SMSA (Sydney Mechanics’ School of Arts)
New Book Highlights
BIOGRAPHY
| Bailey, Lily | Because we are bad |
| Batthyany, Sacha | A crime in the family |
| Cassidy, Barrie | Private Bill |
| Chang, Jenevieve | The good girl of Chinatown |
| Frenkel, Francoise | No place to lay one’s head |
| Gemmell, Nikki | After |
| Groff, Maggie | Not your average nurse |
| Milligan, Louise | Cardinal: the rise and fall of George Pell |
| Worsley, Lucy | Jane Austen at home |
The good girl of Chinatown / Jenevieve Chang
Growing up in Australia in the 1980s, Jenevieve Chang was raised by Chinese immigrant parents to be a good girl. When she failed to excel, her father directed his cruel rage toward her. Jen moved to London to studydance, which was her way of rebelling against her father’s stifling need to control. She met and married Femi, a Nigerian yoga teacher. Femi was escaping from a similarly restrictive family culture and the couple moved to Shanghai. The strict codes and discipline of ballet prepared Jen’s body for the freer movements of burlesque, which focuses on the sexuality of the dancer as increasing amounts of the dancer’s body are uncovered. She became a sought-after Chinatown Doll in Shanghai’s first burlesque club, where she entertained famous people such as Quincy Jones and Jackie Chan. Woven through the memoir are the stories of her grandparents in China, their terrible ordeals during Mao’s revolution, their dangerous escape to Taiwan and how these dramatic events shaped her father’s psyche. The continuing story of her family’s disintegration is told alongside the struggles she faced with the burlesque club. The descriptions of Shanghai and the world of dance are interesting and enlightening. (Good Reading, July 2017)
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COOKING
| Zogheib, Susan | The Mediterranean diet plan |
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GARDENING
| Oshima, Megumi | Miniature moss gardens |
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GENERAL FICTION
| Binet, Laurent | The seventh function of language |
| Cavanagh, Steve | The liar |
| Chevalier, Tracy | New boy |
| Child, Lee | No middle name |
| Cooper, Fran | These dividing walls |
| Cotterell, T. A. | What Alice knew |
| Cummings, Harriet | We all begin as strangers |
| Dicker, Joel | The Baltimore boys |
| Elliot-Wright, Susan | What she lost |
| Ellory, R. J. | Kings of America |
| Enriquez, Mariana | Things we lost in the fire |
| Fitzgerald, F. Scott | I’d die for you |
| Hawkins, Paula | Into the water |
| Haynes, Natalie | The children of Jocasta |
| Hornung, Eva | The last garden |
| Johnson, Heather Taylor | Jean Harley was here |
| Kay, Sanjida | The stolen child |
| Korelitz, Jean Hanff | The devil and Webster |
| Lehane, Dennis | Since we fell |
| Lovestam, Sara | Wonderful feels like this |
| Ludwig, Benjamin | Ginny Moon |
| Malik, Rachel | Miss Boston and Miss Hargreaves |
| Marrs, John | The one |
| Murakami, Haruki | Norwegian wood |
| Nicholls, Sophie | Miss Mary’s book of dreams |
| Pericic, Marija | The lost pages |
| Persson Giolito, Malin | Quicksand |
| Ramli, Muhsin | The President’s gardens |
| Roberts, Michele | The Walworth beauty |
| Robson, Jennifer | Goodnight from London |
| Shreve, Anita | The stars are fire |
| Steel, Danielle | Against all odds |
| Swan, Karen | The Rome affair |
| Trollope, Joanna | City of friends |
| Van Reet, Brian | Spoils |
| Vigan, Delphine de | Based on a true story |
| Webb, Katherine | The hiding places |
| Wells, Christine | The traitor’s girl |
| Whitehead, Colson | The intuitionist |
| Woodson, Jacqueline | Another Brooklyn |
Desperation Road / Michael Smith
The characters in Smith’s latest book struggle to put the past behind them—but this time, the storms that have torn their lives apart are mostly of their own making. Russell Gaines has served 11 years in prison for killing a man while driving drunk. Released, he rides the bus back to his home in McComb, Mississippi, only to be beaten and threatened with revenge by the dead man’s brothers. That same evening, homeless onetime addict Maben Jones also heads toward McComb. Without cash and transport, she leaves her young daughter, Annalee, sleeping in a cheap motel and tries to turn some tricks in the parking lot. Instead, a deputy abducts and rapes her. Grabbing his gun, Maben shoots him to death and flees the scene. As she tries to protect Annalee and evade capture, her path and Russell’s cross—but whether they will help or just endanger each other is far from clear. The plot’s gritty outlines notwithstanding, Smith is a meticulous craftsman who evokes his protagonists and their world with patience and subtlety. Ultimately, the road of the novel’s title moves not just through desperation , but also into a tentative landscape of hope, and perhaps even redemption. (Publishers Weekly, vol 263, issue 46)
