Christchurch City Libraries Blog

Maybe you are a CSI devotee and want to learn more about  forensic science and investigating crime scenes. Maybe you’re studying to become a lawyer or police officer? The Criminal Justice Collection can help you in your research, and also covers social work and rehabilitation. With the Criminal Justice Collection you will have access to over 170 journals including:

• Australian and New Zealand Journal of Criminology;
• New Zealand Journal of Psychology;
• Journal of Internet Law;
• Criminal Justice and Behavior.

Tthe Criminal Justice Collectionand many other useful electronic resources can be found in  the Source. Access from home with your library card number and PIN, or at our community libraries.

Not only can I not cook, but if I turn on the television again and spot another Masterchef-type programme I will spit up my microwaveable pasta snack!   However if you do like to cook, then the Culinary Arts Collection is definitely for you.

Suitable for the novice, the student and the professional chef it has thousands of searchable recipes, nutational advice, industry information and practical instruction, including:

• Preparing popular recipes;
• Choosing the right wine;
• Practical advice on opening a restaurant;
• Developing healthy eating habits.

The Culinary Arts Collection  is part of  the Source, our collection of electronic resources you can access from home with your library card number and PIN, or at one of our community libraries.

One chapter into Kim Edwards‘ latest novel The Lake of Dreams and I was already writing the review in my head. But when I got to the end, everything I had planned to say about it changed.

This piece of contemporary relationship fiction starts off well. Really well. Traveller Lucy Jarrett  finds herself in Japan with a steady boyfriend and no job. She feels like she is drifting aimlessly, unsure of where to go from here. Japan’s shaky earth (trust me to pick up a novel that features earthquakes) makes her uneasy, stirring up thoughts she’d rather not think. So when her mother contacts her from America, she decides to go home for a while, to settle things from her past in order to move into the future.

Edwards has stuck with many of the same themes she explored in The Memory Keeper’s Daughter (which I adored) - secrets, guilt, family, and love. Her writing is just as detailed and absorbing too, and I turned each page with both impatience and dread. I couldn’t wait to find out how it all ended, but I wasn’t ready for the story to be over, either.

When I did get to the end, it was a bit like taking a bite of a delicious piece of cake only to realise you’re running late for something and having to cram the rest of it into your mouth as you rush out the door. Surprisingly unsatisfying and nothing to really savour. It seemed like Edwards was in a hurry to tie up every loose end within a couple of pages, and it all felt a little too perfect.  I think it would have been better if somethings were left to the reader’s imagination. In fact, had I been the author, I would have chosen another fate for the main character altogether.

I’m sorry to say that the ending for The Lake of Dreams changed this book from “you’ve got to read it!” to “it was okay, but I wouldn’t go out of my way to recommend it” for me.

Am I being unfair? Does the quality of the ending really matter, as long as the beginning and middle are good? What books have you enjoyed reading, only to have that enjoyment ruined by the ending? What books have you read that end exactly as you hoped they would, or even better than you expected?

Like Roberta I love a good list, so reserved the Autumn 2010 issue of Ms. magazine, which features a list of “click” lit – Young Adult books that “awaken girls to their feminism.”  It’s an interesting list –  I gave some entries the nod of agreement , some a shrug of apathy, others a howl of opposition. See what you think, and get your reserves on for those you might want to check out when libraries are open. Bibliocommons, the new library catalogue, is great for getting your reading organised.

Ms.’ favourites were

• Are you there God? It’s me, Margaret, by Judy Blume
• The hunger games, by Suzanne Collins
• Annie on my mind, by Nancy Garden
• Dealing with dragons, by Patricia C. Wrede
• A wrinkle in time, by Madeleine L’Engle
• The knife of never letting go, by Patrick Ness
• The bell jar, by Sylvia Plath
• The shadow speaker, by Nnedi Okarafor
• Persepolis, by Marjane Satrapi
• Roll of thunder, hear my cry, by Mildred Taylor
• Uglies, by Scott Westerfeld

Honourable mentions included characters like Elizabeth Bennett of Pride and Prejudice, Jo March of Little Women and Anne Shirley Blythe of Anne of Green Gables.

