Glenfield BookChats May 2010

This is birdwatchingwatching, a hilarious true story about fathers and sons, the birds (not the bees), and the eccentricities of two very different species.

Alice Jacobs has finally found the family she always wanted! The Arnold family have worked the farmland for as far back as they can remember. Well-respected and comfortable in their small, close community, it seems nothing could upset their quiet everyday routine. Then Ellie enters their lives! With her shy smile and kind nature, Alice wins the hearts of the Arnold family. Decent and well respected,Tom and Nancy Arnold have raised two very different sons, Frank and Joe. Frank is a devious, brutal man. Seeing Alice as the key to his fortune, he is determined to have her for himself. However, his younger brother Joe has fallen in love with Alice, so when she and Frank become engaged to marry, Joe leaves home, determined to put a distance between himself and temptation. He reluctantly returns when Frank summons him to be his best man. Alice finds herself inexplicably drawn to Joe, but feeling it to be her duty, she goes ahead and marries Frank, not wishing to hurt him. On their wedding night Frank shows his true colours and when he forces Alice to reveal a devastating secret, his evil nature reaps a shocking revenge. In his…

"Ana, rejected by her mother and sexually abused by her father, has carried the weight of her traumatic experiences long enough. At the age of 30, she walks across Spain on the 780-kilometer el Camino Trail searching for an end to her childhood pain. The overwhelming physical demands of the walk add to Ana u2019 s emotional suffering. Through an unlikely friendship with Richard, a gentle, older man in the early stages of Alzheimer u2019 s, Ana gains the support and companionship she desires. Richard teaches Ana to leave the past behind and live in the here and now as his illness has forced him to do. These two become improbable friends: one who cannot remember and one who cannot forget. -Publisher description.

"Ana, rejected by her mother and sexually abused by her father, has carried the weight of her traumatic experiences long enough. At the age of 30, she walks across Spain on the 780-kilometer el Camino Trail searching for an end to her childhood pain. The overwhelming physical demands of the walk add to Ana u2019 s emotional suffering. Through an unlikely friendship with Richard, a gentle, older man in the early stages of Alzheimer u2019 s, Ana gains the support and companionship she desires. Richard teaches Ana to leave the past behind and live in the here and now as his illness has forced him to do. These two become improbable friends: one who cannot remember and one who cannot forget. -Publisher description.

"After taking a serious beating whilst engaged in unofficial undercover work in the murky streets and taverns of London's 19th century slums, Constable Tom Churchyard takes himself to Cornwall. Here, in spite of his injuries he becomes right-hand man to Amos Hawke, now a senior Cornish policeman. His knowledge of the London rogues proves invaluable as Amos seeks to foil a gang of city thieves whose plan is to plunder the mansions of the Cornish gentry. When a brutal murder is committed during their investigations it proves far more complex than appears at first glance. Publisher description.

Makedde Vanderwall, part-time model and forensic psychology student travels to Sydney on assignment and finds her best friend murdered. She soon discovers a deadly puzzle of suspicious photographers, hired thugs, mysterious lovers and the handsome, jaded Detective Andy Flynn.

Set in a respectable 1950s seaside town, this novel explores what happens when a group of bohemians take over a house on the seafront. The house attracts two local girls who are as irrevocably drawn to its temptations as the town's respectable residents are appalled by them.

In a small town like any other small town in Australia live the Maloneys. They are fifth-generation immigrants of Irish Catholic descent who are still struggling to reach the first rung of the social ladder. But the Maloneys are a family you won u2019 t forget: a strong mother, a father broken by war, three boys and two girls, one of whom has an illegitimate daughter. They are not destined to have an ordinary life. For the Maloneys are touched by the four fires that have moulded the Australian people: passion, religion, warfare and fire itself. And in each of them these fires burn bright u2026

They have been close friends for almost two decades, supporting each other through personal and professional crises parents dying, children leaving home, house moves, job changes, political activism, diets and really bad haircuts. Now the 'gang of four' Isabel, Sally, Robin and Grace, are all fifty-something, successful and restless. This is the story of four very different journeys and a celebration of women in the prime of life.

Makedde Vanderwall has finished her studies and is ready to start practising as a forensic psychologist. She's also starting a new life in Australia with her detective boyfriend Andy Flynn.

In South Africa, whose civil administration is collapsing under the pressure of years of civil strife, an obscure young gardener named Michael K decides to take his mother on a long march away from the guns towards a new life in the abandoned countryside. But everywhere he goes, war follows him.

Determined to save her younger sister from their drunken and abusive stepfather, eight-year-old Carrie Parker makes preparations for them to escape their violent home, but before they can leave, a random act of brutality forever changes all of their lives.

When a bomb goes off at Heathrow it looks like a random act of violence to psychologist David Markham, until he discovers that his ex-wife Laura is a victim. He starts to investigate London's fringe protest movements, focusing on a group based in the comfortable estate of Chelsea Marina.

A warm summer Saturday. An amusement park. David Harwood is glad to be spending some quality time with his wife, Jan, and their four-year-old son. But what begins as a pleasant family outing turns into a nightmare after an inexplicable disappearance. A frantic search only leads to an even more shocking and harrowing turn of events. Until this terrifying moment, David Harwood is just a small-town reporter in need of a break. His paper, the Promise Falls Standard, is struggling to survive. Then he gets a lead that just might be the answer to his prayers: a potential scandal involving a controversial development project for the outskirts of this picturesque upstate New York town.

