When once you have tasted flight: New fiction

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When once you have tasted flight, you will forever walk the earth with your eyes turned skyward, for there you have been, and there you will always long to return.

– Leonardo DaVinci

Welcome to this month’s selection of recently acquired fiction titles. To make this month’s choices we have employed a broad and panoramic approach, picking titles that convey the wide variety of subject matters, literary styles and approaches present in all our new intake books.

This month’s collection of titles includes a new historical fiction novel by Sara Ackerman called The uncharted flight of Olivia West, inspired by the Dole Air Race of 1927. This is a gripping story, based on true events, about a young pioneering aviator participating in the race. Literary legend Isabel Allende has released a new novel, called The wind knows my name. We have two highlights from Aotearoa, an outstanding collection of new short stories from the iconic Aotearoa author Patricia Grace, titled Bird child & other stories, and the much-anticipated debut novel from Olive Nuttall called Kitten. There’s also The Tearsmith by Erin Doom, which is currently being adapted into a Netflix series. To round things off in style, we have the Booker shortlisted and winner of the An Post Irish Book of the Year, The Bee Sting by Paul Murray.

Links to all these titles, and a few others, can be found below.

The uncharted flight of Olivia West / Ackerman, Sara
“This extraordinary novel, inspired by real events, tells the story of a female aviator who defies the odds to embark on a daring air race across the Pacific. 1927. Olivia “Livy” West is a fearless young pilot with a love of adventure. She yearns to cross oceans and travel the skies. When she learns of the Dole Air Race–a high-stakes contest to be the first to make the 2,400 mile Pacific crossing from the West Coast to Hawai’i–she sets her sights on qualifying. But it soon becomes clear that only men will make the cut. In a last-ditch effort to take part, Livy manages to be picked as a navigator for one of the pilots, before setting out on a harrowing journey that some will not survive.” (Adapted from Catalogue)

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Villainous Newtown: crime writers author talk 22 March

 

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

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

When: Friday 22 March 6.00 – 7.00pm

Where: Newtown Library

Villainous Newtown Ngaio Marsh Awards Facebook Event

This is a free event, featuring:

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

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

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

and, rounding this incredible panel off:

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

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Audition: Our March eBook Club pick!

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eBook Club pick: Audition by Pip Adam

Read the book that everyone wants to read.

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

 

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

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

Author image by Victoria Birkinshaw

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

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Aotearoa NZ Festival of the Arts: Writer events

We’re super excited to see that our good friends at Aotearoa NZ Festival of the Arts‘ have now announced details their festival programme, which is now fast approaching. It is a rich and varied programme that has something for everyone and features a host of authors you can find in our collection!

Of particular interest to us at the library is of course their fabulous writers programme element! This broad and varied programme holds a mirror up to both society and us as individuals and considers the many ways reading and writing are so vital to us. The programme features some of the finest writers from our own fair land, as well as well-known names from across the globe, making the programme unmissable.

The Aotearoa NZ Festival of the Arts’ writers programme will take place mainly at the cinematic jewel that is the Embassy Theatre, and runs from 23 – 25 Feb.

Follow this link here for the full programme and booking details.

As an appetiser to this dynamic exchange of ideas and stories, we have curated a list of featured titles available to borrow from our collections, which you might like to read before you go to one of the events. Have a browse below at just a very small selection of the events available, grab a good read and go enjoy some great literary events!

Hiwa : contemporary Māori short stories
“Contemporary Māori short stories, featuring twenty-seven writers working in English or te reo Māori. The writers range from famous names and award winners – Patricia Grace, Witi Ihimaera, Whiti Hereaka, Becky Manawatu, Zeb Nicklin – to emerging voices like Shelley Burne-Field, Jack Remiel Cottrell, Anthony Lapwood and Colleen Maria Lenihan. Hiwa includes biographical introductions for each writer’s work. Named for Hiwa-i-te-rangi, the ninth star of Matariki, signifying vigorous growth and dreams of the year ahead.” (Adapted from Catalogue)

Explore the event linked to this title here

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A feast of new Aotearoa New Zealand fiction

Welcome to our first round up of newly acquired fiction titles for 2024.

To start the year off we have  a veritable feast of daring, diverse and adventurous Aotearoa fiction titles, most of which have only just been released. The breadth, range, genres employed and subjects explored, not to mention different styles, in evidence is stunning and shows what a rich literary community we have in Aotearoa.

The novels range from Booker-nominated Anna Smaill’s second novel Bird Life, to a collection of short stories by Edmond Murray about Auckland called Aucklanders, a book in the same vein as James Joyce’s Dubliners.

Other Aotearoa picks include a historical romance called The Girl from London by Olivia Spooner. There is also Joy Holley’s much anticipated debut collection of short stories, Dream Girl, plus a climate change novel called Dear Tui by M . C Ronen. Also, just in from our own fair shores there is Checkerboard Hill by Jade Kake, Landed by Sue McCauley and, to round things off on the Aotearoa front, Everything I Have by Tammy Robinson.

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Some literary treats for 2024

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A very warm welcome to 2024. As is now our annual custom for this time of year, we are going to peer into the tea leaves of the future at the bottom of the literary teacup. In this blog, we will be selecting just a few of the literary highlights that we at Wellington City Libraries are looking forward to. In the process, we hope to spot just a few of the novels that everyone will be talking about this year.

These are of course just the few of the fiction treats that have already been scheduled and announced for this year, many of the books that will feature in the ‘Best of 2024’ lists aren’t even listed yet. Indeed, one of the great delights of the literary world are the surprise novels that seemingly come out of nowhere to become one of the shining stars of that year, so there will be plenty of surprises in store. Having said that, there are already lots of interesting titles to look forward to. So, let’s start off with our list of what to look out for in the fiction world in 2024.

The first book on our list, due out later in January, is a Bird Child and Other Stories by the legendary Aotearoa author Patricia Grace.  This is Patricia Grace’s first collection of short stories in 17 years, and needless to say it is already hotly anticipated! Further afield in January, My Friends by Hisham Matar is getting a lot of advance interest. The novel starts off in London during a protest at the Libyan embassy and contrasts the civil war in Libya and life in Britain.  Also in January, we have Sigrid Nunez’s The Vulnerables, a lockdown novel beginning in 2020.

In February we have Kitten by Olive Nuttall, a debut Aotearoa novel that’s already causing waves in reviewing circles.

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