Soldier, loner, hero and lover

New contemporary fiction for August includes Monica Ali's new book 'Alentejo Blue', the story of Portuguese village Mamarrosa. In 'My dirty little book of stolen time', we learn that the course of harlotry never runs smooth. In 'The book of Dave : a revelation of the recent past and the distant future', several centuries pass and all that is left of London above the risen sea is the isle of Ham. In 'Winkie', a tattered teddy bear miraculously discovers the power of movement.

The self-sufficient life

Succulents, brick pizza ovens, hellebores, maine coon cats and living self-sufficiently are covered in our new gardening and DIY books.

Yummy books

Tarragon and truffles, limes and lemons are featured in our new cook books. 'Wonderfoods' introduces us to ingredients containing dynamic nutrients. 'Daily Italian' argues that cooking is an act of love. 'Charcuterie' teaches you the craft of salting, curing and smoking meat.

Adults used to ride tricycles

New children's non-fiction this month - 'The best book of bikes', 'A killer whale's world', 'Medicine : stem cells, genes, and super-beams', 'Spelling repair kit : improve your spelling skills' and more. In 'Slimy creatures', find out how snails get around and how poison arrow frogs protect themselves.

The best job in the world?

Our buyers recommend 'Small-mart revolution : how local businesses are beating the global competition', 'Alexander the Great : murder in Babylon', 'Balenciaga: and his legacy' and many other fascinating new titles. Could there be a better job than spending someone else's money on thousands of new books?

SubTxt 06

SubTxt '06 will be launched on Sunday, the 30th of July at the Central Library. It's begins at 1 pm and features great entertainment, music and food - it's your chance to enter this year's teen programme with even better prizes than last year! Bring a friend to further your chances!

See you there!

Changes to Library Debt Recovery Policy

All charges, costs, commissions and legal fees incurred by Wellington City Libraries in the retrieval of outstanding items and debt through our contracted Collection Agency will be passed on to the customer. This change will take effect from 1 September 2006.

Charles Royal, 28th July

Te Wiki o te Reo Māori 06 at Wellington City Libraries
Friday 28 July: 12.30pm - 1.30pm (2nd Floor, Central Library).

A talk by Charles Royal: "New Directions of Traditional Māori Performing Arts - The Creative Potential of Te Whare Tapere"

Te Ahukaramū Charles Royal is a researcher, writer and musician. He has written several books (on Māori song poetry, research and tribal history) and in 2001 was New Zealand Senior Fulbright Scholar where he conducted research into indigenous worldviews in the United States (Hawaii and New Mexico) and Canada. Charles belongs to the Ngāti Raukawa, Ngāti Tamaterā and Ngā Puhi peoples and holds degrees from Victoria University of Wellington and Massey University. Charles was awarded a doctorate in 1998 by Victoria University.

Mystifying C++

Excel PivotTables, iPhoto 5, Dreamweaver 8 and Windows XP are featured on our new computer books page. We also link to the lastest PC World article on web phone woes.

Hello My Name is Jane

Meet the caterers, journalists, wives, boutique owners, cleaners, former beauty queens and lawyers in our new Chick lit books. Jane Darling lives in a manky flat. Sara's husband ran off to Patagonia. Freezing, underfed Camille meets stammering, erudite aristocrat Philibert Marquet de La Durbelliere and he installs her in an ornate apartment.

Weezer, Beatle's thief, Cash

Who's the latest MySpace star? Will Thom Yorke win the Mercury? How successful was NZ Music month this year?
For the latest music news, check out our popular music page.

¡Bienvenidos!

Las bibliotecas públicas de la ciudad de Wellington están disponibles para todos sus residentes. La biblioteca cuenta con más de 400.000 ejemplares (libros y revistas), que pueden sacarse en régimen de préstamo, y en su mayoría de forma gratuita. Usted puede leer periódicos o estudiar en las bibliotecas.

