Author Archive | admin

Peter Millar –

In this rambling odyssey set in the later days of the Castro regime, Peter Millar jumps on board the Cuban railway system, once the pride of Latin America. Starting in the ramshackle but romantic capital of Havana, he travels with ordinary Cubans, sharing anecdotes, life stories, and political opinions. Millar may not have all the answers but he asks a lot of the right questions on an anarchic, entertaining, and often comic adventure. A journey everyone will want to read about but nobody in their right mind would want to emulate!

To reserve a copy of this book, email: loans@buderimlibrary.org.au

Eric Lomax –

During the second world war Eric Lomax was forced to work on the notorious Burma-Siam Railway and was tortured by the Japanese for making a crude radio. Left emotionally scarred and unable to form normal relationships Lomax suffered for years until, with the help of his wife Patti and the Medical Foundation for the Care of Victims of Torture, he came to terms with what had happened and, fifty years after the terrible events, was able to meet one of his tormentors. The Railway Man is an incredible story of innocence betrayed, and of survival and courage in the face of horror.

To reserve a copy of this book, email: loans@buderimlibrary.org.au

Linda McRobbie –

You think you know her story. You’ve read the Brothers Grimm, you’ve watched the Disney cartoons, you cheered as these virtuous women lived happily ever after. But the lives of real princesses couldn’t be more different. Sure, many were graceful and benevolent leaders—but just as many were ruthless in their quest for power, and all of them had skeletons rattling in their royal closets. Princess Stephanie von Hohenlohe was a Nazi spy. Empress Elizabeth of the Austro-Hungarian empire slept wearing a mask of raw veal. Princess Olga of Kiev murdered thousands of men, and Princess Rani Lakshmibai waged war on the battlefield, charging into combat with her toddler son strapped to her back. Princesses Behaving Badly offers minibiographies of all these princesses and dozens more. It’s a fascinating read for history buffs, feminists, and anyone seeking a different kind of bedtime story.

To reserve a copy of this book, email: loans@buderimlibrary.org.au

Martin Sixsmith –

When she fell pregnant as a teenager in Ireland in 1952, Philomena Lee was sent to a convent to be looked after as a fallen woman. She cared for her baby for three years until the Church took him from her and sold him, like countless others, to America for adoption. Philomena’s son grew up to be a top Washington lawyer and a leading Republican official in the Reagan and Bush administrations. But he was a gay man in a homophobic party where he had to conceal not only his sexuality but, eventually, the fact that he had AIDs.
With little time left, he returned to Ireland and the convent where he was born: his desperate quest to find his mother before he died left a legacy that was to unfold with unexpected consequences for all involved.

To reserve a copy of this book, email: loans@buderimlibrary.org.au

Rose O’Brien –

Australian. Every aspect of family life touches grandparents, and Rose, Early Childhood teacher and for the last five years a grand-parenting columnist for Sydney’s, Melbourne’s and Brisbane’s Child magazines, looks at them all, from the first sight of a new grandchild, still crumpled like a butterfly emerged from the chrysalis, to the difficulties of folding a modern pram; from dashing across the country or the world to help out in times of emergency, to the rigours of school Grandparents’ Days; and to hearing an interested young grandson say, “Grandma, you’ve got whiskers!”
To reserve a copy of this book, email: loans@buderimlibrary.org.au

Melanie Jones –

After one particularly bad day at work, marketing executive and confirmed city girl Melanie Jones decides to give up her old life in search of something new and simpler in South West France. With little knowledge of the country, even less of the language and just the memory of a disastrous school French exchange and a few day trips to Calais, she embarks on her adventure with a suitcase full of optimism and not a little bit of naivety.

To reserve a copy of this book, email: loans@buderimlibrary.org.au

Edmund White –

When Edmund White moved to Paris in 1983, leaving New York City in the midst of the AIDS crisis, he was forty-three years old, couldn’t speak French, and only knew two people in the entire city. But in middle age, he discovered the new anxieties and pleasures of mastering a new culture. When he left fifteen years later to take a teaching position in the U.S., he was fluent enough to broadcast on French radio and TV.

To reserve a copy of this book, email: loans@buderimlibrary.org.au

Cerys Matthews –

Discovering France in a Rowing Boat.  When the author shows his friends the rowing boat he has spent the last six months building, he little realises the adventures that lie ahead. But the reality proves somewhat more difficult than he had expected. This title tells the story of one man’s attempt to travel the entire length of the Seine by boat.

To reserve a copy of this book, email: loans@buderimlibrary.org.au

Spiri Tsintziras –

A culinary, creative and spiritual journey back and forth between Europe and Australia. These evocative, funny and poignant stories explore how food and culture, language and music, and people and their stories help to create a sense of meaning and identity.

I remember crusty just-baked bread, rubbed with juicy tomato flesh, swimming in a puddle of thick green olive oil. I am seven years old. I sit on a stool in my grandmother’s house. It is the height of summer in a seaside village in the south of Greece. We little Aussies devour ‘tomato sandwiches’ as the family chats and laughs and swats flies. From the first heady taste of tomatoes on home-baked bread in her mother’s village in Petalidi, to sitting at a taverna some 30 years later in Ithaka with her young family, Spiri Tsintziras goes on a culinary, creative and spiritual journey that propels her back and forth between Europe and Australia. These evocative, funny and poignant stories explore how food and culture, language and music, and people and their stories help to create a sense of meaning and identity.

To reserve a copy of this book, email: loans@buderimlibrary.org.au

Barbara Taylor Bradford –

An epic saga of intrigue and mystique set in Edwardian England, Cavendon Hall is home to two families, the aristocratic Inghams and the Swanns who serve them. With World War I looming, both families will find themselves tested in ways they never thought possible. Loyalties will be challenged and betrayals will be set into motion. In this time of uncertainty, one thing is sure—these two families will never be the same again.

To reserve a copy of this book, email: loans@buderimlibrary.org.au