Waiting for the surf

This month's new New Zealand fiction includes books by Carl Shuker, Kirsty Gunn, Lloyd Jones and Ian Wedde. In one of Patricia Grace's new short stories, a man falls in love with a carving. In 'John Tomb's head' by Stephanie Johnson, the titular tattooed head wryly observes everyone who claims ownership.

Kumusta Kababayan!

We now have webpages in Tagalog (Filipino). Ang mga Aklatan ng Lungsod ng Wellington ay bukas sa lahat ng mga taong naninirahan sa Lungsod ng Wellington. Ang aklatan ay mayroong mahigit sa 400,000 mga libro o mga magasin, na maaaring hiramin, at karamihan nito ay walang bayad. Maaari kayong magbasa ng mga pahayagan o mag-aral sa loob ng mga aklatan.

Read about library services, resources for adults and children, careers information, joining the library and more. For information in other languages, visit our Migrant Communities Library Guide.

A just-baked tart

Baked caramel pots with strawberries and honey madeleines. Cherry frangipane. Irresistible pizzas. Yum. Also in our new cook books, grrrrowlicious food for dogs, a guide to food additives and a textbook on food and beverage service.

Alzheimers, nudity and kindness

Our staff DVD picks for November include television shows Prison break, The good life, Reginald Perrin and The grid. Mark argues that Cronenberg's 'A history of violence' doesn't live up to its press (but is worth seeing anyway). Michael hugs his nearest during 'Harvie Krumpet'. Karen thinks that both Lolitas are worth watching, but Nabokov's book is better. Kini is pleased that 'Prime' doesn't have a "sappy happy ending."

New NZ books

Our new New Zealand books discuss the weather, curious place names, duelling, wearable art, cycling, music and many other subjects. 'An illustrated guide to New Zealand hebes' by M. J. Bayly and A. V. Kellow is gorgeous. 'Aramoana : twenty-two hours of terror' by Bill O'Brien tells the amazing story of ordinary people doing extraordinary things.

Everyone's favourite immortal cyborg

If the Goddess rises from her tomb, the fate of the Ice Eaters will be sealed. A charismatic Christian cleric threatens the stability of the pagan kingdom of Fortriu. Everyone who reads cursed book 'The End of Mr. Y' disappears. It takes a lot to kill an immortal. All this and more in our new science fiction and fantasy books.

Self-regarding precocity

We have new biographies about the impressionists, Europe's most infamous rulers, Charles Dickens's artist daughter Katey and Victorian celebrity chef Alexis Soyer. Our new autobiographies include titles by Gloria Vanderbilt, Lloyd Geering, Jonathan Franzen and David Profumo.

Insane winter season

Our new sport and recreation books, DVDs and CDs look at kendo, ju-jitsu, the Lions tour of 2005 and the 2006 FIFA World Cup. 'The personal trainer's handbook: manage your business, know your clients' by Rebecca Weissbort is designed for new trainers. Audio book 'The Vincibles: a suburban cricket season' by Gideon Haigh is an entertaining tale of playing for love, winning with grace, losing with humour, valuing your community, and other anachronistic notions.

Exercises, charts, lists, examples

Our latest management picks discuss communication for leaders, interviewing, how western managers can learn from Chinese entrepreneurs, improving employee performance and other useful topics. In the widely discussed 'The long tail : how endless choice is creating unlimited demand', Chris Anderson explores the implications to online retail of the high profit in sales of millions of items sold in small quantities.

Bankrupting dowries

Among our new contemporary fiction are books involving a wolf girl, a dark lean man, an orphaned love child, opium dens (in two of the books!), a brutal assassin with the heart of a poet, Romani harpists and a teenage eco-terrorist. An orphaned teenager's greatest dream is to own his own hot-dog stand. Fired police sub-inspector Swami's wife is obsessed with securing the Most Expensive Husbands in India.

The marriage of Elizabeth II

Our latest history feature is on Queen Elizabeth II and the Duke of Edinburgh, who married 20th November 1947. Also occuring in Novembers past, George Bush (Snr) became the 41st President of the US, Saturday shopping became legal in NZ, and TV3 went to air. For more this month in history, check out our history page.

Brain-nibbling Neanderthals

Our new children's non-fiction books cover all-powerful commas, vicious villains, funky fashion, skunks and slugs, fiery rivers of lava and more. We have a book on the work of paleopathologists (mummies!). 'Fighting past each other: the New Zealand Wars 1845-1875' by Matthew Wright is an excellent resource that brings NZ history to life.

