SMSA (Sydney Mechanics’ School of Arts)
New Book Highlights
BIOGRAPHY
| Dovey, Ceridwen | Inner worlds outer spaces |
| Glenconner, Anne | Lady in waiting |
| Lilley, Rozanna | Do oysters get bored? |
| Macklin, Robert | Castaway |
| Moulton, Mo | Mutual Admiration Society |
| Stefanovic, Sofija | Miss ex-Yugoslavia |
| Sigurdardottir, Steinunn | Heida |
| White, Corey | The prettiest horse in the glue factory |
| Wulf, Andrea | The invention of nature |
Lady in waiting / Anne Glenconner
Readers who’ve already binge-watched the third season of The Crown needn’t fret. Glenconner’s meticulously detailed memoir of her life in service to the crown will whet the appetite of anyone hungering for more tales of Britain’s royals. Opening with her childhood on the fifth-largest estate in England, the author chronicles her personal and professional life as lady-in-waiting and confidante to her childhood friend Princess Margaret. In Glenconner’s capable hands, we learn about a motley cast of characters including her horse- and Harley Davidson–riding mother, a Scottish great-aunt who was a Christian Scientist, and the formidable Queen Mary, who intimidated her grandchildren but gave the author good life advice. A pleasing blend of detail and balance, the book provides sufficient glimpses into sumptuous palaces and shooting parties to inspire awe and keen insight into the people who inhabit them. Glenconner’s candor about wealth and privilege enables readers to sympathize as she describes the emotional coldness of her parents and her father’s undisguised disappointment at her not being born a boy. The fun of racing with the princesses Elizabeth and Margaret through her family’s palatial estate and various royal residences could not make up for the fact that the author’s worth—or lack thereof—was predicated on her sex and marriage. The poor-little-rich-girl story is hardly new, but what makes this account fresh and poignant is Glenconner’s use of affluent characters to demonstrate the extent to which class trumps power; even those at the top seem helpless to challenge tradition. By unflinchingly examining everything from her troubled marriage and her fraught relationship with her children to the solace she found in service, the author emerges as a flawed yet steely woman worthy of respect. In laying her life bare, she demonstrates the limitations of being a woman in the British class system, showing that privilege is no insulation from suffering or pain. A must-have for loyal royal fans. (Kirkus Reviews, 1 January 2020)
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GARDENING
| Stewart, Angus | The waterwise Australian native garden |
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GENERAL FICTION
| Barreau, Nicolas | Love letters from Montmartre |
| Bird, Carmel | Field of poppies |
| Bishop, Alice | A constant hum |
| Brinsden, Anne | Wearing paper dresses |
| Choi, Susan | Trust exercise |
| Connolly, Cressida | After the party |
| Cooper, Tea | The girl in the painting |
| Dickie, Madelaine | Red Can Origami |
| Fallada, Hans | Every man dies alone |
| Furst, Alan | Under occupation |
| Goddard, Robert | Painting the darkness |
| Haratischwili, Nino | The eighth life (for Brilka) |
| Lerner, Ben | The Topeka School |
| Mitford, Nancy | The water beetle |
| Morante, Elsa | Arturo’s island |
| Morrissey, Di | The last paradise |
| Newman, Sandra | The heavens |
| Pomare, J. P. | In The Clearing |
| Smith, Wilbur A. | Ghost fire |
| Stapley, Marissa | The last resort |
| Toews, Miriam | Women talking |
| Treloar, Lucy | Wolfe Island |
| Tsiolkas, Christos | Damascus |
| Wilson, Kevin | Nothing to see here |
| Zink, Nell | Doxology |
Trust exercise / Susan Choi
Choi’s superb, powerful fifth novel, after 2013’s My Education, marries exquisite craft with topical urgency. Set in the early 1980s, the book’s first section depicts the Citywide Academy for the Performing Arts, an elite high school in an unnamed Southern city. Galvanized by the charged atmosphere created by the school’s magnetic theater teacher, Mr. Kingsley, 15-year-old classmates Sarah and David have an intense sexual relationship the summer between their freshman and sophomore years. Sarah, who has taken its secrecy for granted, is horrified when David makes their romance public that fall. She repudiates him, the two spend the year estranged, and she grows increasingly isolated until an English theater troupe makes an extended