twist. (Cathy)
	Brookland by Emily Barton. This was a brilliant novel written in a classic 19th Century style relating a completely convincing story through wonderful feminist characters. (Pauline)
	Pegasus descending by James Lee Burke. Allegoric crime novel on the haunting nature of the past, set in the last days before Hurricane Katrina changed the face of New Orleans forever. (Mark)
	Gunpowder plot: a Daisy Dalrymple mystery by Carola Dunn. A great series of murder mysteries set in the 1920's with fun characters, witty dialogue and suspense. (Kylie)
	The secret river by Kate Grenville. This was a gripping historical masterpiece about one couple's attempts to make part of Australia their own, and the tragedies that this brought to the native Aborigine inhabitants. (Julie)
	Magic for beginners by Kelly Link. Short stories that set you off balance, sometimes disturbing, sometimes delightfully fantastical. Convenience store clerks serve zombies, villagers hide in a handbag, rabbits and more rabbits arrive and watch, a cult television slips into the real world, marriage with a ghost is problematic. (Karen)
	The Chinatown death cloud peril by Paul Malmont. If you liked the period setting of Michael Chabon's The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay and the pulp stylings of Alan Moore's graphic novel The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Paul Malmont's first novel 'The Chinatown Death Cloud Peril' will hit the spot. With a cast consisting of William 'The Shadow' Gibson, Lester 'Doc Savage' Dent, H.P. 'Cthulhu' Lovecraft, L. Ron 'Scientology' Hubbard, Robert 'Starship Troopers' Heinlein, Louis 'Hopalong Cassidy' L'Amour, Chester 'Coffin Ed' Himes, and Orson 'Citizen Kane' Welles, there's enough action to satisfy the most jaded pulp fan. (Karl)
	Explorers of the new century by Magnus Mills. Two teams of explorers race across a cold, deserted land heading for the Agreed Furthest Point - a poker-faced comic and surreal masterpiece. (Neil)
	Black Swan Green by David Mitchell. I thought Mitchell was a clever-sod big-ideas and complex-structure type novelist, so this book was a surprise - a stammering boy's experiences of 1982 in a dull Worcestershire town. The episodic arrangement feels comfortable and casual, and the only wrong notes for me were his exotic poetry teacher and an excessive tidiness at the end. (Karen)
	Rumpole and the reign of terror by John Mortimer. Rumpole novels are always entertaining, witty and pure escapist reading. (Sue)
	Everyman by Philip Roth. This is a brilliantly written short compelling account of one mans life, that is at times amusing, dark and yet very moving. (Linda)
	Glasshouse by Charles Stross. As usual Stross has too many ideas, and here a good SF novel competes with a fascinating bit of anthropology in this book about an experiment in which volunteers (including war criminals with erased memories) recreate Earth's 'dark ages' (ie the late 20th, early 21st centuries). Main character Robin becomes suspicious about the researchers, but life is dangerous enough with fellow participants lynching those who break social conventions and bring group points down. (Karen)
OCTOBER 2006 This selection of six novels from our recently received new fiction all give different aspects of living in large modern cities. In the modern world, each city's inhabitants are influenced not only by their immediate surroundings but are also instantly influenced by what is happening globally. The six authors of these novels, all of different nationalities, have all previously published. The background cities used in these selected novels range from Mumbai to New York, Copenhagen to Beijing, Boston to the outskirts of London. Each of these novels have a unique story to tell, from comedy and farce to suspense and horror. All will ensure a great many hours reading pleasure.
	The most recent novel from prolific writer J. G. Ballard is titled Kingdom Come. J. G. Ballard was born in 1930, in Shanghai, China and was interned with his family by the Japanese during the Second World War. They returned to Britain in 1946. After reading medicine at King's College, Cambridge he went on to study English at London University. His first short story was published in 1956 and since then has had 33 novels and short story collections published. He was short listed for the Booker Prize in 1984 for Empire of the Sun, which won the Guardian Fiction prize and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize the same year. His novel Super-Cannes won the 2000 Commonwealth Writer's Prize. Kingdom Come is set in the near future in Brooklands, a motorway town off the M25 from London. Unemployed advertising executive Richard Pearson has to clear his father's flat as a few weeks earlier he father was fatally wounded at the Metro-Centre, a vast shopping mall in the centre of this apparently peaceful town, when a deranged mental patient open fired on a crowd of shoppers. When the main suspect is released without charge due to the dubious testimony of self-styled pillars of the community, Richard suspects that there is more to his father's death than he realised. As he witnesses sinister, disturbing occurrences at the massive mall, Richard comes to the conclusion that the Metro-Centre, with its round-the-clock cable channel and sports clubs, lies at the very heart of his father's death. Consumerism rules the lives of everyone in the motorway towns and feeds the cravings of this bored community with its desperate need for something new, whatever the cost. This is a thrilling dystopian novel that has consumerism as the new apocalypse.
	Sacred Games is the second novel written by Vikram Chandra and has taken nine years to complete. It is a multilayered complex novel set in Mumbai, India. Within three weeks of release it had sold an incredible 20,000 copies in India alone. The main character detective Sartaj Singh is one of the very few Sikhs in the Mumbai police force and is used to being identified by his turban and beard. Now past forty, Sartaj's marriage is over and his career prospects are on the slide. When Sartaj gets an anonymous tip-off as to the secret hideout of Ganesh Gaitonde, the most wanted gangster in India, he's determined that he'll be the one to catch the most famous member of the criminal underworld. The novel's layers move from the murky world of the Mumbai mafia-style underworld to international terrorism, from the workings of the Indian bureaucracy to the intelligence services investigating Islamic fundamentalism, from the traumas that Partition caused to the nation more than 60 years ago to the inside workings of Bollywood. Few parts of this enormous city are left untouched by Chandra's writing. Although born in New Delhi, Vikram Chandra was raised in India, but completed his education in America. He now spends his time between Mumbai and California. His first novel, Red Earth and Pouring Rain won in 1995 the Commonwealth Writers Prize for Best Book and the David Higham Prize for Fiction.