New DVDs (lots)

From Mel Gibson's 'Hamlet' to Tom Stoppard's 'Rosencrantz & Guildenstern are dead', from the suffragists of 'Iron jawed angels' to kitsch icon Bettie Page's 'Teaserama', our new DVDs are a diverse bunch. Highlights include docos 'Grizzly man', 'The future of food', 'Who laughs last? a documentary about Roger Hall' and recordings of Hunter Lovin's sustainable development seminars in NZ. TV on DVD includes Entourage (season 2), Scrubs (season 4), Carnivale (season 2), Battlestar Galactica (season 2), Gilmore girls (season 5), and Six feet under (season 5). Movies include 'Good night, and good luck', 'Pale rider' and 'Kitchen stories'. There's also lots of new opera and dance.

Picasa, After Effects, Visual C#

Our new computer books cover Java, Google, CSS, home internet security, Linux, Photoshop CS2, Photoshop Elements 4 and more. We link to the latest PC Magazine cover story in EBSCO - The most amazing websites of 2006.

Graphic identity

The principles of fashion design, cute plastic creations, guerrilla advertising, business cards with personality, visits with contemporary cartoonists, Dutch designers, product design... all this and more among our new design books.

Home repair is homicide

Our Booklists for November's new general fiction, genre fiction, large print and audio books are up. We have new novels from John Le Carre, Alexander McCall Smith, Mark Z Danielewski, Joyce Carol Oates, Janet Evanovich, Richard Ford and short stories from Neil Gaiman. Among the new books on CD are titles by Anita Brookner, Kathy Lette, P.D. James and lots of Agatha Christie.

System outage tonight

Our catalogue and mygateway.info databases will be unavailable Friday 27th between 9.00pm and midnight due to annual maintenance. Apologies for the inconvenience.

Ex-civil engineer and superhero

A robotic vigilante, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, Ezra Pound and James Joyce as cartoonists, lonely mechanic Josephine and her scrap metal man, Shahrazad as a boy - our new graphic novels are a wild and wonderful bunch. There are new books by Harvey Pekar and Will Eisner, and more.

Our buyers recommend

This month our buyers recommend newly ordered books on shoes, the female brain and the best global festivals. In 'The Wal-Mart effect', Charles Fishman investigates the repercussions of the secretive company's never-ending quest for lower prices. 'Manspace: a primal guide to marking your territory' by Sam Martin looks at the design of smoking rooms, garage workshops, basement pool rooms etc.

Two most popular DVDs?

The two DVDs with the longest reserve queues at WCL are High school musical and Over the hedge. In 'Over the hedge', "a ragtag group of forest critters awaken from hibernation to find that their forest has been turned into a suburban housing development" according to Amazon UK. Sounds cute. In 'High school musical', a nerdy shy girl and The Popular Boy are forced to sing karaoke together. Will their love of music and deepening relationship survive the social pressures of high school? I suspect so.

Hungarian Revolution - display

This month marks the fiftieth anniversary of the Hungarian Revolution, the revolt of the Hungarian people against the might of Russia and the Warsaw Pact countries, which was brutally crushed.

Wellington Central Library has joined with National Library and the Parliamentary Library in mounting displays to commemorate the event, on the 1st and 2nd floors.

A free concert featuring Hungarian performers and composers will be held on 25th October at St Andrews on the Terrace. Information about other events is available on the Hungarian Consulate website.

Revolting Rhymes

Check out the winners of our Roald Dahl Revolting Rhyme Competition. The competition resulted in 184 entries and the judges commented that "snot was the predominent theme".

Catalogue unavailable Friday night

Our catalogue and mygateway.info will be unavailable Friday night (27th Oct) from 9pm for 1-3 hours due to annual maintenance. Apologies for the inconvenience.

Moomintroll or Slytherin?

Vote in our latest Hype teens poll - do you want to join the Von Trapp family, become a member of the X-men, be one of the Incredibles, or ...?

New YA graphic novels

For more of the latest titles, try our graphic novels quicksearch.

Diwali webpages

We have a Diwali section in our Kid's catalogue, featuring our favourite websites. Celebrate Wellington's vibrant Indian culture on 22nd October, 3-10.30 pm at the Wellington Town Hall. For other current events and hot topics like Steve Irwin, global warming and Hallowe'en, visit our Kid's catalogue.

Zines at WCL

We are piloting a zine collection at Central Library. Zines (pronounced "zeens") are cut-and-paste, photocopied and stapled, self-published magazines. They can cover any topic from environmental issues to music, or can be a diary of a person's day to day life. For more info, visit our zines page.

Slacker rock-star wannabe

New to our hype page for teen fiction - hungry polar bears, a mad moon-dance at midnight, penniless in rural Tennessee, and popular girls.

