bsn library book club selections 2012

7/29/2019 BSN Library Book Club Selections 2012

1/9

Busselton

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Book Club

Titles


2/9

The True Story of Butterfish By Nick EarlsAUSTRALIAN FICTION. RELATIONSHIPS. "'I'm not about to

attack,' she said. She smirked with one side of her mouth and

looked up at me through the black spray of her fringe. Her eyes

were dark and already she was playing some kind of game with

me, or that's how it seemed. Her voice was a little deeper and

huskier than I might have expected, so her last line had come

out with a hint of something that might have been menace or

even seductiveness or just a pitch at adult banter. Whatever it

was, it stuck with me and it punctuated the moment and it

didn't feel quite right for a conversation with a schoolgirl on my

doorstep." With his chart-topping band, Butterfish, Curtis

Holland lived the clichd rock dream. Residing in hotels and recording studios,

travelling in custom-built buses, he got married after a sound check in a wedding

chapel in Nevada and barely noticed when his wife left him in Louisville. But no

dream lasts forever.

(10 copies available)

Of A Boy By Sonya HartnettAUSTRALIAN. THRILLER. The year is 1977, and Adrian is nine. He

lives with his gran and his uncle Rory; his best friend is Clinton

Tull. He loves to draw and he wants a dog; he's afraid of

quicksand and self-combustion. Adrian watches his suburbanworld, but there is much he cannot understand. He does not, for

instance, know why three neighbourhood children might set out to

buy ice-cream and never come back home...


Jasper Jones By Craig SilveyAUSTRALIAN. Late on a hot summer night in the tail end of

1965, Charlie Bucktin, a precocious and bookish boy of

thirteen, is startled by an urgent knock on the window of his

sleepout. His visitor is Jasper Jones, an outcast in the regional

mining town of Corrigan. Rebellious, mixed-race and solitary,

Jasper is a distant figure of danger and intrigue for Charlie. So

when Jasper begs for his help, Charlie eagerly steals into the

night by his side, terribly afraid but desperate to impress. Jasper

takes him through town and to his secret glade in the bush, and

it's here that Charlie bears witness to Jasper's horrible discovery.In the simmering summer where everything changes, Charlie learns why the truth of

things is so hard to know, and even harder to hold in his heart.



3/9

Cold Justice By Katherine HowellAUSTRALIAN. THRILLER. A teenage girl stumbles across the

body of her classmate, Tim Pieters, hidden amongst thebushes. His family is devastated, the killer is never found.

Eighteen years later, political pressure sees the murder

investigation reopened. Detective Ella Marconi tracks down

Georgie Riley, the student who found the body, and who is

now a paramedic. Georgie seems to be telling the truth, so

then why does Ella receive an anonymous phone call insisting

that Georgie knows more? And is it coincidence that her

ambulance partner, Freya, went to the same high school? The

more Ella digs into the past, the more buried secrets and lies

are brought to light. Can she track down the killer before more people are hurt?(10 copies available)

The Household Guide to DyingBy Debra AdelaideAUSTRALIAN. When Delia Bennet - author and domestic

advice columnist - is diagnosed with cancer, she knows it's

time to get her house in order and secure the future for her

husband, their two daughters and even her beloved chickens.

But as she writes lists and makes plans, questions both large

and small creep in. Should she divulge her best culinary secrets

in her column? Read her favourite novels one last time? Plan

her daughters' far-off weddings? Complicating her dilemma is

the matter of the past, and a remote country town where she

fled as a pregnant teenager, and left broken-hearted eight years

later. As she researches and writes her final Household Guide,

she confronts the pieces of herself she left behind and begins to understand that

what really matters is not the past, but the present. And that the art of dying is all

about truly living.


Trip of a Lifetime By Liz ByrskiMODERN FICTION. AUSTRALIAN. When parliamentarian Heather

Delaney is shot in the shoulder outside her office, her life will

change forever. With her life in turmoil, she has family and

friends and work colleagues around her going through their own

personal crises, then along comes Heather's old flame, Ellis. Is

he the best thing that has ever happened to Heather, or the

worst?(11 copies available)


4/9

A Song in the DaylightBy Paullina SimonsRELATIONSHIPS. Larissa has disappeared. Her husband, Jared,

and children are expecting her to be home on Friday evening as

usual - cooking for them, taking the eldest to a game, planning

barbecues for the weekend. But there's no trace of her. She's

left behind her phone, her car, her favourite earrings. Larissa,

happily married for fifteen years, has a secret. She's met and

fallen in love with a man she scarcely knows. Kai is younger,

unattached, and irresistible. Their passionate affair overwhelms

all the loyalties she had thought were unassailable, until she

agrees to start a new life with him. But what sort of life can it

be? Having abandoned everything and everyone, there's no

going back. But how can she live with what she's done?