We now have library information on our website in Spanish.

Καλωσορίσατε!

Οι βιβλιοθήκες της πόλης του Ουέλλιγκτον είναι διαθέσιμες για χρήση από τους κατοίκους του Ουέλλιγκτον. Η βιβλιοθήκη διαθέτει πάνω από 400,000 βιβλία, ή περιοδικά, τα οποία μπορούν να δανειστούν, τα περισσότερα δωρεάν. Μπορείτε να διαβάσετε εφημερίδες ή να μελετήσετε στις βιβλιοθήκες.
Παρακαλούμε όπως απευθυνθείτε στο προσωπικό για οποιαδήποτε βοήθεια για να βρείτε τις πληροφορίες που αναζητάτε.

On our website we now have general library information for Greek language readers.

Māori language week, 24-30 July

Kids' cat recommends books and website for Māori language week. Check out the official site for further resources.

New DVDs for July - television sci-fi 'The 4400', Japanese horror 'One missed call', rom-com 'Must love dogs', hilarious stand-up 'Live animals - Ricky Gervais' and Tolkien fan doco 'Ringers'. Based on books are 'In her shoes' (from the chick lit title by Jennifer Weiner) and 'Everything is illuminated' (adapted from the fascinating novel by Jonathan Safran Foer).

From Giotto to SpongeBob Square-Pants

New to our Art page - books on Giotto and photographers Franz Gertsch and Liberto Macarro. 'Daily life in art' investigates how art shows the "history of domestic objects, mentalities and intimate territories." New design books cover drawing for comics and graphic novels and logo design. Featured website My Tate is an amusing site where you can curate your own collection.

'Do I feel loquacious?' - well do you, punk?

Winner of the 2006 Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest, Jim Guigli, confessed "My motivation for entering the contest was to find a constructive outlet for my dementia."

"Detective Bart Lasiter was in his office studying the light from his one small window falling on his super burrito when the door swung open to reveal a woman whose body said you've had your last burrito for a while, whose face said angels did exist, and whose eyes said she could make you dig your own grave and lick the shovel clean."

More news on our fiction page.

Dan is tops

Fiction news - Dan Brown tops the Whitcoulls top 100 books in NZ list for 2006. Other literary marvels include 'Rich dad, poor dad' and four Harry Potters. Plenty of 'good reads' on the list, and there's nothing wrong with that, plus several titles one imagines people studied in high school.

If you want to know what Kathryn and Kim have been reading and recommending, check out the Radio NZ books page.

Stand for New Zealand

History picks for July feature the Galatas campaign of 1941 in which Kippenburger made his famous 'Stand for New Zealand!' speech; unexploding Blitz bombs and the experience of soldiers during the War of the Roses. 'Ghost ship : the mysterious true story of the Mary Celeste and her missing crew' is the fascinating tale of the ship found drifting in the North Atlantic without a soul on board.

google writes a book

New Children's non-fiction includes useful books on Matariki, global warming, the 2004 tsunami, boys and literacy and more. A new kind of encyclopedia, 'e.encyclopedia animal' was created with the help of search engine google.

SubTxt 06

What is SubTxt 06? It's a reading programme for teens running from July 30 to 29 September. You can read books, biographies or graphic novels to earn points and win awesome prizes. There will also be the opportunity to review CDs and DVDs and earn points. Earn a total of 350 points and you will go in the draw for an iPod Nano, PSP or pxt cellphone. Earn over 350 points and you can use your 350 points in the main prize draw.

20 years out

Our In the news page features the 20th anniversary of the passing of the Homosexual Law Reform Bill. There are books, articles, and a link to RNZ's excellent radio documentary.

Tagalog and Spanish

Papaano ako sasapi sa aklatan?

¿Qué hay que hacer para inscribirse en la biblioteca?

More pages to come in Tagalog (Filipino), Spanish and Greek.

