A warm-hearted novel from the author of Walking on Trampolines about music, grief, relationships, gardens, love, laughter and family.
Florence Saint Claire is a loner. Albert Flowers is a social butterfly. Good friends who think they know each other.
But, somewhere between who they are, and who people think they are, lies The Best Kind of Beautiful. (Booktopia) Revisit the world of Panem sixty-four years before the events of The Hunger Games, starting on the morning of the reaping of the Tenth Hunger Games. On returning to the world of The Hunger Games, Suzanne Collins said, “With this book, I wanted to explore the state of nature, who we are, and what we perceive is required for our survival. The reconstruction period ten years after the war, commonly referred to as the Dark Days-as the country of Panem struggles back to its feet-provides fertile ground for characters to grapple with these questions and thereby define their views of humanity. (Goodreads)The Amarna Age book No. 2
Blending history and fantasy, The Amarna Age series is set in 18th Dynasty Egypt where the old gods have been worshipped for thousands of years and magic is a matter of belief. For readers of dark fantasy who enjoy an historical setting. (Goodreads)From the New York Times bestselling author of The Night Circus, a timeless love story set in a secret underground world–a place of pirates, painters, lovers, liars, and ships that sail upon a starless sea. From an internationally acclaimed novelist, the suspenseful and heartbreaking story of a family ripped apart by secrets and driven to pit love against loyalty, with devastating consequences. This story, full of beauty and hope, is based on years of interviews author Heather Morris conducted with real-life Holocaust survivor and Auschwitz- Birkenau tattooist Ludwig (Lale) Sokolov. It is heart-wrenching, illuminating, and unforgettable. (Goodreads)
Winner of the 2020 Miles Franklin Literary Award Knowing that he will soon die, Albert ‘Poppy’ Gondiwindi takes pen to paper. His life has been spent on the banks of the Murrumby River at Prosperous House, on Massacre Plains. Albert is determined to pass on the language of his people and everything that was ever remembered. He finds the words on the wind. (Booktopia)Coming soon! Available October
The bestselling author of Boy Swallows Universe, Trent Dalton, returns with All Our Shimmering Skies – a glorious novel destined to become another Australian classic.In 1901, the word ‘Bondmaid’ was discovered missing from the Oxford English Dictionary. This is the story of the girl who stole it. Set when the women’s suffrage movement was at its height and the Great War loomed, The Dictionary of Lost Words reveals a lost narrative, hidden between the lines of a history written by men. It’s a delightful, lyrical and deeply thought-provoking celebration of words, and the power of language to shape the world and our experience of it. (Goodreads) ‘A complex, big-hearted, multi-generational Australian epic’ (Good Weekend)
We were all of us changed through him.
The Dunbar boys bring each other up in a house run by their own rules. A family of ramshackle tragedy – their mother is dead, their father has fled – they love and fight, and learn to reckon with the adult world.
It is Clay, the quiet one, who will build a bridge; for his family, for his past, for his sins. He builds a bridge to transcend humanness. To survive.Generations of readers young and old, male and female, have fallen in love with the March sisters of Louisa May Alcott’s most popular and enduring novel, Little Women. Here are talented tomboy and author-to-be Jo, tragically frail Beth, beautiful Meg, and romantic, spoiled Amy, united in their devotion to each other and their struggles to survive in New England during the Civil War. (Goodreads)The sequel to The Tattooist of Auschwitz In 1942 Cilka Klein is just sixteen years old when she is taken to Auschwitz-Birkenau Concentration Camp. The Commandant at Birkenau, Schwarzhuber, notices her long beautiful hair, and forces her separation from the other women prisoners. Cilka learns quickly that power, even unwillingly given, equals survival.
Those in need of peace will find it between the covers of this elegant picture book for adults and children (The New York Times)
‘Feeling a little blue? Meet the new Winnie the Pooh.’ The Daily Mail
‘A wonderful work of art and a wonderful window into the human heart’ Richard Curtis. (Goodreads)A story of brotherhood, true love and the most unlikely of friendships, Boy Swallows Universe will be the most heartbreaking, joyous and exhilarating novel you will read all year. A story of brotherhood, true love and the most unlikely of friendships, Boy Swallows Universe will be the most heartbreaking, joyous and exhilarating novel you will read all year. (Goodreads) Eleanor Oliphant has learned how to survive but not how to live.
