Recent reviews
24 September 2009
The 10pm question
Author: Kate De Goldi
Call No: NZ F DEG and NZ Y DEG
Twelve-year-old Frankie Parsons has rather large, quirky family. Until now they've been the centre of his universe, but now Frankie's view of his world begins to change. There's a new arrival at school- a dredlocked girl called Sydney who becomes perplexingly fascinating to him. She even starts to draw him away from his best friend, Gigs.
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24 September 2009
The crimson rooms
Author: Katharine McMahon
Call No: F MAC
Evelyn is a young woman who has defied convention to become one of the country's pioneer female lawyers. Living at home with her mother, aunt, and grandmother, Evelyn is still haunted by the death of her younger brother James in the First World War. Therefore when the doorbell rings late one night and a woman appears, claiming to have mothered James's child, her world is turned upside down. Evelyn distrusts Meredith at first, but also finds that this new arrival challenges her work-obsessed lifestyle. So far her legal career has not set the world alight. But then two cases arise that make Evelyn realise perhaps she can make a difference. The first concerns a woman called Leah Marchant whose children have been taken away from her simply because she is poor. The second, Stephen Wheeler - a former acquaintance of Daniel Breen, her boss - has been charged with murdering his own wife. It is clear to Breen and Evelyn that Wheeler is innocent but he won't talk. After being humiliated in court, Evelyn is approached by a dashing lawyer called Nicholas Thorne. She is needled by his privileged background and old-fashioned attitudes, but despite being engaged, he cannot seem to resist sparring with this feisty young female. In the meantime, Meredith makes an earth-shattering accusation about James. With the Wheeler case coming to a head, and her heart in limbo, Evelyn takes matters into her own hands.
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24 September 2009
The seamstress: a novel
Author: Frances de Pontes Peebles
Call No: F PEE
Having mastered the clothing maker's art at an early age, orphaned siblings Emília and Luzia dos Santos harbour individual dreams for the future but find their lives playing out divergently as the wife of a wealthy doctor's son and a member of a rebel bandit gang.
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15 September 2009
Hellsing 1
Author: Kohta Hirano, translation by Duane Johnson
Call No: AGN HIR
There's a secret organization somewhere in England created to defend the Queen and country from monsters of all sorts. Enter Hellsing, an agency, long in tooth, with the experience, know-how, and er equipment to handle the problems that arise when vampires, ghouls, and the like clamber from the darkness. "What eqiupment?" you may say. How about another vampire, souped up by generations of study and refinement, armed with a big pistol loaded with special silver bullets? That oughta do the trick. But what really knocks 'em dead is the sharp wit, awesome artwork, and crazy, bloody action that make up the manga.
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14 September 2009
Shan zha shu zhi lian = Hawthorn tree forever
Author: Aimi zhu
Call No: CHI F AIM
Hawthorn tree forever - text in Chinese (simplified).
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8 September 2009
The Slap
Author: Christos Tsiolkas
Call No: F TSI
The Slap is a novel about the relationships between children and adults, and the new Australian multicultural middle-class. Winner 2009, Commonwealth Writers' Prize, South East Asia and Pacific.
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1 September 2009
Pride and Prejudice and Zombies
Author: Seth Grahame-Smith
Call No: F GRA
A mysterious plague has fallen upon the quiet English village of Meryton - and the dead are returning to life! Feisty heroine Elizabeth Bennet is determined to wipe out the zombie menace, but she's soon distracted by the arrival of the haughty and arrogant Mr. Darcy.
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1 September 2009
Transmetropolitan 1: Back to the Street
Author: Warren Ellis & Darick Robertson
Call No: AGN ELL
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1 September 2009
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society
Author: Mary Ann Shaffer & Annie Barrows
Call No: F SHA
January 1946: London is emerging from the shadow of the Second World War, and writer Juliet Ashton is looking for her next book subject. Who could imagine that she would find it in a letter from a man she’d never met, a native of Guernsey. Captivated by the stories of the members of the Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, she sets sail for Guernsey, and what she finds will change her forever.
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