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HISTORICAL FICTION
| Camilleri, Andrea | The revolution of the moon |
| Endo, Shusaku | Silence |
| Iggulden, Conn | Dunstan |
| Jackson, Douglas | Scourge of Rome |
| Kane, Ben | Eagles in the storm |
| Toibin, Colm | House of names |
| Weir, Alison | Anne Boleyn |
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MYSTERY
| Airth, Rennie | The death of kings |
| Alexander, Tasha | Dangerous to know |
| Barclay, Linwood | Parting shot |
| Bolton, Guy | The pictures |
| Bolton, S. J. | Daisy in chains |
| Brett, Harry | Time to win |
| Brookmyre, Christopher | Want you gone |
| Bryndza, Robert | Last breath |
| Burrows, Steve | A pitying of doves |
| Bussi, Michel | After the crash |
| Chaney, JoAnn | What you don’t know |
| Connolly, Sheila | One bad apple |
| Cross, Mason | The samaritan |
| Curtis, Shannon | Heart breaker |
| Davis, Lindsey | The third Nero |
| Edmondson, Elizabeth | A man of some repute |
| Enger, Thomas | Cursed |
| French, Nicci | Sunday morning coming down |
| Gardner, Lisa | The next accident |
| Gemmell, David | Rhyming rings |
| Georget, Philippe | Autumn, all the cats return |
| Gulvin, Jeff | The contract |
| Henaff, Sophie | The awkward squad |
| Hammer, Lotte | The lake |
| Harrod-Eagles, Cynthia | Old bones |
| Hendricks, Gay | The fifth rule of ten |
| Herrmann, Elisabeth | The cleaner |
| Herron, Mick | Real tigers |
| Indridason, Arnaldur | The shadow district |
| James, Peter | Need you dead |
| Jardine, Quintin | Game over |
| Khan, Vaseem | The strange disappearance of a Bollywood star |
| Kovac, Christina | The cutaway |
| London, Kate | Death message |
| MacBride, Stuart | A dark so deadly |
| Mahmood, Imran | You don’t know me |
| Marsons, Angela | Dead souls |
| Medina, Kate | Scared to death |
| Obregon, Nicolas | Blue light Yokohama |
| Ould, Chris | The killing bay |
| Overington, Caroline | The lucky one |
| Parks, Carrie Stuart | A cry from the dust |
| Pattison, Eliot | Skeleton God |
| Roberts, Mark | Day of the dead |
| Russell, Michael | The city of lies |
| Siciliano, Sam | Moonstone’s curse |
| Smith, Michael | Desperation road |
| Theils, Lone | Fatal crossing |
| Unger, Lisa | The red hunter |
| Wirestone, Max | The unfortunate decisions of Dahlia Moss |
What you don’t know / JoAnn Chaney
When Jacky Seever is arrested and sentenced to death for the brutal murder of 31 people, the Denver community is relieved to end this gruesome nightmare. But for three people intimately involved, there is no closure. How will Hoskins, the detective who solved the case, continue after witnessing such depravity? Can Sammie Peterson, the star reporter who covered the crime, ever find another story to match this explosive one? And how will Seever’s wife, Gloria, who lived with a sadistic madman for decades, reconcile herself to the truth? This debut novel, in graphic and coarse detail, follows the lives of these three damaged protagonists. When seven years later a copycat killer begins butchering people linked to the original case, the trio are caught in a hellish sort of déjà vu with old and new horrors to confront. With an increasing sense of dread, readers are taken on a suspenseful and gruesome ride, and Chaney does an excellent job of keeping us guessing until the final page. Full of unlikable and fatally flawed characters, this bleak and seedy tale is a fit for those drawn to gritty police procedurals and character-driven mysteries. (Library Journal, vol 142, issue 01)
Blue light Yokohama / Nicolas Obregon
A detective with a troubled past plus a serial killer are often ingredients for a been-there-done-that thriller. Not so with Obregón’s tense, atmospheric Tokyo-set debut, which pulses with a dark energy all its own. Newly reinstated homicide cop Iwata is partnered with another inspector who makes it clear that she wants nothing to do with him (and neither does the Tokyo brass). Luckily, or not, the pair soon catch a gruesome case that requires their full attention: the murder of an entire family with ritualistic overtones, the particularly strange symbol of a black sun left at the crime scene. The victims had held a plethora of secrets, none of them good. A stalker had the teenage daughter in (presumably) his sights. The father was being harassed at work. And the killer isn’t done. Iwata suffers from his own private torment—from nightmares that plague the little sleep he gets—to the near-constant repetition of the titular song in his head. This gritty story, in what will hopefully become a new series, has roots in American noir yet fully embraces its Japanese setting, establishing Obregón as a fresh, up-and-coming voice in crime fiction. (Library Journal, vol 142, issue 1)
