SMSA (Sydney Mechanics’ School of Arts)
New Book Highlights
ANIMAL STORIES
| Cleary, Gráinne | Your backyard birds |
| Trout, Nick | The wonder of lost causes |
The wonder of lost causes / Nick Trout
Eleven-year-old Jasper Blunt volunteers at the animal shelter where his mother, Kate, works as a veterinarian. Jasper has cystic fibrosis, and he endures frequent hospital stays as well as marginalized social status at school. One day, Jasper shows up at the shelter as multiple workers wrestle a badly scarred dog who has just arrived. To everyone’s surprise, the dog calms instantly when Jasper appears. Jasper declares that the animal’s name is Whistler. As Jasper insists that he can communicate wordlessly with this dog, Kate grows concerned that her son might be suffering from psychosis in addition to CF. Yet, as Jasper spends more time with Whistler, his health, social skills, and outlook on life all improve. Unfortunately, if Whistler is not adopted within two weeks of arrival, shelter policy mandates he be put down. Kate continually rejects Jasper’s pleas to keep the dog, primarily because their housing development forbids pets. Kate finally receives a call from a man who claims he’s been searching for Whistler for years. As Kate and Jasper journey from Massachusetts to New Mexico to bring Whistler home, both Jasper and his mother wonder if they can ever return to a life that doesn’t include this special animal. This animal-centric narrative gets off to a slow start, but it gradually rises to an exciting crescendo. Told alternately from the perspectives of Kate and Jasper, the story tugs at the heartstrings by exploring the effects of chronic disease on both the afflicted and their caregivers, touching especially on issues of guilt, grief, and depression. (Kirkus Reviews, 15 February 2019)
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BIOGRAPHY
| Hoban, Mary | An unconventional wife |
| North, Jessica | Esther |
| Willoughby, Anne-Louise | Nora Heysen |
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GARDENING
| Hawley, Janet | Wendy Whiteley and the secret garden |
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GENERAL FICTION
| Bird, Tabitha | A lifetime of impossible days | |
| Burns, Anna | Little constructions | |
| Cheng, Melanie | Room for a stranger | |
| Chiaverini, Jennifer | Resistance women | |
| Coe, Jonathan | Middle England | |
| Doshi, Tishani | Small days and nights | |
| Gilbert, Elizabeth | City of girls | |
| Grames, Juliet | The seven or eight deaths of Stella Fortuna | |
| Grant, Linda | A stranger city | |
| Haddon, Mark | The porpoise | |
| Hammad, Isabella | The Parisian | |
| Harris, Thomas | Cari Mora | |
| Hornby, Nick | State of the Union | |
| Jenoff, Pam | The lost girls of Paris | |
| Jones, Sadie | Snakes | |
| Jones, Tayari | Silver sparrow | |
| Kaminsky, Leah | The hollow bones | |
| Keys, Julie | The artist’s portrait | |
| Lalami, Lail | The other Americans | |
| Li, Lillian | Number one Chinese restaurant | |
| Moriarty, Jaclyn | Gravity is the thing | |
| Murphy, Tim | Correspondents | |
| Nunn, Kayte | The forgotten letters of Esther Durrant | |
| Orringer, Julie | The flight portfolio | |
| Riley, Lucinda | The butterfly room | |
| Russell, Karen | Orange world and other stories | |
| Smith, Dominic | The electric hotel | |
| Swan, Karen | The Spanish promise | |
| Truhen, Aidan | The price you pay | |
| Wang, Xuan Juliana | Home remedies | |
| Womersley, Chris | A lovely and terrible thing | |
The snakes / Sadie Jones
Jones’s propulsive yet thoughtful fifth novel grips readers from the first page. Bea Adamson is a 30-year-old psychotherapist living in a modest one-bedroom in London with her real estate agent husband, Dan Durrant, despite her moneyed background. Dan, who is of a much humbler background, dreams of becoming an artist. When Bea and Dan take three months off to travel, their first stop is France, where Bea’s older brother, Alex, runs a hotel. When they arrive, they’re greeted by a hotel devoid of guests other than the snake infestation in the attic and an erratic, newly sober Alex. When Alex and Bea’s extremely wealthy parents, Griff and Liv, unexpectedly arrive at the hotel, Bea, who has long cut financial and personal ties with her severe father and cloying mother, resigns herself to making nice. And with Griff and Liv’s arrival, Dan begins to understand just how well-off Bea is, no matter how much she wants to forsake her upbringing. However, when Alex goes out one night and doesn’t return, the Adamson family is upturned, and their secrets and twisted relationships with each other are brought to light. The campy ending doesn’t quite live up to the rest of the book—but what precedes is a tightly crafted, deeply moving, and thrilling story about how money corrupts and all the myriad ways members of a family can ruin each other. (Publishers Weekly, 22 April 2019)
