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Updated by St Joseph's Regional College Library on Aug 08, 2021
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Karen's and Karyn's Recommendations 2021

The Case of the Missing Marquess (Enola Holmes 1) by Nancy Springer

When Enola Holmes, sister to the detective Sherlock Holmes, discovers her mother has disappeared, she quickly embarks on a journey to London in search of her. But nothing can prepare her for what awaits. Because when she arrives, she finds herself involved in the kidnapping of a young marquess, fleeing murderous villains, and trying to elude her shrewd older brothers-all while attempting to piece together clues to her mother's strange disappearance. Amid all the mayhem, will Enola be able to decode the necessary clues and find her mother?

Dog by Shaun Tan (9781760526139) | Harry Hartog Bookseller

Once we were strangers,
legs bent the wrong way,
rough voices falling to the wind ...
But in our hearts we wanted more than this. In our hearts, we knew there was more.

A beautifully poetic and gorgeously illustrated reflection on the relationship between dogs and humans. Dog is a stand-alone picture book of one of the most-loved stories from the bestselling and internationally acclaimed Tales from the Inner City by Shaun Tan, winner of the 2020 Kate Greenaway medal.

Songlines by Margo Neale

Songlines are an archive for powerful knowledges that ensured Australia's many Indigenous cultures flourished for over 60,000 years. Much more than a navigational path in the cartographic sense, these vast and robust stores of information are encoded through song, story, dance, art and ceremony, rather than simply recorded in writing.

Shuggie Bain - Pan Macmillan AU

WINNER OF THE BOOKER PRIZE 2020

'An amazingly intimate, compassionate, gripping portrait of addiction, courage and love' The Booker Prize Judges

It is 1981. Glasgow is dying and good families must grift to survive. Agnes Bain has always expected more from life. She dreams of greater things: a house with its own front door and a life bought and paid for outright (like her perfect, but false, teeth). But Agnes is abandoned by her philandering husband, and soon she and her three children find themselves trapped in a decimated mining town. As she descends deeper into drink, the children try their best to save her, yet one by one they must abandon her to save themselves. It is her son Shuggie who holds out hope the longest.

Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow

The bestselling life of one of America's founding fathers, Alexander Hamilton, which became the basis for the hugely successful Broadway show Hamilton. Alexander Hamilton was an illegitimate, largely self-taught orphan from the Caribbean who overcame all the odds to become George Washington's aide-de-camp and the first Treasury Secretary of the United States. Few figures in American history are more controversial than Alexander Hamilton. In this masterful work, Chernow shows how the political and economic power of America today is the result of Hamilton's willingness to champion ideas that were often wildly disputed during his time.

To My Country by Ben Lawson

Ben Lawson was preparing for another Christmas away from home when the Black Summer bushfires began to burn their way across Australia's eastern coast. As the bushfires continued to rage into the new year on an unprecedented scale, Ben, feeling angry, helpless and broken-hearted as he watched the devastation from across the ocean, sat down and put his feelings into words. To My Country is an ode to the endurance of the Australian spirit and the shared love of our country.

Stone Sky Gold Mountain by Mirandi Riwoe

Family circumstances force siblings Ying and Lai Yue to flee their home in China to seek their fortunes in Australia. Life on the gold fields is hard, and they soon abandon the diggings and head to nearby Maytown. Once there, Lai Yue finds a job as a carrier on an overland expedition, while Ying finds work in a local store and strikes up a friendship with Meriem, a young white woman with her own troubled past. When a serious crime is committed, suspicion falls on all those who are considered outsiders.

Butterfly on a Pin by Alannah Hill

A memoir of love, despair and reinvention.

Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine

Eleanor Oliphant leads a simple life. She wears the same clothes to work every day, eats the same meal deal for lunch every day and buys the same two bottles of vodka to drink every weekend.

Eleanor Oliphant is happy. Nothing is missing from her carefully timetabled life. Except, sometimes, everything.

One simple act of kindness is about to shatter the walls Eleanor has built around herself. Now she must learn how to navigate the world that everyone else seems to take for granted – while searching for the courage to face the dark corners she’s avoided all her life.

Change can be good. Change can be bad. But surely any change is better than… fine?

Watership Down

Sandleford Warren is in danger. Hazel's younger brother Fiver is convinced that a great evil is about to befall the land, but no one will listen. And why would they when it is . . .

Showboat: The Life of Kobe Bryant by Roland Lazenby

Shortlisted for the 2017 Cross Sports Book Awards Best Biography of the Year

Bryant is one of basketball's greatest-ever players, a fascinating and complicated character who says he knew when he was a boy that he would be better than Michael Jordan.

Aloof and uncompromising, Bryant is the grand enigma of American professional basketball, easily the most driven player in the history of the sport, the absolute master of study and preparation. But his career has also been one of almost constant conflict: with his teammate Shaquille O'Neal; with Phil Jackson, coach of the championship-winning Lakers team that Kobe led; with the law; with his wife Vanessa; and with so many of his contemporaries, opponents and teammates.

Comprehensive and unflinching, Showboat unravels the conundrum that is Kobe Bryant.

Tell Me Why for Young Adults | Book by Archie Roach

‘There are many Australian stories, and mine is just one about what happened to me and other First Peoples of this country. It’s important for me to tell my story – because it’s not just part of my healing but of this country’s as well. We all have a story and as you read this book I would like you to think of your own story, what that means and who is also a part of your story.’

In his inspirational, highly acclaimed memoir – and including reflections from First Nations Elders and young people – Archie Roach tells the story of his life and his music. Only two when he was forcibly removed from his family, and brought up by a series of foster parents until his early teens, Archie’s world imploded when he received a letter that spoke of a life he had no memory of. It took him almost a lifetime to find out who he really was.

