Is it on the list?

Books of lists unnerve me ... you know, the "100 Books to Read / Movies to Watch / Places to Visit" type-of-thing. It's the 'before you die' or 'before it's too late' implied by the title of these publications that I find so unsettling. I'm the kind of person who worries out about all the stuff that I want to do and know that, really, I'll never get around to doing even half of it. Call me chicken, but I don't want this appalling lack of time pointed out to me with lists of things to do, that in all likelihood I'll never get around to doing!
Recently, however, I was seduced by a bright, snazzy cover (she looked innocent enough,sitting there on the library display shelf) and before I realised what was happening, I'd taken her home with me and begun an exploration of the Anime DVD's in the library collection. The siren publication that caught my eye was "500 Essential Anime Movies: The Ultimate Guide" by Helen McCarthy. My understanding of Anime is that it is a cartoon or animated film with disctinctive Japanese styling. To read more about Anime click here to go to Wikepedia.
I may have had a moment of weakness, when I borrowed that book, but I am not stupid -so I created a shortlist of 80 Anime DVD's (out of the recommended 500) to watch. I'm concentrating on the top 10 across eight different genre - such as Fantasy, Sci-Fi, Action, Romance, Mystery, Crime, Historical, Sporting. Anime stories cover a whole range of subject matter, which I am finding makes working through my list a varied and highly entertaining experience. I have watched seventeen DVD's so far (as has my husband!) and all of these were in the collection of the library.
You know, I'm actually enjoying myself. I'm making a short list of the short list to share with friends and family... why not, I've done the research and can save others the time! Of course, it's a biased list being the Anime DVD's that I have enjoyed most. First there are the ones I call 'Milk and Cookie Movies' - suitable to watch with your preschoolers; they include "Kiki's Delivery Service", "My Neighbour Totoro" and "My Neighbours the Yamadas". Then there are the 'Cordial and Crisp Movies' - suitable to put on after school for your older primary-school-aged kids and their friends; these include "Porco Rosso" and "Whisper of the Heart". For 'Hot Chip' highschool children's movies try "Princess Mononoke" (my favourite so far) and "Grave of the Fireflies".
I'm working my way up to the scarier (and often bloodier) DVD's as my taste for Anime matures - so I have no grown-up movies to reccommend, sorry. But hey, perhaps you shouldn't take my word for it... you could borrow the book yourself and start ticking those Anime DVD's off the list! Happy viewing, Pippi.

Man Booker International Prize winner 2009

The 2009 winner of the Man Booker International Prize was announced overnight. The Man Booker International Prize is given every two years to an author for their body of work.

The newest recipient of the prize is Canadian author, Alice Munro. Jane Smiley, Pulitzer prize-winning American novelist and member of the judging panel, said that choosing a winner from the 14 longlisted authors had been a challenge but that Munro's work is "practically perfect".

Ms Munro is only the third winner of this prize which began in 2005. Then it was won by Ismail Kadare. In 2007 the winner was Chinua Achebe.

Alice Munro at Blue Mountains City Library:

• Hateship, friendship, courtship, loveship, marriage : stories
• Lives of girls and women
• Selected stories
• The view from Castle Rock : stories
• Runaway : stories
• Open secrets

National Simultaneous Storytime 2009

What fun! We had special storytime sessions today at our Springwood, Katoomba, Blaxland and Lawson libraries. We joined children, families and libraries all over Australia to celebrate National Simultaneous Storytime for 2009.

National Simultaneous Storytime at Springwood Library

Sue from the Children's and Young Adult's Team reads Pete the Sheep by Jackie French and Bruce Whatley to approximately 50 children at Springwood Library. And special thankyous to Aniko, Naomi and Vanessa for presenting “Pete the Sheep” at Katoomba, Blaxland and Lawson libraries.

Weeding

One of my bugbears as a librarian is tatty, out-of-date books not being weeded from the library shelves. I know that many of my colleagues and some library patrons hate to do see us cancelling piles of books. Indeed, yesterday I read a review of a book called Books as History : The Importance of Books Beyond Their Texts by David Pearson which, according to the review, "sets out to make librarians and others who have books in their care think again about their value as cultural artefacts and pieces of historical evidence."

