FRIENDS OF ARMIDALE DUMARESQ LIBRARY
NEWSLETTER
June 2013
From the Committee
Winter raffle
We are continuing to sell tickets for our winter raffle. Ticket sales are down on
last year so if you have not yet purchased tickets perhaps you could do so. Tickets
are on sale at the library and if you could sell tickets on a Saturday morning at the
library we would appreciate your help (contact Chrissie Stephen on 6775 1110).
We also sell tickets at the monthly markets.
It is important to note that the proceeds of the raffle go towards library resources
such as baby packages, large print books, talking books and on-line subscriptions.
They do not go to the Precinct Committee.
There still appears to be some confusion about the Civic Precinct. The first stage
of the precinct project is the building of a new library. This is the only stage that
Council is responsible for funding. This is also the only part of the project in
which Friends of Armidale Dumaresq Library are involved.
Annual General Meeting
Our Annual General Meeting will be held on Monday, 8th July at 10.30am in the
upstairs room at the Library.
All members are welcome to attend this meeting and the Committee meeting
which will follow.
Book Launch:
The Precinct Committee is launching the up-dated version of the book Images of
Armidale on Friday 21st of June at 5.30pm in the Town Hall. The book will be on
sale for $19.99 at the launch and also at the Library.
On-line Resources:
Another reminder that Zinio, the world’s largest newsstand, is available through
our Library website. Attached to the Newsletter is the pamphlet explaining how
the system works.
FOADL were very pleased to be able to help fund this popular resource.
Also available are the OneClick digital e-Audiobooks. There are over 1000 titles
available and the attached pamphlet explains how the system works.
The Library has also subscribed to Indieflix, a site which provides access to awardwinning independent films – streamed now directly via the internet. This too has
an explanatory pamphlet which accompanies this newsletter.
Book reviews
The Remains of the Day
Kazuo Ishiguro
I recently read this Booker-Prize-winning novel, having previously listened to it
on tape during a car journey. Set in the 1950s, it is a wonderful evocation of a
past era of British life. Narrated in the first person by an ageing butler, Stevens, it
gives us a picture of his loyal devotion to Lord Darlington of Darlington Hall.
Following Lord Darlington’s death, the Hall has been bought by an American
gentleman, Mr Farraday, who suggests that Stevens embark on a motoring
holiday.
During his journey, Stevens reflects on his past life and the qualities that make a
great butler. He hopes to visit the previous housekeeper, Miss Kenton, and
persuade her to return to Darlington Hall, believing she is unhappy in her
marriage. At the end of his journey, when he finally meets Miss Kenton, now
Mrs Benn, he is suddenly aware of his life of loss. His extreme obsession with
‘dignity’ and professionalism has robbed him of significant relationships with
other people. This realization blights ‘the remains of the day’ for him.
Ishiguro has a wonderful command of tone and the novel is perfectly paced. The
beautiful seamless prose gradually reveals the persona and past of Stevens. He is
presented as a reserved and formal character whose loyalty as a butler has come
at a price. The ending of the book bares his disillusionment in a most affecting
way, and leaves the reader with the story reverberating in the mind for days. I
found it quite hard to start on another book subsequently.
Marnie French
Books by Anthony Eglin
Books by this author are for gardeners who are whodunnit fans, and whodunnit
readers who enjoy gardening. They will also appeal to readers who do not need
gory descriptions of murders and/or corpses - just the simple information that a
corpse has been found. The main characters are Lawrence Kingston, a retired
botany professor from Edinburgh University now living in London, and his friend
Anthony, a retired IT specialist. They are wealthy, quintessential English
gentlemen who enjoy good food, wine, theatre and music and who dabble in
crime as a sideline.
The author was born in the UK and spent many years in business before giving it
up to devote himself to his real interest, gardening. He has produced gardening
videos, won prizes for his garden and is also a member of the American Rose
Society. He moved to the USA and this has engendered my only criticism of his
books; the use of American spellings and phraseology. In my view these detract
from the setting and atmosphere of the books.