visit to the school. When she is pursued by one of the troupe’s actors at the same time her classmate Karen falls in love with its director, the two young women form a fraught, ambivalent bond. The novel’s second segment reintroduces the characters a dozen years later, shifting from Sarah’s perspective into to a new viewpoint that casts most of what readers thought they knew into doubt. After the tensions of the past culminate in an act at once shocking and inevitable, a brief coda set in 2013 adds a final bold twist. Choi’s themes—among them the long reverberations of adolescent experience, the complexities of consent and coercion, and the inherent unreliability of narratives—are timeless and resonant. Fiercely intelligent, impeccably written, and observed with searing insight, this novel is destined to be a classic. (Publishers Weekly, 19 November 2018)
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HISTORICAL FICTION
| Grossman, Vasili | Stalingrad |
| Marsh, Jean | The House of Eliott |
| Purcell, Leah | The drover’s wife |
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MYSTERY
| Allingham, Margery | The case of the late Pig |
| Bruen, Ken | Galway girl |
| Christie, Agatha | Cat among the pigeons |
| Christmas, Joyce | A better class of murder |
| Christmas, Joyce | Downsized to death |
| Christmas, Joyce | Forged in blood |
| Dickinson, David | Death of an old master |
| Fielden, T. P. | Died and gone to Devon |
| Finch, Paul | Dead man walking |
| Finch, Paul | Ashes to ashes |
| FitzGerald, Helen | Worst case scenario |
| Fowler, Christopher | Bryant & May |
| Gadd, Nick | Death of a typographer |
| Grimes, Martha | The old success |
| Kane, Andrea | Drawn in blood |
| Lorac, E. C. R. | Bats in the belfry |
| Noon, Jeff | The body library |
| Pelecanos, George | Right as rain |
| Singh, Nalini | A madness of sunshine |
| Sten, Viveca | Still waters |
| Tjia, M. J. | A necessary murder |
| Tjia, M. J. | The death of me |
| Viskic, Emma | Darkness for Light |
| Yokomizo, Seishi | The Honjin murders |
Galway girl / Ken Bruen
In Bruen’s superior 15th Jack Taylor novel killers stalk PI Taylor, once a member of the Garda, through Galway. Jericho, a femme fatale for whom “everyone was the enemy,” cracks the whip on her fellow psychos as they roam the city gunning down members of the Garda to grab Jack’s attention. Soon enough it gets personal with the fatal stabbing of a nun known to Taylor. Abrupt violence and plot twists keep the action popping, as Bruen plays his story like a series of brilliant improvisational jazz solos. Cultural references punctuate the narrative. For the finale, Bruen brings in a new character, the capable and deadly Keefer, once a roadie for the Rolling Stones, thereby balancing the odds so that Jack might live to drink Jameson another day. Bruen reinforces his place as the master of Irish noir. (Publishers Weekly, 20 August 2019)
Death of a Typographer / Nick Gadd
Nick Gadd’s second novel, Death of a Typographer, begins with a dead man sprawled out in the shape of an X. The body is of Tom Cremington, a printer who has done odd jobs for the narrator, Martin Kern. By this very stylised opening, by the characters’ playful surnames, and by the fact that each chapter’s headline is written in a different font, the reader can already tell this will be a romp of a book, both sprightly and erudite. Gadd’s protagonist is Martin, a graphic design nerd whose typographical knowledge assists police by identifying perpetrators through their use of ransom notes and computer fonts. Martin realises that Cremmo’s death is a type crime as he picks up a telltale printing clue. Soon, with more deaths occurring, it’s clear that there’s a typo killer on the loose, and with the help of journalist Lucy Tan, and another ‘‘typeshoe’’ – a private investigator whose specialty is font crimes – Martin follows the trail of lettering obsessives. Interwoven in the plot is the enigmatic Pieter van Floogstraten, a Dutch typographical genius who disappeared at the crest of his fame but who’s creating a secret new typeface, with each letter released in random places around the world ‘‘like some crazy Scrabble player’’. Set primarily in Melbourne with excursions to various overseas destinations including a Tibetan monastery, the Peruvian plains, and across Nepalese backstreets, Gadd’s novel is both a celebration and a gentle satire of typography. (Sydney Morning Herald, 14 September 2019)
