Your Library, Your Voice Help us design your dream libraryThe city's New Central Library (Ngā Kete Wānanga o Ōtautahi) will be built in Cathedral Square and the Christchurch City Council wants your input on the design. What exciting things do you want to do in our New Central Library? How should the building look and feel? Have your say at http://yourvoice.ccc.govt.nz
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New and Recently Released!
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The deepest secret: a novel
by Carla Buckley
Wishing for a normal life after being diagnosed with a rare medical condition that makes him lethally sensitive to light, 13-year-old Tyler roams the nighttime streets to observe the neighbourhood family lives he covets only to become a key witness in the disappearance of a young girl.
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A place to stand
by Helen McNeil
"Sandra McLeod arrived as a child in Kawerau, New Zealand, with her British family. It was 1954. But the family's hopes for a new and better life faltered in this raw timber town. At sixteen Sandra fled. All she took with her were numbness and denial. Fifteen years later, a letter arrives and Sandra, now a successful real estate agent, knows she must go back. Back to her mother's vacant eyes and the secrets of the McLeod family. Back to unpick her past and to learn about loss, grief, mothering, and perhaps a chance of finding home"--Author's website.
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Where the Rekohu bone sings
by Tina Makereti
From the Chatham Islands/ Rekohu to London, from 1835 to the 21st century, this quietly powerful and compelling novel confronts the complexity of being Moriori, Maori and Pakeha. In the 1880s, Mere yearns for independence. Iraia wants the same but, as the descendant of a slave, such things are hardly conceivable. One summer, they notice their friendship has changed, but if they are ever to experience freedom they will need to leave their home in the Queen Charlotte Sounds. A hundred years later, Lula and Bigs are born. The birth is literally one in a million, as their mother, Tui, likes to say. When Tui dies, they learn there is much she kept secret and they, too, will need to travel beyond their world, to an island they barely knew existed. Neither Mere and Iraia nor Lula and Bigs are aware that someone else is part of their journeys. He does not watch over them so much as through them, feeling their loss and confusion as if it were his own.
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The first true lie
by Marina Mander
When his mother doesn't wake up one morning, Luca, a curious young boy, along with his cat Blue, decides to pretend to the world that his mom is still alive, while grappling the fact that his mother's decaying body is still within his home. Much praised Italian novel.
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| Bark: stories by Lorrie MooreThough the characters in the eight short stories in this collection may be struggling through troubled lives -- whether dealing with divorce or failed careers or mental illness -- they do so with humour, intelligence, and a robust sense of irony. Their situations are realistic and perceptively depicted, sometimes uncomfortably so. The stories vary in length; some are set around distinct political events in the recent past (the invasion of Iraq, President Obama's election), but through them all author Lorrie Moore "brilliantly observes the dead-on sorrow and hilarity of our day-to-day" (MORE magazine). |
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Years of red dust: stories of Shanghai
by Xiaolong Qiu
An internationally best-selling volume of linked short stories originally published in Le Monde traces a half century in China from the early days of the Communist revolution to the modernisation movement from the perspective of residents on a small street in Shanghai. By the author of Red Mandarin Dress.
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City of Jasmine
by Deanna Raybourn
Embarking on a world tour in the 1920s, famed aviatrix Evangeline Starke cuts her ambitious stunt short when she, receiving a recent photograph of her late husband Gabriel, tracks the photo to the ancient City of Jasmine, Damascus where danger, passion and the truth await.
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| The spinning heart by Donal RyanNarrated by unforgettably distinct characters -- one chapter per character -- who relay some of the same events, this dialect-rich novel follows a small Irish town in the aftermath of the country's financial collapse. Their own major employer, a construction company, has folded, bringing about rising tensions and violence as resources become increasingly hard to come by. The narrators, who share their own experiences, also build a picture of one Bobby Mahon, who enjoys a reputation as an upstanding citizen but may not entirely deserve it. Though necessarily bleak and grey, this engaging and occasionally humorous debut won the Guardian First Book Award and may appeal to fans of Tana French's Broken Harbour, which depicts a murder investigation in a similarly stricken Ireland. |
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"Gardening is cheaper than therapy and you get tomatoes." ~Author Unknown
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| Garden spells by Sarah Addison AllenIn the small North Carolina town of Bascom there stands a house -- and a magical garden -- that has been home to generations of gifted Waverley women. Living there now is successful caterer Claire, who uses edible flowers to create unusual recipes that "affect the eater in curious ways." Her peaceful routine is about to be transformed by the return of her younger sister Sydney, who ran away ten years ago at the age of 18, and by Tyler, the new neighbour next door. A charming read, this book is sure to cast a delightful spell, especially if you enjoy Southern fiction with a touch of magical realism. |
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| The savage garden by Mark MillsIn 1958, young Cambridge scholar Adam Strickland is spending his summer in Tuscany researching a famous 16th-century memorial garden. But the more Adam learns about its elaborate landscapes, the more he believes that it hides secrets -- such as the truth behind the death of the woman it memorialises, and possibly clues to a more recent murder. While the family that owns the garden is intrigued by the former theory, Adam's interest in the latter is not met warmly. For a similarly atmospheric tale in which gardens hold the answers to old mysteries, try Kate Morton's The Forgotten Garden. |
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| The French gardener by Santa MontefioreMiranda, David, and their children have left crowded London for a beautiful if slightly shambolic country estate. But with David spending his weeks in London, their relationship is under even more strain (the kids, too, are struggling). Balancing house, estate, kids (one of whom is terrorising the neighborhood), career, and a failing marriage, Miranda is delighted when a charming, gentle Frenchman offers to return their gardens to their former glory. As their garden transforms, so too does the family. And there's an intriguing parallel story as well, one that Miranda finds in the diary of the estate's former owner. Readers who truly love the results of hard work in the garden will appreciate both the depictions of Hartington House's gardens and the connections between nature, love, and healing. |
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| The barbarian nurseries by Hector TobarScott and Maureen Torres-Thompson live with their two children in a fancy Orange County home, though financial troubles exacerbated by Maureen's wild spending on a garden renovation have forced them to let go of much of their staff. Araceli, the undocumented housekeeper, must now care for the kids. But when both mum and dad disappear for days (taking "breaks" they neglect to tell each other or Araceli about), Araceli attempts to do the right thing by bringing the kids to their grandfather, who lives somewhere in L.A. When Scott and Maureen return to an empty house, they panic and call the cops, provoking a media circus that assumes the Mexican housekeeper has kidnapped the kids. Readers interested in social issues and the disconnect between wealthy Americans and the workers they hire will not want to miss The Barbarian Nurseries. |
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Contact your librarian for more great books!
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