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.