	The fifth novel from American writer Anthony Giardina is titled White Guys. Beginning in 1970 in a small town in Massachusetts and ending many years later in the city of Boston, it is a powerful portrayal of male friendship and loyalty. Billy was everything the boys could want in a friend, tough and true, but over time as they developed their lives and careers, Billy was left behind. He stayed in his home town to care for his mentally handicapped brother. Many years later a school reunion gives Billy a chance to develop his own path to success and wealth, and becomes the envy of all with his mall construction business. But the friendships are tested to the limit when horrific events tragically disrupt Billy's life and one friend is ensnared in a series of events that threatens to bring his life tumbling down around him. Anthony Giardina was born in 1960 in Massachusetts and now lives in Northampton. After graduating in 1973, he tried acting in New York and began writing plays, the first one being produced in 1977. His first novel Men with Debts was published in 1984. He has taught writing for many years and apart from his novels has written many plays, short stories and articles.
	Christian Jungersen was born in Denmark but now lives in Dublin. His most recent work The Exception, a psychological thriller, has become a bestseller in Denmark. Four women who work for the Danish Centre for Genocide Studies start receiving death threats; they suspect they are being stalked by a Bosnian torturer and war criminal. As they come under more fearful pressure the women begin to manipulate and persecute each other, with terrifying consequences. Ironically these women are professionals who daily analyse cases of global cruelty, crimes against humanity. Yet they fail to see their behaviour paralleling the crimes they study. This novel is a powerful, yet disquieting study of the psychology of evil, an intelligent, thrilling page turner.
	The black comedy A disorder peculiar to the Country is the second novel by New York born Ken Kalfus. He has lived in Paris, Dublin, Belgrade and Moscow and now lives in Philadelphia. Kalfus is the author of two collections of short stories and his first novel The Commissariat of Enlightenment was published in 2003. A Disorder Peculiar to the Country begins on 9/11, and finds Marshall and Joyce Harriman both luckily escaping death that morning, but finding perverse pleasure assuming the other has died in the terrorist attacks. In the midst of an ugly divorce with both of them refusing to move out of their New York apartment, finding that both have survived sends them to an all-out war to destroy each other. Their actions, tapping phone calls, fake anthrax attacks, and a possible suicide bombing mirror the activities outside in the country around them. Both are determined there will be no compromises or prisoners taken. This is a witty, clever insight on how the modern state of perpetual war can influence ordinary domestic live.
	Geling Yan was born in Shanghai and began writing in the late 1970s as a journalist covering the Sino-Vietnamese border war. Her first novel was published in China in 1985. After the 1989 massacre in Tiananmen Square she left China to live in the United States. One of her short stories was made into an awarding winning film. Banquet Bug is her first novel to be written in English and is set in Beijing. Journalists who attend banquets to promote a cause or a product are also given "a little something for their trouble." Dan Dong, an unemployed factory worker, is one of these journalists, but he has no credentials: he is a banquet bug. Through this new career he meets a variety of people, several of whom are impressed by his prevaricating. They beg him to listen to their tales of woe and to write about them, in hopes of addressing the wrongs done to them or to their families. Dan becomes deeply concerned for them and when his reportage leads him into a dangerous, far-reaching scandal and he is arrested during a crackdown on 'banquet bugs'. A witty fable depicting a high level of corruption and totalitarianism in the China the author once knew.
AUGUST 2006 Debut or first novels are often avoided by many readers unless they have been acclaimed and praised publicly. To take a first novel from the shelf requires a certain amount of courage and faith. The author is unknown, nothing is known of the writer's prose style or the novel structure. It is a leap in the dark, but one that can be well rewarded. Novels are more often than not a natural progression from the writers' other published work. This can range from journalism to memoirs, short stories to poetry. Many first novels have received instant success and become classics. To name a few, Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen, The Tin Drum by Gunter Grass, Catch 22 by Joseph Heller, and Lord of the Flies by William Golding. Some have won prizes, like Booker winners The Bone People by Keri Hulme, The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy, and Vernon God Little by D.B C. Pierre. So taking a chance on a debut novel can be a rewarding reading experience. The following selection of novels recently received by Wellington city Libraries are all debut novels. All the writers, except one, have had other work published being non-fiction, drama and short stories and all provide a diverse and enjoyable reading experience. Maybe one or two could even become future classics.
	Maria Arana was born in Peru to a Peruvian father and an American mother; she is editor of the Washington Post Book World. She has published a memoir on her duel upbringing titled, American Chica, which was a finalist for the PEN Memoir Award and National Book Award. A collection of columns titled the Writing Life have also been published. In Cellophane, her first novel, she draws from the experiences of her dual upbringing, setting the story in Peruvian jungle and depicts a family and a country caught between the old ways and the new, between feudalism and revolution. At the height of the Great Depression, paper engineer Don Victor Sobrevilla moves his small empire where the trees are, in the heart of the rain forest, constructing a highly successful paper factory and a vast hacienda, Floralinda. It is far from the political centres of Trujillo and Lima, linked only to the outside world by the dangerous and unpredictable Amazon. When, in 1952, Don Victor discovers the formula for cellophane, his household is afflicted with a "plague of truth," a compulsion to confess their most shameful histories and most hidden yearnings, to make their stories as transparent as the paper itself. When desires are laid bare, so are the conflicts that the family has kept hidden for so long, resulting in interlocking quests for power. This is a bawdy, comic, enchanting novel.