He has written four books: The Blue Rose, The Lost Gardens, The Water Lily Cross
and The Trail of the Wild Rose. The Trail of the Wild Rose is available in the
Armidale Library and The Blue Rose can be found in Guyra Library.
Jean Jackson
New in the Library
There is new music on CD in the Library, including the refreshing Jens Lekman,
claiming, out of Sweden, that I know what love isn’t. Devendra Banhart brings his
mixed Texan-Venezuelan-Californian sensibilities to bear on the new disc Mala.
Ron Sexsmith, a melodic melancholic from Ontario, Canada, has written all his
own songs on Forever endeavour. And for a rollicking good time Johnny Depp and
Gore Verbinski have executively produced another compilation of pirate ballads,
sea songs & chanteys entitled Son of rogues gallery. The original Rogues gallery came
into being after they’d had such fun making the second Pirates of the Caribbean
movie.
Tomi Ungerer continues his creative revival at the age of 82, and brings more sea
mysteries to children with his picture book Fog Island. Lemony Snicket, too, reemerges with a picture book, The dark, in which Lazlo, afraid of the dark which
lives in the same big, creaky house as him, changes his mind when one night the
dark pays him a visit….
Adults can share in fear confrontation, too, with this month’s non-fiction titles:
Peter Stanford explains How to read a graveyard: journeys in the company of the dead.
This sounds like a nice companion to Lionel Gilbert’s 1980 work A grave look at
history: glimpses of a vanishing form of folk art, but may not have the same lightly
humorous touch. Robert Neer is not afraid to explain the origins and uses of a
fearsome substance as he researches Napalm: an American biography. But you can
tremble with joy and Nuriya Khegay as you create Monster knits for little monsters:
20 super-cute animal-themed hat, mitten and bootee sets to knit.
There are stories of courage, too, in the face of hard circumstances: Sue Williams
tells the story of Father Bob: the larrikin priest; Jon Henderson describes the
discipline and dedication needed to become The wizard in the life of Stanley
Matthews; and Clive James, against the odds of deteriorating health, has produced
a new translation of Dante’s Divine comedy – perhaps another tribute to
“L'esperîenza/di questa dolce vita”.
The sweet life is also acknowledged in such new titles as Austrian desserts: over 400
cakes, pastries, strudels, tortes, and candies, Jam on: the craft of canning fruit and
Gwyneth Paltrow’s avowal that It's all good: delicious, easy recipes that will make you
look good and feel great. More glories of the world of food are laid out by Peter
Reinhart (Peter Reinhart's whole grain breads: new techniques, extraordinary flavor),
Francis Mallmann (Seven fires: grilling the Argentine way), Kumar Mahadevan
(From India: food, family and tradition) and, from Melbourne, Kathy Tsaples (Sweet
Greek: simple food and sumptuous feasts).
Beyond spoon feeding, there are views of the world which increase our awareness
of history (Fractured times: culture and society in the twentieth century / Eric
Hobsbawm; Europe: the struggle for supremacy, from 1453 to the present / Brendan
Simms), law (Thirteen ways to steal a bicycle: theft law in the information age / Stuart
Green), politics (Margaret Thatcher. Volume one, Not for turning: the authorized
biography / Charles Moore; Left hand drive: a social and political memoir / Craig
McGregor), science (Creation / Adam Rutherford on the origin and the future of
life) and philosophy (Against autonomy: justifying coercive paternalism / by Sarah
Conly – how huge is her challenging brief?
"Since Mill's seminal work On Liberty, philosophers and political
theorists have accepted that we should respect the decisions of
individual agents when those decisions affect no one other than
themselves. Indeed, to respect autonomy is often understood to
be the chief way to bear witness to the intrinsic value of persons.