Multilingual self-issue machines

Our self-issue machines now give instructions in Te Reo Māori and Faa-Samoa as well as English and Chinese.

Listen to the library

Our radio show goes out on Access 783AM this Saturday, 4.30pm. This month we're featuring obscure singer-songwriters.
We've also updated our music news. Farewell, Syd.

Wellington's teens are bored

According to our latest hyperyouth poll, the most common holiday activity is boredom. Vote to prove this isn't true!

Meritorious sea servicemen

New Zealand's master mariners were featured in a series of Evening Post articles in 1958-1959. The profiles were written by Sydney Waters and mainly deal with Union Steam Ship Company captains. You can search an index of the articles online. The clippings file is available at the Reference Desk on the 2nd floor of Central Library.

Kiss the sunset pig

Visit Casablanca, Lancashire, Iran and the Pyrenees with our new travel books. Ditch the donkey, follow in the steps of Stanley and search for a pangolin. Daniel Kalder travels to obscure Soviet republics in 'Lost cosmonaut : travels to the republics that tourism forgot'.
(A pangolin is a scaly anteater according to the online OED - it has "a body covered with large horny scales, a small head with an elongated snout, a long sticky tongue for catching ants and termites, and a tapering tail".)

Electronic plastic

The best in new design books for July cover fashion, Japanese cloisonné, set design, Chris Ware's comics and electronic plastic. 'Digital Information Graphics' has over 500 examples from top internet and multi-media designers.

Revisit Narnia and Maoriland

We have new literature books on Narnia, Margaret Atwood, Victorian literature and Maoriland (NZ literature 1872-1914). Edward Said's 'On late style' examines the work late in the lives of great artists like Beckett, Beethoven, Gould and Visconti. In 'Lost for words', Hugh Lunn has collected mid-century Australian lingo such as Are you straight? - Who do you think you are, King Farouk? - He's all mouth and trousers - I'd know his hide in a tannery - It's snowing down south.

Maintaining the system

Systems Maintenance: Our online catalogues will be unavailable on Thursday 13 July, from 7:00-8.30am. We apologise for any inconvenience.

Exotic murder mysteries

This month's fiction feature is on murder mysteries translated from German, French, Italian, and Spanish. Hans Werner Kettenbach's psychological thriller 'Black ice' is a particular highlight. Argentinian Guillermo Martinez's 'The Oxford murders' is set at that university's mathematics department. Other featured mysteries are set in Havana, Bologna, Paris and Turku, Finland.

Poignant tales

Our fiction librarian recommends a poignant tale of a gin distillery, a thriller with an artist suffering from blackouts and hallucinations, and the story of the father of Louisa May Alcott's 'little women'. Our readers recommend Jeffrey Archer's 'False impression' and Neal Stephenson's 892 page 'The system of the world'.

What's normal?

Bookhype - the best new teen novels. In 'North child', Rose travels on a bear's back to a mysterious castle. In 'Define "normal"', overachiever Antonia finds she has things in common with punk Jazz. In 'Prince William, Maximilian Minsky, and Me', brainy Jewish thirteen-year-old Nelly Sue Edelmeister sets her sights on Britain's prince.

Working with you is killing me

Every month our buyers pick their favourite on order books. This month their recommendations include titles on flouncy, flirty skirts, gravity and racing horse Man o' War. Alasdair Roberts' 'Tales of the Morar highlands' explores a wild and desolate part of Scotland. Heroism and loyalty are set against venal double-dealing and treachery in 'The white cockade', Stuart McHardy's tales of Jacobean life. Someone picked 'Working with you is killing me', but they've just been on team-building so hopefully it's sorted now.

Pursenality

Our new craft books for July cover bag-making, bead-purses, paper clay, metal clay, Maori weaving, silk flower arranging and more.

Ten faces of innovation

Our new management books for July discuss innovation, small business blogging, event marketing, practical marketing in NZ, realising the hidden potential of employees and resonant leadership.

