Choose your next read
take your mind off-line and off school - Chillax!
Some new books aimed more at YOU!
You can almost smell it, can't you? - holidays, they're just around the corner, hallelujah.
and yes we'll bring a selection of books up to the staffroom for you to browse through but this way I get to write a summary as well, hopefully making it easier for you to choose.
After all, who judges a book by it's cover?!
A Canoe in Midstream: poems old & new. Apirana Taylor
Poetry. 'Apirana Taylor is seer and shapeshifter, poet and warrior: strength and love find equal balance in verse that is alternately raging and lyrical, dramatic and meditative, haka and haiku . . .'
– Fiona Farrell
– Fiona Farrell
The Rose that Grew from Concrete. Tupac Shakur.
Poetry. His talent was unbounded, a raw force that commanded attention and respect. His death was tragic -- a violent homage to the power of his voice. His legacy is indomitable -- remaining vibrant and alive. Here now ... are Tupac's most honest and intimate thoughts conveyed through the pure art of poetry -- a mirror into his enigmatic life and its many contradictions. Written in his own hand at the age of nineteen, they embrace his spirit, his energy -- and his ultimate message of hope. (Publisher)
Maori Boy: a memoir of childhood. Witi Ihimaera.
Honest and stirring, this memoir tells of the family and community into which Ihimaera was born, of his early life in rural New Zealand, of family secrets, of facing anguish and challenges, and of laughter and love. As Ihimaera recounts the myths that formed his early imagination, he also reveals the experiences from real life that wriggled into his fiction.
Classrom to Prison Cell. Alison Sutherland.
"...and then it got worse in Third Form, cause the teacher used to yell at me and sit and I didn't like people yelling at me".
From the mouths of our young criminals, this book seeks to understand why some of our youth get it so wrong.
Legacy: 15 Lessons in Leadership. James Kerr.
The perfect how-to manual for effective leadership - Anton Oliver. How do you achieve world-class standards, day after day, week after week, year after year? How do you handle pressure? How do you train to win at the highest level? What do you leave behind you after you're gone?
The Anger Toolbox: tools for children and teens, and for those caring for them, to get through angry times.
A handbook for parents and any other adults caring for, or working with, children and teens. It addresses the issue of managing anger in a fresh way. This is the 2nd edition and it has had its content and style comprehensively updated and extended.
It looks at what anger is, the effects it can have on us and the different strategies children, teens and adults can learn to manage it safely and well.
Hope to Die. James Patterson.
For Valour. Andy McNab.
I am Pilgrim. Terry Hayes.
Pilgrim is the codename for a man who doesn't exist. The adopted son of a wealthy American family, he once headed up a secret espionage unit for US intelligence. Before he disappeared into anonymous retirement, he wrote the definitive book on forensic criminal investigation.
But that book will come back to haunt him. It will help NYPD detective Ben Bradley track him down. And it will take him to a rundown New York hotel room where the body of a woman is found facedown in a bath of acid, her features erased, her teeth missing, her fingerprints gone. It is a textbook murder – and Pilgrim wrote the book.
But that book will come back to haunt him. It will help NYPD detective Ben Bradley track him down. And it will take him to a rundown New York hotel room where the body of a woman is found facedown in a bath of acid, her features erased, her teeth missing, her fingerprints gone. It is a textbook murder – and Pilgrim wrote the book.
The Martian. Andy Weir.
Set in the near future, The Martian tells his story. Watney is an astronaut and member of mankind’s third manned Mars landing, and he finds himself stranded alone on Mars after his crewmates are forced to abandon him during a dust storm (hence the gloomy tone of the book’s opening passage). Watney must attempt to survive using only leftover tools and components from the abandoned mission, because there is no Mitre 10 on Mars. Fortunately, he has a few tricks up his spacesuit sleeves: he’s damn smart, damn resourceful, and really, really damn optimistic.
Cross roads. Wm. Paul Young.
Cross Roads follows Anthony "Tony" Spencer, an egotistical businessman that went from being a poor foster child to a successful businessman that must win at any cost. This ruthless and cruel outlook has affected his personal life as well, prompting him to re-marry an ex-wife only so he could be the one to leave her the second time around, and to ignore his daughter in favor of mourning the son that died at a very young age. It's a hollow existence that is forever changed when Tony ends up in a coma due to a cerebral hemmoragefrom a head trauma and a brain tumor. He re-awakens to discover himself in a strange Purgatory-like-state where he is brought face-to-face with God (who appears to Tony as young, raven-haired, olive-skinned girl), Jesus, and the Holy Spirit (who has the appearance of a Lakota Indian), who sends him back to earth to go over the actions he made before going comatose. He is also informed that he will have to ability to heal one person and only one person. He can heal himself, an Alzheimer's sufferer, or a young leukemia patient. Tony initially assumes that he is merely stuck within his subconscious and goes along with the mission merely to humor the Trinity. However once he is back on earth he discovers that he is seeing the world through the eyes of several different people, but mainly African-American nurse Maggie Saunders. As he's transferred from person to person, the sights that Tony witnesses are both beautiful and cruel in turn, making him question who he has become and what the impact of his past choices might be. (Wikipedia)
The Five People you Meet in Heaven. Mitch Albom.
On his eighty-third birthday, Eddie, a lonely war veteran, dies in a tragic accident trying to save a little girl from a falling cart. With his final breath, he feels two small hands in his - and then nothing. He awakens in the afterlife, where he learns that heaven is not a lush Garden of Eden, but a place where your earthly life is explained to you by five people who were in it.
The Circle. Dave Eggers.
Tech worker Mae Holland is hired by the Circle, a big-time Internet firm that connects users' emails, social media, banking, and shopping information within one operating system. She's excited by the company's cool California campus and modern approach, but things quickly take a turn when questions of memory, privacy, and democracy come into play.
Spark. John Twelve Hawks.
Jacob Underwood is not like other people. He has Cotard's Syndrome. He believes he is dead. Which makes his job as a hired assassin neutralizing 'problems' for DBG, a massive multinational corporation, very simple. He carries out the task and feels nothing.
Watchmen. Alan Moore & Dave Gibbons.
Comic book and cult classic, Watchmen depicts an alternate history where superheroes emerged in the 1940s and 1960s, helping the United States to win the Vietnam War. In 1985, the country is edging toward nuclear war with the Soviet Union, freelance costumed vigilantes have been outlawed and most former superheroes are in retirement or working for the government. The story focuses on the personal development and moral struggles of the protagonists as an investigation into the murder of a government sponsored superhero pulls them out of retirement.