"But for the most part the summer folks followed a seasonal pattern. Like migratory birds, they flocked in, one generation following the other." ~ from Alice Greenway's The Bird Skinner
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Waitangi Day and New Zealand
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The New Zealand flag is back in public debate and February begins with the celebration of the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi, an important moment in our history. Waitangi Day is always a time of celebrating our nation, but also of understanding how we have got to this point. Our Waitangi Day resource is a useful guide to the event and to further reading and thinking about the issues. We have a special section on what happened at Ōnuku Marae, the site of one of the South Island treaty signings.The Kids’ Treaty Zone is a great new resource for helping kids to learn about the Treaty.
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New and Recently Released!
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At Night We Walk in Circles: A Novel
by Daniel Alarcón
The breakout book from a prizewinning young writer: a breathtaking, suspenseful story of one man's obsessive search to find the truth of another man's downfall. Nelson's life is not turning out the way he hoped. His girlfriend is sleeping with another man, his brother has left their South American country and moved to the United States, leaving Nelson to care for their widowed mother, and his acting career can't seem to get off the ground. That is, until he lands a starring role in a touring revival of The Idiot President, a legendary play by Nelson's hero, Henry Nunez, leader of the storied guerrilla theatre troupe Diciembre. And that's when the real trouble begins.
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Traveling Sprinkler: A Novel
by Nicholson Baker
An accomplished poet tries his hand at songwriting, Quaker meetings and tobacco experiments while he copes, badly, with his ex-girlfriend's new relationship with a local NPR radio host in this new novel from the best-selling author of The Anthologist.
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Radiance of Tomorrow
by Ishmael Beah
A first novel by the internationally best-selling author of A Long Way Gone is an intimate parable about postwar life in Sierra Leone in which two long-time friends return to their ruined home village and struggle to rebuild in the face of violence, scarcity and a corrupt foreign mining company.
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For Today I Am a Boy
by Kim Fu
Peter, the only boy among four siblings born to first-generation Chinese Americans, is convinced he's a girl and must fight the confines of a small town as well as the expectations of his immigrant parents to forge his own path into adulthood.
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| The Bird Skinner by Alice GreenwayBitter, isolated Jim Kennoway used to be known for his work in the field of ornithology, but the death of his wife and the recent loss of his leg have changed him. He's retreated to a tiny island off the coast of Maine, where he's probably going to drink himself to death. But the unexpected arrival of the daughter of a friend from his days in the service during World War II changes his plans.The Bird Skinner visits several different islands and their birdlife. These settings are captured in author Alice Greenway's meticulously chosen words as well as in drawings throughout the book. |
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The Days of Anna Madrigal
by Armistead Maupin
The ninth and final novel in the best-selling Tales of the City series follows 92-year-old Anna Madrigal, the legendary transgender landlady of 28 Barbary Lane, as she joins her former tenant Brian on a road trip to Nevada where she attends to unfinished business she has long avoided.
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A Well-Tempered Heart: A Novel
by Jan-Philipp Sendker
In this sequel to The Art of Hearing Heartbeats, Julia Win, a successful Manhattan lawyer who, despite her wealth, is unhappy, lost and exhausted, suffers a personal crisis when she begins hearing a stranger's voice in her head who asks questions that she has been trying to avoid.
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The Supreme Macaroni Company: A Novel
by Adriana Trigiani
When a secret about her business partner and lover is revealed during her family's celebration of The Feast of the Seven Fishes, Valentine Roncalli must make life-altering choices as she fights for everything she wants while sustaining her family's business and enjoying life to the fullest.
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| Last Man In Tower by Aravind AdigaThe Vishram Society was the first of its kind in its part of Mumbai -- a cooperative apartment building that ushered in several more middle-class housing options in an otherwise iffy part of the city. But now it is under threat by a developer, who wishes to tear down the historic building to make way for luxurious condos, and the sense of community built by the Society's residents is torn apart by the vast sum the developer has offered each resident. There is one holdout, a retired teacher, but each of the residents is fully realised, their struggles and very natures revealed in luxurious, detailed prose by Man Booker Prize winner Aravind Adiga. |
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| Secret Daughter by Shilpi Somaya GowdaKnowing that the fate of her second daughter would surely be the same as her first -- death, in an Indian village in 1984 that only values boys -- Kavita sends her newborn to a Mumbai orphanage, where she is adopted by two American doctors. Scenes from Asha's privileged but isolated life in America alternate with Kavita's, in her village and later in a Mumbai slum, and both are shared with compassion and insight. Motherhood is of course a key theme, and may come full circle with Asha's visit to India as a college student. |
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| The World We Found: A Novel by Thrity N. UmrigarIn the late 1970s, Laleh, Kavita, Nishta, and Armaiti, were best friends and schoolmates in Bombay. Though once idealistic young revolutionaries, over the years the women have entered different lives. But when one is given a terminal diagnosis, her last wish is that the four reunite before her death. Their struggle to reconnect is impeded by several obstacles, including Nishta's Muslim fundamentalist husband and the choices each has made. A character-driven story of politics and religion in India, The World We Found describes a divided India peopled by fully dimensional characters. |
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| The Marriage Bureau for Rich People by Farahad ZamaBored of retirement, Mr. Ali opens up a matchmaking service for the well-to-do of Vizag, a town in southern India. Successful beyond his expectations, he is soon required to hire an assistant, Aruna, whose high-caste family has fallen on hard times. With no dowry, Aruna has little hope of finding a match herself, but an attractive walk-in suggests that sometimes fate has surprising things in store -- even for those busy negotiating the love lives of others. With shades of Jane Austen, this debut touches on modern-day India's class inequalities and colourfully depicts the ins and outs of successful matchmaking. |
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Contact your librarian for more great books!
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