Katoomba Library closure

Because of extensive renovation work on the Civic Centre, Katoomba Library will be closed for 3 weeks from Monday 21st June 2010

The library will re-open on Monday 12th July 2010

Both Blackheath and Wentworth Falls Libraries will operate for extended times and will be open

Monday-Friday 10am and 5pm and

Saturdays 9am and 4pm until Katoomba Library re-opens.

The After Hours Book Returns Bin will be relocated to the front of the Arcade level to allow for easy access for the general public and will be emptied on a regular basis.

Library management apologises for the inconvenience.

Children's Author of the Month

Jackie French's writing career spans 17 years, 48 wombats, 132 books, 23 languages, 3,721 bush rats, over 50 awards in Australia and overseas, 6 possibly insane lyrebirds, assorted 'Burke's Backyard' segments, radio shows, newspaper and magazine columns, theories of pest and weed ecology and 27 shredded back doormats. The doormats are the victims of the wombats who require constant appeasement in the form of carrots, rolled oats and wombat nuts, which is one of the reasons for her prolific output: it pays the carrot bills.

Jackie wrote her first children's book `Rainstones' in a desperate attempt to earn $106.40 to register her car, while living in a shed with a wallaby called Fred, a black snake called Gladys and a wombat called Smudge. It was described by the editor at HarperCollins as the messiest, worst spelt manuscript they'd ever received.

The messiest was due to Smudge the wombat who left his droppings on the typewriter every night; the spelling was due to the fact she is dyslexic. She recommends all beginning writers to misspell their first book with a wombat damaged typewriter - at least that way it stands out of the pile!
The book was accepted (also shortlisted for the NSW Premier's Award and CBC Younger Reader's Book of the Year). In the same fortnight she was offered a regular column in a newspaper and a farming magazine and discovered that writing about flowers and fantasy was a heck of a lot easier than hauling manure in the old green truck to feed the peach trees. She has been a full time writer and wombat negotiator ever since.

She used to appear on 'Burke's Backyard' in a variety of disguises (but never sees the segment as she doesn't have TV) and does radio segments and writes magazine and newspaper columns.

Jackie is one of the few writers to win both literary and children's choice awards. Hitler's daughter won the 2000 CBC Book of the Year for Younger Readers, the UK Wow! Award, a Semi Grand Priz Award in Japan and has been listed as a "blue ribbon' book in the USA. It has also been made into a play by the wonderful people at Monkey Baa. Diary of a Wombat won most of the kid's choice awards, several awards in the USA, the 2003 ABA/ Neilson Data Book of the Year, was 2003 CBC Honour Book, plus a few other awards and will be galloping across the rest of the world this year and next. Other awards include an Aurealis (sci fi) Award for Cafe on Callisto. ACT Book of the Year for In the Blood and CBC Information book of the Year for To the moon and back. Her latest books include a War for Gentlemen (Historical novel for adults) Rocket Your Child into Reading (A book on reading difficulties) To the Moon and Back (a history of Australia and the journey to the moon), Tom Appleby, Convict boy, My Gran the Gorilla and the Goat that Sailed the World- the true story of the goat who sailed with Captain James Cook, Macbeth and Son, Pharaoh, the story of the young man who united ancient Egypt, the wonderful Josephine Wants to dance with its magic illustrations by Bruce Whatley.

Jackie and her husband Bryan live in the Araluen valley, a deep valley on the edge of the Deua wilderness area, in a stone house they built themselves , with a home made waterwheel as well as solar panels to power their house (and computers). Their garden rambles over about 4 hectares, with roses dripping from the trees, 800 fruit trees, and about 270 different kinds of fruit (not counting 125 varieties of apple) , so there is never a time when there aren't basketsful of fruit to pick. Jackie also describes herself as a 'wombat negotiator' and has spent three decades studying the wombats in her valley.

Jackie is ACT (Australian Capital Territory) Children's Ambassador, and patron of Club Cool, an ACT library programme to encourage kids to read, At Home with Books, a programme to encourage reading with foster children, and the local Wildcare, which looks after injured wildlife and returns them to the bush. She is also a director of The Wombat Foundation, that raises funds for research into the preservation of the endangered northern hairy nosed wombat.