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NON FICTION
| Aleksievich, Svetlana | Last witnesses | 940.531 ALEK |
| Barrie, David | Incredible journeys | 591.56 BARR |
| Churchill, Jennie | The Royal Botanic Garden Sydney | 580.73 CHUR |
| Dikötter, Frank | How to be a dictator | 321.90922 DIKO |
| Gabriel, Mary | Ninth street women | 709.7471 GABR |
| Hargraves, Orin | It’s been said before | 428 HARG |
| Hughes, Bettany | Venus & Aphrodite | 292.2114 HUGH |
| Kantor, Jodi | She said | 305.42 KANT |
| Matar, Hisham | A month in Siena | 914.558104 MATA |
| Oreskes, Naomi | Why trust science? | 501 ORES |
| O’Toole, Fintan | Heroic failure | 327.410 OTOO |
| Richardson, Nick | 21031900 120000 PM | 994.05 RICH |
| Robertson, Geoffrey | Who owns history? | 363.69 ROBE |
| Shaw, Barney | The smell of fresh rain | 152.166 SHAW |
| Spencer, Mark | Murder most florid | 363.2 SPEN |
| Summerscale, Kate | The suspicions of Mr. Whicher | 364 SUMM |
| Toner, J. P. | Infamy | 364.937 TONE |
The smell of fresh rain / Barney Shaw
Complex, fleeting, and capable of catapulting us decades back in time with a single whiff, our sense of smell is our most elusive and inarticulate sense. Barney Shaw’s The Smell of Fresh Rain brings science, a forensics-level sense of curiosity, and poetic imagery to a joyful celebration of the life-enhancing abilities of the lowly nose. It was a question posed by Shaw’s blind-from-birth musical savant son that drove him to become an epicure of smell. “What does three o’clock in the morning smell of?” his son asked. Intrigued, Shaw dove into a quest to understand the mechanism of smell and supply a vocabulary that everyday people could use to describe its varied pleasures. The book reveals how smells speak a language of our personal past: of home, family and friends; of foreign places; of seasons; of our ties to the earth. They also warn us of danger; of illness; of the presence of something unfamiliar, unlike us, and to be wary of. With the devotion of a good sommelier describing fine wines, Shaw takes his nose, and by extension, ours, into the kitchens, streets, markets, garages, farms, and seashores around him to unravel and savor the meanings and delights of smell. The smell of a Wellington boot? Of hydraulic fluid? Of ripe cheese, manure, coffee, and paint? These and more are explored in a book that is filled with wonder, surprise, and delight. (Foreward Reviews, July/August 2018)
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SCIENCE FICTION & FANTASY
| Abercrombie, Joe | Half a king |
| Adeyemi, Tomi | Children of virtue and vengeance |
| Crichton, Michael | The andromeda evolution |
| Roberts, Nora | The rise of magicks |
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New additions to eBooks at SMSA
EBOOKS
| General novels | Adams, Sean | The heap |
| General novels | Charyn, Jerome | Cesare |
| General novels | Coelho, Paul | The alchemist |
| General novels | Diamond, Lucy | An almost perfect holiday |
| General novels | Gannon, Genevieve | The mothers |
| General novels | Richardson, Kim Michelle | The bookwoman of Troublesome Creek |
| Mystery | Coble, Colleen | Strands of truth |
| Mystery | Eason, Lynette | Collateral damage |
| Mystery | Harrington, Jean | Rooms to die for |
| Mystery | Lindsey, Julie Ann | A geek girl’s guide to murder |
| Mystery | Lindsey, Julie Ann | Murder in real time |
| Non fiction | Clifford, Naomi | The murder of Mary Ashford |
| Non fiction | Stickler, Paul | The murder that defeated Whitechapel’s Sherlock Holmes |
| Science fiction | McGuire, Seanan | Come tumbling down |
The heap / Sean Adams
Adams’s debut, set on a disaster site in a strange alternate present, is an incandescent, melancholy satire. Orville Anders toils daily on the site of the collapsed Los Verticalés—a massive skyscraper. Every evening, he calls his brother, Bernard, a resident of the former tower who is somehow still broadcasting the radio show he hosts from somewhere in the rubble. Meanwhile, the bureaucratic chairperson of the Committee for Better Life in CamperTown stymies Orville’s friend Lydia’s schemes to oversee the upcoming visit of Peter Thisbee, the eccentric entrepreneur behind Los Verticalés, and share her views. After Orville rejects the radio station’s proposal that he begin mentioning brand names during the brothers’ conversations and they remove the phones, the calls continue regardless—in his own voice with painfully obvious product placement. As Orville investigates who is impersonating him, he stumbles into a violent, absurd conspiracy while Lydia abruptly gets her wish only to be hindered by Thisbee’s handlers. Excerpts from an oral history of the prior residents’ surreal life inside the tower provide a whimsically dystopian background to the main madcap plot. Fans of Borges and other inventive but piercing stories will revel in this offbeat novel. (Publishers Weekly, 21 October 2019)
