Karen's and Tracie's Holiday Reading Suggestions 2019

Detective Renee Ballard is working the graveyard shift again, and returns to Hollywood Station in the early hours only to find that an older man has snuck in and is rifling through old file cabinets.

The intruder is none other than legendary LAPD detective Harry Bosch, working a cold case that has gotten under his skin. Ballard kicks him out, but eventually Bosch persuades her to help and she relents

The day that turns a life upside down usually starts like any other, but what happens the day after? Dual Walkley Award-winner Leigh Sales investigates how ordinary people endure the unthinkable.

Hope Shines by Brotherhood of St Laurence -
Prize-winning and highly commended stories from the Brotherhood of St Laurence Hope Prize.

If it goes 'moo' then every child knows it's a cow. If it goes 'Wham! Bam! Crash!' we're in a fast-paced comic. But what goes 'krknout'?

Barbara Lasserre takes us on a playful journey through the delightful world of words that mimic sounds. Normally relegated to children's books, cartoons and comedians, she shows how these often ancient words reveal unexpected things about the way we think, speak and act.

A book for anyone who loves playing with words.

The most hotly anticipated paperback thriller of the year follows our hero Jack Reacher on a quest into his father's past, and climaxes in the most stomach-clenching, hair-raising, blood-curdling ticking time bomb of an adventure yet.

Dylan Alcott has never let his disability get in the way of what he wanted to achieve. His family treated him no differently to any other kid, and it was the best thing they ever did. Growing up, Dylan always had a positive attitude to life. So when he discovered sport, he'd have a go at anything and could always be found at the centre of the action, giving his best and playing to win. Then he tried wheelchair basketball and tennis and was hooked.

On the day of his daughter's wedding, Agamemnon orders her sacrifice.

His daughter is led to her death, and Agamemnon leads his army into battle, where he is rewarded with glorious victory.

Three years later, he returns home and his murderous action has set the entire family - mother, brother, sister - on a path of intimate violence, as they enter a world of hushed commands and soundless journeys through the palace's dungeons and bedchambers. As his wife seeks his death, his daughter, Electra, is the silent observer to the family's game of innocence while his son, Orestes, is sent into bewildering, frightening exile where survival is far from certain. Out of their desolating loss, Electra and Orestes must find a way to right these wrongs of the past even if it means committing themselves to a terrible, barbarous act.

The phenomenal New York Times Bestseller by Nobel Prize-winner Daniel Kahneman, Thinking Fast and Slow offers a whole new look at the way our minds work, and how we make decisions.
Why is there more chance we'll believe something if it's in a bold type face? Why are judges more likely to deny parole before lunch? Why do we assume a good-looking person will be more competent? The answer lies in the two ways we make choices: fast, intuitive thinking, and slow, rational thinking. This book reveals how our minds are tripped up by error and prejudice (even when we think we are being logical), and gives you practical techniques for slower, smarter thinking. It will enable to you make better decisions at work, at home, and in everything you do.

Bringing together comprehensively researched text and stunning hand-drawn illustrations especially crafted for this book, The Inspired Traveller’s Guide: Literary Places will take readers on an enlightening journey through the key locations of literature’s best and brightest authors, movements and moments.

In Mad, Bad, Dangerous to Know, Colm Tóibín presents an illuminating, intimate study of Irish culture, history and literature told through the lives and works of Ireland's most famous sons, and the complicated, influential relationships they each maintained with their fathers.

Malala presents true stories of the refugee experience interwoven with her own story of her displacement in this incredibly moving follow up to her internationally bestselling memoir.

SOME KIDS REFUSE TO READ...others won’t stop NOT EVEN AT THE DINNER TABLE! Either way, many parents question the best way to support their child’s literacy journey.

I was standing on one leg shucking oysters when the problems began…Don Tillman and Rosie Jarman are back in Australia after a decade in New York, and they’re

Every evening for eight years, at his request, President Obama was given ten handpicked letters written by ordinary American citizens—the unfiltered voice of a nation—from his Office of Presidential Correspondence. He was the first president to interact daily with constituent mail and to archive it in its entirety. The letters affected not only the president and his policies but also the deeply committed people who were tasked with opening and reading the millions of pleas, rants, thank-yous, and apologies that landed in the White House mailroom.

Seeking stories of Australia's Great Ocean Road, a young writer stumbles across a manual from a minor player in the road's history, FB Herschell. It is a volume unremarkable in every way, save for the surprising portrait of its author that can be read between its lines: a vision of a man who writes with uncanny poetry about sand.

A young man named Levi McAllister decides to build a coffin for his twenty-three-year-old sister, Charlotte—who promptly runs for her life. A water rat swims upriver in quest of the cloud god. A fisherman named Karl hunts for tuna in partnership with a seal. And a father takes form from fire.

The answers to these riddles are to be found in this tale of grief and love and the bonds of family, tracing a journey across the southern island that takes us full circle.

'Inappropriation unpacks and skewers our confused age in the guise of a winning and authentic coming of age story. Only read Lexi Freiman's assured and enormously enjoyable debut novel if you want to discover an incisive new voice full of dark, merciless wit.' Steve Toltz

Rodney Hall presents the interwoven story of three people experiencing a period of life they never thought possible and, perhaps, should never have been granted at all . . . Each sets out along a separate path, seeking a stolen season in which they can live on their own terms.

A layered, mesmerising novel about love and art, grief and happiness, memory, legacy and the mystery of time.

Oscillating between the future and the past, Dyschronia is a novel that tantalises and dazzles, as one woman's prescient nightmares become entangled with her town's uncertain fate. Blazing with questions of consciousness, trust, and destiny, this is a wildly imaginative and extraordinary novel from award-winning author Jennifer Mills.

'I'm too busy to be happy . . .' Do you ever think like this? Many of us do these days, says psychologist and happiness expert Dr Timothy Sharp. In our quest for better jobs, bigger houses, more exotic holidays and higher-performing children, we have become too busy to factor in the one component that will make all of the above worthwhile- happiness. The good news is that achieving happiness is not a herculean task. It doesn't require expensive therapy or years of self-examination.

Christopher was seventeen and had everything to live for. He was smart, charismatic, loving, and deeply loved, and a champion rugby player. Yet he was struggling. Diagnosed a year earlier with depression and severe anxiety, he hid his fears from family and friends. Finally, Christopher chose to stop fighting.

This is a memoir of an Aboriginal woman, Tjanara Goreng Goreng, who began life without any of the advantages of her fellow non-Indigenous Australians except for grit, humour and diverse talent in spades.

‘Dear Christians. Some PPL are gay. Get over it. Love God.’
Today Fr Rod has close to 65,000 followers on social media. He uses this platform to raise questions about Australia’s corporate soul, to assert that we are all brothers and sisters – asylum seekers, Muslims, those identifying as LGBTI, Indigenous Australians ... And for such messages, the death threats pour in.

We all carry stories within us - wrenching, redemptive, extraordinary, and laced with unexpected and hard-won wisdom.

These are the real-life stories that a group of women tell each other when they gather for a deep and structured conversation - once a month in a suburban living room - about the things that really matter.