Books available by Jackie French at
Blue Mountains City Library
Soldier on the hill (JF)
There’s an echidna at the bottom of my garden (JF)
The book of Unicorns (JF)
Dancing with Ben Hall (JF)
The little book of big questions (JNF 032.02 FRE)
Stories to eat with a banana (JF)
The Silver eyes (JF)
Daughter of the regiment (JF)
Charlie’s gold (JF)
The metal men (JF)
Stories to eat with a watermelon (JF)
Hitler’s daughter (JF)
The book of challenges (JNF 790.1 FRE)
Missing you Sara (YA)
Burt and the band (JF)
Dark wind blowing (YA)
A story to eat with a mandarin (JF)
How the aliens from Alpha century invaded my maths class and turned me into a writer—and how you can be one too (JNF 808.068 FRE)
Felix Smith has every right to be a crocodile (JF)
How the Finnegans saved the ship (JF)
The fascinating history of your lunch (JNF 641.3 FRE)
Blood Moon (YA)
In the blood (YA)
Captain Purrfect (JF)
Space pirates on Callisto (JF)
Ride the wild wind: the golden pony and other stories (JF)
The space bug (JF)
Rain stones (JF)
Walking the boundaries (JF)
The boy who had wings (JF)
The city in the sand (JF)
The music from the sea (JF)
Somewhere around the corner (JF)
The secret beach (JF)
Hairy Charlie and the pumpkin (Easy)
Mermaids/concepts and photographs by Bernard Rosa (JNF 398.21 ROS)
Annie’s pouch (JF)
Summerland (JF)
Beyond the boundaries (JF)
A wombat named Bosco (JF)
The warrior: the story of a wombat (JF)
Diary of a wombat (Easy)
My mum the pirate (JF)
Vampire slugs on Callisto (JF)
My dog the dinosaur (JF)
A phaery named Phredde: and other stories to eat with a banana (JF)
Phredde and a frog named Bruce: and other stories to eat with a watermelon (JF)
Phredde and the zombie librarian: and other stories to eat with a blood plum (JF)
To the moon and back: the amazing Australians at the forefront of space travel / Bryan Sullivan with Jackie French (JNF 629.454 SUL)
Pete the sheep (Easy)
They came on Viking ships (JF)
Ride the wild wind (JUNIOR TALKING BOOK: FRE CD)
Valley of gold (JF)
The secret world of wombats (JNF 599.24 FRE)
My uncle Wal the werewolf (JF)
Phredde and the ghostly underpants: a story to eat with a mango (JF)
Phredde and the vampire footy team: a story to eat with an orange at half-time (JF)
Phredde and the purple pyramid: a story to eat with a passionfruit (JF)
Phredde and the leopard-skin librarian: a story to eat with a dinosaur apple (JF)
The goat who sailed the world (JF)
My dad the dragon (JF)
My auntie Chook the vampire chicken (JF)
My uncle GUS the garden gnome (JF)
My gran the gorilla (JF)
Tom Appleby convict boy (JF)
Macbeth and son (JF)
The dog who loved a queen (JF)
Pharaoh (JF)
One perfect day (JF)
The shaggy Gully times (JF)
Emily and the big bad bunyip (Easy)
Wonderfully wacky families (JF)
A rose for the ANZAC boys (YA)
The donkey who carried the wounded (JF)
Lessons for a werewolf warrior (JF)
The night they stormed Eureka (JF)
Baby wombat’s week (Easy)
Josephine wants to dance (Easy)

702 ABC Sydney Knit In

The 702 ABC Sydney Knit In is a fantastic annual community event supporting the organization Wrap with Love which creates colourful wraps for communities in need around the world.

Lawson Library will be hosting a Knit in on Friday 25 June 11am – 2pm

All are welcome to attend, Afternoon tea will be provided

Please bring knitting needles, sewing needles, wool and thread

Please call Lawson Library on 4759 1446 for further details.

If you can't make it to the Knit In you can still donate knitted squares or wool and hand them in at any branch of Blue Mountains City Library.