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MYSTERY
| Baker, Joanna | The slipping place |
| Billingham, Mark | Their little secret |
| Bovee, Kari | Peccadillo at the palace |
| Carr, John Dickson | The Mad Hatter mystery |
| Chaparro, Carme | I am not a monster |
| Cleeves, Ann | A day in the death of Dorothea Cassidy |
| Deaver, Jeffery | The never game |
| Delargy, James | 55 |
| Fields, Helen | Perfect crime |
| Friis, Agnete | The summer of Ellen |
| Hunter, Cara | No way out |
| James, Peter | Dead at first sight |
| Knott, Robert | Robert B. Parker’s buckskin |
| Koryta, Michael | If she wakes |
| Kutscher, Volker | The silent death |
| Logan, Kylie | The scent of murder |
| Longworth, M. L. | Murder on the Île Sordou |
| Lord, Gabrielle | Sisters |
| Manzini, Antonio | Spring cleaning |
| Martin, Faith | A fatal obsession |
| Massey, Sujata | The Satapur moonstone |
| McDonald, R. W. R. | The Nancys |
| Medearis, Wil | Restoration heights |
| Meyer, Deon | The woman in the blue cloak |
| Miscellaneous | Berlin noir |
| Miscellaneous | Houston noir |
| Pavone, Chris | The Paris diversion (large print) |
| Romer, Anna | Under the midnight sky |
| Runcie, James | The road to Grantchester |
| Templeton, Aline | Human face |
| Wilkins, Susan | The mourner |
The mad hatter history / John Dickson Carr
Carr’s series sleuth, Dr. Gideon Fell, shows off his brilliance in this sterling entry in the American Mystery Classics series, originally published in 1933. Chief Inspector Hadley consults Fell on the case of Sir William Bitton, a book collector who stumbled on the find of a lifetime, the manuscript of a lost Edgar Allan Poe story, believed to have been the first the author wrote. Someone has stolen the document from Bitton’s London study, but before Fell and Hadley can investigate, they learn that one of the possible suspects has been found murdered at the Tower of London, killed with a crossbow bolt. The body was adorned with an opera hat that was stolen from Bitton previously, the second hat that had been stolen from him in a week. The hat robberies were part of a series of thefts committed by the person dubbed the Mad Hatter by Bitton’s journalist nephew. Could the Mad Hatter also be the thief who stole the Poe manuscript? Readers may be moved to reread the book to note how artfully Carr (1906–1977) plants the clues to the killer’s identity in plain sight. (Publishers Weekly, 4 March 2019)
The Nancys / R. W. R. McDonald
In the poky New Zealand town of Riverstone—home of bad interior design, dull news cycles and not much else—11-year-old Tippy Chan’s mother is about to go on holiday. Tippy’s flamboyant uncle and his new fashion designer boyfriend arrive from Australia to keep her safe, but when Tippy’s best friend falls off a bridge and her teacher is found murdered, safety is pushed aside as the three instead dub themselves ‘The Nancys’, after Tippy’s literary hero Nancy Drew, and go on the hunt for a killer. What follows is a riotous, delightful mess of a case, with beauty pageants, cranky child witnesses and bitter minor celebrities, told from Tippy’s candid and occasionally baffled perspective. She has many skills, like her ability to distract herself to avoid thinking about her father’s recent death, and her preteen bluntness sees her plainly asking people why they’re acting so suspiciously. Tippy also understands honesty, justice and the value of rude jokes—three things this book has in abundance. Cheerfully scattered, this glittering, occasionally grisly and highly original novel is recommended for those who like the bawdiest parts of Phryne Fisher but stands proudly on its own. (Books and Publishing, 26 April 2019)
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NON FICTION
| Atkinson, Rick | The British are coming | 973.3 ATKI |
| Barkley-Jack, Jan | Hawkesbury settlement revealed | 994.42 BARK |
| Borman, Tracy | Elizabeth’s women | 942.055092 BORM |
| Bowring, Philip | Empire of the winds | 959.8 BOWR |
| Bretherton, Tanya | The suicide bride | 364.1523 BRET |
| Carter, Lauren | A family guide to waste-free living | 640.286 CART |
| Kelly, Lynne | Memory craft | 153.12 KELL |
| Moore, Peter | Endeavour | 623.8203 MOOR |
| Rippon, Gina | The gendered brain | 612.8 RIPP |
| Wallace-Wells, David | The uninhabitable earth | 363.73874 WALL |