Eleanor Oliphant leads a simple life. She wears the same clothes to work every day, eats the same meal deal for lunch every day and buys the same two bottles of vodka to drink every weekend. Eleanor Oliphant is happy. Nothing is missing from her carefully timetabled life. Except, sometimes, everything. (Goodreads)Set over the course of five decades, The Dutch House is a dark fairy tale about two smart people who cannot overcome their past. Despite every outward sign of success, Danny and Maeve are only truly comfortable when they’re together. Throughout their lives, they return to the well-worn story of what they’ve lost with humour and rage. But when at last they’re forced to confront the people who left them behind, the relationship between an indulged brother and his ever-protective sister is finally tested. (Goodreads) Delightful, engaging, and entertaining, and with a dazzling gallery of characters, Emma is arguably Austen’s most well-loved social comedy. What do you do when you’re told you’ve got terminal cancer at 50? Take up crochet, get religion and bow out gracefully? Or upend your life and spend every remaining minute exploring new pleasures? Ruby has always been the generous mediator among her friends, family and colleagues, which is why they have all turned up to celebrate her 50th birthday. But after a few too many glasses of champers, Ruby’s speech doesn’t exactly go to plan. Instead of delivering the witty and warm words her guests are expecting, Ruby takes her moment in the spotlight to reveal what she really thinks of every one of them. (Penguin)
Mystery and Crime
A beautiful new Vintage Classics edition to celebrate the 15th anniversary of this wise, blackly funny, radically imaginative novel. It was 7 minutes after midnight. The dog was lying on the grass in the middle of the lawn in front of Mrs Shears’ house. Its eyes were closed. It looked as if it was running on its side, the way dogs run when they think they are chasing a cat in a dream. But the dog was not running or asleep. The dog was dead. This is Christopher’s story. There are also no lies in this story because Christopher can’t tell lies. Christopher does not like strangers or the colours yellow or brown or being touched. On the other hand, he knows all the countries in the world and their capital cities and every prime number up to 7507. When Christopher decides to find out who killed the neighbour’s dog, his mystery story becomes more complicated than he could have ever predicted. (Penguin)
Harry Bosch and LAPD Detective Renee Ballard come together again on the murder case that obsessed Bosch’s mentor, the man who trained him – new from #1 New York Times bestselling author Michael Connelly (Goodreads)Two brothers meet at the border of their vast cattle properties under the unrelenting sun of outback Queensland. They are at the stockman’s grave, a landmark so old, no one can remember who is buried there. But today, the scant shadow it casts was the last chance for their middle brother, Cameron. The Bright family’s quiet existence is thrown into grief and anguish. Something had been troubling Cameron. Did he lose hope and walk to his death? Because if he didn’t, the isolation of the outback leaves few suspects. (Book cover)
Where the Crawdads Sing is at once an exquisite ode to the natural world, a heartbreaking coming-of-age story, and a surprising tale of possible murder. Owens reminds us that we are forever shaped by the children we once were, and that we are all subject to the beautiful and violent secrets that nature keeps.Two teachers discover the body of the school’s unpopular games mistress, shot through the heart from point-blank range. The school is thrown into chaos when the ‘cat’ strikes again, and Julia Upjohn knows that without Poirot’s help she could be next. (Goodreads)
New in Non-Fiction and Biographies
Coming soon! Launching in October 2020 When a young Mary McAleese told a priest that she planned to become a lawyer, the priest dismissed the idea: she knew no one in the law, and she was female. The reality of what she went on to achieve – despite those obstacles, and despite a sectarian attack that forced her family to flee their home – is even more improbable. In this luminous memoir, Mary McAleese traces that astonishing arc: from the tight streets of north Belfast, to a professorship in Dublin while still in her twenties, behind-the-scenes work on the peace process, and two triumphant terms as President of Ireland. Queensland was one of the last places in the world to suffer from the ‘Spanish Flu’ pandemic of 1918-1920. This anthology of short stories by various writers about the ‘Spanish Flu’ epidemic in Queensland is based on real people in real places.An expansive collection of love letters to books, libraries, and reading, from a wonderfully eclectic array of thinkers and creators. In these pages, some of today’s most wonderful culture-makers―writers, artists, scientists, entrepreneurs, and philosophers―reflect on the joys of reading, how books broaden and deepen human experience, and the ways in which the written word has formed their own character. On the page facing each letter, an illustration by a celebrated illustrator or graphic artist presents that artist’s visual response. (Amazon) Celebrated motivational speaker and YouTube sensation Lizzie Velasquez shows us how we can learn to accept all parts of ourselves and others to create a culture of kindness and a more compassionate world. Potter Library 177.7 VEL
Why some children struggle and how all can thrive.