Instructions for the knitted squares are available by clicking here.
I've printed off a copy for my 9 year old and I; if we get cracking we might have knitted a square each for next year!

The picture shows wraps awaiting distribution at Wrap With Love's Alexandria warehouse

I've mentioned the Awful Library Books blog before. The Awful Library Books blog highlights examples of bad 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." I subscribe to it via an RSS feed and it's still one of my favourite blogs.

Today this gem from 1973 was featured :



Is that a teacher taking a class remotely - not too far off the mark in terms of what technology is capable of these days - teleconferencing etc. At the State Library Murder @ the Metcalfe seminar we had a video link via Skype for one of the sessions.

And the bit of text we can see in the following picture seems to be accurately describing air conditioning (did we have that in 1973 too?)



But thank goodness they got it wrong about what we'd be wearing!

The Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize winner

Ian McEwan has become the latest author to win the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse prize for comic fiction. Solar was the unanimous winner from a shortlist of five novels.

The prize, which will be presented on 28 May at the Guardian Hay festival, is given to the novel that has "best captured the comic spirit" of Wodehouse. McEwan win a jeroboam (a bottle holding over 3 litres) and a case of Bollinger, a set of Wodehouse books and, lucky man, a Gloucestershire Old Spot pig to be named after his winning novel . This year's pig, Solar, ought to be grateful - the award has, in years past, gone to some books with rather less than snappy titles including Marina Lewycka's A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian, Christopher Brookmyre's All Fun and Games Until Somebody Loses An Eye and Paul Torday's Salmon Fishing in the Yemen.

Two years ago, at the Guardian Hay festival, McEwan denied that Solar was a comic novel saying, "I hate comic novels; it's like being wrestled to the ground and being tickled, being forced to laugh." On winning however, he's changed his tune and is now "delighted" to win the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse, "three names associated with distinctive and important pleasures."

The shortlisted books were:

Solar by Ian McEwan

One Day by David Nicholls

Diamond Star Halo by Tiffany Murray

Skippy Dies by Paul Murray

From Aberystwyth With Love by Malcolm Pryce (book 5 in the Aberystwyth series)

(via The Guardian )

What Library staff are reading . . .

• I’ve tried Transition by Iain Banks who I usually enjoy but perhaps the timing wasn’t right with this one


• Re-read The Suspicions of Mr Whicher or The Murder at Road Hill House for book group. Kate Summerscale won the Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-fiction in 2008 with this book. It’s an interesting account of a murder, a detective and their impact on 19th Century society and the evolution of the literary detective


• Epilogue by Anne Roiphe – written in the year or so after the death of her husband of 40+ years, this is a beautifully written, emotional but not sentimental account of getting on with life


• I’m trying to read a number of things and can’t settle to any of them!
  Murray Bail The Pages (which I must read for Book group)
  Karen Simpson Nikakis The Whisper of leaves
  Katherine Kurtz The Temple and the stone
  Anne Kelleher Silver’s edge


• Today got my hands on Dan Brown’s latest, The lost symbol - maybe I’ll do better with that


• I enjoyed The Woman on the Bus by Pauline McLynn recommended by a patron, (the same Pauline McLynn who appears in Father Ted). Light humour and the storyline was a bit different


• Have started Missing you already but the subject matter’s a bit closer to home (Alzheimers) so I’m finding it not quite as humorous


• West of the Wall by M. Preston ~ an enjoyable read with good insight into how the Berlin Wall affected the citizens of East Berlin but I found the storyline a tad unbelievable as happy endings usually are


• War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy ~so far so good, but I am hoping I am not a sucker for punishment . . .


• Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beacher Stowe


• The Time Traveller's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger (read the review)


• Hollywood Moon by Joseph Wambaugh for the second time, slowly, and taking notes along the way, some parts I’ve read three times . . . that’s how good it is!


• Things the Grandchildren Should Know by Mark Oliver Everett ~ fans of the band The Eels (and/or dysfunctional childhood stories, like those of Augusten Burroughs) will appreciate Mr E’s fantastic, funny and tragic musings on his life so far


• Smile or Die: How positive thinking fooled America and the World by Barbara Ehrenreich ~ an interesting exploration of the self-help industry.


