Astonish me!
February 28, 2012
These are famous words of direction from Diaghilev to the Ballet Russe.
The Australian Ballet’s 50th anniversary season “Infinite” opened on Friday 24th February. And astonish me, it did. David McCallister the artistic director has combined contemporary dances from The Bangarra Dance Theatre, Chunky Move, and The Australian Ballet. Find out what the dancers who have danced Swan Lake for years are really thinking in Obarzanek’s “There’s definitely a prince involved”………when a narrator states, “Is that suicide when she throws herself into the lake? Why doesn’t she just swim? Like, she’s a swan isn’t she?” For those of more traditional tastes, there are many traditional performances to follow this anniversary year.
What does the library have to offer the ballet lover?
The book Luminous : celebrating 50 years of The Australian Ballet was commissioned by the Australian Ballet to commemorate the 50th anniversary and is held in the Reference Collection providing a history and spectacular photographs. Other related books include; From Gaolbird to Lyrebird: a life in Australian ballet by Barry Kitcher and Beyond 40 : The Australian Ballet : celebrating 40 years of dreams by The Australian Ballet.
In the DVD collection you will find many of the Australian Ballet performances such as; Spartacus, La Fille Mal Gardee, Manon and my favourite, Graeme Murphy’s Swan Lake.
Then there is Dance Australia magazine. From Broadway to ballet and tap to hip hop, keep in touch with what is going on in all disciplines of dance. For a history of ballet companies and dancers, check Australia Dancing, The National Library of Australia database.
And for a sneak preview, there is an Australian Ballet blog .
Which books bring ballet to life for you?
Can’t wait for the new season of Downton Abbey?
February 24, 2012
We have plenty of ways to help you pass the time! The Edwardian era was a time in which the values of propriety and decorum were held paramount, and so naturally scandal, gossip and intrigue ran rife. Another great TV series that captures this blend of decadence and debauchery is the newly reproduced Upstairs Downstairs. Glen Eira libraries hold the first five seasons of this lavish remake of the original 1970′s show - if you enjoy period drama be sure to check them out.
Browse our biography section and discover the true story of Highclere Castle (where Downton Abbey is set) and the remarkable tale of Lady Almina, whose strength and courage saw the castle and its occupants through the turbulent years of World War 1. Alternatively, immerse yourself in the glitz and glamour of A Scandalous Life – the biography of Jane Digby; or read all about the eccentric aristocracy in the Duchess of Devonshire’s memoir Wait for Me. For those who prefer a story they can listen to, try The Viceroy’s Daughters, an audio book on CD.
If sumptuous banquets, glittering balls and dark secrets appeal check out the newly published fiction title Netherwood by Jane Sanderson. Also on our fiction shelves is Kate Morton’s The House at Riverton (originally published as The Shifting Fog), in which an elderly woman recalls her days as the maid of a noble family and the events surrounding a disastrous garden party. Another great read is Elizabeth Jane Howard’s Cazalet chronicles, which follows the interweaving lives of aristocratic Cazalet family, their servants and their children through three generations.
These stories are all told with touches of humour and tragedy, and an attention to detail that brings early twentieth century Britain to life. Do you have a favourite story from this period?
Written by Krista and Catherine
Who do you think you are?
February 23, 2012
Who do you think you are? What a question! This is a book and a television series which follows the lives of prominent Australian personalities traced through their ancestors. The book is filled with research methods as well as many specific stories full of joy, sorrow and unexpected discoveries. There is a similar title based on the BBC programme.
Even if you never plan to discover your own origins, the roots of prominent Australians in the DVD series Who do you think you are? are fascinating. There is also Series 2 and Series 3. I subsequently sought books for further reading on many of the personalities featured, such as Barassi and Freeman.
You don’t have to be famous or a descendant of a distinguished ancestor to create a memorable family tree. A keen sense of curiosity, enthusiasm and persistence seem to be the prerequisites for success.
But how to begin?
Glen Eira libraries have collections of genealogy CDROMS which index births, deaths and marriages in Victoria; The Pioneer Index Victoria 1836-1888 and Australia’s Army War Dead (1885-1972) are two of many. There are books in the reference and lending collections, as well as a magazine dedicated to genealogy called Your family history.
Then there are the online databases:
- Ancestry Library Edition
- Documents Online
- Find My Past (Australia)
- Find My Past (Ireland)
- Find My Past (UK)
You can also try the State Library of Victoria Genealogy Centre - their research guides are particularly informative. The comprehensive list of Australian family history and genealogy websites, selected by the National Library of Australia, is also helpful.