Cesare / Jerome Charyn
Charyn’s spectacular latest captures the madness of Nazi Germany in a fiercely inventive merging of fiction and fact. Erik Holdermann’s parents both die before his ninth birthday in 1928, after which he is raised in a Berlin orphanage. When philanthropist Wilfrid von Hecht and his daughter, Lisa, make a visit to the institution, Erik is smitten by Lisa, a “mischling,” or partially Jewish, teenager a few years his senior. Their lives diverge when Lisa marries an SS colonel and, at 17, Erik rescues a seedy-looking man being attacked by thugs. The man is Adm. Wilhelm Canaris, director of the Abwehr espionage unit. Canaris has Erik trained in killing and disguise, nicknaming him “Cesare” after the somnambulist assassin in the film The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. Though Erik’s covert work becomes the stuff of whispered legend, few know that he’s helping Canaris—whose loyalty to Hitler has frayed in the face of the Führer’s increasingly erratic leadership—to sabotage Nazi attempts to exterminate Berlin’s Jews. After Erik re-encounters Lisa at a dinner party, the two begin a fevered affair. When she’s sent to Theresienstadt, where a “Jewish Paradise” designed by Nazi propagandists hides an Auschwitz way station, Erik risks his life trying to save her. Charyn’s nuanced depiction of the bond between the eccentric Canaris and his protégé balances the novel’s many macabre moments, and the searing ending is a masterpiece of unsentimentalized tenderness. This extraordinary tour de force showcases the prolific author at the top of his game. (Publishers Weekly, 4 November)
Strands of truth / Colleen Coble
Coble (The House at Saltwater Point) wows with this suspense-filled inspirational that follows a woman trying to piece together her past. Thirty-year-old marine biologist Harper Taylor, who grew up in foster care, is desperate to find her biological family. After she takes a DNA test, the testing company sends her contact information for her half-sister, Annabelle Rice. Harper rushes to meet her, and the sisters quickly discover they have more in common than the same unknown father. Annabelle and Harper both lost their mothers at a young age, and both have been victims of recent attacks: Harper’s houseboat was broken into and she was attacked while diving. On the same day, Annabelle was stabbed with a needle and woke up trapped in a trunk that she was barely able to escape. Harper and Ridge, the son of her boss and an older brother figure to Harper, begin to search for answers and connections between the two attacks—which might also be connected to the deaths of Harper’s and Annabelle’s mothers. As they work together, Harper and Ridge develop feelings for each other. But Harper is worried a complicated history with Ridge’s father might ruin their chance at happiness. With startling twists and endearing characters, Coble’s engrossing story explores the tragedy, betrayal, and redemption of faithful people all searching to reclaim their sense of identity. Fans of Susan May Warren will enjoy this. (Publishers Weekly, 8 July 2019)
Collateral damage / Lynette Eason
Eason kicks off her Danger Never Sleeps series with this suspenseful tale of an Army therapist being hunted by terrorists. A soldier saved Army psychiatrist Brooke Adams from a bomb explosion in Afghanistan, and the soldier’s dying words were a plea to clear his name: he had been accused of selling information to terrorists. Back home in South Carolina, Brooke is contacted by retired Sgt. Asher James, who seeks help with his PTSD. When he arrives at her office, they discover her new assistant has been murdered and the killers are after Brooke. It appears that someone wants to know what she heard from her rescuer—and then to shut her up for good. Rather than go to the police, she and Asher begin sleuthing, but more attacks make them wary of investigating what’s behind them too deeply. In Afghanistan, Brooke’s friend Sarah, a reporter, is about to break open an organ-harvesting and child trafficking ring. As Brooke and Asher discover more of Sarah’s reporting and how it meshes with their own memories of that fatal day, it becomes clear they are all up against the same dark, desperate, and dangerous forces. Leaning on their shared faith and sense of purpose, Brooke and Asher forge a strong relationship. Eason remains a force in action-packed inspirational fiction with this excellently paced, heartening tale. (Publishers Weekly, 25 November 2019)