• Lucky ~ Alice Sebold’s memoir. It is tough going but not because of the writing, which is good, but the subject matter – it is about Alice’s violent rape when she was a student at university. It is hard to say that I enjoyed this read but it did feel like it was an important story to tell


• The Butterfly Man by Tasmanian writer Heather Rose ~ She has a close look at people who for their own reasons don’t disclose to their closest ones who they really are. It’s a very fine piece of writing and Heather Rose has won a fan. She was a guest at the Writers Festival in Katoomba recently.

Blackheath Library: June Storytime

The Time Travelers Wife by Audrey Niffenegger

The Time Traveler's Wife (2004)

Plot Summary : The story of Clare and Henry who have known each other since Clare was six and Henry was thirty-six, and were married when Clare was twenty-two and Henry thirty. Impossible but true, because Henry is one of the first people diagnosed with Chrono-Displacement Disorder: periodically his genetic clock resets and he finds himself pulled suddenly into his past or future. His disappearances are spontaneous and his experiences are alternately harrowing and amusing (Source: Fantastic Fiction)

Review : Why oh why didn’t someone warn me? I thought this was a trite love story doing the rounds of Book Groups. A few people had said that I should read it, but I always had something more important to read (or so I thought). Then with the movie coming out, I moved this book to the top of the pile. And now I wish that I had read this book years ago. The language is spot-on. It is an extremely well written book that is a pleasure to read and above all – the story is amazing. Like peeling away layers of an onion, this story slowly reveals itself to the reader. And like peeling an onion, I can guarantee you that you will be bawling, crying, sobbing by at least half way through the book. There is something for everyone in this story. I idenitified with the time period, the music, the culture and with the characters themselves. Make sure you read this book before seeing the movie.

Reviewed by : Vicki

Other books by Audrey Niffenegger at Blue Mountains Libraries:

The three incestuous sisters (for Young Adults)

Her fearful symnetry

New Book Review Journals for you to use

Coming soon to the library branches are some little journals (see picture) which we hope you will make plenty of use of.

Called The good, the bad, the ugly : reviewed by you, these journals are for you to share your reading experiences. Tell others what you have enjoyed - or not. Reviews will also be shared with a wider audience here in Readers in the Mist.

The good, the bad, the ugly journals can be borrowed for 3 weeks just like our other books.

Check one out today!

JG Farrell wins the Lost Man Booker Prize

JG Farrell's (1935-1973) book, Troubles, has won the Lost Man Booker Prize - a one-off prize to honour books that were published in 1970 and which missed out on the opportunity to win the Booker Prize because of a change in the way the prize was administered. In 1971, two years after its inception, the Booker Prize ceased to be awarded retrospectively and became a prize for the best novel in the year of publication. At the same time the date on which the award was given moved from April to November and so there was a whole year's gap when fiction published in 1970 missed out on being eligible for the prize.

Ion Trewin, Literary Director of the Man Booker Prizes commented, ‘Troubles is a novel of such lasting quality that it has never been out of print in the 40 years since it was first published. Had this been the winning novel in 1970, J G Farrell would have gone on to become the first author to win the Booker Prize twice."

Troubles is the first book in JG Farrell's Empire Trilogy and was followed by The Siege of Krishnapur in 1973 (which won the Booker Prize and the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize) and The Singapore Grip in 1978.

Troubles was voted for via the Man Booker Prize website having been chosen from a shortlist of six (which in turn had been chosen from a longlist of 22 titles) selected by a panel of three judges, all of whom were born in or around 1970. Troubles won 38% of the votes, more than double the votes cast for any other book on the shortlist.

Things did not always go smoothly before coming to the final decision. In late February two books, The Fire-dwellers by Margaret Laurence and Head to Toe by Joe Orton were ruled ineligible for the prize after all; Laurence's because it was published in 1969 and would have been eligible in that year and Orton's because it was published in 1971 and so would have been eligible then. Trespasses by Paul Bailey was added to the list in their place.