Elizabeth’s women / Tracy Borman
Borman recreates the life, times, and key relationships of one of the most iconic women in history: Elizabeth I. Although Elizabeth is famous for deriding her sex and flirting publicly with favourites like Robert Dudley, Borman explores how other women shaped Elizabeth’s personality early on. The beheadings of both her mother, Anne Boleyn, and stepmother Katherine Howard at Henry VIII’s behest, and half-sister Mary’s humiliating subservience to a foreign prince, made Elizabeth wary of men and convinced her that she must remain a virgin to succeed as queen regnant. Elizabeth shared a passion for religious reform and lively discourse with her stepmother Katherine Parr while her sister Mary’s inflexible Catholicism taught her to never openly commit to any single policy. Elizabeth inherited Anne Boleyn’s cruelty and vindictiveness, evident in her treatment of cousins who were prettier, younger rivals to the throne: Katherine Grey, who was imprisoned until her premature death, and Mary, Queen of Scots, also imprisoned and eventually beheaded. A standout in the flood of Tudor biographies, this smart book offers a detailed exploration of Elizabeth’s private relationships with her most intimate advisers and family members. (Publishers Weekly, 2 August 2010)
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ROMANCE
| Quick, Amanda | Tightrope |
Tightrope / Amanda Quick
Quick’s third thriller set in Hollywood’s Golden Age is a dense work of romantic suspense. Burning Cove, Calif., a playground for Hollywood stars and wannabes, also attracts plenty of eccentrics, including former trapeze artist Amalie Vaughn. She used every last dime to open a B and B in the same mansion once owned by psychic Madam Zolanda, who mysteriously jumped from its roof. Amalie is one of hundreds in the audience for a demonstration of a butler robot, and is horrified when the machine murders his own creator, Dr. Pickwell—who happens to be her first paying guest. However, Matthias Jones, who has arcane abilities and works for suspected mob boss Luther Pell, doesn’t for a second believe that a poorly wired robot could shoot to kill. He knows Luther lured Pickwell to town to arrange the illegal sale of a highly valued ciphering machine that the U.S. government wants back, and thinks the murder is related. Quick excels at developing complex plots that keep the reader guessing, all while building chemistry between Amalie and Mattias as they work together to catch a criminal who may also be linked to Amalie’s past. This tangled novel will satisfy series fans and others looking for a bit of a challenge. (Publishers Weekly, 8 April 2019)
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SCIENCE FICTION & FANTASY
| Caruso, Melissa | The unbound empire |
| Lanchester, John | The wall |
| Taylor, Jodi | Hope for the best |
| Taylor, Jodi | The long and short of it |
The wall / John Lanchester
With the relentless advance of climate change, more and more speculative fiction authors are taking up the challenge of envisioning future scenarios in which environmental devastation has taken its toll on human civilization. In Lanchester’s version of this premise, one still-intact island nation has closed itself off from the rest of the world with a heavily guarded wall, protecting them from the desperate Others trying to get in. Lanchester’s first-person narrator is a newly enlisted soldier, Kavanagh, whose tour of duty as a wall defender becomes a life-altering experience. Thrown into a world of ubiquitous, concrete, monotonous routine and nonstop icy sea winds, Kavanagh remains keenly aware at all times that, if an Other gets in, the responsible defender must join the Others. His biggest consolations are his growing friendships with Hifa, an androgynous fellow defender, and his stalwart captain as they face their worst nightmares when they are stranded outside the wall. Beautifully written and chillingly plausible, Lanchester’s work is dystopian fiction at its finest. (Booklist, 2 February 2019)
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TRAVEL
| Heaslip, Tanya | Alice to Prague | 914.3712 HEAS |
| Lopez, Barry | Horizon | 910.4092 LOPE |
| Orth, Stephan | Couchsurfing in Russia | 947.086 ORTH |
Horizons / Barry Holstun Lopez
