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
The Crane Husband by Kelly Barnhill
A fifteen-year-old teenager is the backbone of her small Midwestern family, budgeting the household finances and raising her younger brother while her mother, a talented artist, weaves beautiful tapestries. For six years, it's been just the three of them - her mother has brought home guests at times, but none have ever stayed. Yet when her mother brings home a six-foot tall crane with a menacing air, the girl is powerless to prevent her mom letting the intruder into her heart, and her children's lives. Utterly enchanted and numb to his sharp edges, her mother abandons the world around her to weave the masterpiece the crane demands.
You Have a Friend in 10A: Stories by Maggie Shipstead
In this collection of stories, Maggie Shipstead dives into eclectic and vivid settings, from an Olympic village to a deathbed in Paris to a Pacific atoll, and illuminating a cast of indelible characters, Shipstead traverses ordinary and unusual realities with cunning, compassion, and wit. In 'Acknowledgments,' a male novelist reminisces bitterly on the woman who inspired his first novel, attempting to make peace with his humiliations before the book goes to print. In 'The Cowboy Tango,' spanning decades in the open country of Montana, a triangle of love and self-preservation plays out among an aging rancher called the Otter, his nephew, and a young woman named Sammy who works the horses.
The Dictionary of Lost Words by Pip Williams
In 1901, the word bondmaid was discovered missing from the Oxford English Dictionary. This is the story of the girl who stole it. Motherless and irrepressibly curious, Esme spends her childhood in the Scriptorium, a garden shed in Oxford where her father and a team of lexicographers are gathering words for the very first Oxford English Dictionary. Esme's place is beneath the sorting table, unseen and unheard. One day, she sees a slip containing the word bondmaid flutter to the floor unclaimed. Esme begins to collect other words from the Scriptorium that are misplaced, discarded or have been neglected by the dictionary men. Over time, Esme realises that some words are considered more important than others - that words and meanings relating to women's experiences often go unrecorded. She begins to collect words for another dictionary: The Dictionary of Lost Words. Set when the women's suffrage movement was at its height and the Great War loomed, The Dictionary of Lost Words reveals a lost narrative, hidden between the lines of a history written by men.
Old God's Time by Barry Sebastian
Recently retired policeman Tom Kettle is settling into the quiet of his new home, a lean-to annexed to a Victorian castle overlooking the Irish Sea. For months he has barely seen a soul, catching only glimpses of his eccentric landlord and a nervous young mother who has moved in next door. Occasionally, fond memories return, of his family, his beloved wife June and their two children. But when two former colleagues turn up at his door with questions about a decades-old case, one which Tom never quite came to terms with, he finds himself pulled into the darkest currents of his past.
The Whispers by Ashley Audrain
The whispers started long before the accident on Harlow Lane. There was the party, where Whitney screamed at her ten-year-old, Xavier. Afterwards, the silence was deafening. Then there's her neighbour and friend, Blair - who snoops round Whitney's house when she's not in. She'd be better off watching her own home, keeping her husband on a tighter leash. Rebecca treats sick kids. She loves them, everyone sees that. If only she and her partner had been blessed with their own. After the accident sends these neighbours rushing to a hospital bedside, the whispers grow into a cacophony - what really happened that night?
Non-Fiction
House & Contents by Gregory O’Brien
Our mother's clouds and insects fly to embrace your clouds and insects. Her architecture, roads, bridges and infrastructure rush to greet yours. Her molecules on their upward trajectory entwine with yours, the colour of her eyes, hair and skin. Her language, with its past participles, figures of speech, the sounds and tremors which are its flesh and bones these words go out to greet your words and to greet you - these words which will never leave her. House & Contents is a moving meditation on earthquakes and uncertainties, parents and hats, through Gregory O'Brien's remarkable poetry and paintings.
Three Times a Countess: The Extraordinary Life and Times of Raine Spencer by Tina Gaudoin
Debutante of the year. Able politician. Femme fatale. Evil stepmother. Astute businesswomen. Just a smattering of the many labels attached to the irrepressible Raine Spencer: Countess, socialite and stepmother to Diana, Princess of Wales. But who was the real Raine? What was hidden behind the immaculately manicured and coiffed public facade?
Less Stuff: Simple Zero-waste Steps to a Joyful and Clutter-free Life by Lindsay Miles
Clutter impacts on our productivity, stresses us out and keeps us stuck. Why do we let our stuff stand in the way of the lives we dream about? Decluttering is great for our mental wellbeing, and when done right, it can be good for the planet too. When we rehome, repurpose or recycle the things we no longer need, we free up existing resources for others and reclaim our homes with less guilt. Less Stuff is a guide for people who find it difficult to declutter and who don’t want to see things go to waste. Step by step, you’ll explore finding your ‘enough’, learn how to let go of your old possessions without sending them to landfill, and eventually break the cycle of stuff. The end result is a planet with less strain, a home with more peace and a life with more meaning.
Dogs in Early New Zealand Photographs by Mike White
Adorable and sometimes surprising historic images of New Zealand dogs and their owners. This entertaining selection of over 100 photos of New Zealand dogs reveals some of the more curious ways in which they have appeared in photographic collections from the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Dogs named Terror, Betsey Jane, Floss and Erebus appear alongside canines whose names are longer known. The photos range from carefully staged studio portraits to New Zealand landscapes. This book also shines a light on some significant dogs, from Scott of the Antarctic's favourite sled dog to the talented mascot of the New Zealand Army rugby team. The photographs take the reader across the towns and landscapes of Aotearoa New Zealand, and the text profiles many of the photographers and studios that flourished prior to the First World War. It also pays tribute to the museums and galleries that now care for these delightful collections.
RecipeTin Eats Dinner : 150+ Recipes from Australia's Favourite Cook by Nagi Maehashi
Through her phenomenally popular online food site, RecipeTin Eats, Nagi Maehashi talks to millions of people a year who tell her about the food they love. Now, in her first cookbook, Nagi brings us the ultimate curation of new and favourite RecipeTin Eats recipes - from comfort food (yes, cheese galore), to fast and easy food for weeknights, Mexican favourites, hearty dinner salads, Asian soups and noodles, and special treats for festive occasions. Featuring a photo and how-to video for every recipe (follow the QR code), readily available ingredients, Nagi's famously helpful notes, and Dozer, Australia's best-loved food tester, this is a kitchen-shelf must-have for the novice cook, the expert seeking to perfect technique (straight to the Beef Wellington!), and everyone in between.