And I agree on one level, but who wants to read a brown-paged, stained and dog-eared copy of War and Peace which the library acquired in 1974 instead of a bright, shiny, new copy? And we are obliged to keep up-to-date, after all we are an information resource. What's the point in the 1992 edition of Lonely Planet's Paris, except as the aforementioned cultural artefact?

Now I've found a blog that vindicates my stance.

The Awfullibrarybooks blog is a collection of the worst library holdings. "The items featured here are so old, obsolete, awful or just plain stupid that we are horrified that people might be actually checking these items out and depending on the information. This blog contains actual library holdings. No specific libraries or librarians are named to protect the guilty. Check your shelves, it could be you".

As an EXCELLENT example of their craft, read this entry (the picture is a taster) - it contains a dire warning about what happens when you don't follow a regular, thoughtful weeding program.

(My thanks to The BookBitch who has both a website and a blog you can peruse.)

Just a reminder . . .

National Simultaneous Storytime will be celebrated by Blue Mountains City Libraries on

Wednesday May 27th

• 10:30am at Springwood, Katoomba, Blaxland and Lawson Libraries

Bring along your littlies to share in this nation-wide event.

Commonwealth writers' prize 2009 - Overall winners

The overall winners of the Commonwealth Writers' Prize 2009 was announced recently with Australian Christos Tsiolkas winning the Overall Best Book Award for his book, The Slap. Pakistan's Mohammed Hanif won the Best First Book Award with A Case of Exploding Mangoes.

Chair of the judging panel, the Hon Justice Nicholas Hasluck, commented on the two winning books: "A controversial and daring novel, The Slap uses the iconic scene of a suburban Australian barbecue to examine identities and personal relationships in a multicultural society. Offering points of view from eight different characters, it taps into universal tensions and dilemmas around family life and child-rearing. This book is sure to challenge readers and provoke debate".

And about An Exploding Case of Mangoes : "Standing out in a strong field, this riveting debut novel makes Mohammed Hanif Pakistan's first winner of the Commonwealth Writers' Prize. A tour de force, this fast-paced political intrigue merges fact and fiction to provide a startling interrogation of dictatorship, religious fundamentalism and abuse of power. A trenchant satire, tender and funny, it will long live on in readers' minds."

A full report on the winners is available here on the Commonwealth Writer's Prize website.

What Library Staff are Reading . . .

Books the library staff have had their noses in this month . . .

• The Dragon Queens by Traci Harding
• Henry : Virtuous Prince by David Starkey
• Hollywood Station by Joseph Wambaugh ~ the master is back with his new book after a 20 year absence!
• The SantaLand Diaries by contemporary humorist David Sedaris ~ I loved it and really identified with his crazy Christmas retail job experiences, it’s a great laugh (in retrospect!)
• The Secret History byDonna Tartt
• The Human Stain by Philip Roth
• Famous magazine! ~ best $3.50 I spend all week!
• Arabesques, a tale of double lives by Robert Dessaix
• The Collected Short Stories by Katherine Mansfield
• The Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein ~ love and loss from a dog's eye point of view - and a whole lot more about car racing than most need to know. Needs a box of tissues handy
• Napoleon's Privates : 2,500 Years of History Unzipped by Tony Perrottet
• The Sex Diaries : Why Women Go Off Sex and Other Bedroom Battles by Bettina Arndt ~ indexed by one of our own!
• The Girl on the Landing by Paul Torday
• Pride and Prejudice and Zombies by Jane Austen and Seth Grahame-Smith ~ not only do the Bennet girls have to find husbands, they have to fend off the undead as they do it; luckily they have ninja training - hilarious stuff
• Dog on it by Spencer Quinn ~ more dog's eye point of view fiction, this time a detective story
• Peter Pan by J.M. Barrie
• From Working Class Hero to Absolute Disgrace : an 80s Memoir by Stephen Foster
• Up a Tree in the Park with a Hedgehog by P. Robert Smith ~ all will be revealed
• Je Suis Australienne : Remarkable Women in France, 1880-1945 ~ from finishing school journals to WWI nursing sisters and Nancy Wake, some interesting stories in here.