Tell Me Why is an unforgettable story of resilience, strength of spirit and hope....

The Believer by Sarah Krasnostein - 9781922330208 - Dymocks

This book is about ghosts and gods and flying saucers; certainty in the absence of knowledge; how the stories we tell ourselves to deal with the distance between the world as it is and as we'd like it to be can stunt us or save us.

From award-winning author Sarah Krasnostein comes an exploration of the power of belief.

What do we believe?
Who do we believe?

Life As I Know It by Michelle Payne

In Life As I Know It, Michelle Payne tells her deeply moving story. It will lift your spirits, stir your heart and give you courage.

My Way by Moana Hope

Moana Hope is one of fourteen children. No fan of dolls or dresses, footy has always been her passion, and she would spend hours playing kick-to-kick with her dad and brothers at the local park. When her father was diagnosed with terminal cancer, Moana cared for him until his death four years later. Footy and cricket provided an escape from the demands of domestic life, and she made state and national teams for both sports. She also began to explore her Maori heritage, getting tattoos that represented the dearest people in her life. But as women's football became more popular, being good at the game wasn't enough-players started being pressured about the way they looked. Moana refused to grow her hair or cover her tatts, and for the first time in her life felt sidelined by the game. But later, inspired by a women's exhibition game, she realised what she was missing and returned with gusto to the game she loved. As a powerful full-forward who can thrill crowds by taking big marks and kicking spectacular goals, Moana was signed by Collingwood as one of its two marquee players for the inaugural AFL Women's competition in 2017. A high-flying athlete who is grounded by remarkable selflessness, Moana Hope is an inspiration for women and girls everywhere. My Way is her story.

The Daughters of Kobani by Gayle Tzemach Lemmon:

ABOUT THE DAUGHTERS OF KOBANI
A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

The extraordinary story of the women who took on the Islamic State and won

“The Daughters of Kobani is an unforgettable and nearly mythic tale of women’s power and courage. The young women profiled in this book fought a fearsome war against brutal men in impossible circumstances–and proved in the process what girls and women can accomplish when given the chance to lead. Brilliantly researched and respectfully reported, this book is a lesson in heroism, sacrifice, and the real meaning of sisterhood.

Remember by Lisa Genova - 9781761101205 - Dymocks

A fascinating exploration of the intricacies of how we remember, why we forget, and what we can do to protect our memories, from the Harvard-trained neuroscientist and bestselling author of Still Alice.

Have you ever felt a crushing wave of panic when you can’t for the life of you remember the name of that actor in the movie you saw last week, or you walk into a room only to forget why you went there in the first place? If you’re over forty, you’re probably not laughing. You might even be worried that these lapses in memory could be an early sign of Alzheimer’s or dementia. In reality, for the vast majority of us, these examples of forgetting are completely normal. Why? Because while memory is amazing, it is far from perfect. Our brains aren’t designed to remember every name we hear, plan we make, or day we experience. Just because your memory sometimes fails doesn’t mean it’s broken or succumbing to disease. Forgetting is actually part of being human.

The Bass Rock by Evie Wyld

Surging out of the sea, the Bass Rock has for centuries watched over the lives that pass under its shadow on the Scottish mainland. And across the centuries the fates of three women are linked- to this place, to each other.

Revenge by S.L. Lim

This is a novel that rages against capitalism, hetero-supremacy, mothers, fathers, families – the whole damn thing. It's about what happens when you want to make art but are born in the wrong time and place.

Coming of Age in the War on Terror by Randa Abdel-Fattah

We now have a generation - Muslim and non-Muslim - who has grown up only knowing a world at war on terror, and who has been socialised in a climate of widespread Islamophobia, surveillance and suspicion.

The Hill We Climb by Amanda Gorman

Amanda Gorman's powerful and historic poem 'The Hill We Climb,' read at President Joe Biden's inauguration, is now available as a collectible gift edition.

Witness by Louise Milligan

From the best-selling author of CARDINAL comes a searing examination of the power imbalance in our legal system - where exposing the truth is never guaranteed and, for victims, justice is often elusive.

Of Gold and Dust by Samantha Wills

Samantha Wills started her self-titled jewellery company on the kitchen table of her share house in the eastern suburbs of Sydney when she was just 21 years old. While her rise to the global stage looked meteoric to many, Samantha has said 'It took me twelve years to become an overnight success.'

The Scholar :HarperCollins Australia

When Dr Emma Sweeney stumbles across the victim of a hit and run outside Galway University late one evening, she calls her partner, Detective Cormac Reilly, bringing him first to the scene of a murder that would otherwise never have been assigned to him. A security card in the dead woman's pocket identifies her as Carline Darcy, a gifted student and heir apparent to Irish pharmaceutical giant Darcy Therapeutics. The multi-billion-dollar company, founded by her grandfather, has a finger in every pie, from sponsoring university research facilities to funding political parties to philanthropy - it has funded Emma's own ground-breaking research. The enquiry into Carline's death promises to be high profile and high pressure.

As Cormac investigates, evidence mounts that the death is linked to a Darcy laboratory and, increasingly, to Emma herself. Cormac is sure she couldn't be involved, but as his running of the case comes under scrutiny from the department and his colleagues, he is forced to question his own objectivity. Could his loyalty to Emma have led him to overlook evidence? Has it made him a liability?

Smokehouse by Melissa Manning

Set in southern Tasmania, the linked stories in Smokehouse bring into focus a small community and capture those moments when life turns and one person becomes another. As we get to know these characters - a mother whose fresh start leads to a fractured future, a stonemason seeking connection, a woman grieving her adopted mother, a couple torn apart by their daughter's drug addiction - we learn how their lives intersect, in various ways, across time and place.

With insight and empathy, Melissa Manning interrogates how the people we meet and the places we live shape who we become.