Baboon Metaphysics

I'm a big fan of The Diagram Prize for the Oddest Book Title of the Year.

Yesterday my son, avoiding completing a Chemistry assignment I fear, found a something on the waiting-to-be-catalogued shelves in my office. Soon he was sniggering and snorting and thoroughly enjoying himself - not a Chemistry book then, I thought. It wasn't long before he had to share with me.

He was leafing through Baboon metaphysics and other implausibly titled books.

I have catalogued it today.

And it is fun.

A sequel to How to avoid huge ships and other implausibly titled books (2008), Baboon metaphysics gives a selection of the finest short-listed candidates for the Diagram Prize from previous years. Arranged under headings such as Culinary Surprises, Self-help for the Insane and Very Much Special Interest, one finds some really great titles - Cooking with God, Thermal movements in the upper floor of a multi-storey carpark, Shoes and shit: stories for pedestrians and How to write while you sleep and other surprising ways to increase your writing power (perhaps perused by the candidates in Baboon metaphysics?)

PS: Baboon metaphysics by the way is one of the shortlisted titles - Baboon metaphysics: the evolution of a social mind by D.L. Cheney and Robert M. Seyfarth (2008)

National Simultaneous Storytime 2010

Smudge and his family have got a problem to solve - Smudge's legs are so short that he can't jump into the car! One of the children in the family devises a series of ingenious ways of getting Smudge into the car, but none of them work.

Finally, it is Mum who solves the problem.

This is the book for all those who fell in love with The Ugliest Dog in the World and have been wondering what became of that irresistible creature.

The Australian Library and Information Association organises National Simultaneous Storytime in May every year. The aim is to:

#promote the value of reading and literacy
#promote the value of books
#promote an Australian writer and publisher, and
#promote storytime activities in public libraries and communities around the country.

National Simultaneous Storytime provides a great opportunity to involve parents, grandparents,
the press and others to participate in and enjoy the occasion. At the same time, it highlights
the importance of reading and literacy for children, and demonstrates how this can be a fun experience.

NSW Premier's Literary Award Winners 2010

The winners of the 2010 NSW Premier's Literary Awards were announced on Monday and are:

Christina Stead Prize for Fiction ~ Summertime by J.M. Coetzee

Douglas Stewart Prize for Non-Fiction and Book of the Year ~ Kill Khalid: Mossad's failed hit ... and the rise of Hamas by Paul McGeough

Kenneth Slessor Prize for Poetry ~ the sonnet according to ‘m' by Jordie Albiston

Ethel Turner Prize for Young People's Literature ~ When the Hipchicks Went to War by Pamela Rushby

Patricia Wrightson Prize for Children's Literature ~ Krakatoa Lighthouse by Allan Baillie

Script Writing Award ~ Bright Star by Jane Campion and Fairweather Man
by Aviva Ziegler

NSW Premier's Prize for Literary Scholarship ~ Networked Language: Culture and History in Australian Poetry by Philip Mead

Community Relations Commission Award ~ Leave to Remain: A Memoir by Abbas El-Zein

UTS Glenda Adams Award for New Writing for Fiction ~ Document Z by Andrew Croome

The People's Choice Award ~ The World Beneath by Cate Kennedy

Special Award ~ The Macquarie Pen Anthology of Australian Literature


You can read the judges' comments on each title by clicking here.

Write your own Paranormal Romance

Following on from our post on Paranormal Romance yesterday, here's a bit of fun from the Generator blog - a paranormal romance plot generator.

Ride the Twilight wave with this plot:

In a sun-baked hospital, a possessed mother falls for a magic user.
But the magic user is in love with a charming seer. Who will he choose?

or another from the Generator blog.

Choosing your next read - some help

Not sure what to read next?

Here's something you could try,

The Bookulating Suggest-O-Mometer

Click on here to try it

Enter your details in the Suggest-O-Mometer dashboard

And a choice of books will be delivered

Paranormal Romance

Have you noticed that some of our books have this sticker on their spines?

It is a new sticker we've made to indicate that a book belongs to the Paranormal Romance genre.

Paranormal romance includes novels with a romance story that usually has some otherworldly element -- ghosts, angels, vampires, werewolves, reincarnation, or characters with paranormal, psychic or magical abilities.