Unsurprisingly Ms. likes  a good issue novel for its modern honourable mentions. Mixed race?  Caramelo,  and The house on Mango Street, by Sandra Cisneros.  Poor and violent background? The Outsiders , by S.E. Hinton.  Rape? Speak, by Laurie Halse Anderson. See also Anderson’s Catalyst (perfectionism) and Wintergirls (anorexia).

In the Fantasy and Science Fiction genre Ms likes Liar, by Justine Larbalestier, The Spiderwick chronicles, by Holly Black and The mortal instruments, by Cassandra Clare.

Did a book ever give you a “click” moment in the midst of teenage angst? A moment  when, as Ms. says, “we realise the problem’s not us, it’s society, and we’re not alone.”

Raise your glasses to Tea Obreht and her prizewinning novel The Tiger’s Wife. The Orange Prize has just awarded her  £30,000 and a limited edition bronze figurine known as a ‘Bessie’. She was just 22 when she wrote the book and at 25 is the youngest person to win this prestigious award.

I love book prizes, they stir up strong emotions. This year alone V.S Naipaul has put his foot in it over women writers (like Tea could care as she banks her cheque and sips her Cointreau) and Carmen Callil, the founder of Virago Press, walked away from the Man Booker Prize selection panel after sticking the boot into Philip Roth.

All this emotion reminds me that writing isn’t only a cerebral activity, but that passions run high. Most of all I love the accompanying lists. One click of the mouse and you have at your fingertips the recommendations of some really well informed readers – and more than half  the fun is when you don’t agree with their selections at all. Try these links:

• The Man Booker Prize (1969-2010)
• The Orange Prize (1996-2010)
• The Pulitzer Prize for Fiction (1917-2011)

I’ve not read The Tiger’s Wife yet (instead have a look at Catherine’s blog), but  it’s now on my list. Still, I struggle to get past the 22-ness of her. I can see myself at that age: the minis, the sports car, the job teaching geography to the Geometric Drawing class (does that subject even exist anymore?), the new marriage, the deranged neighbour. Surely there was a novel somewhere in there.

The mean spirited might say that Obreht has peaked too young, but that is only because most of us are long past the point of peaking altogether. How about you – what twenty-something novel are you waiting to unleash on an unsuspecting world?

Life doesn’t get much more displaced than this, surely.  Our recent jaunts to other libraries have shown us that there are new treasures to be found all over Christchurch, but yesterday’s aftershocks have meant that even these library havens are temporarily not an option, well, at least for the next day or so.

So, how about we take a wee digital trip instead?  For those without power, this is not much of a trip, but if you are at home in Christchurch reading this then I know that you are at least blessed with internet access.

With no school, no polytech and no transport, my house is full of unsettled teens and angsty cats, so we’ve been exploring the wonders of the digital library.  Somehow TV isn’t filling the void right now, and we really do need some distraction, so we’ve all dropped a decade (or more) and have been unashamedly enjoying the online kids’ games and learning site Intrepica.  I’m not proud of the fact that I am LOVING beating the kids at all manner of spelling and maths games, but I’m keeping doing it anyway!  Small joys, right?

And this afternoon I thought we’d have a look at some of the online music libraries.  The boy-child is a jazz fan, and often struggles to figure out what to listen to, so I reckon Jazz Music Library has to be a good place to find something new.  The girl-child is heavily into photography, design and fashion, so we’re also going to explore the Picture Post Historical Archive to get costume design ideas.

And while Mr Bronnypop is currently at work, I’m thinking that when he comes home he might like to try cooking dinner.  He’s not that flash in the kitchen, but surely even HE can manage with the help of the Pulse’s cooking and recipe pages …

Think Homer is a bald yellow guy with a beer gut on The Simpsons? Don’t know the difference between the Colosseum and the Pantheon (except that one begins with C and the other begins with P)? Be wise like Athena and study hard for NCEA Classics with the help of these great web resources!

