Welcome to this month's Staff Picks page, where our librarians share some of the great books they've read recently. Discover hidden gems, popular titles, and diverse recommendations that will captivate your imagination and enrich your reading experience. Happy exploring!
Fiction
Sexing the Cherry by Jeanette Winterson
In a fantastic world that is and is not seventeenth-century England, a baby is found floating in the Thames. The child, Jordan, is rescued by Dog Woman and grows up to travel the world like Gulliver, though he finds that the world’s most curious oddities come from his own mind. Winterson leads the reader from discussions on the nature of time to Jordan’s fascination with journeys concealed within other journeys, all with a dizzying speed that shoots the reader from epiphany to shimmering epiphany.
The Unearthed by Lenny Bartulin
There are animals in the camouflage of undergrowth; they forage this final, fading night hour. They hear the grunting men and lift their heads, listen, then bound away: the scrub, the bushes shake and wave, signalling their invisible trajectories. After decades-old human bones are discovered in the Tasmanian wilderness, Antonia Kovács returns home with questions for her father, a retired police inspector in Queenstown. Meanwhile, Tom Pilar receives news of an inheritance, from a man he barely remembers, one of his father's friends from the early days, newly arrived in the island and looking for work.
A Stranger on Board by Cameron Ward
Welcome to the yacht of your dreams. A swimming pool. An art gallery. An award-winning chef. And a killer picking you off, one by one . . . When ex-marine Sarah French joins a luxury superyacht as on-board security, she's excited to get her life - and career - back on track. Surrounded by crystal waters, it seems like the perfect place to start over. As they head into open water, though, tensions between the crew quickly build. And when someone goes missing, Sarah has a terrifying realisation. One of them is a killer. All of them are suspects. To protect the other passengers, Sarah needs to uncover the killer's identity, and return the boat safely to shore. But there's a storm on the horizon - and not all of them will make it out alive.
From the New York Times bestselling author of Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, an intoxicating, hypnotic new novel set in a dreamlike alternative reality. Piranesi's house is no ordinary building: its rooms are infinite, its corridors endless, its walls are lined with thousands upon thousands of statues, each one different from all the others. Within the labyrinth of halls an ocean is imprisoned; waves thunder up staircases, rooms are flooded in an instant. But Piranesi is not afraid; he understands the tides as he understands the pattern of the labyrinth itself. He lives to explore the house. There is one other person in the house-a man called The Other, who visits Piranesi twice a week and asks for help with research into A Great and Secret Knowledge. But as Piranesi explores, evidence emerges of another person, and a terrible truth begins to unravel, revealing a world beyond the one Piranesi has always known. For readers of Neil Gaiman's The Ocean at the End of the Lane and fans of Madeline Miller's Circe, Piranesi introduces an astonishing new world, an infinite labyrinth, full of startling images and surreal beauty, haunted by the tides and the clouds.
The Ten Thousand Doors of January by Alix E. Harrow
In the early 1900s, a young woman embarks on a fantastical journey of self-discovery after finding a mysterious book in this captivating and lyrical debut. In a sprawling mansion filled with peculiar treasures, January Scaller is a curiosity herself. As the ward of the wealthy Mr. Locke, she feels little different from the artifacts that decorate the halls: carefully maintained, largely ignored, and utterly out of place. Then she finds a strange book. A book that carries the scent of other worlds, and tells a tale of secret doors, of love, adventure and danger. Each page turn reveals impossible truths about the world and January discovers a story increasingly entwined with her own.
Non-Fiction
Making Space: A History of New Zealand Women in Architecture
Overlooked, underpaid, and often undermined, New Zealand women architects have faced decades of struggle to maintain a position in a male-dominated profession yet their work has been both important and of significance. This groundbreaking new book tells the story of their contribution to the creativity, built environment and community of New Zealand. Written by leading women architects, both in practice and in academia, the book's bold, vivid chapters surface dozens of remarkable women, including many whose careers had until now almost entirely been lost to the historical record. It canvasses the barriers women have faced, and continue to face, and explains the determined strategies many of them have adopted to make their way. Comprehensive, brave and surprising, Making Space is a remarkable contribution to both our architectural and our social history.
Home by the Sea: The Surf Shacks & Hinterland Hideaways of Byron Bay by Natalie Walton
A beautiful interiors book that opens the doors to a range of diverse and inspiring homes in the burgeoning creative community of Australia's Byron Bay. Take an insider's tour of eighteen homes belonging to interior and fashion designers, artists, makers and more. Home by the Sea tells the stories of these homes and the people who live there - uncovering, in the process, that there is so much more to Byron Bay than its natural beauty. This is a book about community and creativity, about living intentionally and the value of loving where you live. Created by locals, including best-selling author Natalie Walton, and showcasing the light-filled interior and lifestyle photography of Amelia Fullarton, Home by the Sea offers a unique and unforgettable taste of what it's like to live in this iconic town.
Consider This: Moments in My Writing Life After Which Everything was Different by Chuck Palahniuk
Renowned, bestselling novelist Chuck Palahniuk takes us behind the scenes of the writing life, with postcards from decades on the road and incredible examination of the power of fiction and the art of storytelling. In this spellbinding blend of memoir and insight, bestselling author Chuck Palahniuk shares stories and generous advice on what makes writing powerful and what makes for powerful writing. With advice grounded in years of careful study and a keenly observed life, Palahniuk combines practical advice and concrete examples from beloved classics, his own books, and a "kitchen-table MFA" culled from an evolving circle of beloved authors and artists, with anecdotes, postcards from the road, and much more. Clear-eyed, sensitive, illuminating, and knowledgeable, Consider This is Palahniuk's love letter to stories and storytellers, booksellers and books themselves. Consider it a classic in the making.
Late Love: Sometimes Doctors Need Saving as Much as Their Patients by Glenn Colquhoun
As a youth worker, doctor and award-winning poet and children’s writer, Glenn Colquhoun has led a ‘life lived in two parts’. Writing and reading has always transported him to a world ‘flickered’ by colour, warmth and connection. Meanwhile his work as a GP in the Horowhenua has confronted him daily with scenes of doubt, dislocation and disadvantage. Late Love is a meeting of these worlds, a moving attempt to show what it is, as a doctor and writer, to be alongside people.
The Everyday Herbalist by Jane Wrigglesworth
The Everyday Herbalist contains detailed information on 30 must-have herbs and usage suggestions for a wide variety of others. Learn how to make remedies for a range of ailments: coughs, colds, allergies, low immunity, nausea, digestive disorders, insomnia, lack of energy, stress and mental health issues. Gain practical information on how to make teas, tinctures, balms, ointments, poultices and much more. Find out more about using herbs in the kitchen including pastes, pestos, seasonings and broths. Get terrific recipes for skin creams, serums, body butters, lip balms and perfumes, and ideas for cleaning: sprays, pastes, bar soap, flowing soap, laundry powder and scented sachets. This is the ultimate for anyone interested in herbs. Fully illustrated with identification photos, it is perfect for gardeners or those interested in natural health.