Two of the recent best sellers that represent this genre have been Twilight by Stephenie Meyer and The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger. Paranormal romance is a sub-genre of romance fiction with a growing following. Between 2002 and 2004 the number of paranormal romances published in the United States doubled (Wikipedia).

Some of the popular authors in this genre are:
Keri Arthur ~ Nikki and Michael / Riley Jenson Guardian series
Rachel Caine ~ Morganville vampires series
P.C. Cast ~ House of night series
Christine Feehan, ~ Dark series
Laurel K. Hamilton ~ Anita Blake series
Charlaine Harris ~ Sookie Stackhouse series
Kim Harrison ~ Rachel Morgan series
Stephenie Meyer ~ Twilight series
Lynsay Sands ~ Argeneau family novels
Kelley Armstrong ~ Women of the Otherworld
Sharon Ashwood ~ The dark forgotten series
Sherilyn Kenyon ~ Dark Hunter series
Diana Gabaldon ~ Outlander series

When you are in the Library Catalogue just use the search term Paranormal Romance and see what comes up.

For the girl who has everything

Law Week - May 16-22

Law Week is a nationwide initiative to promote community awareness and understanding of the law, the legal system and the legal profession.

Your local library provides many legal resources. You can access plain language law books at Blaxland, Katoomba and Springwood libraries with their ‘Find Legal Answers’ tool kit, which aims to answer everyday questions about the law. Subjects include: renting, wills and estates, family law, drink driving, facing a criminal charge in court, neighbours and the law, bankruptcy, debt and credit problems and consumer law.

You may also want to look at the ‘Find Legal Answers’ web guide which provides access to current information about the law in NSW. The guide lists useful resources that are available on the web and in print. There is also a great section to help HSC Legal Studies students.

Country Women's Association Family Meals

Country Women's Association Family Meals : traditional, tempting, tried-and-true (2009)

For those who thought the CWA was the yardstick by which home cooking was measured (and for our overseas readers the flyleaf reads "the Country Women's Associate of Australia has long been renowned for its work in support of rural families and communities, and for its members' cooking and catering. Their baked and bottled goods are must-see exhibits at local shows . . .") , this book may come as a bit of a shock. Between its innocuous looking covers lie some absolute horrors!

Consider the following:

p.11 - Spaghetti scones - "dried, fresh or tinned?" I asked my colleague - "1 x 420g can of spaghetti in tomato sauce," she replied.

p.36 - Savoury toast and rat bait - "eeek!" - rat bait in this case meaning cheese - phew!

p.49 - Fish finger pie - this is the recipe that started off this whole conversation - layers of fish fingers (cooked or still frozen as you choose), shredded cheese and mashed potato topped with a generous layer of shredded cheese - what kind of a day are you having to come up with that?

p.104 - Salmon and pineapple casserole - all topped with cornflakes!

Who knew Mrs Cropley (The Vicar of Dibley) was a member of the CWA?

Which one to try on your family first? Me, I'm going for the Spaghetti scones for sure - tinned spag is my nine-year-old's fave and will make a welcome change from just eating it on toast.

Awful-sounding recipes and side-splitting hilarity aside, there are also some delicious recipes too, especially in the dessert pages and we are assured, again on the flyleaf, that these are 'tried -and-true recipes from CWA branch members all around Australia, so you too can turn simple ingredients into delicious and nutritious dishes that will please everyone at your table."

Well worth checking out to try something new.

Reviewed by : Alba

Art Classes @ Blaxland Library

Edgars Winners 2010

The Edgars, formally The Edgar Allan Poe Awards, are named after one of the first mystery writers, Edgar Allan Poe. The awards are given for the best in mystery in fiction, non-fiction, television, film and theatre by the Mystery Writers of America.

The nominees are too numerous for me to post here but you can read the lists by clicking on this link.

