|
Biography and MemoirNovember 2014
|
Best and Worst Children's Books of the Year
|
|
If you enjoy children's and young adult books, make sure not to miss the popular Best and Worst Children’s Books of the Year event at Upper Riccarton Library on Wednesday 19 November, 7-9pm. Come and join us for a fun evening with raffles and refreshments. You might even spot some Christmas present ideas!
|
|
|
New and Recently Released!
|
|
|
Hard country: a Golden Bay life
by Robin Robilliard
Robby Robilliard and her husband Garry arrived in Golden Bay in 1957. Married in their early twenties, and with a child on the way, they longed to own their own sheep station. When they bought Rocklands, a marginal farm on the fringe of the Takaka Valley, bordering Abel Tasman National Park, their dream had come true - but it wasn't the life they had envisaged. It was a property no one else wanted, described by the agent as 'one hell of run-down place'. Robby even came to call it 'nightmare land'. The three previous owners of Rocklands had gone bankrupt. Yet it was all they could afford. Sixty years on, Robby and Garry still call Rocklands home. In fact, Garry is referred to as the 'oldest sheep farmer in Golden Bay'. This engaging book is Robby's story of the decades in which she and Garry eked a living out of Rocklands and of her encounters with the many and the varied local characters of Golden Bay.
|
|
|
Born into the Children of God: my struggle to escape a religious sex cult
by Natacha Tormey
All Natacha ever wanted was to feel normal, but escaping the cult was only the beginning. Shocking, moving, but ultimately inspiring, this is Natacha's full story; it is both a personal tale of trauma and recovery, and an expose of the secret world of abuse hidden behind commune walls.
|
|
|
Wild Westie: the incredible life of Bob Harvey
by Hazel Phillips
Sir Bob Harvey's colourful and varied life sums up the classic 'give it a go' Kiwi ethos. A legend of the eighties' advertising world, influential political strategist, former president of the Labour Party, outspoken environmentalist, long-serving mayor of Waitakere City and daring adventurer, Sir Bob has overseen and made New Zealand history. In this revealing biography of the self-proclaimed 'Wild Westie', journalist Hazel Phillips shares the social, political and personal events that have shaped Sir Bob's remarkable life, as well as fascinating behind-the-scenes stories from a man never far from the epicentre of New Zealand government.
|
|
|
My grandfather's gallery: a family memoir of art and war
by Anne Sinclair
Drawing on her grandfather's intimate correspondence with Picasso, Matisse, Braque and others, the author takes readers on a personal journey through the life of Paul Rosenberg, a legendary Parisian art dealer who was forced to flee Vichy France, leaving several famous artworks behind to be captured by the Nazis.
|
|
|
My story
by Julia Gillard
Julia Gillard reveals what life was really like as Australia's first female prime minister.
|
|
|
Robbie Deans: red, black & gold
by Matt McIlraith
For the first time, Robbie opens up on his career, from the triumphs of his formative years where he was nearly lost to a first-class cricketing career, through Canterbury's glory days in the early 1980s and the experiences the shaped the man and the coach.
|
|
| Smoke gets in your eyes: and other lessons from the crematory by Caitlin DoughtyIn Smoke Gets in Your Eyes, mortician Caitlin Doughty offers an informative account of her lifelong interest in death, relating how her college major in medieval history prepared her to deal with the subject of mortality before she enthusiastically began work as a mortician's assistant in a large crematory. Describing some of the details of preparing corpses for burial or cremation while wittily depicting the natural processes of decomposition, Doughty also explores traditional attitudes and rituals that surround death. |
|
|
Henare Wiremu Taratoa
by Patricia Brooks
The life and times of a young New Zealander who in the 1840s adopted a European lifestyle. He was New Zealand's first overseas missionary, a teacher and a patriot who fought for his people and his country.
|
|
|
What lies beneath: a memoir
by Elspeth Sandys
Writer Elspeth Sandys was born during the Second World War, the result of a brief encounter between two people who would never meet again. The first nine months of her life were spent in the Truby King Karitane Hospital in Dunedin, where she was known as Frances Hilton James. With her adoption, a new birth certificate was issued and she became Elspeth Sandilands Somerville.
|
|
|
Daring: my passages: a memoir
by Gail Sheehy
In an inspiring story of the unconventional life of a writer who dared, the New York Times best-selling author of the self-help classic Passages candidly recounts her challenges and victories as a groundbreaking female journalist in the 1960s, reflects on ambition and shares her own major life passages.
|
|
|
Duchamp: a biography
by Calvin Tomkins
Biography of the influential artist Marcel Duchamp by New Yorker writer and art critic Calvin Tomkins.
|
|
|
Carsick
by John Waters
The visual artist behind such cult films as Hairspray traces his haphazard cross-country hitchhiking journey at the sides of a motley group of unsuspecting drivers, including a gentle farmer, an indie band and the author's unexpected hero.
|
|
|
Fatherland: a family history
by Nina Bunjevac
In 1975 Nina Bunjevac's mother fled her marriage and her adopted country of Canada and took Nina back to Yugoslavia to live with her parents. Peter, her husband, was a fanatical Serbian nationalist who had been forced to leave his country at the end of World War II and migrate to Canada.
|
|
|
Tennessee Williams: mad pilgrimage of the flesh
by John Lahr
A biography of one of America's most treasured playwrights describes the writer's public persona as well as his more personal life, including conflicts with his family, his sexuality and multiple affairs and even his misreported death.
