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fiction; prose, Young Readers Views: 40
Winner, 2007 Australian Book Industry AwardsThis story does not begin on a boat. Nor does it contain any wild swans or falling leaves.In a wonderland called Footscray, a girl named Alice and her Chinese-Cambodian family pursue the Australian Dream – Asian style. Armed with an ocker accent, Alice dives head- first into schooling, romance and the getting of wisdom. Her mother becomes an Aussie battler – an outworker, that is. Her father embraces the miracle of franchising and opens an electrical-appliance store. And every day her grandmother blesses Father Government for giving old people money.Unpolished Gem is a book rich in comedy, a loving and irreverent portrait of a family, its everyday struggles and bittersweet triumphs. With it, Australian writing gains an unforgettable new voice.'Alice Pung is a gem. Her voice is the real thing.' —Amy Tan'There's something striking on every page of Unpolished Gem.'... Views: 40
The Last Policeman received the 2013 Edgar Award for Best Paperback Original—along with plenty of glowing reviews. Now Detective Hank Palace returns in Countdown City , the second volume of the Last Policeman trilogy. There are just 77 days before a deadly asteroid collides with Earth, and Detective Palace is out of a job. With the Concord police force operating under the auspices of the U.S. Justice Department, Hank’s days of solving crimes are over… until a woman from his past begs for help finding her missing husband. Brett Cavatone disappeared without a trace—an easy feat in a world with no phones, no cars, and no way to tell whether someone’s gone “bucket list” or just gone . With society falling to shambles, Hank pieces together what few clues he can, on a search that leads him from a college-campus-turned-anarchist-encampment to a crumbling coastal landscape where anti-immigrant militia fend off “impact zone” refugees. Countdown City presents another fascinating mystery set on brink of an apocalypse—and once again, Hank Palace confronts questions way beyond “whodunit.” What do we as human beings owe to one another? And what does it mean to be civilized when civilization is collapsing all around you? Views: 40
On November 11, 1997, Veronika decided that the moment to kill herself had—at last!—arrived. She does not die; instead, she wakes up in Villette—the “famous and much-feared lunatic asylum”—only to be told that, having damaged her heart irreparably, she has just a few days to live. What she faces now is a waiting game and the strange world of Villette: the rules and regulations which govern the lives of its inmates and the doctors who treat them. Coelho's question may be a familiar one: crudely, who, or what, is mad? But his fiction is a remarkable, sometimes chilling, response to it. “Everyone has an unusual story to tell” is the starting-point of the new treatment initiated at Villette by the enigmatic Dr Igor; it's also the insight from which this book takes off to explore the impact of a “slow, irreparable death” on a young woman and the mad men and women around her. Views: 40
In 2012 the Rolling Stones celebrate their 50th anniversary. Their story - the band's meteoric rise to fame, the Marianne Faithfull, Brian Jones and Altamont scandals, the groundbreaking hits - is the stuff of twentieth century legend, and core to popular culture. But it is Norman's skills as a researcher and biographer which bring a whole new dimension to such a story. Written with the personal knowledge, trust and co-operation of the participants, this fully updated version is indisputably the best book on The Stones ever written. Norman spares no detail, covering the Jerry Hall/Mick Jagger split and the Stones' lives as tax exiles, the recording of Exile on Main St. as well as the iconic stage performances, Mick's control of the band's affairs and his contractual disputes with managers and promoters. This a story of fame, money, drugs, booze, sex, hedonism and the greatest rock band of all time. Philip Norman was born in London and brought up on the Isle of Wight. He joined the Sunday Times at the age of twenty-two, soon gaining a reputation as Atticus columnist and for his profiles of figures as diverse as Elizabeth Taylor, P. G. Wodehouse and Colonel Gaddafi. In 1981 he published SHOUT!, a ground-breaking biography of the Beatles, a bestseller in both Britain and the US. He has also written the definitive lives of Sir Elton John and Buddy Holly and his journalism has been published in three collections. He is married with a daughter and lives in London. Views: 40
One of Jane Austen's best-loved books is Persuasion, and of the characters in it, among the most popular are Sophy and Admiral Croft, dashing Frederick Wentworth's sister and brother-in-law.In this short novel, Sherwood Smith takes a look at what the Wentworths' lives might have been like before they met the Elliots, and Sophy's view of Anne Elliot's and Frederick Wentworth's stormy relationship—and how she might have had a hand in bringing about that happy ending. Views: 39
Thirteen stories have been compiled as Alec Waugh looks back over his career as an author, and takes from his writing those which he feels are amongst his most personal creations, bringing them together into a panorama.Told in the first person, My Place in the Bazaar represents Waugh's varied experience and view of life as his enchanting stories take place in a variety of world-wide settings. Views: 39
Alec Waugh first saw the West Indies on a trip round the world in 1926 when his ship called in at Guadeloupe. Fifteen months later he returned for a long stay at Martinique; it was the beginning of a lifelong interest in these fascinating islands that were to provide him with the material for many books and articles. In The Sugar Islands, a book to be dipped into at leisure, Mr. Waugh has selected pieces from his writings, with the intention of compiling both a travelogue (there is a wealth of interesting information for the would-be traveller about the ways of life and customs of each island) and a chronological commentary on the development of the islands during the last thirty years. The book is divided into four parts. In the first, the author gives an idea of the background of the West Indies by drawing a detailed picture of the colourful life of Martinique. He tells the story of a 17th-century Frenchman who joined the famous pirates of Tortugja and the history of the long... Views: 39