Here are the winners:

• Best Novel : The Last Child by John Hart


• Best First Novel by an American Author : In the Shadow of Gotham by Stefanie Pintoff


• Best Paperback Original : Body Blows by Marc Strange


• Best Fact Crime : Columbine by Dave Cullen


• Best Critical/Biograhical : The Lineup: The World’s Greatest Crime Writers Tell the Inside Story of Their Greatest Detectives edited by Otto Penzler


• Best Short Story : Amapola – Phoenix Noir by Luis Alberto Urrea


• Best Juvenile : Closed for the Season by Mary Downing Hahn


• Best Young Adult : Reality Check by Peter Abrahams


• Best Television Episode Teleplay : Place of Execution, Teleplay by Patrick Harbinson


• Robert L. Fish Memorial Award : A Dreadful Day – Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine by Dan Warthman


• Grand Master : Dorothy Gilman


• Raven Awards : Mystery Lovers Bookshop, Oakmont, Pennsylvania & Zev Buffman, International Mystery Writers’ Festival


• Ellery Queen Award : Poisoned Pen Press


• The Simon & Schuster - Mary Higgins Clark Award : Awakening by S.J. Bolton

Lady Jane Grey : A Tudor Mystery

Lady Jane Grey : a Tudor mystery by Eric Ives (2010), pp.367
Subjects : Lady Jane Grey 1537-1554; English History

Summary : In July 1553 Edward VI, only son of Henry VIII, died aged only 16 and the succession to the English throne became a matter of contention. Henry VIII had had his daughters, Mary and Elizabeth declared bastards during his lifetime but his will had stated that the crown should go to first Mary then Elizabeth if Edward should die without producing children. However, Edward wrote and re-wrote his will several times in his last weeks initially leaving the crown to the male children of Henry VIIIs younger sister Mary - the male issue of the Greys and finally to Jane Grey herself.

The powerful men of the time back Jane Grey and proclaim her queen. But Mary Tudor is able to rally support and after only a few days installs herself as Queen Mary I and Jane is sent to the Tower of London. Seven months later not yet 17, Jane is beheaded.

Lady Jane Grey come down to us as the puppet queen who lasted just 9 days on the English throne before Mary Tudor regained her rightful place. but right at the beginning Ives states his view that Lady Jane Grey was the rightful queen of England after Edward VI, not his sister Mary and aims to uncover why England came almost to civil war over the succession and why people who had been so behind Lady Jane who had control of the machinery of government, the political establishment and The Tower and Navy, behaved as they did - Mary's coming to the throne he says, was an "unexpected political coup".

Review : Having read the Preface and Prologue of this book, I was really looking forward to getting my teeth stuck into it. These parts of the book were written in a gripping style, ramping up the drama and this is my favourite area of English history, the Tudors. However, I was soon disappointed. Ives becomes bogged in heavy academic writing and it became difficult to follow what was going on. To add to the problem chapters such as In Search of Jane Grey and Jane the Person fail to deliver - Jane the Person is not about Jane at all, but about the people around her. This was as far as I could bear to go (p.55).

Reviewed by : Alba

Other books in the Library about Lady Jane Grey:

Non-Fiction

Lady Jane Grey : nine days queen by Alison Plowden

Fiction

Raven queen by Pauline Francis

Nine days a queen : the short life and reign of Lady Jane Grey by Ann Rinaldi

Innocent traitor by Alison Weir

Free Digital Photography Classes

To celebrate Library and Information Week

Blue Mountains City Library will be holding

2 free workshops for adults on digital photography

Springwood Library on Monday May 17
10:30am – 12pm

Katoomba Library on Thursday May 20
10:30am – 12pm

BOOKINGS ARE ESSENTIAL

Please call Springwood Library on 4723 5040 or Katoomba Library on 4780 5750 for further details

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson

Plot Summary : Stieg Larsson's first murder mystery, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, has been a smash hit throughout Europe since its 2005 publication in the author's native Sweden and is now an international hit. But the bitter twist in Larsson's success story is that he didn't live to see The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo published: he died of a heart attack just after he delivered the manuscripts for this book and the two that follow.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is about Mikael Blomkvist, a crusading journalist recently at the wrong end of a libel case, hired to get to the bottom of Harriet Vanger’s disappearance and about Lisbeth Salander, a twenty-four-year-old pierced and tattooed genius hacker possessed of the hard-earned wisdom of someone twice her age who assists Blomkvist with the investigation. This unlikely team discovers a vein of nearly unfathomable iniquity running through the Vanger family, astonishing corruption in the highest echelons of Swedish industrialism, and an unexpected connection between themselves. (Source Barnes and Noble)