• Find full-text reference books on classical Greece and Rome by using the subject search at Credo Reference;
• Make sure you know what you’re doing when it comes to sitting your NCEA assessments;
• Learn about the Roman Empire on SparkNotes and memorize the names of Rome’s Emperors, from Augustus (27 BC-AD 14) to Constantine XI Palaeologus (1449-1453);
• Take an interactive tour through the Hellenic World;
• Visit the Internet Ancient History Source Book for everything you need to know about Greek and Roman history.

So where did we find these great resources? On The Pulse, the library’s website for teens.

Proust knew it, we all know it. Something eaten at a certain place and time can send us straight back to that place and time when tasted years later and far away.

When I was a child, morning and afternoon teas and suppers marked out the day, the table would feature a variety of baking and the greedy among us would sample something from each plate.

Each family member had a speciality. My mother’s was the Belgian biscuit; spicy, sweet, with just the right thickness of biscuit, amount of jam, swirl of icing and sprinkling of pink jelly crystals on top.  Not too much, not too little. They bore no resemblance to the behemoths available in cafes now – those nasty saucer sized thick, dry things.

There were so many others; my grandmother’s specialty was the tan square, my aunt’s the pineapple sponge, my mother-in-law’s shortbread made with icing sugar.

It is a good idea to write them down – I don’t have one single recipe written down. The women in my family relied on their memories. I had good intentions of collecting these recipes but somehow never got around to it and now it’s too late.

A regular feature of NZ Music Month at New Brighton Library, Sophia Bidwell and her partner Jeremy Brownbrooke treated patrons and staff to another fabulous performance of traditional and contemporary folk music for violin, mandolin and piano accordion.

Their repertoire for this performance included a variety of tunes, several composed by Jeremy. As I listened I found myself envisioning a walk in the Scottish highlands; a saucy encounter in a French café, and a quiet Guinness in an Irish seaside village. The latter was further brought to life by the library’s backdrop of sand, waves and seagulls (but not the Guinness, sadly).

Whilst their individual styles appeared to contrast (Jeremy with a look of intense concentration on his face and Sophia seemingly relaxed) they created a harmonious sound which was well settled after eight years performing together. Jeremy casually implied that playing this music on the violin was essentially easy but admitted that the dexterity required to take these tunes at speed … took a little longer to acquire.

When I asked Sophia why she chose the piano accordion she told me that whilst she had learned classical piano, she was unable to haul a piano from flat to flat in her days as a student. So, her father passed on one of his piano accordions -  thus providing a more portable, if more complex, solution to Sophia’s need to stay in touch with her passion for playing music.

Music Month is over for another year but you can keep on listening to the kind of music that Jeremy and Sophia play by borrowing from  the libraries collection of world music or listening online to the wonderful resources of Smithsonian Global Sounds, Naxos and Contemporary World Music.

Couple the season of SAD (Seasonal Affective Disorder) with the post-earthquake blues and it’s no surprise that many of us here in Christchurch are feeling low and that, as the days get shorter, our tempers do too!

The library has many resources which can help:

• Books on depression and how to treat it
• A  smorgasbord of resources on self-help techniques, including a number of freely-downloadable OverDrive audiobooks and e-books
• A list of links in our Internet Gateway to reputable information about depression and to agencies which can assist
• Contact details in CINCH of local support groups and counselling services, as well as of clubs, community organisations and continuing education providers - as John Kirwan reminds us on the TV ads, the company of others is great to help us find a way through

Earthquake counselling

Don’t forget also that free counselling continues to be available for those affected by the earthquakes. The key number to call is 0800-777 846. More contacts are available from the Webhealth Canterbury, CERA and Ministry of Social Development websites.

For the month of June, Relationship Services Whakawhanaungatanga, in conjunction with Language Line, is also offering free earthquake counselling for people who speak English as a second language. Face to face counselling is available with the assistance of interpreters over the phone.

Language Line provides interpreting in 41 languages, so pass the message on and encourage any of your friends, neighbours and colleagues who may be new to New Zealand and feeling somewhat isolated, to take advantage of this opportunity and engage in some pag-uusap, conversación or good old-fashioned talking. (Apologies for the language-butchering; it’s all Google Translate’s fault!)