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"If you didn't want them to think, you shouldn't
have given them library cards."
Robert
Kaufman
[More on Libraries]
Indian in the Cupboard Study
Guide

Omri receives several conventional gifts
for his ninth birthday. However, two gifts you would expect to be of
least
interest to a young boy prove to be magical and exciting. Suitable for
primary aged students this study guide has learning outcomes in key
learning
areas such as English, Art and Society and Environment. |
Books for you to
Read Right Now
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Confessions of a Shopaholic
by Sophie Kinsella |
The
Other Queen: A Novel
by Philippa Gregory |
Killing Jodie: How
Australia's Most Elusive Murderer Was Brought to Justice
by Janet Fife-Yeomans
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The Wordy Shipmates
by Sarah Vowell |
Letter to My Daughter
by Maya Angelou
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Confessions of a Shopaholic
by Sophie Kinsella
If you've ever paid off one credit card with
another, thrown out a bill before opening it, or convinced
yourself that buying at a two-for-one sale is like making
money, then this silly, appealing novel is for you. In the
opening pages of Confessions of a Shopaholic, recent
college graduate Rebecca Bloomwood is offered a hefty line of
credit by a London bank. Within a few months, Sophie Kinsella's
heroine has exceeded the limits of this generous offer, and
begins furtively to scan her credit-card bills at work, certain
that she couldn't have spent the reported sums.
In theory anyway, the world of finance
shouldn't be a mystery to Rebecca, since she writes for a
magazine called Successful Saving. Struggling with her
spendthrift impulses, she tries to heed the advice of an expert
and appreciate life's cheaper pleasures: parks, museums, and so
forth. Yet her first Saturday at the Victoria and Albert Museum
strikes her as a waste. Why? There's not a price tag in sight.
It kind of takes the fun out of it, doesn't
it? You wander round, just looking at things, and it all
gets a bit boring after a while. Whereas if they put price
tags on, you'd be far more interested. In fact, I think all
museums should put prices on their exhibits. You'd look at a
silver chalice or a marble statue or the Mona Lisa or
whatever, and admire it for its beauty and historical
importance and everything--and then you'd reach for the
price tag and gasp, "Hey, look how much this one is!" It
would really liven things up.
Eventually, Rebecca's uncontrollable shopping and
her "imaginative" solutions to her debt attract the attention
not only of her bank manager but of handsome Luke Brandon--a
multimillionaire PR representative for a finance group
frequently covered in Successful Saving. Unlike her
opposite number in
Bridget Jones's Diary, however, Rebecca actually seems
too scattered and spacey to reel in such a successful man. Maybe
it's her Denny and George scarf. In any case, Kinsella's debut
makes excellent fantasy reading for the long stretches between
white sales and appliance specials. |
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The
Other Queen: A Novel
by Philippa Gregory
Two women competing for a man's
heart
Two queens fighting to the death for dominance
The untold story of Mary, Queen of Scots
This dazzling novel from the #1 New York
Times bestselling author Philippa Gregory presents a new and
unique view of one of history's most intriguing, romantic, and
maddening heroines. Biographers often neglect the captive years
of Mary, Queen of Scots, who trusted Queen Elizabeth's promise
of sanctuary when she fled from rebels in Scotland and then
found herself imprisoned as the "guest" of George Talbot, Earl
of Shrewsbury, and his indomitable wife, Bess of Hardwick.
Philippa Gregory uses new research and her
passion for historical accuracy to place a well-known heroine in
a completely new tale full of suspense, passion, and political
intrigue. For years, readers have clamored for Gregory to tell
Mary's story, and The Other Queen is the result of her
determination to present a novel worthy of this extraordinary
heroine.
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Killing Jodie: How
Australia's Most Elusive Murderer Was Brought to Justice
by Janet Fife-Yeomans
Winner:
Best True Crime, Sisters in Crime Davitt Awards
Daryl Suckling's arrest in remote NSW in
the late 1980s revealed his disturbing connections with
the disappearance of Jodie Larcombe from Melbourne.
Charged with the murder of Jodie, then a sex worker on
St Kilda's streets, Suckling was allowed to walk free,
as police investigators struggled to prove a homicide
without a body. He'd previously escaped conviction more
than once after brutally abducting several women.
Frustrated by legal obstacles and bad
luck, one officer resigned from the force in disgust,
but the case was never forgotten and investigators
closed in as Suckling stalked his next victim. The
grisly murder linked St Kilda with the lonely, windswept
sandhills of the NSW outback near Mildura, and brought
two hardened policemen close to a brave family pushed to
breaking point - in the end, it was too much for Jodie's
mother, who committed suicide when Suckling appealed his
eventual conviction.
Suckling is now one of 15 prisoners
serving life in NSW, never to be released.
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The Wordy Shipmates
by Sarah Vowell
Essayist and public radio regular Vowell (Assassination
Vacation) revisits America's Puritan roots in this witty
exploration of the ways in which our country's present
predicaments are inextricably tied to its past. In a style less
colloquial than her previous books, Vowell traces the 1630
journey of several key English colonists and members of the
Massachusetts Bay Colony. Foremost among these men was John
Winthrop, who would become governor of Massachusetts. While the
Puritans who had earlier sailed to Plymouth on the Mayflower
were separatists, Winthrop's followers remained loyal to
England, spurred on by Puritan Reverend John Cotton's
proclamation that they were God's chosen people. Vowell
underscores that the seemingly minute differences between the
Plymouth Puritans and the Massachusetts Puritans were as
meaningful as the current Sunni/Shia Muslim rift. Gracefully
interspersing her history lesson with personal anecdotes, Vowell
offers reflections that are both amusing (colonial history
lesson via The Brady Bunch) and tender (watching New
Yorkers patiently waiting in line to donate blood after 9/11). |
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Letter to My Daughter
by Maya Angelou
From the mellifluous voice of a venerable
American icon comes her first original collection of writing to
be published in ten years, anecdotal vignettes drawn from a
compelling life and written in Angelou's erudite prose.
Beginning with her childhood, Angelou acknowledges her own
inauguration into daughterhood in "Philanthropy," recalling the
first time her mother called her "my daughter." Angelou becomes
a mother herself at an early age, after a meaningless first
sexual experience: "Nine months later I had a beautiful baby
boy. The birth of my son caused me to develop enough courage to
invent my life." Fearlessly sharing amusing, if somewhat
embarrassing, moments in "Senegal," the mature Angelou is
cosmopolitan but still capable of making a mistake: invited to a
dinner party while visiting the African nation, Angelou becomes
irritated that none of the guests will step on a lovely carpet
laid out in the center of the room, so she takes it upon herself
to cross the carpet, only to discover the carpet is a table
cloth that had been laid out in honor of her visit. The wisdom
in this slight volume feels light and familiar, but it's also
earnest and offered with warmth.
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Not available from Amazon, but
free for
Pivotal Book Club members |
The Slap
by Christos Tsiolkas
At a suburban barbecue, a man slaps a child
who is not his own. This event has a shocking ricochet effect on
a group of people, mostly friends, who are directly or
indirectly influenced by the event. In this remarkable novel,
Christos Tsiolkas turns his unflinching and all-seeing eye on to
that which connects us all: the modern family and domestic life
in the twenty-first century. The Slap is told from the points of
view of eight people who were present at the barbecue. The slap
and its consequences force them all to question their own
families and the way they live, their expectations, beliefs and
desires. What unfolds is a powerful, haunting novel about love,
sex and marriage, parenting and children, and the fury and
intensity - all the passions and conflicting beliefs - that
family can arouse. |
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