Good Reading Magazine - Latest issue!

The July issue of Good Reading magazine is ready for you to read!

Follow the link from the Library website in our e-Magazines resources and it will take you straight to the entire issue for you to read on your computer or tablet. 

In the latest issue of Good Reading, read about a young German scientist who is revolutionising the way we think about our health with Gut: The inside story of our body's most under-rated organ. Also check out the profile of prolific children's author and Senior Australian of the Year, Jackie French. You'll read about Michael Leunig's favourite books, and Anne Gracie's valiant defence of the reputation of romance books might have you reaching for one. As always, there's a stack of reviews for recent fiction, non-fiction and children's books to help you find your next good read for all the family.

Visit Newcastle Region Library's Catalogue and Website.

Library Press Display

Library folk, check out PressReader! PressReader delivers the most authentic newspaper and magazine reading experience on tablets and smartphones running iOS, Android, Windows 8 and BlackBerry 10 operating systems. With PressReader, you can hold an enhanced digital replica of your favourite publication in your hands and read it from cover to cover, just the way the title was printed - with no compromises in quality, fidelity or content. 

Enjoy unlimited access to local and international publications! Just connect your tablet or smartphone to the libraries wifi, download the latest PressReader App, pick your title and read away.  Download publications to My Library and enjoy them anytime, anywhere. You can also listen to articles with On-Demand Audio and translate in up to 14 languages.

Visit Newcastle Region Library's Catalogue and Website.

The Book of Madness and Cures / Regina O'Melveny

Gabriella Mondini lives in 16th Century Venice, a Dottoressa by trade, thanks to the support and tutelage of her father. Together they are writing The Book of Diseases, an encyclopaedia of all known diseases, cures, and uses for medicinals. Dr Mondini leaves Venice to research further diseases and cures, leaving only a trail of letters that become erratic, enigmatic, and troubling, before they dry up completely.

His letters lead Gabriella to suspect her father may suffer some illness, or some form of madness. She sets out to find him, against her mother's wishes, taking her old nursemaid Olmina, and Olmina's husband Lorenzo, as her companions.

It is an arduous journey, with prejudices against women, witches, and Catholics evident along the way. Gabriella has her hope, her stubborn determination, the good nature of Lorenzo, the unfailing support of Olmina (even if she does complain), and her continued work on The Book of Diseases to sustain her.

This book is Regina O'Melveny's first novel, beautiful and lyrical, as you would expect from an award winning poet. Please do go to her website and read her Author's Note, even if you don't read the book. It may convince you, where I fail.

Category: Fiction, Historical Fiction

Who'll want to read it? People who love travel, history, an interest in illnesses of the body and the mind.

Point of no return: page 5
I didn't know then that during those fugitive hours beneath the influence of the damp moon, I was already plotting my future in pursuit of the past. ... It was then I knew I must set my life in motion or I would disappear.

Classic entry:
Page 59

MELANCHOLIA:

When One Is Weighed by a Leaden Sadness

Melancholia seeps into one's life like the metallic sand of an hourglass. Despondency accrues. One suffers from inertia and wan complexion. My friend Messalina grew so disconsolate that no one could find a cure, not even my father. The use of plants with a moist nature, such as watercress, lovage, and water parsley, could not counter her dry, cold humor. It is said that the black bile of melancholia devours even stone with its terrible acid.

Publisher: John Murray

name, date Visit Newcastle Region Library's Catalogue and Website.

Tree Palace by Craig Sherborne

Shane, Moira and Midge, along with young Zara and Rory, are ‘trants’—itinerants roaming the plains north-west of Melbourne in search of disused houses to sleep in, or to strip of heritage fittings when funds are low. When they find their Tree Palace outside Barleyville, things are looking up. At last, a place in which to settle down.

But Zara, fifteen, is pregnant and doesn’t want a child. She’d rather a normal life with town boys, not trant life with a baby. Moira decides to step in: she’ll look after her grandchild. Then Shane finds himself in trouble with the local cop. Warmly told and witty, Craig Sherborne’s second novel is a revelation—an affecting story of family and rural life. 

Category: Fiction

Praise: ‘[Tree Palace is] moving, terrifying and wonderfully well observed and, as with all the strange books Sherborne writes, a triumph…The main character [is] one of the great portraits of up-against-it Australian womanhood in our literature, a figure to put with Lawson’s Drover’s Wife and Barbara Baynton’s women.’  Peter Craven, Sydney Morning Herald

Publisher: Text Publishing


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The Boundary by Nicole Watson

Long ago, Meston Park in Brisbane's West End marked the city's boundary. A curfew kept its Aboriginal population outside the city limits after dark. A multi-million dollar development threatens the sacred site of one of Australia Aboriginal populations, the Corrowa people file a native claim over the site. Hours after Justice Brosnan rejects the claim, he is dead. Days later, the developer's lawyer is also killed. As the body count rises, it becomes clear that the key to unlocking the murderer's identity is the single red feather left behind at each crime scene. 

Filled with suspense and grisly detail, this book follows detectives Jason Matthews, a young Aboriginal policeman, and Andrew Higgins, a wizened cop possessed by his need for revenge, as they attempt to investigate the murders and stay impartial. A fast-paced crime novel as well as a cutting social commentary, this narrative puts native title and contemporary Australian issues under the microscope, exposing a nation still struggling to come to terms with its bleak past. 

Category: Adult Fiction

Who'll want to read it? Crime novel lovers - this is breaking new ground in Australian fiction.

Point of no return: It may have a body on the first page, but this is no ordinary crime novel. Nicole watson adds generous slices of Brisbane's Indigenous history, and a supernatural being called Red Feathers... you won't put it down.

Classic line: ‘...if you wanted to have a yarn with a blackfellas – you have to fill them up with tucker first.’

Publisher: Penguin Books Australia

Visit Newcastle Region Library's Catalogue and Website.