	Winkie by Clifford Chase is a dark satirical novel. Set in present day America, with terrorist paranoia ever present, the main character is Winkie, a discarded teddy bear who miraculously discovers the power of movement and runs away to the forest to begin a new life. Unfortunately, this particular forest has been pigeonholed as the hideout for a notorious terrorist, and militant FBI agents quickly surround Winkie with drawn weapons and whirling helicopters. Unsure quite what to make of the samll quadruped, the authorities nevertheless trot out their standard interrogation techniques while charging the little bear with unparalleled barbarism. In the surrealistic courtroom circus that follows, Winkie faces a gauntlet of bizarre witnesses from the trials of Socrates, Galileo, and Oscar Wilde, an ordeal he endures by retreating into memories of the early years that nurtured his awakening. This original allegory exposes the absurdities of our age and explores what it means to be human in an increasingly barbaric world. Clifford Chase is the editor of Queer 13: Lesbian and Gay writers recall Seventh Grade and author of a memoir of his brother's death. The character Winkie was inspired by his own childhood toy bear.
	Marshall N. Klimasewiski has published short stories and teaches writing at Washington University in St. Louis. His debut novel Cottagers is an eerie suspense thriller. Cyrus Coddington, age nineteen, suspects that he may be a genius without a calling. He is a year-round resident of East Sooke, Vancouver Island, and has a natural resentment for the summer cottagers (holidaymakers) who descend on its rocky beaches. When two vacationing American couples arrive, old friends with a complicated history, they become his obsession. Greg and Nicholas are engaged in an academic collaboration that looks more like competition; Samina and Laurel are old friends who have grown apart and developed a strange jealousy. Cyrus spies on the cottagers through their windows, then begins to insinuate himself into their lives. When one of the cottagers goes missing, no one will look at any of the others the same way again.
	Remainder is the first novel from British born writer Tom McCarthy and has been long-listed for the 2006 Man Booker prize. A parable for our time, the hero survives an accident that leaves him traumatized, but eight and a half million pounds richer from the compensation. He is hopelessly estranged from the world around him and spends his time and money obsessively reconstructing and re-enacting vaguely remembered scenes and situation from the past. But when this fails to quench his thirst for authenticity, he starts re-enacting more and more violent events, as his repetition addiction spirals out of control. This is a darkly comic novel about obsession, memory and identity. Tom McCarthy has published a non-fiction book, titled Tintin and the Secret Literature and is General Secretary of the International Necronautical Society, a semi-fictitious avant-garde network.
	Another long listed title for the man Booker 2006 Prize for fiction is the debut novel and first publication of Hisham Matar, titled In the Country of Men. Hisham Matar was born in New York in 1970 and spent his childhood in Cairo. He has lived in London since 1986. This is a breathtakingly emotional novel that becomes utterly gripping. Told from the perspective of nine-year old Suleiman living in Libya in the 1970s under the brutal Qaddafi regime. His world becomes terrifying and bewildering when his best friend's father disappears and is next seen on state television at a public execution; when a mysterious man sits outside the house all day and asks strange questions; when his mother and uncle burn all his father's books though they know what an avid reader he is; and when it seems his father has finally disappeared for good. Soon, the whispers and fears, secrets and lies will become so intense that Suleiman can bear them no longer and in his terrified effort to save his family may end up betraying his friends, his parents and ultimately himself.
	Peter Orner has previously published a short story collection and his debut novel is titled The Second Coming of Mavala Shikongo. He was the 2002-2003 winner of the Rome in Literature from American Academy of Arts and Letters and winner of the Samuel Goldberg Prize for Jewish Fiction. He lives in San Francisco and teaches at San Francisco State University. His novel is a set in Namibia just after independence in the early 1990s, at an all-boys Catholic primary school at Goas set deep in the veld. Though physically isolated in semi-desert beneath a relentless sun, the people of Goas create an alternate, more fertile universe through the stories they tell each other. The books central character is Mavala Shikongo, a combat veteran who fought in Namibia's long war for independence against South Africa. She has recently returned to the school with a child, but no husband. Mavala is modern, restless, and driven, in sharp contrast to conservative Goas. All the male teachers, including Larry Kaplanski a young volunteer from Cincinnati, try not to fall in love with her. They all fail immediately and miserably. This extraordinary first novel explores the history of a place through the stories of its people. It is charmingly witty and quite unforgettable.
JULY 2006 Now that we are into the middle months of the year, with the short days and very cold winter weather, we thought highlighting some great page turning murder mysteries would guarantee hours of entertainment, while storms rage outside. All the murder mystery novels selected here are translated from German, French, Italian, and Spanish. They are all rather exotic in their way, and give some fascinating glimpses of other cultures and countries. The common link between all these novels is their genre, the murder mysteries they describe and the detective procedure involved in catching the perpetrators, which appears to be similar throughout the world. We hope that these choices will help you escape the cold winter blues for short while and perhaps provide new choices for your reading pleasure.
	Black Ice by Hans Werner Kettenbach is a well translated psychological thriller with several very neat twists in the plot, set in a European world of small-town hypocrisy. Erika, an attractive local heiress, is married to Wallmann, a man with expensive tastes. When she falls to her death near their lakeside villa, the police conclude it was a tragic accident. Scholten, a long time married employee of Erika's, knows a thing or two about the true state of her marriage. He suspects an almost perfect crime, but in proving his theories his life will change forever. This novel was made into a film in 1998. The author, Hans Werner Kettenbach is 75 and still writing; he published his first novel at 50 after a career in journalism, including foreign correspondent in New York and Newspaper Editor. He has published 12 novels, five of which have been made into films. "Black Ice" is the first to be translated into English and hopefully there will be more.