In this book, Sarah Conly rejects the idea of autonomy as
inviolable. Drawing on sources from behavioural economics and
social psychology, she argues that we are so often irrational in
making our decisions that our autonomous choices often
undercut the achievement of our own goals. Thus in many cases
it would advance our goals more effectively if government were
to prevent us from acting in accordance with our decisions. Her
argument challenges widely held views of moral agency,
democratic values and the public/private distinction, and will
interest readers in ethics, political philosophy, political theory
and philosophy of law"
There are interpretations of ancient times (The archaeology of Australia's deserts /
Mike Smith – the first book-length study of the subject), modern times (Enough is
enough: building a sustainable economy in a world of finite resources / Rob Dietz; The
boy kings: a journey into the heart of the social network / Katherine Losse) and times
in between (The story of America: essays on origins / Jill Lepore; The new Penguin
book of English folk songs – 542 pages and beautifully produced). Why, there are
even interpretations of times which have not yet come (Robot futures / Illah Reza
Nourbakhsh).
There are works on high culture (Paris haute couture edited by Olivier Saillard),
mass culture (The people's car: a global history of the Volkswagen Beetle by Bernhard
Rieger), physical culture (The decadent sportsman by Medlar Lucan) and cultures
observed by outsiders (Costa Rica: the complete guide by James Kaiser; The Japanese
chronicles by Nicolas Bouvier).
There are memoirs of relationship (Vow: a memoir of marriage and infidelity by
Wendy Plump), gypsy life (Big Louie & me: caravans, curses & cockfights by George
Locke) and life on the way to the upper echelons of British cultural life (Roy
Strong: self-portrait as a young man).
Finally, there are books on life inside (London hidden interiors by Philip Davies),
outside (foraging in Finland, Lapland and Japan to Cook it raw) and somewhere
combining both (Farmhouse revival by Susan Daley).
David Sedaris carries this discontinuous narrative across the yawning gulf
between nonfiction and fiction with his new humorous essays, Let's explore
diabetes with owls. A similar combination of bitter humour and animals informs
Sam Byers’ Idiopathy (“a novel of love, narcissism, and ailing cattle). Patrick
Ness is carried on bird wings to the chance of love in The crane wife, but Honey
Brown ambles into the darker reaches of the Victorian bush on her Dark horse to
find suspense with strangers.
Scars of Balkan civil conflict are knocked off The hired man in a Croatian
summer, beautifully written by Aminatta Forna. Domestic care and love, in
another country renowned for civil strife, are highlighted by Khaled Hosseini in
his new Afghani novel And the mountains echoed. The horrors of war and
displacement are also investigated by Katerina Cosgrove in Bone ash sky, set in
Turkey, Lebanon, Armenia and the United States over the course of the
twentieth century.
Bernie Gunther returns for another Berlin private investigation in Philip Kerr’s A
man without breath. Rachel Kushner moves to Italy, the 1970s and the seductive
terror of the Red Brigade for her protagonist to experience The flamethrowers.
Simona Sparaco writes in Italian, and her study of a womanizing banker who
finds sense, love and meaning (About time) when exposed to the rush of time in a
very personal way is more magical realism than historical terrorism. Time travel
is available to us all, with new translations of books long past: Astragal, by
Albertine Sarrazin, was first published in Paris in 1965; Nicolai Leskov wrote
The enchanted wanderer and other stories in Russian in the nineteenth century,
inspiring Chekhov, Tolstoy, Bulgakov and Gorky; and Jakob Wassermann’s My
first wife was published in Vienna in 1934. New York Review Books have also
republished Renata Adler’s unconventional novels Speedboat (1976) and Pitch
dark (1983).
Gaute Heivoll keeps things warm in Norway with his pyromaniacal Before I burn.
Andrea Goldsmith brings her heroine home to Melbourne to work her way
through The memory trap. And Deborah Crombie’s London police investigators
start out at The sound of broken glass.
Happy reading, everybody!