The Murray Whelan TrilogyBy Shane MaloneyStiff

Single father and true believer Murray Whelan makes his

debut in Shane Maloney's first thriller set among the ethnic

feuds, union shenanigans and sexual politics of his city'sworking class heartland. Murray has to deal with everything

from a snap-frozen Turk, the tattooed vote, a killer car and

blood-sucking parasites. That's when the red-hot Ayisha

knocks on his door.

The Brush-off

Winner of the 1996 Ned Kelly Prize for Crime Fiction

Political minder, brushed-off lover and art buff on the make, Murray Whelan goes

looking for the big picture among the culture vultures. Whelan is at his richly futile

best in this romantic comedy and drop-dead thriller.

Nice Try

When Murray Whelan is recruited to make Melbourne's bid to host the Olympics he

falls head-first into trouble with the help of a savvy Aboriginal activist, a drug-

crazed weight-lifter, and a gorgeous aerobics instructor in a taut blue leotard. Life

gets even more complicated when he falls for the enigmatic doctor Phillipa Verstak.



5/9

Maralinga By Judy NunnAUSTRALIAN. LOVE STORIES. WAR FICTION. During the darkest

days of the Cold War, in the remote wilderness of a South

Australian desert, the future of an infant nation is being decided

without its people's knowledge. A British airbase in the middle of

nowhere; an atomic weapons testing ground; an army of raw

youth led by powerful, ambitious men - a cocktail for disaster.

Such is Maralinga in the spring of 1956. MARALINGA is a story

of British Lieutenant Daniel Gardiner, who accepts a twelve-month

posting to the wilds of South Australia on a promise of rapid

promotion; Harold Dartleigh, Deputy Director of MI-6 and his

undercover operative Gideon Melbray; Australian Army Colonel Nick Stratton and

the enigmatic Petraeus Mitchell, bushman and anthropologist. They all findthemselves in a violent and unforgiving landscape, infected with the unique

madness and excitement that only nuclear testing creates.


The Naked Truth: A Life in Parts By Graeme BlundellAUSTRALIAN. TELEVISION AND THEATRE. "Actor, director,

producer, biographer, critic and journalist, Blundell established

theatre companies and was there when they closed, watchedthe film industry through its many renaissances, and television

as it became an addictive digital environment."

Graeme Blundell became Australias first sex symbol when the

hit movieAlvin Purple opened in 1973. A reluctant pin-up, he

quickly became a household name and is one of our most well-

known actors.


The Women in Blackby Madeleine St JohnAUSTRALIAN FICTION."... comedy of manners set in the ladies'

cocktail section of F.G. Goode, a department store in 1950s

Sydney. The women in black are run off their feet, what with the

Christmas rush and the summer sales that follow. But it's Sydney

in the 1950s, and there's still just enough time left on a hot and

frantic day to dream and scheme."



6/9

Skin and Bone By Kathryn FoxCRIME & MYSTERY FICTION. Detective Kate Farrer returns to

duty after three months of stress leave. Fearing that she has

lost her edge, she reluctantly partners homicide newcomer,

Oliver Parke. They are immediately thrown into the investigation

of a young woman who has been murdered and burnt beyond

recognition. The post-mortem reveals she had recently given

birth, but there is no sign of the baby. Kate and Oliver are also

ordered to investigate the disappearance of a teenage girl.

Suspicion falls on Mark Dobbie, a steroid user who is obsessed

with the missing girl's sister. When the detectives find drugs and photos of naked

women in his apartment, they wonder if they have uncovered a serial date rapist-

turned-murderer. While the pressure to find the missing baby and teenage girlescalates, a young paraplegic is burnt to death in his home. Shocking links to all

three crimes emerge and Kate Farrer's past demons come back to haunt her.


The Reinvention of Ivy Brown By Roberta TaylorRELATIONSHIPS. It is the 15th of February 1963, and Ivy

Brown, typist at the Wiseman Pulverising Factory, is about toturn thirty. As Ivy sits, staring at the back of the typist in front

of her, she tries desperately to avoid thinking about her

impending birthday, her freckled hands and her diminishing

horizons. Two things lift Ivy Brown from her gloom: her brand

new Beaver Lamb coat and the thought of Arthur. Arthur is the

man on whom Ivy has pinned all her hopes. 'We are our own

secret' Arthur says, and Ivy loves to repeat it, even as she

recollects the parts of her life she has kept from him. But when

Ivy spots Arthur at the bus stop, his arm around a young girl, she realises that she

is not the only person keeping secrets. Her determination to uncover the truth spellsdisaster for all those in her way. The reinvention of Ivy Brown comes at a heavy

price.