	Guillermo Martinez was born in Bahia Blanca, Argentina in 1962. He won Argentina's national short story prize in 1982 and moved to Buenos Aires shortly afterwards. He pursued an academic career in mathematics and was awarded a PhD. He is now professor of Mathematics at the Universidad de Buenos Aires. He maintains his first love has always been literature, and he has continued to write all through his years of study. In his hugely successful novel, The Oxford Murders he uses his experiences of living in Oxford, gained while working in a postdoctoral position at the Mathematics Institute, with his love of mathematics to result in an intriguing thiller. On a balmy summer's day in Oxford an old lady who once helped decipher the Enigma Code is killed. After receiving a cryptic anonymous note containing only the address and the symbol of a circle, Arthur Seldom, a leading mathematician, arrives to find the body. Then follow more murders seemingly unconnected except for notes appearing in the maths department, for the attention of Seldom. It is left to Seldom and a postgraduate mathematics student to work out the key to the series of symbols before the killer strikes again. This is a clever and satisfying thriller that not only keeps the suspense going to the end, but also ensures the reader learns some interesting facts along the way.
	Havana Black is the latest novel of Leonardo Padura's to be translated from the Spanish, is set in Havana, Cuba where the author was born in 1955 and where he still lives. A brutally mutilated body is discovered washed up in the bay of Havana. It is the body of Miguel Forcade, once an official in the Cuban government responsible for the confiscation of the belongings of the bourgeoisie fleeing the revolution, exiled in Miami. Had he really returned to Havana just to visit his ailing father? Inspector Mario Conde immerses himself in the dark history of expropriations of works of art, paintings that have vanished without trace, corrupt civil servants and old families that lost much, but not everything. The author evokes the disillusionment of a generation, many of them veterans of the war in Angola, dealing with the catastrophe that followed the collapse of Russian aide in the 1990's and now discovering the corruption of those that preceded them. This is a truly atmospheric novel, set in a turbulent decaying city that is not only an exciting murder mystery, but also gives literary glimpses into Cuban society, sex, religion and even food.
	Noir thriller Night Bus, by Giampiero Rigosi, is his first novel to be translated from the Italian, and hopefully there will be more, as it is mystery that moves at breakneck speed, with a new complication or twist at every turn showing the true skill of this writer. Set in Bologna, Leila is young, beautiful and a hustler who robs hapless men picked up in the trendy nightclubs. Easy money, until she ends up with a document at the centre of a carefully crafted plot of political blackmail. In an atmosphere of intense underworld paranoia she is pursued simultaneously by two secret service operatives, a goon hired by the blackmailer and the police. They are after the document and a suitcase full of dollars meant to be the pay-off. Chased through the streets of Bologna she comes across Francesco, a bus driver and gambling addict who agrees to help her. Suitcases and blackmail notes change hands at a frenetic pace against a background of murder and other violence beyond the fringe. Giampiero Rigosi was born in 1962 and lives and works in Bologna. He is a much acclaimed literary critic, short story writer and producer of radio programmes on cinema noir and crime literature.
	The Three Evangelists is the fourth novel in the Chief Inspector Adamsberg series by French writer Fred Vargas. Born in Paris in 1957, as well as being a best-selling author in France, she is a historian and archaeologist by training. Her novels are full of whimsical characters, plots that spring from the strangest starting points, dialogues that turn into verbal jousting contests, wry humour and historical and psychological details that enhance but do not intrude. Sophia Simeonidis, a Greek opera singer, wakes up one morning to discover that a tree has appeared overnight in the garden of her Paris house. Intrigued and unnerved, she turns to her neighbours: Vandoosler, an ex-cop fired from the police for having helped a murderer to escape, and three impecunious historians, Mathias, Marc and Lucien, the three evangelists. They agree, both because they need the money and out of sheer curiosity, to dig around the tree and see if something has been buried there. They find nothing but soil. A few weeks later, Sophia disappears and her body is found burned to ashes in a car. Vandoosler and the three evangelists set out to find out who killed her. An original murder mystery, that will ensure you will want to read all the others in this series.
	The last murder mystery selected for this section is Ice Moon by German writer Jan Costin Wagner. Set in Turku, Finland a young woman dies peacefully in her sleep; her husband sits distraught at her side. Returning to his job at the Finland CID he finds that a murder inquiry is just beginning. A woman has been smothered with her pillow while she slept and, as the case unfolds, others will be found having met death in the same eerily quiet and bloodless way. It is a very tranquil, peaceful sort of death, in which the victims appear to have experienced neither fear nor pain. The young policeman, stricken with his own feelings of grief and loneliness, starts to feel an affinity with this humane killer. Meanwhile the murderer's dysfunctional relationship with his own cracked personality spawns increasingly macabre behaviour. This is a murder mystery that is haunting and unsettling, a novel peopled with characters who share the anxiety of feeling deeply misunderstood. Jan Wagner was born in 1972 and is married to a native of Finland. They spend time both there and in Germany. This is Jan Wagner's third novel and the first to be translated into English. His first won the 2002 Marlowe Prize for Best Crime novel and hopefully will be his next novel to be translated.