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NON FICTION
| Beilharz, Kirsty | Music remembers me | 615.85154 BEIL |
| Brennan, Bernadette | A writing life | 828.3 BREN |
| Campbell, Eric James | Silly Isles | TRV 910.9142 CAMP |
| Cleary, Tania | Behind the lines | 320.9940207 CLEA |
| Clements, Jonathan | A brief history of Japan | 952 CLEM |
| Dessaix, Robert | The pleasures of leisure | 306.4812 DESS |
| Duffy, Michael | Sydney noir | AUS 364.1 DUFF |
| Goulson, Dave | Bee quest | 638.1 GOUL |
| Grann, David | Killers of the Flower Moon | 976.6004 GRAN |
| Griffith Review | Millennials strike back | 828 GRIF |
| Irish, Paul | Hidden in plain view | AUS 305.899 IRIS |
| Kinsley, Michael E. | Old age | 305.26 KINS |
| Ostaseski, Frank | The five invitations | 294.3423 OSTA |
| Otowa, Rebecca | At home in Japan | 305.813 OTOW |
| Raden, Aja | Stoned | 739.2709 RADE |
| Rauser, Randal D. | An atheist and a Christian walk into a bar | 261.21 RAUS |
| Safran, John | Depends what you mean by extremist | AUS 320.530994 SAFR |
| Sandberg, Sheryl | Option B | 155.937092 SAND |
| Valentine, Carla | Past mortems | 614.1 VALE |
| Von Petzinger, Genevieve | The first signs | 302.2223 VONP |
Killers of the Flower Moon / David Gran
In the early 1920s, a series of unsolved murders terrorized the residents of Osage County, Oklahoma. Most of the victims were members of the Osage Nation—a tribe that had grown rich when oil was discovered on their reservation—but as the killings continued, even their privately funded investigations failed to crack the case, until it drew the attention of an ambitious young bureaucrat in Washington, J. Edgar Hoover. Through heroic and ingenious detective work, Hoover’s agents at what was then called the Bureau of Investigation exposed a cabal of white Oklahomans conspiring to kill Indians for their oil. The case made Hoover’s name, and the Bureau’s, but as David Grann shows in Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI, the true scale of the conspiracy has never been revealed. It is an incredible story, stirring and impossible to put down, by a writer whose true-life mysteries always go deeper than the reader expects. (The Paris Review, February 17, 2017)
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ROMANCE
| Delamere, Jennifer | A lady most lovely |
| Palmer, Diana | Fire band |
| Quick, Amanda | The girl who knew too much |
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SCIENCE FICTION & FANTASY
| Brogden, James | Hekla’s children |
| Caldecott, Andrew | Rotherweird |
| Carey, M. R. | The boy on the bridge |
| De Castell, Sebastien | Tyrant’s throne |
| Hobb, Robin | Assassin’s fate |
| Howrey, Meg | The wanderers |
| Moon, Elizabeth | Cold welcome |
| Neuvel, Sylvain | Waking gods |
| Staveley, Brian | Skullsworn |
| Sullivan, Michael J. | Age of myth |
| Taylor, Jodi | Just one damned thing after another |
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New additions to eBooks at SMSA
EBOOKS
| Biography | Haag, Michael | The Durrells of Corfu |
| Biography | Roland, David | How I rescued my brain |
| General novels | Ahern, Cecilia | Lyrebird |
| General novels | Everett, Felicity | The people at number 9 |
| General novels | Kendal, Claire | The second sister |
| General novels | Mariani, Scott | The Babylon idol |
| Mystery | Bailey, Sarah | The dark lake |
| Mystery | Burke, Alafair | All day and a night |
| Mystery | Corris, Peter | Win, lose or draw |
| Mystery | Marsons, Angela | Silent scream |
| Mystery | Slaughter, Karin | Last breath |
| Romance | McFarlane, Mhairi | Who’s that girl? |
| Science fiction & fantasy | Johansen, Erika | The Queen of the Tearling |
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AUDIOBOOKS
| General novels | Wyld, Evie | All the birds singing |
| Mystery | Norman, Howard | My darling detective |
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New Books — June 2017
The new books for June 2017 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.
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