From one of the world’s foremost researchers and pioneers of paediatric health—a book that fully explores a revolutionary discovery about childhood development, parenting, and the key to helping all children find happiness and success.
His work has revealed there are two different kinds of children: the “dandelion” child (hardy, resilient, healthy), able to survive and flourish under most circumstances, and the “orchid” child (sensitive, susceptible, fragile) who, given the right support, can thrive as much, if not more, than other children. (Goodreads) In June 2018, for 17 days, the world watched and held its breath as the Wild Boar soccer team were trapped deep in a cave in Thailand. Marooned beyond flooded cave passages after unexpected rains, they were finally rescued, one-by-one, against almost impossible odds, by an international cave-diving team which included Australians Dr Richard Harris and Dr Craig Challen. Dark Emu puts forward an argument for a reconsideration of the hunter-gatherer tag for precolonial Aboriginal Australians. The evidence insists that Aboriginal people right across the continent were using domesticated plants, sowing, harvesting, irrigating and storing – behaviours inconsistent with the hunter-gatherer tag. Almost all the evidence comes from the records and diaries of the Australian explorers, impeccable sources. (Goodreads)
On awe wonder and things that sustain you when the world goes dark. A beautiful, intimate and inspiring investigation into how we can find and nurture within ourselves that essential quality of internal happiness – the ‘light within’ that Julia Baird calls ‘phosphorescence’ – which will sustain us even through the darkest times. (Goodreads) Spelling It Out aims to ease anxiety and crush the myth that good spelling comes naturally. Good spelling comes from good teaching. Based on Misty Adoniou’s extensive research into spelling learning and instruction, this book encourages children and adults to nurture a curiosity about words, discover their history and, in so doing, understand the logic behind the way they are spelled. (Booktopia) Over the course of a 40-year career, Jeannie Baker has perfected the art of collage in the creation of picture-book classics such as Where the Forest Meets the Sea and Window, a Boston Globe-Horn Honor Book. Her stunning pieces, devised by assembling all sorts of different textures, are known all around the globe. Whether it’s dried flowers or tiny shells, spaghetti or postage stamps, she uses the world around her to make work that is astonishingly beautiful and deeply creative. (Goodreads)When Jeremy Bentham proposed that government should run “for the greatest benefit of the greatest number,” he posed two problems: what is happiness and how can we measure it? With the rise of positive psychology, freakonimics, behavioural economics, endless TED talks, the happiness manifesto, the Happiness Index, the tyranny of customer service, the emergence of the quantified self movement, we have become a culture obsessed with measuring our supposed satisfaction. (Goodreads)
New Study Resources
This major new biography of Mao uses extensive Russian documents previously unavailable to biographers to reveal surprising details about Mao’s rise to power and leadership in China.(Goodreads)Philip was a genius of extraordinary versatility. Inheriting a kingdom near to collapse, he made Macedonia the greatest military power in the Western world and left to his son Alexander the strongest state in Eastern Europe. This book gives full attention to the Macedonian state and the Macedonian people who made Philip’s success possible, and to the high level of culture and of artistic skills revealed by recent archaeological discoveries. (Goodreads)
This book challenges long-established views that Mao Zedong became Chinese Communist Party leader during the Long March (1934-1935) and that by 1935 the CCP was independent of the Comintern in Moscow. The result is a critique not only of official Chinese historiography but also of Western scholarship, which all future histories of the rise of the PRC will need to take into account. (Goodreads)Until recently, popular biographers and most scholars viewed Alexander the Great as a genius with a plan, a romantic figure pursuing his vision of a united world. His dream was at times characterized as a benevolent interest in the brotherhood of man, sometimes as a brute interest in the exercise of power. Green, a Cambridge-trained classicist who is also a novelist, portrays Alexander as both a complex personality and a single-minded general, a man capable of such diverse expediencies as patricide or the massacre of civilians. (Goodreads)
2040 – a meticulously researched plea for the adoption of community-building, energy-generating, forest-renewing, ocean-replenishing measures that science tells us will reset our planet’s health, drive our economies and improve lives across the globe. (Dymocks) Potter Library 640.28 GAM
Also available on DVD from Potter Library Alexander the Great, arguably the most exciting figure from antiquity, waged war as a Homeric hero and lived as one, conquering native peoples and territories on a superhuman scale. From the time he invaded Asia in 334 to his death in 323, he expanded the Macedonian empire from Greece in the west to Asia Minor, the Levant, Egypt, Central Asia and “India” (Pakistan and Kashmir) in the east. (Goodreads)A richly illustrated book, We Are Artists celebrates the life and work of fifteen female artists from around the globe and the distinctive mark they made on art. Presented as a collection of exciting biographical stories, each section reveals how the artist’s unique approach and perspective provided art and society with a new way of seeing things. (Goodreads)
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander People – cultural and history resources
The story of an urban-based high achieving Aboriginal woman working to break down stereotypes and build bridges between black and white Australia.