MAY 2006 The recently received material this month features debut or first novels. There are over 10,000 fiction books published in America each year, one book published every hour or so. According to an article in the New York Times dated 3rd May, 2006 there is a constant increase annually of published material, fiction and non fiction books, even though the numbers of readers doesn't increase nor does the amount of time readers actually have to read more. This means also that there are even more new writers to choose from, this can be a daunting task for readers trying to select a book to read. We do endeavour to make this task a little easier on our WebPages, with links to book lists, reviews, prize winners, and best sellers along with the monthly My Library lists, which give a brief synopsis of newly received material; all this is to ease the selection process for readers and to help increase their time for reading. So we hope you will find an interesting and satisfying read from our list of debut novels selected from our recent material. The writers' nationalities are as varied as their subject matter, but all show future promise.
	The Sand Cafe by Neil MacFarquhar begins in the Dhahran Palace Hotel, Saudi Arabia, in August 1991. The US forces are massing on the border with Iraq, preparing to throw Saddam Hussein out of Kuwait. Sent to cover the story of a lifetime, wire service reporter Angus Dalziel finds himself with a view mainly of his hotel room. Harassed by Saudi officialdom, stifled and spoon-fed by U.S. Army press minders, Angus struggles to unearth real stories about military corruption, the repressive Saudi society America is defending and front-line reverses once the longed-for fighting begins. Watching his comrades veer between frenzy and torpor in their media bubble, Angus ponders the rot at the heart of journalism, specially the shallowness and vanity of television correspondents. A fierce and very funny debut novel of journalists at war, or waiting for one that never quite arrives. Neil MacFarquhar has based his first novel on his Gulf War experiences. He has worked as a correspondent in the Arab world for more than twelve years, including the last five as the Cairo bureau chief for the New York Times.
	Amy Hassinger is a graduate of Iowa Writer's Workshop and has taught writing at the University of Iowa and Iowa State University. Her first novel titled Nina : adolescence is a stunning intimate story of a family's unravelling. The eerily seductive narrative is told from the perspective of Nina Begley, who was with her younger brother when he drowned, the novel tracks the disintegration of the family. After the accident, Nina's father turns to drink and her artist mother, Marion, shutters herself in her room. To draw her mother out, Nina offers to pose for a painting and doesn't even balk when Marion asks her to pose nude. Hassinger perfectly captures the guilt and thirst for affection that compels Nina to pose nude and, eventually, to attend an art exhibit featuring her own adolescent body, an event that will be the catalyst that enables the family finally to surmount tragedy.
	London born Liz Kettle's first novel is titled Broken Biscuits. It is a funny, grim yet ultimately uplifting dark saga of family history and secrets. It is a seaside love story of two misfits who find love in a hostile world. Agnes is senile; her granddaughter Jodie is an oddball and the plot cleverly moves between Jodie's life going forwards and Agnes' life going backwards. Agnes is so far gone that she's been carted off and institutionalised. As her memories play back marriages, wars, affairs and an Edinburgh childhood with seven brothers and sisters, there are plenty of things in her life that she really should say sorry for. Jodie's got her own problems she's eccentric, the sort of person that people cross the road to avoid. With advice from Dr Hassani and support worker June, she tries really hard to get care in the community to work and to make new friends. Trouble is she just doesn't fit in. And now she's decided to spring Agnes from the old people's home with the help of willing accomplice Owen, a moody yo-yo himself. Liz Kettles shows that life on the margins of society can eventually be happy and fulfilling.
	The Killing Jar the first novel from Nicola Monahan was inspired by the lives she witnessed on the council estates where she grew up in York, England. She later graduated form York University and went on to become a teacher. A change of career in to Finance took her around the world, ending with her return in 2001 to pursue an MA in creative writing at Nottingham University. The Killing Jar is Kerrie-Ann's story. Kerrie-Ann doesn't know who her father is, and her mother is a junkie. By the age of 10, she's sent out to sell drugs in school playgrounds. By the age of 12, she's been beaten up by a customer, hidden stolen guns in the dump behind the estate, done time in a girl's home, and already has a taste for drugs. And then there's Mark her only true friend and the one person she can really trust. Their friendship turns into a powerful love and together they are invincible, riding the euphoric highs of the 80s rave scene. But in their world of dealing and violence, addictions become all-consuming and it's easy to lose control. In this truly outstanding first novel, Nicola Monaghan has created a scary, unforgettable and original voice in a character who tells her story straight, with courage and control and without self-pity and shows that love and hope can exist in the most poisoned places.
	George Shuman's novel, 18 seconds is a murder mystery, although it is actually his second novel it is the first one to be published. He worked for twenty years for the Metropolitan Police Force in Washington, D.C., with a varied career, ranging from an undercover narcotics detective to Lieutenant commander in the Public Integrity Branch, Internal Affairs division. The main character in 18 seconds is Sherry Moore; she is beautiful, blind, and psychic. But she doesn't read minds; Sherry's gift, although some might say it's more of a curse is with touch. By touching a dead person, she can see the last 18 seconds of that person's life. Naturally, this skill makes her very handy to the police, and when Lieutenant Kelly O'Shaughnessy is having trouble finding out who killed a young girl, the two women plunge headlong into an old case involving a vicious serial killer. George Shuman’s experience gives this novel a realistic style and the authentic investigative detail ensures an absorbing, tension filled mystery.
	Everyman's rules for scientific living the first novel by Carrie Tiffany, has been short listed for the Orange Prize for 2006. She was born in West Yorkshire and with her family migrated to Western Australia in the early 1970s. She spent her early years working as a park ranger and now lives in Melbourne. Everyman's rules for scientific living, is set in rural Australia and begins in 1934 on the government 'better farming train' travelling through the wheat fields and small towns of Australia. The train bringing city experts and advice to those already living on the land, to persuade the country that science holds the answers and that productivity is patriotic. Amongst the swaying cars full of cows, pigs and wheat, an unlikely seduction occurs between Robert Pettergree, a man with an unusual taste for soil, and Jean Finnegan, a talented young seamstress with a hunger for knowledge. In an atmosphere of heady scientific idealism they settle on an impoverished farm with the ambition of proving that science can transform the land. With failing crops and the threat of a new world war looming, Robert and Jean are forced to confront each other, the community they have destroyed, and the impact of progress on an ancient and fragile landscape. This is a novel about love, told with humour, and a quiet innocence. The Australian landscape with its stark beauty is vividly captured along with the hope and disappointment of an era.