Has anyone had any success researching their own family tree, using the library resources?
It is a truth universally acknowledged…
February 21, 2012
…that a good first line can make or break a book. There are many reasons we are drawn to pick up certain books when browsing: an attractive cover, a catchy title, an interesting blurb or the name of a well known author printed on the spine. All these things are called peritext – the little indicators that set our expectations of what sort of read a book will be.
First impressions are important, but we know that what is inside counts most of all. You may be attracted to someone who is outwardly glamorous, but if they open their mouth and start honking you’ll probably change your mind pretty fast about making their acquaintance. The same is true of books – the opening lines are the first real taste of a book’s essence, and an important factor in deciding whether or not to continue. Take for example:
“It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.”
Sound familiar? Click on each sentence and follow the link to the book in our catalogue. Alternatively, check out the award-winning worst first line of Bulwer-Lytton – an opening sentence so bad a contest for the worst literary opening line is held in its honour each year!
Do you have a favourite or particularly awful first line to share?
Do you prefer autobiography or memoir …. perhaps biography?
February 17, 2012
”I sad” said it all when Steve Jobs passed away last year: the biography Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson has been on the bestseller lists ever since. Biographies, books written by professional writers on lives of often very prominent people, have wide appeal.
Hitch-22: a memoir by Christopher Hitchens, completed only months before his passing, is a legacy to a controversial and intellectual life. Memory Chalet by Tony Judt is also a memoir. The author of Postwar:the history of Europe since 1945, Judt passed away in 2011 after a life struggling with motor neurone syndrome. Memoir is a subclass of autobiography and is how one remembers one’s own life. Memoirs often deal with public rather than personal matters and just one aspect or period.
Autobiography is an historical record which requires fact, and usually encompasses a whole life not one aspect. A recent and readable autobiography, Life without the boring bits by Colleen Mc Cullough is the story of a prolific and talented author. She describes her book modestly as merely a collection of essays. In Malcolm Fraser: a political memoir, Fraser discusses the difficulty of accuracy. He commisioned a researcher or co-author Margaret Simons to check each fact in his memoir. The result is part memoir, part authorised biography. The categories are far from clear-cut.
The biography section in the library encompasses all these styles of writing. Books are arranged in alphabetical order of the person’s name, for example, Isaacson’s book Steve Jobs will be found under B/JOBS on the shelf in the biography section.
The online database Biography in Context and the reference collections are also sources of information on people .
Is there a book in the biography section of the library which has really impressed you?
How are your Internet habits?
February 15, 2012
There is a new wave of research into how the Internet affects our brain. Does it create a “monster” generation or the smartest one?
Words such as ‘addiction’, ’ short attention span’ and ‘personality change’ are freely used to scare and alarm us. Do you live on Twitter, Facebook and blogs or in a real world? An article by Nicholas Carr: “Is Google making us stupid?” provoked public debate after being published in Atlantic Magazine in 2008.
There are good books in the library to look for the answers. “Virtual nation: the Internet in Australia” is one of them. It talks about online culture, community, collaboration and vision for the future.
In “Hamlet’s blackberry: a practical philosophy for building a good life in the digital age” the author uses his own life as an experiment to demonstrate how to do our best with technology to create a healthy balance.
Do we change our brain when we connect online? Read “Shallows: what the Internet is doing to our brain” by Nicholas Carr. Some people find this book absolutely fascinating while others are sceptical.
I enjoyed reading “Grown up digital: how the net generation is changing the world” by Don Tapscott. He believes that we are part of the global phenomenon and the digital generation is responsible for the shift our society experiences today.
Do you have more friends on Facebook than in real life? Read the new book “You are not so smart: why you have too many friends on Facebook, why your memory is mostly fiction and 46 other ways you’re deluding yourself”. This book based on the popular blog by the same name.
Social networks are a reality of modern time. We read, work and entertain differently. There are many good books in our library to help you to navigate various aspects of the digital world.
These are the words of American author and satirist P J O’Rourke. I’ll admit to the crime of what I call ‘book accessorising’ – carrying around a particular novel of deep, meaningful and largely incomprehensible content so as to look impressive. My excuse is that it occurred during my university years while I was completing a literature major, and book accessorising was an informally recognized and highly competitive sport.
