WORD Christchurch Writers and Readers Festival 2014
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New and Recently Released!
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| The third plate: field notes on the future of food by Dan BarberIn The Third Plate, James Beard Award-winning chef Dan Barber delves into the question of food choices and sustainable agriculture by visiting farmers to learn about their innovative methods. At various establishments, including an organic farm in New York, where Barber learns about soil and a farm in Spain where they produce foie gras without force-feeding the geese. Barber finds out how to broaden and diversify American menus while improving the environment that supports our food chain. This "bold and impassioned" (Kirkus Reviews) report concludes that the American diet needs to shift towards sustainability and variety and that restaurateurs should lead the way. |
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| The Zhivago affair: the Kremlin, the CIA, and the battle over a forbidden book by Peter Finn and Petra CouvéeDoctor Zhivago, a novel published in translation during the late 1950s by Russian author Boris Pasternak, created a sensation in the West with its negative depiction of the Russian Revolution. The CIA recognized that the book could promote anti-communist sentiment within the Soviet Union, so they arranged to produce copies of the original Russian text and sneak them into Russia. The Zhivago Affair relates the exciting story of how the book-smuggling was accomplished, the severe consequences the Kremlin imposed on Pasternak and his family, and the international controversy aroused by the novel. Publishers Weekly calls this a "triumphant reminder that truth is sometimes gloriously stranger than fiction." |
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Only beautiful, please: a British diplomat in North Korea
by John Everard
As the British ambassador to North Korea, John Everard had the rare experience of living there from 2006, when the Democratic People's Republic of Korea conducted its first nuclear test, to 2008, just before Kim Jong Il's stroke. While stationed in Pyongyang, Everard's travels around the DPRK provided him with numerous opportunities to meet and converse with North Koreans. He unveils the human dimension of life in that hermetic nation and recounts his impressions of the country and its people, his interactions with them, and his observations on their way of life.
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AmalgaNations: how globalisation is good
by Doug Hendrie
The world is becoming multipolar, multicultural and mono-cultural all at the same time. Flows of culture are intensifying not just from West to the rest, but in all directions. What effect does the rush of culture and information via the internet, never-before-seen, mean for our times? And what does it mean for the lives of people in societies where globalisation has taken over?
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| China's second continent by Howard W. FrenchJournalist Howard French has extensive knowledge about Africa and China, having served as a bureau chief for The New York Times in both areas. Intrigued by the growing numbers of Chinese people who have moved to Africa, he interviewed both Africans and Chinese about China's apparent "colonization" of Africa. In China's Second Continent, he explains why the Chinese are moving to Africa, portrays their often contemptuously racist attitudes, and describes their business methods. French also discusses the potential for economic development that could harm or help Africa, depending on how the Chinese involvement is managed. China's Second Continent provides a thought-provoking assessment of the possible future for both Africa and China. |
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| The Romanov Sisters: the lost lives of the daughters of Nicholas and Alexandra by Helen RappaportWhile The Romanov Sisters focuses on the four daughters of Russian Tsar Nicholas II and Tsarina Alexandra, the book offers more than just a family biography. Weaving together general historical information and excerpts from the girls' journals and letters, historian Helen Rappaport depicts the period leading up to the Russian Revolution, including the political issues that dominated the Romanovs' lives. She explains why they maintained strict isolation from the public, portrays the relationships between the Tsarina and her children, and vividly recounts their interactions with the influential advisor Rasputin. This intimate account provides both an engaging view of the historic family and a window on the rest of the world in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. |
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Harry's last stand: how the world my generation built is falling down, and what we can do to save it
by Harry Leslie Smith
"I am not an historian, but, at 91, I am history. This is how I see the world, and what I think we can do to change it." In November 2013, 91-year-old Yorkshireman, RAF veteran and ex-carpet salesman Harry Leslie Smith's Guardian article - "This year, I will wear a poppy for the last time" - was shared almost 60,000 times on Facebook and started a huge debate about the state of society. Now he brings his unique perspective to bear on NHS cutbacks, benefits policy, political corruption, food poverty, the cost of education - and much more. From the deprivation of 1930s Barnsley and the terror of war to the creation of our welfare state, Harry has experienced how a great civilisation can rise from the rubble. But at the end of his life, he fears how easily it is being eroded. Harry's Last Stand is a lyrical, searing modern invective that shows what the past can teach us, and how the future is ours for the taking.
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| The Nile: a journey downriver through Egypt's past and present by Toby WilkinsonPresented as a travelogue about a trip down the Nile River, Egyptologist Toby Wilkinson's The Nile vividly depicts Egypt's long history and offers fascinating information about contemporary Egypt -- including the start of the Arab Spring in Cairo. Wilkinson focuses on the Nile because of its central and necessary role in Egyptian life, sustaining a civilization on the agriculture nurtured by the river's waters. In addition, goods and people -- important to a thriving economy -- moved (and still move) along the Nile. Wilkinson's rich, engaging narrative will captivate anyone interested in the Nile or in ancient or modern Egypt. |
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ANZAC girls: the extraordinary story of our World War I nurses
by Peter Rees
By the end of the Great War, 45 Australian and New Zealand nurses had died on overseas service and over 200 had been decorated. Their strength and dignity were remarkable. Using diaries and letters, Peter Rees takes us into the hospital camps and the wards, and the tent surgeries on the edge of some of the most horrific battlefronts of human history. But he also allows the friendships and loves of these courageous and compassionate women to shine through and enrich our experience. Profoundly moving, Anzac Girls is a story of extraordinary courage and humanity shown by a group of women whose contribution to the Anzac legend has barely been recognised in our history. Peter Rees has changed that understanding forever.
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The trigger: hunting the assassin who brought the world to war
by Tim Butcher
Describes the story of the teenager who changed the world and history forever when he shot Archduke Franz Ferdinand and started World War I and discusses the lasting repercussions this event has had on the Balkans over the last 100 years.
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| Unknown soldiers: the story of the missing of the First World War by Neil HansonThe First World War claimed the lives of many millions of troops, and the bodies of about 3,000,000 were never identified. To emphasize the personal significance of each loss among the millions, author Neil Hanson traces the stories of three soldiers -- an Englishman, a German, and an American -- whose remains were never found. Drawing on their letters and those of others, in addition to family and hometown records, he paints vivid portraits of these individuals and the war's devastating effects on those who were mired in the trenches. |
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The three emperors: three cousins, three empires and the road to World War I
by Miranda Carter
In the years before the First World War, the great European powers, Britain, Germany and Russia, were ruled by three cousins: George V, King-Emperor of England, the British Empire and India; Wilhelm II, the last Kaiser; and Nicholas II, the last Tsar. Together, they presided over the last years of dynastic Europe and the outbreak of the most destructive war the world had ever seen, a war which set twentieth century Europe on course to be the most violent continent in the history of the world. Miranda Carter uses the cousins' correspondence and a host of historical sources to tell the tragicomic story of a tiny, glittering, solipsistic world that was often preposterously out of kilter with its times, struggling to stay in command of politics and world events as history overtook it.
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Contact your librarian for more great books!
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