7/9

Atlas of Unknowns By Tania JamesDOMESTIC FICTION. In the wake of their mother's mysterious

death, Linno and Anju Vallara are raised in Kerala by their father

and grandmother. As a teenager, Anju wins a scholarship to a

Manhattan prep school with an act of betrayal that severs her

relationship with Linno, whose own future seems to hold little

more than marriage. In New York, Anju is plunged into the elite

world of her Hindu American host family, led by a well-known

television personality and her fiendishly ambitious son, a

Princeton dropout determined to make a documentary about

Anjus life. But when Anju finds herself ensnared in her own lies,

she runs away, helped by a stranger with hidden ties to her parents. Desperate to

find Anju, Linno embarks on a journey of her own, toward her sister, and toward hermother, whose memory she has kept shrouded until now. A vibrant, dazzlingly

original debut.


Addition By Toni JordanMODERN FICTION. AUSTRALIAN. Grace Lisa Vandenburg counts.

The letters in her name (19). The steps she takes every morning to

the local caf (920); the number of poppy seeds on her slice of

orange cake, which dictates the number of bites shell take to

finish it. Grace counts everything, because numbers hold the world

together. And she needs to keep an eye on how theyre doing. A

humorous and moving love story about a young woman struggling

to balance romance, family and a compulsive counting disorder.


The Dead Path By Stephen M Irwin

HORROR & GHOST STORIES. AUSTRALIAN. After his wife ssudden death, Nicholas leaves the life he had in London and

returns home to Australia. He knows something is very wrong

and feels he is teetering on the brink of madness. But the truth is

much, much more sinister and dates back to his childhood: when

Nicholas was ten years old he found a strange talisman near the

woods close to his home. He didn t touch it but felt its menacing

power and ran. Later, he told his best friend, Tristram, about it.

They returned to the woods together to seek it out and Tristram picked it up. That

same day Tristram was murdered. There is something lurking in the woods that

knows Nicholas is back it has been waiting. Because the wrong boy died.(10 copies available)


8/9

The Six Sacred Stones By Matthew ReillyADVENTURE / THRILLER. After their thrilling exploits in

Matthew Reilly's bestseller "Seven Ancient Wonders", super-

soldier Jack West and his loyal team of adventurers are back,

and now they face an all-but impossible challenge. For a

mysterious ceremony in an unknown location has triggered a

catastrophic countdown that will climax in the destruction of all

life on Earth. But there is one last hope. If Jack's team can find

and rebuild a legendary ancient device known only as the

"Machine", they might be able to ward off this coming

Armageddon. The only clues to its location, however, are held

within the fabled Six Sacred Stones, long lost in the fog of history. And so the hunt

begins


The WellBy Elizabeth JolleyAUSTRALIAN. Miss Hester Harper, middle-aged and eccentric,

brings Katherine into her emotionally impoverished life. Together

they sew, cook gourmet dishes for two, run the farm, make music

and throw dirty dishes down the well. One night, driving along the

deserted track that leads to the farm, they run into a mysterious

creature. They heave the body from the roo bar and dump it into

the farms deep well. But the voice of the intruder will not be

stilled..

This important piece of Australian fiction is republished for the

first time as a Penguin Modern Classic. Elizabeth Jolley's award-

winning novel is presented in a fresh, new format that is a must-have for lovers of

Australian literature.


Floodtide By Judy Nunn

AUSTRALIAN. HISTORY. Floodtide is a brilliant observation of theturbulent times in the mighty Iron Ore State - Western Australia.

The novel traces the fortunes of four men and four families over

four memorable decades: the prosperous post-war 1950s when

childhood is idyllic and carefree in the small, peaceful city of

Perth The turbulent 60s when youth is caught up in the conflict

of the Vietnam War and free love reigns...The avaricious 70s when

Western Australias mine boom sees the rise of a new young breed

of aggressive entrepreneurs The corrupt 80s and the birth of WA

Inc, when the alliance of greedy politicians and powerful businessmen brings the

state to its knees, even threatening the downfall of the federal government.(10 copies available)


9/9

When God Was a RabbitBy Sarah WinmanSpanning four decades, from 1968 onwards, this is the story of a

fabulous but flawed family and the slew of ordinary and

extraordinary incidents that shape their everyday lives. It is a

story about childhood and growing up, loss of innocence,

eccentricity, familial ties and friendships, love and life. Stripped

down to its bare bones, its about the unbreakable bond between

a brother and sister.


Olive Kitteridge By Elizabeth StroutRELATIONSHIPS. Olive Kitteridge: indomitable, compassionate

and often unpredictable. A retired schoolteacher in a small

coastal town in Maine, struggling to make sense of the changes

in her life as she grows older. She is a woman who sees into

the hearts of others, discerning their triumphs and tragedies.

We meet her stoic husband, bound to her in a marriage both

broken and strong, and a young man who aches for the mother

he lost - and whom Olive comforts by her mere presence, while

her own son feels tyrannised by her overbearing sensitivities...A penetrating, vibrant exploration of the human soul in need,

Olive Kitteridge will make you laugh, nod in recognition, wince

in pain and shed a tear or two.


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