Review : This book is highly interesting and engaging. It has a complex plot and I enjoyed that Larsson takes his time and presents a story with depth, even though the Swedish names are difficult at times to read. It is a thoughtful book that deals with moral issues concerning guardianship and custodial roles, journalistic integrity, sexual and romantic relationships, and echoes of Nazism in Swedish society. It has two very interestingly different protagonists (Blomkvist and Salander). It is all about Salander for me as she is more avenging angel than helpless victim and has ways of tracking down her most elusive enemies.

If you enjoy the book then go and see the movie (just released) as it follows the book exactly and then read the next 2 books in the series.

Reviewed by : Carolyn

Carolyn's Books of the Month - May 2010

Best read for the month : Stieg Larsson ~ The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The Girl who Played with Fire and The Girl who Kicked the Hornets Nest (Millenium Trilogy)

Thriller : Rick Mofina ~ Six Seconds

General Fiction : Sam Hayes ~ Tell Tale

Australian Author : H.M.Brown ~ Red Queen

Saga/Romances : Josephine Cox ~ Blood Brothers

Crime : Richard Montanari ~ The Devil’s Garden and Alex Kava ~ Black Friday (Maggie O'Dell series #7)

National Biography Award shortlist

The shortlist for this year's $20,000 National Biography Award has been announced.
The prize is administered and presented by the State Library of New South Wales.

The winner will be announced on Monday 17 May as part of the Sydney Writers Festival.

The 2010 shortlist includes :

Andrew Fisher: Prime Minister of Australia by David Day
Doing Life: A Biography of Elizabeth Jolley by Brian Dribble
House of Exile: The Life and Times of Heinrich Mann and Nelly Kroeger-Mann by Evelyn Juers
Manning Clark: A Life by Brian Matthews
Stella Miles Franklin: A Biography by Jill Roe
The Weight of Silence by Catherine Therese (this has a gorgeous cover)

The judging panel of David McCooey, Ian Templeman and Justine Molony said the shortlist reflected ‘an amazing array of writing styles and treatments of biography, one of which pushes the boundaries of this difficult genre'.

Past winners (awarded every two years until 2002 when the award became an annual one) :

• 2009 Ann Blainey : I am Melba
• 2008 Philip Dwyer : Napoleon and Graham Seal : These few lines
• 2007 Jacob Rosenberg : East of Time
• 2006 John Hughes : The idea of home
• 2005 Robert Hillman : The Boy in the Green Suit
• 2004 Barry Hill : Broken Song: T.G.H. Strehlow and Aboriginal Possession
• 2003 Peter Rose : The Rose boys and Don Watson : Recollections of a bleeding heart : a portrait of Paul Keating PM
• 2002 Jacqueline Kent : A certain style: Beatrice Davis, a literary life
• 2000 Peter Robb : M, a biography of European painter Caravaggio and Mandy Sayer : Dreamtime Alice: a memoir
• 1998 Roberta Sykes : Snake cradle
• 1996 Abraham Biderman : The world of my past
  

Alison's Picks - May 2010

Steven Carroll ~ The Lost Life
Beth Yahp ~ Family Pictures
Jay Parini ~ The last station: a novel of Tolstoy’s final year
Joanna Trollope ~ The Other Family
Tracy Chevalier ~ The Virgin Blue

May the Fourth Be With You

All the Star Wars fans out there will know that today is Star Wars Day.

According to Wikipedia, a German TV news channel interviewed Star Wars director, George Lucas, and asked him to say his famous sentence, "May the Force be with you." The translator simultaneously translated to German: "Am 4. Mai sind wir bei Ihnen". (We are with you on May 4). Hilarious!

Have a fun day Jedi knights.

Star Wars in the Library : in Adult Fiction, in Junior Fiction, Comics and DVD.