New Soul/R&B section

We have a new CD section devoted to Soul/R&B. With box-sets on major movements and artists from Sam Cooke to James Brown, Motown to Stax-Volt, Philly Soul to R&B, and hundreds of individual CDs charting the evolution of the genre from the smooth vocals of the Drifters to the funky sounds of the new Justin Timberlake, Wellington City Libraries' Soul/R&B section is the place for you. For a complete list of all our Soul/R&B CDs, click here.

Zorro, Casanova & Dr Who

Due to dreadful behaviour on my part, the September DVD picks is only now available (after October's). But please read it - there's great stuff like Ricky Gervais' 'Extras' and the first season of 'The L word' (no need to wait for the TV showing). 'Murderball' is a fascinating doco about quadriplegic rugby players. 'Inside man' was Spike Lee's biggest hit. You can IMDB the titles to see what others think.

Leech-infested wilds

Journey high into the canopy-home where two-thirds of all creatures on our planet live, and encounter flying frogs, huge spiders and a flower that smells of decaying flesh. View 1800 images of birds. Learn about the development of scientific description by Renaissance naturalists. Watch science documentaries on DVD. All this and more on our latest science MyLibrary page.

Literature's what-ifs and never weres

What was the monstrous secret contained in Lord Byron's "Memoirs" that caused his publisher to burn the manuscript? How do you write a blockbuster? If you haven't read David Copperfield yet, should you be punished? What will the End of the Universe might actually look like? Our new literature titles this month may answer these questions. Also look out for CDs of 2006 NZ International Festival of the Arts Writers and Readers sessions, with Robert Fisk, Ronald Wright and more.

White bonnets and beer

Our new DVDs include the doco 'Devil's playground' about Amish teenagers immersed in debauchery during Rumspringa, NZ hit 'Sione's wedding', animated comic epic 'Broken saints', the magnificent Jeanne Moreau in Malle's 'Ascenseur pour l'echafaud' and a doco on Gram Parsons.

Messages without words

Our new art and graphics books for October look at contemporary cartoonists, Modigliani, the 17,000-year-old paintings of Lascaux, contemporary NZ textile artists and more. In 'Secret Knowledge' David Hockney argues that artists from the 15th century onward produced their vividly realistic art by use of optics. 'Left to right: the cultural shift from word to image' explores the trend towards visual communication.

Salzburg's immortal genius

This month our featured classical music books and CDs include 'The Big Book of Christmas Songs', 'Voices of life' by the Bulgarian Women's Choir and 'Sentimento latino' from Juan Diego Florez. The Pavao Quartet take on Gershwin and there is a splendid performance of Monteverdi's Vespers.

Nobel Prize for Literature

The winner of the 2006 Nobel Prize for Literature is Turkish writer Orhan Pamuk. The 54 year old has been involved in political controversy over the last year. He has a reputation as a social commentator, but sees himself as a fiction writer with no political agenda. His novels include The White Castle, The Black Book, My Name is Red and The New Life. His books can be found on our catalogue here.

Man Booker Prize

Kiran Desai's 'The inheritance of loss' has won the 2006 Man Booker Prize for Fiction. Of the finalists, Kate Grenville's 'The Secret River' and Sarah Waters' 'The Night Watch' are particularly popular with WCL readers. For more information on the 2006 nominees and past winners, visit our Booker prize page and the official website.

Heaps o' new books

Perhaps it's the beginning of the Christmas publishing season - we have so many new bestsellers. Roddy Doyle, John Grisham, Anna Quindlen, Clive Cussler, Tess Gerritsen. C.K. Stead's version of Judas. Mark Haddon's follow-up to 'The curious incident of the dog in the night-time'. Joanne Lees on the murder of Peter Falconio. Savant Daniel Tammet's fascinating autobiography. The life of Mary Wesley. If you don't want a Bestseller copy, you can place a reserve. (Some bestsellers won't show up on the catalogue until later today).

Ambient findability

Our new computer books discuss: laptops, CSS, Word hacks, DOM scripting, Maya 7, Openoffice.org, MYSQL, family computer fun and more. As always, we link to the latest issue of PC World, available for free online for WCL members.

Religion and beliefs

Our religion and beliefs recent picks for October discuss the myth of Hitler's Pope, the history and continuing influence of the Qur'an, the future of Jesus, and the methods and theory of Buddhist meditation. In 'A monk in the world : cultivating a spiritual life', Wayne Teasdale describes his experiences as an interreligious monk and mystic in India. Ayaan Hirsi Ali's 'The caged virgin : an emancipation proclamation for women and Islam' calls for clear thinking and an Islamic Enlightenment.

Readings from the fringe

Newly arrived popular non-fiction includes books on zines, Irish folklore, oil depletion and African Americans during the American Revolution. Candida Crewe discovers there is more to life than constantly thinking about what she eats or daren't. Robert F. Kennedy accuses Bush and his 'corporate pals' of high-jacking American democracy. A collection of essays by Bernard Williams explore the history of philosophy.