Family History Help

Did you know there is a Family History Reference section at Springwood Library?

The Family History collection comprises books, journals, microfiche, microfilm, indexes guides and CD-ROMs including :

• the entire Genealogical Research Kit from the NSW State Archives Authority (the GRK)


• the International Genealogical Index (the IGI), produced by the Mormons, for Britain, Australia, and some other countries

Births, deaths and marriages are held on CD-ROM, as well as microfiche.

Being a Reference collection, these materials can only be used at Springwood.

Blue Mountains Family History Society material is also stored in the same space at Springwood on open access for reference by any customers in the library. It is available for loan but only to members of the society who must have a volunteer enter their details in the society's register before being allowed to borrow this material.

Family History Society volunteers are at Springwood Library from 10am to 1pm every Tuesday and Thursday, also on the last Monday & Saturday of each month.

Volunteers are also at Katoomba Library 2pm to 4 pm on the second & fourth Tuesdays of each month.

NSW Premier's Literary Awards 2009 - The winners

The winners of the various NSW Premier's Literary Awards were announced a few days ago (sorry, been in bed ill all week so am a bit behind). The full list of winners can be read here (with links to fuller information on both prize and winner) and include :

• The Boat by Nam Le which won both the 2008 Book of the Year Award and the UTS Glenda Adams Award for New Writing


• The Good Parents by Joan London won the Christina Stead Prize for fiction


• The Tall Man: Death and Life on Palm Island by Chloe Hooper won the Douglas Stewart Prize for non-fiction


• and the winner of the People's Choice Award for fiction was A Fraction of the Whole by Steve Toltz

Life in the fast lane

Trawling through my blog feeds this morning I came across this in the (often hilarious) Bookninja blog :



Another of my favourite blogs is the People Reading blog, the author of which travels around taking photographs of people reading, mostly in San Francisco. (Sadly there haven't been any posts there for several weeks and I am missing it). Anyway, as well as the photo and the title of the book being read, there is usually a little blurb about why they chose that book, their favourite books and authors. Don't know why, but I find the whole thing fascinating.

It all got me to wondering where your favourite place to read is? My favourite place is in bed, and that's not only because we are still waiting for the man to return the furniture he has been renovating for the past 8 months!

Australia's Biggest Book Group launched

Close on the heels of the MS Society's Throw the Book at MS campaign, we have another organisation making use of the popularity and power of book groups for fundraising purposes - Australia's Biggest Book Group is an initiative to raise funds and awareness for the Muscular Dystrophy Association.

To join in Australians are encouraged to buy and read the same book, Versace Sisters by Cate Kendall with 100% of net profit being donated to the cause. A dedicated website encourages readers to purchase the book and become part of the ‘biggest book group'.

The initiative is run by a volunteer committee of professionals, including doctors, business owners, marketing and media personnel. Their aim is to raise $1,000,000.

Find out more here or by watching this video clip :



Thank you to Bookseller & Publisher for alerting us to this terrific cause.

National Simultaneous Storytime 2009

Blue Mountains City Library will be celebrating
National Simultaneous Storytime
on Wednesday May 27th at 10:30am
at Springwood, Katoomba, Blaxland

and Lawson Libraries

Together with other libraries all over Australia, Blue Mountains City Library will be conducting a Storytime featuring the chosen book for 2009:

Pete the Sheep written by Jackie French and illustrated by Bruce Whately.



This is part of National Library and Information Week 2009, an initiative by the Australian Library and Information Association.

Alison's Picks - May 2009

• The People on Privilege Hill by Jane Gardam
• The Girl with no Shadow (also published as The Lollipop Shoes) by Joanne Harris
• The Return by Victoria Hislop
• The In-Between World of Vikram Lall by M. G. Vassanji
• What Can be Proven by Mark O’Flynn
  

Law Week 2009

It's Law Week this week, 11th-17th May. Law Week was established in New South Wales to promote greater understanding within the community of the law, the legal system and the legal profession but over time, Law Week will grow to become a coordinated, nation-wide event.