"In the early nineteenth century, a windswept beach along the English coast brims with fossils for those with the eye! From the moment she's struck by lightning as a baby, it is clear Mary Anning is marked for greatness. When she uncovers unknown dinosaur fossils in the cliffs near her home, she sets the scientific world alight, challenging ideas about the world's creation and stimulating debate over our origins. In an arena dominated by men, however, Mary is soon reduced to a serving role, facing prejudice from the academic community, vicious gossip from neighbours, and the heartbreak of forbidden love. Even nature is a threat, throwing bitter cold, storms, and landslips at her. Luckily Mary finds an unlikely champion in prickly, intelligent Elizabeth Philpot, a middle-class spinster who is also fossil-obsessed. Their relationship strikes a delicate balance between fierce loyalty and barely suppressed envy. Despite their differences in age and background, Mary and Elizabeth discover that, in struggling for recognition, friendship is their strongest weapon. Publisher description.

Hattie has a difficult if loving partner, Martyn, an absentee mother, Lallie, and a cynical if attentive grandmother Frances. She tries to do the right and moral thing in a tricky world, and always has. But she now has a baby, Kitty, which makes true morality rather harder to achieve. Somehow, money has to be earned. Into this household comes Agnieszka, from Poland, a domestic paragon. But is she friend or foe? And even if she is foe, and seems likely to bring the domestic world crashing down around their ears, can they afford to let her go? Well, no. Martyn works for a political magazine, Hattie for a literary agency. At work, too, integrity is suffering as the need for compromise becomes ever more pressing. And always in the background is Frances, tracing the family and social history: and not just family and society but the dwelling houses too; and all those girls and women (the au pairs, the child-minders, the cleaners) who've made Hattie what she is. Not to forget that hefty dollop of male genes which has also played its part for Hattie's is a lively and none too respectable background and now, finally, Agnieszka…

Following her ordeal with a psychopath, Makedde Vanderwall heads back to Canada. She returns to her studies in forensic psychology and thinks her life is finally back to normal. Then Andy Flynn, a jaded detective with whom she had a passionate affair, arrives and things start getting complicated.

Not only accepting but celebrating getting old, this inspirational and illuminating work looks at the many facets of the aging process, from purposes and challenges to struggles and surprises. Central throughout is a call to cherish the blessing of aging as a natural part of life that is active, productive, and deeply rewarding. Perhaps the most important dimension revealed lies in the awareness that there is a purpose to aging and intention built into every stage of life.

On a hot summer night in 1980, two-year-old Audrey Culter was snatched from her bedroom and never seen again. 26 years later, her brother, Sammy, fatefully crosses paths with the man the police failed to convict for her abduction and murder. A few weeks later, that man is dead, murdered. Private attorney Jason Kolarich is engaged to defend Audrey's brother. But can he trust the people who hired him? Why are they paying for Sammy's defense and why do they want the case heard so quickly? Why, when Kolarich's investigations lead the police to a buried cache of children's bodies, do they kidnap his brother and threaten his life? And finally, what is Kolarich's own connection to the case?

"Part memoir and part education (or lack thereof) The Know-It-All chronicles NPR contributor A.J. Jacob's hilarious, enlightening, and seemingly impossible quest to read the Encyclopedia Britannica from A to Z. -Book jacket.

A culinary memoir of an extraordinary life. Mary Moody is a well-known author, cook, gardener, TV celebrity and a woman who is determined to grow old disgracefully. This book celebrates Mary's passion for food and the pivotal role it has played in her life.

Mr Ali decides to open a marriage bureau that will cater for a wide range of Indian clients from all walks of life and, encouraged by the indomitable Mrs Ali, he has the good sense to appoint a local girl, Aruna, as his very able assistant. Under Mr Ali's and Aruna's imaginative care the marriage bureau flourishes as it sorts out the future for many happy clients, although meanwhile things are not running so smoothly for everyone in the office as Aruna is nursing a secret that threatens to break her heart, while Mr Ali is unable to see that he himself doesn't follow the wise advice he so readily offers to those who come for help.

"Arriving in the ancient Byzantine city of Constantinoble in the year 1273, Anna Zarides has only one mission: to prove the innocence of her twin brother, Justinian, who has been exiled to the desert for conspiring to kill Bessarion, a nobleman. Disguising herself as a eunuch named Anastasius, Anna moves freely about in society, using her skills as a physician to manoeuver close to the key players involved in her brother's fate. -Publisher's description.

"Bennie Rosato looks exactly like her identical twin, Alice Connelly, but the darkness in Alice's soul makes them two very different women. Or at least that's what Bennie believes, until she finds herself buried alive at the hands of her twin. Meanwhile, Alice takes over Bennie's life, impersonating her at work and even seducing her boyfriend in order to escape the deadly mess she has made of her own life. But Alice underestimates Bennie and the evil she has unleashed in her twin sister's psyche, as well as Bennie's determination to stay alive long enough to exact revenge. -Publisher description.