Maori recent picks

Items featured in our Maori recent picks include 'Tamaki-Makaurau : myths and legends of Auckland landmarks' by Edith Phillips-Gibson, 'New Zealand identities : departures and destinations' edited by James H. Liu etc and children's book 'Whetu Tirikatene-Sullivan' by Kevin Boon. We also list many recent magazine articles.

Search across databases

Now you can search across mygateway.info databases. This is really useful if you don't know which database is best suited to your query or if you don't want to have to repeat the same search in different databases. Of course, you can still search your favourite mygateway.info databases separately.

Amorous Argentine Colonels' wives

Our new sports books will help you train for a triathlon, win at chess, participate in competitive taekwondo and make millions playing MMPORGs (Massively MultiPlayer Online Role-Playing Games). 'Terminated : The Explosive Story of the Tua-Barry Split' by Chris Mirams has more betrayals than a steamy television mini-series. 'Penguins stopped play : eleven village cricketers take on the world' by Harry Thompson showcases amorous Argentine Colonels' wives, cunning Bajan drug dealers, gay Australian waiters, overzealous American anti-terrorist police and idiot Welshmen dressed as Santa Claus.

"I loved it"

Our reader's choice picks for this month involve a dolphin fanatic, WWII, ghostwriters, arsonists, excitable women, damaged men, women legislators and a New York city hotel room. 'The red hot empress' by Meredith Blevins follows dazzling scoundrel Jimmy Qi who can heal using music.

We are led inexorably

Among the characters in our new librarian's choice novels are a widow who guzzles cartons of ice-cream for breakfast, a PhD student obsessed with 'The Turn of the Screw' and a deranged uncle who is convinced a cannibal lives under the furniture. 'The Moneypenny diaries' by Kate Westbrook follows the adventures of the secretary in love with James Bond.

New history books

Our new history recent picks cast a new eye on India's partition, North Korea's relationship with America, and Cambodia's killing fields. According to 'Elizabeth's spy master: Francis Walsingham and the secret war that saved England' by Robert Hutchinson, the Walsingham's methods anticipated those of later British spies from MI5 and MI6 and even the KGB.

Murky Mumbai mafia underworld

Our new fiction picks include Vikram Chranda's new bestseller about a Sikh policeman investigating the whereabouts of an Indian gangster and JG Ballard's new dystopia set in a sinister shopping mall. 'A disorder peculiar to the country' by Ken Kalfus features a feuding couple in New York whose divorce involves wire tapping and fake anthrax attacks.

New DVDs

From 'Je vous salue, Marie' to 'Keep the faith, baby', our new DVDs are a weird and varied bunch. Doco 'Blue vinyl' explores the toxic effects of polyvinyl chloride. We have 4 new yoga DVDs, the 2006 World Cup final between Italy and France and a surprisingly good adaptation of Lawrence's 'Sons & lovers.' Young Zazie frolicks around Paris in Louis Malle's charming 'Zazie dans le Metro.' Admire Balanchine's classic ballet 'Jewels joyaux' with its gorgeous costumes. Does anyone else think that the (just arrived) Doctor Who episode 'The girl in the fireplace' with Madame de Pompadour was inspired by novel The time traveller's wife?

The Great Fog of 1952 descends

Our new mysteries feature embarrassment in the line of duty, hunky party boys, lurking danger, death metal music and Easter Bunny costumes. The Scandinavians are at it again, with new books by Norwegian prizewinner Jo Nesbo and Swedish Ake Edwardson. The very clever Dick Francis continues to write novels despite being dead (appropriate for this genre, but nonetheless suspect).

Listen to the library

October 7th, 4.30pm the lovely Neil will be hosting WCL's Music Ad Lib radio show on Access Radio 783AM. Tune in for the disturbing and wonderfully literate country-folk of the Handsome Family.
Further information is available on our popular music page.

Of frockcoats, rapiers and pistols

Our buyer's favourites for this month include 'Pretty things : the last golden generation of American burlesque queens', 'Breaking the spell : religion as a natural phenomenon' and 'Minority rules : turning your ethnicity into a competitive edge'. On the lighter side we have new books with pictures of pretty Tiffany jewelry and brightly coloured Mexican dishes.

A bored certified diagnostician

Our staff DVD picks for this month include some great television - why not sit there for 972 minutes and watch an entire series of House or The Wire? Neil assures us that the US version of The Office is better than one'd think.
There's a documentary about Amish teenagers experiencing the ourside world during Rumspringa, a movie with often unintelligible Glaswegian dialogue and some romance. Yey.