A range of Law Week events will be held throughout NSW that will aim to cover topics including:

• family law
• legal issues for older people such as wills & Power of Attorney
• retirement villages and the law
• neighbourhood disputes
• property issues concerning strata, tenancy, local government and
  planning law, buying and selling a home
• financial rights and responsibilities, mortgage debt and stress
• domestic and family violence
• immigration law.

Open Days will be held at various local courts across NSW together with mock-trial exercises and debates for school students. Locally there will be workshops on

Criminal Law, Springwood, Monday 11 May
and
Elder Law Issues Forum, Katoomba, Wednesday 13 May

Home Library Services

If you find it difficult to visit the Library, but would enjoy reading one of the many new books or magazines available, or watching a DVD or listening to a talking book, then the free home library service may be just what you need.

Blue Mountains City Library works in cooperation with four of the Neighbourhood Centres in the Blue Mountains area to provide a service for frail, aged and/or a person living with a disability, or their carers. A volunteer can visit your home, find out your needs, then visit the Library and select items on your behalf. All you need to be is a member of the Library. If you are not a member you will need proof of your identity and address in the Blue Mountains to join the Library.

Please contact any of the Neighbourhood Centres at :

• Blaxland 4739 1164


• Springwood 4751 3033


• Lawson 4759 2592


• Katoomba 4782 1117


• or staff at any of the six branches of the Blue Mountains City Library for further information.

Please note access to the home library service requires an assessment for eligibility and is subject to availability of volunteers.

Agatha Awards 2008 winners

No, I'm not late, the Agatha Awards, which are given for materials first published in the United States by a living author during the calendar year 2008 (January 1-December 31) and the winners in a varitey of categories are decided by secret ballot of attendees of the Malice Domestic 21 conference, which was held last week.

Here are the winners :

• Best Novel : The Cruelest Month by Louise Penny


• Best First Novel : Death of a Cozy Writer by G.M. Malliet


• Best Non-fiction : How to Write Killer Historical Mysteries by Kathy Lynn Emerson


• Best Short Story : The Night Things Changed by Dana Cameron


• Best Children's/Young Adult : The Crossroads by Chris Grabenstein

Use the link to see the full Agatha Awards shortlist on our previous post.

Handle with Care by Jodi Picoult

Plot summary : In Handle with Care Charlotte O'Keefe's beautiful, much-longed-for, adored daughter Willow is born with osteogenesis imperfecta - a very severe form of brittle bone disease. If she slips on a crisp packet she could break both her legs, and spend six months in a half body cast. After years of caring for Willow, her family faces financial disaster. Then Charlotte is offered a lifeline. She could sue her obsetrician for wrongful birth - for not having diagnosed Willow's condition early enough in the pregnancy to be able to abort the child. The payout could secure Willow's future. But to get it would mean Charlotte suing her best friend. And standing up in court to declare that if she would have prefered that Willow had never been born . . . (Source: Angus and Robertson)

Review : Jodi Picoult’s novels are always a winner for me and this is no exception.

It is an absorbing narrative which also questions the basis of medical ethics and of personal morality.It is a penetrating insight into the minds and hearts of real people and I found it similar to My Sister’s Keeper in its content. Jodi always writes well and we always share her character’s feelings and thoughts.

It is a wonderful portrayal of a family in crisis.

Reviewer : Carolyn

999 Challenge - April

I realise the four books I have read this month all have the theme of going from the present to the past and back again.

The Gathering by Anne Enright (Man Booker Prize Winner). Veronica Hegarty looses her much loved brother Liam, an alcoholic who commits suicide by drowning. Veronica reflects on the family history. The story is set in Ireland and involves many themes, family secrets, sexual abuse, alcoholism, suicide and absentee parents. It is filled with love and hate. The story deals with the difficulties of relationships within the family. There is more than one story going on at one time as it jumps from the past to the present and back again with no warning. I really struggled with this book. Although there were some good parts the book for me overall did not hold my interest. Maybe it was one of those books one needs to re read if only there was the time. Sorry too many good books out there to read.