APRIL 2006 This month's most recently received novels are selected from our Humour, Satire and Black Comedy category. This is only one of forty three subject headings Wellington City Libraries allocate to new fiction as it is received. Classifying fiction this way enables readers to search the catalogue for similar types of novels. The subject headings used for new novels are rather broad and sometimes barely represent work with multiple themes, especially now when very complex plots and character developments have become the norm. The six novels selected from the humour category represent the variation that occurs with in one subject heading. They range from first novels to veteran comic writers, from straight-forward humour to the obscure. They are all humorous, but in very different ways, including some unsuitable for the easily offended, but all endeavour to show just how absurd human beings can be, and how ridiculous our world has become. We are sure that they will provide an enjoyable and laugh-out-loud reading experience.
	Doctors and Nurses by Lucy Ellman by, is an outrageously comic novel not recommended for the easily offended. This is her 5th novel, her first, Sweet Desserts being published in 1988, won the Guardian Fiction Prize. Her novels always include lists (in this case being illnesses that can afflict the body and capital letters used to excess), and in this novel also photographs. She is a definitely a very clever, witty writer who shows a great deal of human understanding. Lucy Ellman was born in the United States, educated in England and now lives in Scotland with her husband, writer Todd McEwen. Doctors and Nurses is a medical romance to end all. Into a rural back-water arrives massive nurse Jen, who has only one thing in her sights and that is the handsome Doctor Roger Lewis. All around her is thrown into wreck, ruin and death as she pursues the man of her dreams.
	Debra Galant is a former suburban-life columnist for the New York Times and Rattled is her first novel. She is now editor-in-chief of Baristanet.com, a local community blog based in northern New Jersey that receives 4,000 hits a day. Rattler is a clever and diverting first novel, about the repercussions of a brazen misuse of precious land and greed. This ironic comedy of errors features the materially ambitious Heather Peters and her dream house in a new development in New Jersey ludicrously named Galapagos Estates. Heather is dismissive of her lawyer husband, a horrible mother to her anxious eleven-year old son, and insultingly rude to Harlan White. The last native landowner left, aside from eco-minded Agnes, Harlan is valiantly resisting the aggressive tactics of unscrupulous developer Jack Barstad. Heather thinks she has found paradise, but when a timber rattle snake, a deadly and endangered species, appears on her patio, she soon finds herself in hell. This is a is hilarious and venomous comedy about nature, nurture, and the ecology of greed.
	Australian born Kathy Lette's latest comic novel is titled How to kill your husband, subtitled 'and other handy household hints', and is her 11th novel. In 1989 after a diverse career that included work as a satirical reporter on Australian television to a columnist for the Sydney Morning Herald, she moved to London where she still lives with her husband and two children. Her first novel Puberty Blues was published when she was twenty and her latest novel shows how she has moved on as a writer, now finding the comic side of middle aged marriage. When Jazz Jardine is arrested for her husband's murder, her friends are deeply shocked as Jazz was a stay-at-home mum and domestic goddess. Her friends Hannah, childless career woman and Cassie, demented working mother of two are ordinary women who set out immediately to prove their best friend's innocence, uncovering betrayal, adultery, plot twists, thinner thighs and toy boys aplenty en route. This is a sexy, funny and wise novel giving a rather caustic view on what goes on in the kitchens and bedrooms of ordinary married couples.
	Love and other near death experiences by Mil Millington is his third comic novel. He has written for various magazines, radio and the Guardian, and is co-founder and writer of the English magazine "The weekly." He was one of the five top debut novelists of 2002 and is currently working on the screen play for Things my Girlfriend and I Have Argued About, an adaptation of his second novel by the same title published in 2003. Mil Millington describes the darker, humorous side of modern relationships. This novel is about Rob Garland who is getting married in two months and has a big problem. More worrying than the seating arrangements, the choice of wedding stationery, more even that the savagely obscene expense of everything is the fact that Rob should be dead: and he knows it. Faced with an ultimatum from his girlfriend to either sort himself out, or call the wedding off, he sets about trying to come to terms with how it is that, somehow, he's still inexplicably breathing. After pouring his heart out to the listeners on his late-night radio jazz show, he soon finds himself teamed up with others who really ought not to be alive, but who for random, meaningless and, frankly, stupid reasons, unaccountably are. And that's when things become yet more worrying: because it turns out that their search to understand why they've each remained oddly alive might very well end up killing them all. This is a very witty novel, with sharp, if not sarcastic musings on love, religion and mortality.
	The long awaited second novel from D. B. C. Pierre is Ludmila's broken English. D.B.C (Dirty but clean) Pierre is the pseudonym taken by South Australian born Peter Finlay winner of the 2003 Mann Booker Prize for Vernon God Little. A self-confessed drug user, embezzler and petty criminal Pierre promised reform and reparation to his victims on winning one of the world's top literary prizes, so his latest work has been much anticipated. In this novel he charts the unlikely meeting between East and West that follows Ludmila Derev's appearance on a Russian brides website. Determined to save her family from starvation in the face of marauding Gnez troops, Ludmila's journey into the world and womanhood is an odyssey of sour wit and even sourer vodka. Thousands of miles to the West, the Heath twins are separated after 33 years conjoined at the abdomen. Released for the first time from an institution they are suddenly plunged into a round-the-clock world churning with opportunity, rowdy with the chatter of freedom, democracy, self-empowerment and sex. This is an outrageously funny and clever book, filled with many memorable characters, and with D. B. C. Pierre showing off his best linguistic skills.