Come tumbling down / Seanan McGuire
The ghoulishly dysfunctional Wolcott twins–mad scientist Jack and her sister, Jill, who aspires to be a vampire–return for the fifth Wayward Children novel (In an Absent Dream, 2019, etc.). Through a door etched by lightning, Jack reappears at Eleanor West’s Home for Wayward Children, a refuge for those children who found a portal to one of many magical worlds but couldn’t cope when they wound up back on Earth again. Jack isn’t quite who she was when she first left; she’s presently stuck in the resurrected body of Jill, whom Jack had previously killed in order to put an end to Jill’s targeted slaughter campaign at the school. Meanwhile, Jill’s mind inhabits Jack’s still-living flesh, thanks to a coerced body-swap instigated by Jill’s vampire master. This state of affairs is distressing for two main reasons: 1. Jack has obsessive-compulsive disorder, which manifests in a pathological fear of being dirty, physically and mentally, and can’t be comfortable in Jill’s mass-murdering body, and 2. The resurrected can’t become vampires, so Jill plans to use her sister’s more vital body for that purpose. Accompanied by her twice-resurrected lover, Alexis, and several students, Jack goes home to her beloved world of the Moors, a blood-tinged and gothically gloomy mashup of Stoker, Shelley, and Lovecraft, to confront her narcissistic, body-stealing twin while her schoolmates must dodge the Moors’ deadly traps and haunting temptations. McGuire (Middlegame, 2019, etc.) specializes in lending equal richness to her worldbuilding and her characterizations; these are real people dumped into fantastical situations. In this novel, she examines the thin line separating heroes from monsters–and then blurs that line completely. As in the other series installments, she also argues that one’s real or perceived flaws can prove to be a source of strength despite, or even because of, the pain they cause to oneself and others. Grotesque, haunting, lovely. (Kirkus Reviews, 1 November 2019)
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AUDIOBOOKS
| General novels | Carlson, Melody | Christmas in Winter Hill |
| General novels | Darke, Minnie | Star-crossed |
| General novels | Kate Quinn | The Alice network |
| General novels | McIntosh, Fiona | The diamond hunter |
| Non fiction | Cuylenburg, Hugh van | The resilience project |
Star crossed / Minnie Darke
Darke’s winning debut follows a horoscope writer’s devious yet delightful plan to snag a boyfriend. Justine Carmichael has worked her way up at the Alexandria Park Star, an Australian magazine, and has recently been promoted to contributions manager. When she crosses paths with childhood sweetheart Nick Jordan, now a handsome actor and ardent astrology believer, she learns he reads the Star’s weekly horoscope and hatches a scheme: she begins surreptitiously rewriting the horoscopes, into which she sprinkles subtle hints that Nick should ask her out. Unfortunately, Nick’s interpretation of the messages leads him to start dating a model. Justine, meanwhile, learns that a lot of the magazine’s readers make important life decisions based on her faux horoscopes, and she begins to wonder: Is everything “lucky, random chaos” or is there something more? Unpretentious, well-drawn characters and the fresh twist on the childhood sweethearts reunited setup make this perfect for fans of romantic comedies. (Publishers Weekly, 18 March 2019)
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New Books — January 2020
The new books for January 2020 are now available to borrow, with new ebooks and audiobooks.
We hope you enjoy them!
- New books may be borrowed for a period of two weeks only and may not be renewed.
- Books remain listed as “New Books” for two months.
Search the Library Catalogue
New Books by Genre
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Get started with eBooks and Audiobooks today