A globe-trotting nature writer meditates on the fraught interactions between people and ecosystems in this sprawling environmentalist travelogue. Essayist Lopez (Arctic Dreams) recounts episodes from decades of his travels, most of them tied to scientific investigations: camping on the Oregon coast while considering the exploits of British explorer James Cook; examining archaeological sites in the high Arctic while reflecting on the harshness of life there; hunting for hominin fossils in Kenya while weighing human evolution; scuba-diving under an Antarctic ice shelf while observing the rich marine biota. His free-associative essays blend vivid reportage on landscapes, wildlife, and the knotty relationships among the scientists he accompanies with larger musings on natural history, environmental and climate crises, and the sins of Western imperialism in erasing indigenous cultures. It’s often hard to tell where Lopez is going with his frequent digressions: one two-page section skitters from global cancer rates past a one-eyed goshawk he once saw in Namibia to an astrophysics experiment at the South Pole to detect dark matter, with no particular conclusion. Still, his prose is so evocative—during a tempest at sea, “veils of storm-ripped water ballooned in the air around us” amid “the high-pitched mewling of albatrosses, teetering impossibly forty feet away from us on the wind”—and his curiosity so infectious that readers will be captivated. (Publishers Weekly, 10 December 2018)
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New additions to eBooks at SMSA
EBOOKS
| Biography | Papathanasiou, Peter | Little one |
| General novels | James, Wendy | The accusation |
| General novels | Porter, Ruby | Attraction |
| Mystery | Baker, Bree | Live and let chai |
| Mystery | McDonald, R. W. R. | The Nancys |
| Mystery | Medearis, Will | Restoration heights |
| Mystery | Swanson, Denise | Leave no scone unturned |
| Non fiction | Kelly, Lynne | Memory craft |
| Science fiction | Stephenson, Neal | Fall or dodge in hell |
| Historical fiction | Cornwell, Bernard | War of the wolf |
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AUDIOBOOKS
| Animal stories | Lowrey, Will | Chasing the blue sky |
| Biography | Miller, P.J. | Cute poodles, sweet old ladies and hugs |
| General novels | Hoang, Helen | The bride test |
| General novels | Reay, Katherine | The printed letter bookshop |
| General novels | Wood, Mae | Genealogy |
| Mystery | Amphlett, Rachel | Hell to pay |
| Mystery | Goldstone, Lawrence | Assassin of shadows |
| Mystery | Lin, Harper | Cremas, Christmas cookies and crooks |
| Mystery | Maloney, Julie | A matter of chance |
| Mystery | McCoy, Shirlee | Gone |
Assassin of shadows / Lawrence Goldstone
What if President McKinley’s assassination in 1901 was not just the work of a lone nut? That’s the premise of this outstanding thriller from Goldstone (The Anatomy of Deception). After anarchist Leon Czolgosz manages to get close enough to McKinley at the Pan American Exposition in Buffalo, N.Y., to shoot him, Secret Service agents Walter George and Harry Swayne are dispatched to that city to investigate. Their boss, John Wilkie, and power broker Mark Hanna are convinced there’s a conspiracy. But McKinley, who initially survives the shooting, insists that the agents not railroad anyone and pursue the truth, which could lead to Czolgosz’s political allies, who include Emma Goldman. The dogged George and Swayne begin to wonder if the attack was aided from the inside, given that the agents protecting McKinley weren’t suspicious of the assassin’s bandaged hand, which concealed his weapon. As McKinley’s condition worsens, George and Swayne come under surveillance—and under fire. Goldstone combines an intriguing theory of the crime with a jaw-dropping ending. This is his best novel yet. (Publishers Weekly, 8 April 2019)
The bride test / Helen Hoang
Emily Woo Zeller narrates a deeply moving love story between two passionate and strong-willed individuals from its emotionally devastating lows to its profoundly satisfying conclusion. Khai Diep is convinced he is incapable of feeling, and, therefore, has no need of a wife. Esme Tran, despite numerous obstacles, jumps at the chance to meet a potential husband who is American. Zeller perfectly captures Esme’s journey from naive country girl to determined young woman as she navigates a new country, a new living situation, and a complicated new relationship. Similarly, she skillfully portrays Khai’s slow and painful progress as he realizes that he does indeed possess very deep feelings. Zeller’s comfort with the occasional Vietnamese phrases adds another layer of realism to the story. (AudioFile 2019)
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New Books — June 2019
The new books for June 2019 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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