Look Me In The Eye by John Elder Robison (Word of Mouth). This was a most interesting read by the brother of Augusten Burroughs (Running with Scissors) who is a favourite author of mine. John has lived with Asperger's Syndrome all his life. Not only was he bought up in a totally dysfunctional family but Asperger's Syndrome was not even heard of when he was growing up. He could not make eye contact, he said whatever came into his mind whether relevent to the conversation or not and he could not express appropriate emotions. Everyone thought he was weird, lazy and arrogant. His saving grace was that he always connected with machines. He firstly got into the rock scene at sixteen where he created the smoke-exploding guitars for KISS. He fitted into the rock scene as he felt they were misfits like him. Next he thought he would try the corprate world where he created talking toys, after a while he felt he didn't fit in. He always loved tinkering with cars so he decided to set up his own business of repairing expensive European cars. He has been very successful in this business which he still has today. At age forty his friend a therapist told him he thought he had a form of autism called Asperger's Syndrome which was only diagnosed in the 80's. He realised he wasn't a freak after all and was able to use his logical mind to asertain certain responses that enabled him to live in the 'normal' world. He hopes his story will help other children to grow up a little less lonely. I loved this book.

The Forgotten Garden: a novel by Kate Morton (Word of Mouth) The novel opens in 1913 where a young girl has been left on the dock sitting on her suitcase. A dock worker finds her and takes her home to his childless wife. They name her Nell and she grows up in a very happy environment. When she turns twenty one her father tells her a secret that changes her life. She begins a lifetime quest of trying to find out who she is. This is also the story of Nell's grandaughter Cassandra who inherits Nell's house and forgotten garden in Cornwell after she dies, that nobody knew she had. Cassandra starts to uncover long hidden family secrets. The story is interwoven in three parts from 1913 to 2005 from Australia to London to Cornwell.
Kate Morton has an easy to read storytelling style and her mystery elements will hold you to the end. I really enjoyed this book, I found it hard to put down and sorry when it ended.

The Rugmaker of Mazar-e-Sharif by Najef Mazari (Word of Mouth) This is a story of Najef's journey from Mazar-eSharif in Afganistan to Woomera Detention Centre in Australia. During his time in Woomera awaiting to see if he is accepted into Australia he reminises of happy and unhappy memories of life back in Mazar-e-Sharif. What a resilient race of people these Afagani people are, there is always a parable to be told to understand the hardship of their lives. There are some humorous moments in the book when Najef is trying to understand our culture like queue jumping and queue forming as it is unheard of in his country, also the breaucracy of the government in Canberra, where there is a man who is the keeper of the special stamp that stamps the visas. Najef arrives with only one shoe the other lost at sea and the time he spend at Woomera he only ever has the one shoe. He helps out in the kitchen to give himself something to do and as he says everyone knows Asians like rice but noodles would be nice for a change. He eventually gets his visa approved and opens a rug shop in Melbourne. We don't realise how hard it must be to leave the country and culture you are bought up in and to search for a place to live that enables you peace and security. I really enjoyed this book as Najef always had hope and despite everything that has happened to him and finds good in everything around him.

Carolyn's Books of the Month - May 2009

• Best read for the month : Handle with Care by Jodi Picoult


• Thriller : You Can't Hide by Karen Rose and Dark Tide by Andrew Gross


• General : Heart Sick by Chelsea Cain


• Saga/Romances : The Beach House by Jane Green


• Non Fiction: 1788 : the brutal truth of the First Fleet by David Hill


• Crime : Switch by Grant McKenzie
  
  

Arthur C Clarke Award Winner 2009

According to The Guardian blog, Ian R Macleod has won the Arthur C Clarke Award for science fiction this year.

"Ian R MacLeod's Song of Time takes place near the end of the 21st century, as an aged concert violinist, about to pass into a virtual afterlife, discovers a half-drowned man on a Cornish beach. Described by the Guardian as "a slow, sensitive first-person account of what it means to be human and vulnerable", and as a book which "confirms MacLeod as one of the country's very best literary SF writers", the book was last night chosen ahead of more classic science fiction fare, from former winner Paul McAuley's interplanetary space battle The Quiet War, to Alastair Reynolds's hard SF space opera House of Suns and Sherri S Tepper's tale of a human child enslaved by aliens, The Margarets".