The trick was to buy a second hand copy, so that the well-worn cover would suggest you had spent countless hours of absorbed reading, and the coffee stained pages would indicate the many thoughtful moments you paused to ponder and reflect on the author’s ideas. If you were especially lucky there may even have been notes scrawled in the margin translating the denser sections of the text.
The upside of book accessorising is that it does provoke you to challenge yourself. There’s only so much pretense you can keep up of having read a book without at least flipping through the first few pages. And quite often you can surprise yourself – judging a book by its reputation can be just as dangerous as judging one by its cover. You can still take away something valuable from the experience of reading something you think you’ll hate, even if it is only a very clear idea of what to avoid next time…
Is book accessorising still a prevalent activity? Do you read stuff that will make you look good if you die in the middle of it?
Forget Valentine’s Day ………. Do you Love2read ?
February 10, 2012
The National Library of Australia, public libraries and institutions around the country are gearing up for the Love 2read launch on February 14th. Eight books chosen to represent Australia will be announced to mark the start of the National Year of Reading 2012. Learn more at the “Unbound” post from December 28th.
Looking for a romantic read for Valentine’s Day? You can find one at the library! Some suggestions are:
Paperbacks
- All about love by Stephanie Laurens
- A lot like love by Julie James
- All things beautiful by Cathy Maxwell
Talking Books
- Looking for love by Rosie Harris
- Reflections by Nora Roberts
- Sweet talk by Susan Mallery
Adult fiction
- The notebook by Nicholas Sparks
- Before I forget by Andre Brink
- The anthology of colonial Australian romance fiction edited by Ken Gelder and Rachael Weaver
Large Print
- How do I love thee by Nancy Moser
- Message in a bottle by Nicholas Sparks
- Hearts divided by Francine Rivers
Or, watch a romantic film from the DVD collection
Whether you’re celebrating the Year of Reading or Valentines Day, may 14th February be a happy day for you!
Homework Help at the Library
February 9, 2012
The Homework Centre @ Carnegie Library is reopening on 13 February. It runs on Mondays and Wednesdays from 4pm to 6pm throughout the school term, providing students with a quiet, friendly and distraction-free environment to work on their assignments. Both primary and secondary school students are welcome, and a librarian is on hand at all times to provide assistance. We don’t know all the answers, but we can show you where to find them!
There are lots of great resources available to students. Our Current Issues folders contain recent newspaper articles on a variety of topics like alcoholism, climate change and immigration, and are a particularly popular resource for VCE students. Online, Glen Eira Libraries offer a wide range of databases that provide reliable, quality information. These include online databases such as Encyclopedia Britannica and The New Book of Knowledge which break information up into age-appropriate groups so that students can easily pick the information that best meets their needs.
Our libraries have atlases, dictionaries, biographies, and books on nearly every subject; there are computers, wifi and study spaces. Parents who encourage their children to visit and use the library will help them get ahead at school this year.
What are the Indies?
February 8, 2012
The Independent Bookseller Awards (Indies) are chosen by an expert panel of readers and booksellers and voted on by independent booksellers, to recognise their favourite Australian book from the last twelve months. Winners in the following categories and the overall winner, known as the “Book of the Year” will be announced on 10th March at the Leading Edge Books Conference in Melbourne .
The shortlisted titles in each category are:
Fiction
- Caleb’s Crossing by Geraldine Brooks
- The Street Sweeper by Elliot Perlman
- Foal’s Bread by Gillian Mears
- Five Bells by Gail Jones
Nonfiction
- Worse Things Happen at Sea by William McInnes and Sarah Watt
- Notebooks by Betty Churcher
- After Words: the Post-Prime Ministerial Speeches by Paul Keating
- A Private Life: fragments, memories friends by Michael Kirby
Debut fiction
- Past the Shallows by Favel Parrett
- All That I Am by Anna Funder
- The Roving Party byRohan Wilson
- Watercolours by Adrienne Ferreira
Children’s
- The Jewel Fish of Karnak by Graeme Base
- The Little Refugee by Anh and Suzanne Do
- The Coming of the Whirlpool by Andrew McGahan
- The 13-Storey Treehouse by Andy Griffiths
It is very difficult to choose just one title from such diverse categories. The chairman of judges of the Costa Book Awards said about this dilemma, ”you’re not just comparing apples with oranges, it feels like comparing bananas with chicken curry”. The Costa Book Award (UK & Ireland) 2011 was awarded to Pure by Andrew Miller causing some controversy.
Which book would you choose for the Indie “Book of the Year” award this year? 