Live out loud

Our personal development and self help picks for July include Keri Smith's bright and adorable 'Living out loud : activities to fuel a creative life' and Anneli Rufus praise of loners, 'Party of one'. With our new books you can also find inner peace, learn horse sense and learn about the unconscious.

Amber beads and brown owls

Our new fiction picks for July include Gautam Malkani's electrifying debut 'Londonstani', Louise Doughty's 'Stone cradle' about a Romany family, and the story of a literate rat born in a bookstore, 'Firmin : adventures of a metropolitan lowlife' by Sam Savage. In 'Dancing with the two-headed tigress' by Tina Biswas, unsophisticated Mousumi arrives in London from India.

Good medicine

Our new health books cover art therapy, health after 50, overweight children, walking chi kung and more.

Tales etched in blood

Was the home-baked quiche poisoned? Will the sewers beneath Victorian London reveal all? Where did the little girl vanish to? Find out in our new mysteries for July.

Blood feuds and beautiful concubines

New science fiction and fantasy this month includes a Harlan Ellison retrospective and titles about cuckolded sorcerers and Magi wars. Conor Corderoy's 'Dark rain' is set on dying Earth, where the super-rich experience crime-free luxury in Domes and the rest of humanity lives outside in endless rain. Mel Odom's 'The destruction of the books' features "lowly librarians" who must save the precious volumes of the Vault of All Known Knowledge or darkness will descend upon the world. Sounds like daily life at WCL.

Smart guys and buried treasure

Our latest bestsellers include 'The smartest guys in the room : the amazing rise and scandalous fall of Enron', the definitive account of the Enron debacle; 'Buried treasure : travels through the jewel box', a fascinating journey into gemstones; 'Married to a Bedouin', a New Zealander's remarkable story of married life in the ancient caves of Petra; and new books by Norah Roberts, James Patterson and more.
If you want these items right now, look out for a bestseller copy; if you don't mind waiting, please place a reserve.

The shyest fish in the sea

Dive into a magical underwater realm, climb a tree into the clouds, spy on penguins stealing the furniture and meet Moho the ugly Pukeko in our new Children's picture books. We also have great new Children's fiction and Children's AV.

Quiz quandary

Test your knowledge of children's books in our latest quiz quandary.

New religion and beliefs books

Several books on Muslim intellectuals feature in our
Religion recent picks this month. Scientist Robert Winston, on our televisions currently with Child of our time, examines science and religion in 'The story of God'. Jacques Berlinerblau argues that non-believers must have greater knowledge of religion in his book 'The secular Bible'. Fenton Johnson tells his story of growing up with Trappist monks and later studying Buddhism in 'Keeping faith'.

Māori recent picks

Māori Recent Picks for July includes 'He pitopito kōrero nō te perehi Māori = Readings from the Māori-language press', full of fascinating excerpts from 19th century newspapers such as letters, obituaries and advertisements. 'Maoriland : New Zealand literature, 1872-1914' by Jane Stafford and Mark Williams investigates NZ literature from the 1880s till the beginning of World War I.

What's popular this month?

If you're everyone, you're listening to Gnarls Barkley, watching Grey's anatomy, reading the latest from Noam Chomsky and NZ's Ginger series, and waiting with baited breath for new books by Monica Ali, Haruki Murakami and the story of Marguerite Van Geldermalsen's marriage to a Bedouin. Of course, you're not everyone, but good taste abounds so check out what's popular this month. We also list all our new fiction, genre fiction, large print books and DVDs.

Tea with Einstein

New biographies for July involve vile kings, a disillusioned Red Guard, an incomparable salon hostess, the original Angry Young Man, a gentlemen explorer-adventurer and a German cousin's mysterious disappearance. James Wyllie's biography 'The warlord and the renegade' investigates the lives of Hermann Goering, Hitler's most trusted henchman, and his anti-Nazi brother Albert.