	The mobile library: the case of the missing books is the fourth book by Ian Sansom. He lives in Northern Ireland and contributes to the Guardian, the London Review of Books and Poetry Review. The main character in this novel is Israel Armstrong, an intelligent, shy, passionate, and sensitive person. He is also Jewish, a vegetarian, a bit rotund and he has just arrived in Ireland to take up his first post as a librarian. Unfortunately the library has been shut down and all Israel is left with is the old mobile Library with 15,000 books missing. Who on earth steals that many books? How? When would they have time to read them all? So he begins his quest around the countryside of North Antrim in search of answers, a proper cappuccino and a decent newspaper. Ian Sansom has created a very funny inept sleuth, subject to many hilarious cultural misunderstandings. This is a satisfying and amusing read which promises to be the first of many novels to come featuring Israel Armstrong.
FEBRUARY 2006 This is a selection of the first new books received for 2006. There is no general theme linking these titles, apart from subject diversity. As with all good novels they reflect different aspects of society, nationality and culture, so they cover a very broad view of our world, from American politics to the English countryside living, albeit satirical, from a South African apartheid experience to the experience of a Lahore born Glaswegian DJ, trendy New York families in crisis to a fantastical literary illusion. Although they are all very different, each will prove to be a enjoyable reading experience.
	Love and other impossible pursuits by Ayelet Waldman is set amongst the professional families on the Upper East side of New York and tells the story of Emilia Greenleaf's struggle to relate to her precocious five-year-old stepson William. She is married to Jack, a successful partner in a law firm and the proud father of William. Emilia is on a leave of absence from her own legal career after the sudden death of their two day old daughter. She tries valiantly to care for William after school, but fails although help does comes from the most unlikely of place. This is a sensitive, funny and moving contemporary story that explores the resentment and/or affection people feel towards immediate or extended members of their family. Aylete Waldman is a well know New York essayist, married to the author Michael Chabon, and mother of four children.
	The Camel Club is the title of the latest book by David Baldacci. Again a masterly complex, character driven novel, such as readers of Baldacci have come to expect. The main character is called Oliver Stone; a man with no past who spends his days camped opposite the White House, permanently protesting and hoping to expose corruption wherever he may find it. When he and his friends, a group of conspiracy theorists known as the Camel Club, witness a murder of an intelligence analyst, they suddenly find themselves involved in a very dangerous plot that reaches to the highest levels of Washington society. In this his 12th novel David Baldacci goes beyond the traditional boundaries of fiction, painting a frighteningly vivid portrait of a world that could be our own very soon, and the few people who have a chance to stop the last war the world may ever fight.
	After several years, the long awaited latest novel by Rachel Cusk titled, In the fold has arrived. Although born in Canada, she finished her schooling in England, and read English at New College, Oxford. She was nominated by Granta magazine in 2002 as one of 20 Best Young British Novelists. She won the Whitbread First Novel award in 1993 for Saving Agnes, The Somerset Maugham Award in 1997 for The Country Life. In her latest novel, Rachel Cusk returns to the English Countryside and the lives of the bohemian living (or so they like to think) Hambury family of Egypt Hill. A return visit after a dozen years by University friend Michael, with his young son, shatters all Michael's lofty illusions about, wealth, heritage, friendship, and family. The complex relationships of families and the emotional needs of modern living are explored in this novel, which is at times funny, but slightly disturbing novel.
	Readers of Jasper FForde's previous novels will know what to expect in his new novel titled, The big over easy. A master at literary allusion, wordplays and tightly scripted plots, it is impossible to fit any of his novels into any type of genre. The big over easy is the fifth novel from English born Jasper Fforde, and is actually a reworking of his first novel that failed to find a publisher. This novel is set in Reading at Easter and no one can remember the last sunny day. Humpty Dumpty, a large egg, ex-convict and millionaire philanthropist is found shattered beneath a wall in a shabby area of town. Detective Inspector Jack Spratt and his colleague Mary Mary are assigned to the case, and soon grappling with a sinister plot involving cross-border money laundering, the illegal Bearnaise sauce market, corporate politics and the cut and thrust world of international Chiropody. This is an outrageously entertaining fantasy novel.
	The debut novel Psychoraag by Suhayl Saadi is a critically acclaimed best seller that was also short-listed for the James Tait Black Memorial Prize in 2005. Born in Yorkshire to Pakistani parents, Shuayl Saadi trained as a doctor and manages to continue this work in Glasgow, along with his writing. He is also a dramatist, awarding short story writer and poet. The novel's main character Zaf is a community radio DJ who finds the ghosts of his and his family's past catching up with him during his last night on air. Spanning everything from his parents' turbulent past in Pakistan to the relative merits of the Asian Dub Foundation, this novel is about the experience of being a young Pakistani man growing up in urban Scotland. Although challenging, the prose in Psychoraag is blend of standard English with a distinctive urban Scots peppered with Urdu, it is never dull, but provides a rewarding reading experience. Also included is a discography of the music played during Zaf's last broadcast.