I’m Aboriginal. I’m just not the Aboriginal person a lot of people want or expect me to be. What does it mean to be Aboriginal? Why is Australia so obsessed with notions of identity? (Goodreads)
Potter Library – 305.89 HEI Welcome to Country is essential reading for every young Australian. The chapters cover prehistory, post-colonial history, language, kinship, knowledge, art, performance, storytelling, native title, the Stolen Generations, making a rightful place for First Australians and looking to the future for Indigenous Australia. This book is for the new Australian generations and works towards rectifying the wrongs of this country’s past. (Publisher) 305.89 LAN In this book, Australia Day, his long-awaited follow up to Talking to My Country, Stan talks about our country, about who we are as a nation, about the indigenous struggle for belonging and identity in Australia, and what it means to be Australian. A sad, wise, beautiful, reflective and troubled book, Australia Day asks the questions that have to be asked, that no else seems to be asking. Who are we? What is our country? How do we move forward from here? (Goodreads0. Potter Library 305.899 GRA
It is now over 250 years since James Cook and his crew set sail in the Endeavour to explore the Pacific. In 1770 they reached the east coast of a continent that has been inhabited for more than 65,000 years by many Indigenous groups with different languages and diverse cultures. Cook’s landing marked the beginning of a history that still has repercussions today, a history that both unites and divides Australia and highlights the continuing need for reconciliation. Colony explores the immediate and far-reaching impact of British colonisation of Australia through historical, twentieth-century and contemporary art. Through 1000 essential pieces of our cultural heritage, this book highlights the confronting and complex perspectives of the shared history of First Peoples and European settlers. (Amazon)This is the first book of its kind in Australia: a history of Aboriginal campsites. This is also the first guidebook to the location and features of the numerous Aboriginal camps that flourished in and around Brisbane from convict times to in some cases as late as the 1950s. Many of Brisbane’s suburbs trace their names, parks and key events to these former campsites. This book focuses on 15 key areas, and includes a full suburban listing at the back. Potter Library 994.3 KER. (Goodreads)
Bruce Pascoe has collected a swathe of literary awards for Dark Emu and now he has brought together the research and compelling first person accounts in a book for younger readers. Using the accounts of early European explorers, colonists and farmers, Bruce Pascoe compellingly argues for a reconsideration of the hunter-gatherer label for pre-colonial Aboriginal Australians. (Goodreads.)Deep Time Dreaming is about a slow shift in national consciousness. It explores what it means to live in a place of great antiquity, with its complex questions of ownership and identity. It brings to life the deep time dreaming that has changed the way many Australians relate to their continent and its enduring, dynamic human history. (Goodreads)In 1840, Brisbane was the furthest outpost of settled Australia. On all sides, it was embedded in a richly Indigenous world. Over the next few years, mostly from across New South Wales northern plains, a large push of pastoralists thundered into the Darling Downs, Lockyer and much of southern Queensland – establishing huge sheep stations. The violence that erupted welded many of the tribal groups into an alliance that by 1842 was working to halt the advance. (Booktopia) Potter Library 994.33 KER
Pathfinder – A list of AHS library resources: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples Culture Resources (Click link below)
Online copies of CHOICE magazine at: icon on library catalogue home page, scroll down (maximum 5 users at any one time) or go to https://www.choice.com.au/ Username: library@ahs.qld.edu.au Password: choice
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