|
|
|
George Clinton & the cosmic odyssey of the P-Funk Empire
by Kris Needs
This is an in-depth biography of one of music's most fascinating, colourful and innovative characters - Dr Funkenstein. He stands alongside James Brown as one of the most influential black artists of all time and along with his P-Funk Collective, took black funk into the US charts and sold out stadiums by the mid 1970s with his extravagant shows.
|
|
|
Winston: the story of a political phenomenon
by Ian Wishart
They called him 'Luigi'. In fact, they've called him lots of things. Love him or loathe him, there's no denying Winston Raymond Peters is a force of nature. He's the former school teacher brought to tears by a class of 11 year olds. He's the former blast furnace worker for BHP Australia. He's the man who helped inspire Dame Whina Cooper's Land March in 1975. He's the man credited with the introduction of the proportional voting system we now use. But there's another side to Winston Peters. He's the man whose campaign against business and political corruption forced an inquiry and birthed a major new political party. Along the way, Peters has entertained and infuriated his friends and foes in almost equal measure.
|
|
|
Boy from Ngakawau: half an hour at high school
by Paul Corliss
From a Charming Creek childhood, a Buller coal miner to Heathcote Valley multi-millionaire, the story of cleaning king and Canterbury hardcase identity George Calvert.
|
|
Focus on: Military Life Stories
|
|
''The reason you are so sore you missed the war is because war is the best subject of all. It groups the maximum of material and speeds up the action and brings out all sorts of stuff that normally you have to wait a lifetime to get.'' ~ Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961), American author
|
|
| Love my rifle more than you: young and female in the U.S. Army by Kayla WilliamsFemale soldiers make up a significant minority of American military personnel today, and in Love My Rifle More Than You, Iraq War veteran Kayla Williams provides an unreserved, gritty, and revealing account of women soldiers' lives. Williams describes her five years in uniform, including her decision to enlist, her experience as an Arabic interpreter in Iraq, and how she was viewed (both positively and negatively) by her fellow soldiers. Williams' language is rough, macho, and profane, and some of the situations she describes are shocking. Read this vivid memoir for a realistic -- and perhaps unexpected -- view of the contemporary military experience. |
|
| Bolívar: American liberator by Marie AranaIn 1813, 200 years before the publication of this biography, Simón Bolívar began the military campaign that would eventually lead to the liberation of much of South America from Spanish rule. Bolívar isn't well known in North America, but his vision and military skill made him one of the most important figures in the history of the Western Hemisphere. This vivid and thoroughly researched biography explores his family background, his youth, and his career following independence to create a nuanced portrait of this complex man, viewed both as a dictatorial strongman and as a visionary leader. |
|
| Battle ready: memoir of a SEAL warrior medic by Mark L. Donald with Scott MacTavishTraining to be a Navy SEAL offers one of the most difficult personal challenges anyone can undertake, but author Mark Donald not only qualified as a SEAL -- he also became a combat medic. In Battle Ready, Donald relates why he chose the Marines, his progress to medical service and battlefield experiences, and his subsequent struggles with PTSD and adjustment to civilian life. Though he was the first medical officer since Vietnam to receive the Navy Cross, he expresses ambivalence about both the demands of war and the value of military engagement in Iraq and Afghanistan. This is a thought-provoking examination of war and what it means to be a soldier. |
|
|
Howard Kippenberger
by Denis McLean
Sir Howard Kippenberger is widely acknowledged as the ideal of a New Zealand citizen-soldier and our foremost soldier-scholar; a country lawyer and provincial intellectual who became a national figure as New Zealanders made the transition from colonials to a forthright nationhood. As a military leader, editor and author he was one of the prime movers in that process. His democratic style of leadership reflected the ethos of a new nation - active, competent and engaged in the world in its own right, no longer a dependency of Britain.
|
|
| Code talker by Chester Nez with Judith Schiess AvilaDuring World War II, Japanese codebreakers successfully cracked many of the Americans' encrypted communications -- until the U.S. Navy developed a code based on the Navajo language. Marines who were native speakers of Navajo safely transmitted and received messages about operations in the Pacific theater until the end of the war. In Code Talker, one of these Marines, Chester Nez, relates his life story, providing details of his traditional Navajo childhood and his reasons for enlisting, the fierce engagements on Guadalcanal, Iwo Jima, and other locations, and his postwar life. |
|
|
Willie Apiata, VC: the reluctant hero
by Paul Little
Corporal Willie Apiata became the first New Zealander since the Second World War to be awarded the Commonwealth's highest military award for his actions with the NZ SAS in Afghanistan. From his early life in small town East Coast New Zealand to his actions in the deserts of Afghanistan, this is his story in his words. This book will not only establish the place of Corporal Apiata in New Zealand's history, but will give an insight into the nature of a man who is truly a reluctant hero. While to most of us his actions seemed extraordinary and heroic, Corporal Apiata felt he was an ordinary Kiwi just 'doing his job'.
|
|
|
My life as a foreign country
by Brian Turner
In 2003, Sergeant Brian Turner was at the head of a convoy of 3,500 soldiers as they entered the Iraqi desert. Ten years later, he lies awake beside his sleeping wife, hallucinating: he is a drone aircraft. He hovers over a landscape in which the terrains of every conflict, of Bosnia and Vietnam, Iraq and Northern Ireland, the killing fields of Cambodia and the death camps of Europe, are pressed together, and the violence is on-going. Unburdened by nostalgia, hollow sympathy or a journalistic hunger for fact, this account combines the recalled with the imagined, and leaps centuries and continents to seek parallels in the histories of other men. The result is an opportunity to enter the head of a man still stalked by war, to experience conflict with new definition and lasting effect.
|
|
Contact your librarian for more great books!
|
|
|
|
|
|