Archive | New Releases

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

Jennifer DuBoi –

Written with the riveting storytelling and moral seriousness of authors like Emma Donoghue, Adam Johnson, Ann Patchett, and Curtis Sittenfeld, Cartwheel is a suspenseful and haunting novel of an American foreign exchange student arrested for murder, and a father trying to hold his family together.

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

Elizabeth Elo –

A powerful thriller set in terrifying yet beautiful terrain of Baffin Bay, and featuring a remarkable heroine with a rare ability to withstand extremes. When the fishing boat Pirio is on is rammed by a freighter, she finds herself abandoned in the North Atlantic. With the help of a curious journalist named Russell Parnell, Pirio begins unraveling a lethal plot involving the glacial whaling grounds off Baffin Island. In a narrow inlet in the arctic tundra, Pirio confronts her ultimate challenge: to trust herself.

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

Valerie Mendes –

“One house, one family and a lifetime of secrets” it says on the front cover, and set in England in 1896 and 1939. In the tradition of THE FORSYTE SAGA, a sweeping historical novel that spans three generations, telling the dark secrets of a family torn apart.

Larkswood House. The very name suggests birdsong, peace and elegance.  It is home to the Hamilton children – Edward, Cynthia and Harriet – who enjoy the freedom and excitement of privilege. But in the glorious summer of 1896, with absent parents and a departed governess, disaster strikes the family, leaving it cruelly divided.

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