	Another extremely successful debut novel comes from South African born writer Rachel Zadok and is titled Gem Squash Tokoloshe. This novel was short-listed for the Whitbread First Novel Award 2005. She was educated in South Africa and after earning a Fine Arts degree, she worked as a freelance graphic designer. In 2001 with her husband, she moved to London, where she began her novel, set in her native South Africa. It tells the story of an isolated family on a drought stricken farm in the Northern Transvaal. The Father took to the road to become a travelling salesman, returning only in weekends, leaving his daughter Faith and wife Bella alone. Eventually he stops returning to the farm, and Bella's health begins to go into rapid decline. Fifteen years later after her mother's death in the Sterkfontein asylum for the criminally insane, Faith returns to the farm to claim her inheritance and to confront the dark, terrifying mysteries of the past. She also has to make sense of the complex world she lives in and come to terms with the beliefs that her society and upbringing have instilled in her. This is an intense, yet compelling novel.
The Da Vinci Code If you enjoyed The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown, you may like to try...
	The third secret : a novel / Steve Berry. (2005) Fatima, Portugal, 1917: The Virgin Mary appears to three peasant children, sharing with them three secrets, two of which are soon revealed to the world. The third secret is sealed away in the Vatican, read only by popes, and not disclosed until the year 2000. When revealed, its puzzling tone and anticlimactic nature enable a perilous set of events to unfold. The Papal secretary Father Colin Michener finds himself embroiled in murder, suspicion, suicide, deceit, and his forbidden passion for a beloved woman. In a desperate search for answers, he travels to a Bosnian holy site and then to Pope Clement's birthplace in Germany, where he learns that the third secret of Fatima may dictate the very fate of the Church, a fate Michener finds lying in his own hands.
	The rule of four / Ian Caldwell & Dustin Thomason. (2004) Princeton students are fascinated by a mysterious, coded 15th Century manuscript. As they come closer to deciphering the puzzle, they realise that a recent murder is related and that their lives are in danger.
	The last templar / Raymond Khoury. (2005) Four masked horsemen steal an ancient relic from the Vatican Treasures exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum in New York. As the bodies of the four horsemen start being discovered the importance of the stolen relic becomes apparent. The FBI Investigation team and a Vatican envoy are drawn into the dark, hidden history of the crusading Knights. They embark on a journey that will take them through the cemeteries and sewers of Manhattan, across continents to desolate Turkish mountains and remote Greek islands, through the Mediterranean, into the very heart of the Vatican.
	The historian : a novel / Elizabeth Kostova. (2005) Finding and an ancient book and a cache of yellowing letters in her father's library a young woman is plunged into a labyrinth where the secrets of her father's past and her mother's mysterious fate connect to an evil hidden in the depths of history. Deciphering obscure signs and hidden texts, reading codes worked into the fabric of medieval monastic traditions leads to a hunt for the truth about Vlad the Impaler, the medieval ruler whose barbarous reign formed the basis of the Dracula myth.
	The oracle / Valerio Massimo Manfredi ; translated from the Italian by Christine Feddersen-Manfredi. (2005) In 1973 an archaeologist discovers a gold Mycenaean vase embellished with images of the last voyage of Ulysses. But his mysterious death and the disappearance of the vase remain unexplained for ten years series until a series of violently gruesome deaths catalyse different characters into a relentless pursuit for the truth.
	The Club Dumas : a novel / Arturo Perez-Reverte ; translated from the Spanish by Sonia Soto. (1998) A well-know bibliophile is found hanged days after selling a rare manuscript of Alexander Dumas's classic, The Three Musketeers. Across Madrid, Spain's wealthiest book dealer has finally laid his hands on a 17th-century manual for summoning the devil. Lucas Corso, solitary and obsessive, is the detective hired to authenticate both texts. But the further he follows the trail of devil worship, the more it leads him back to Dumas.
	The sixth lamentation : a novel / by William Brodrick. (2003) A suspected Nazi war criminal seeks sanctuary in a French monastery. A woman who was a member of a secret group once engaged in smuggling Jewish children to safety is dying. How are these two people related, and why has the Vatican ordered Father Anselm to investigate?
	Secret of the scroll / Chester D. Campbell. (2002) A Retired U.S. Air Force OSI agent brings a "souvenir" Dead Sea Scroll home from the Holy Land, and his life suddenly changes. A Palestinian terrorist group invades his home, taking his wife hostage. He finds himself with an ancient Hebrew scroll worth millions, wanted by both the Palestinians and a radical far-right Israeli organization. He discovers the scroll has a secret with calamitous possibilities in the wrong hands.
	Codex / Lev Grossman. (2004) When a fast-track investment banker becomes involved in organising a rare books collection, he begins a search for a mysterious manuscript that strangely parallels an intricate computer game.
	Ex-libris / Ross King. (2001) In 1660, London bookseller Iasaac Inchbold is hired to track down an ancient and cryptic manuscript; he is soon drawn into a dangerous labyrinth of clues and mysteries.
	Labyrinth / Kate Mosse. (2005) Skeletons are discovered in an ancient tomb during an archaeological dig in southern France. Dr Alice Tanner is in danger as she discovers the story of her ancestor Alais, a young healer caught in the persecution of Cathars and charged with protecting grail secrets.
	The Da Vinci legacy / Lewis Perdue. (2004) The disappearance of documents from a collection of Leonardo Da Vinci's work sends Curtis Davis in search of the missing pages and brings him face to face with a conspiracy from the dawn of Christianity and with a long-lost discovery that could change history.
	The school of night / Alan Wall. (2001) Editor Sean Tallow steals two Elizabethan tomes from a university library. In the enciphered Hariot notebooks, as they are called, he hopes to find reference to the enigmatic School of Night, a group of Elizabethan intellectuals who clustered around Sir Walter Raleigh. He pursues the School of Night and its entanglement in the question of whether the man from Stratford-on-Avon could really have written the plays ascribed to William Shakespeare.
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