Book Review : Rescue by Anita Shreve

To get some different voices and types of books reviewed on the Blog, I have been urging (which is a polite word for hassling and nagging) my colleagues to put pen to paper (or finger to keyboard) and drop me a few lines so that I can share with you. After all, the workroom is often vibrant with "I read a fantastic book over the weekend" and "Have you seen this?" comments so it shouldn't have been too large a leap.

Lisa has taken the hint and has written a superb review of Rescue by Anita Shreve to paper so that I can share them with you.

Rescue is perfect example of Anita Shreve’s concise and straightforward writing style. Her talent for creating believable characters really shines through in this novel.

The story is set in a small town in Vermont where Peter Webster is a solo father and a paramedic working for the local Rescue ambulance service. He’s a small town boy, safe, steady, reliable and kind. The story begins with Peter celebrating his 4Oth birthday with his 17 year-old daughter, Rowan. Things are not going well. Rowan is veering dangerously off track and for the first time in their ordered existence together, Webster fears for her future.

Shreve then takes us back 18 years and we find out about Peters’ whirl-wind relationship with Rowan’s mother, Sheila, whom he meets after she crashes her car after a drinking binge. Peter cannot stop thinking about her and quickly falls in love with her. Sheila is a tortured soul with a complicated past, but she likes Peter and feels safe with him and agrees to marry him when she becomes pregnant, just a couple months after they've met. As suddenly as the relationship started, it’s over and Peter ends up raising Rowan on his own, but as she begins to push the boundaries he begins to reflect on his marriage and worry about how easily his daughter could follow in the footsteps of a mother she can't remember.

Skilfully written, with realistic dialogue, there is a good balance of action and slower descriptive passages. I enjoyed the themes of single parenthood, alcoholism, rescue (in all its forms), and the nature of love and relationships. I would highly recommend Rescue to anyone who enjoys good character driven story.

Top 5 for Friday - Five Fantastic Library Competitions

I was going to touch on school holidays this week and let everyone know what is happening around Auckland at the Libraries. But like many of you, I am still in denial that the first term is only one week away from endnig. So that particular post has been postponed until next week. Instead I am deviating from books and exploring some of the fantastic competitions we have running at the moment through Auckland Libraries. Sure - most of them are aimed at the children and teenagers, but we did put out the ANZAC challenge call on Wednesday so we haven't forgotton the adults. And if you can get the kids interested in these competitions, it may take up at least a morning of their time during the holidays.

1. Kiwi Kids Kidding Around. I'v talked about this one before. It is our official partnership with Rugby World Cup 2011 and apart from great spot prizes in each library, one lucky youngster will get to see their joke in lights during the World Cup tournament. Entry forms are available at ALL libraries around Auckland and the first several entries at each library get spot prizes. Jokes should be Kiwi in nature, inoffensive and if they had a rugby flavour it wouldn't hurt (although it's not necessary).


2. Launch your Lyrics. Last year Waitakere Libraries ran a fantastic contest during NZ Music Month for 11 to 18 year olds with the prize being a session at a recording studio and your chance to have a professional music CD produced. It's back again this year and you can start work on it straight away. There are plenty of other prize packs as well and from hip hop to opera, the choice of song style is up to you.


3. It's a dog's life online scavenger hunt. Running alongside the special Sir George Grey exhibition "It's a Dogs Life" at the Central Auckland Library is this online scavenger hunt with prizes every week as well as one main prize.


4. Mars needs Mom's. Prizepacks can be won by drawing what you think a Martian looks like. This contest closes on the 14th of April so you will have to be quick. It might be something to do this weekend.


5. Customer Satisfaction Survey 2011. Not so much a competition but there are prizes and this is for all our customers, young and old. We want to know how we are doing and we are willing to provide prizes for finding out. If you have ten minutes we would love to hear from you.

That's it from me for another week. Have a great weekend out there and stay safe on the roads (and I say that with feeling as I am heading down to Rotorua for a netball tournament so watch out for a tired umpire coming home on Sunday). Ka kite

Trans-Tasman ANZAC Day Blog Challenge

Seonaid Lewis is a geneologist and researcher extraordinaire. She will be well known to family historians in the area with a regular column in the New Zealand Geneology magazine. She also scribes the Kintalk blog for the Central Auckland Research Centre (second floor of the central city library) and organises regular talks and presentations.

The latest promotion is a competition with friends across the Tasman. Seoniad picks up the story...

It started with Shelley from Twigs of Yore issuing a blog challenge for Australian researchers in celebration of Australia Day. Here at the Central Auckland Research Centre at Auckland Libraries, we loved the idea and thought that we could be just as successful with a blog challenge for Waitangi Day. We had loads of international response, with people blogging about their New Zealand early settler ancestor from as far away as UK and the US and as close as NZ and Australia!

This time, it is a joint challenge with our Digger mates from across the Ditch. Australians and New Zealanders know ANZAC Day – 25 April – as a national day of remembrance for Australian and New Zealanders who died at war. Do you have an Australian or New Zealander in your family tree who was killed in or served in military operations? We’d like to hear about not only their sacrifice, but the way their loss or experience shaped their family history.

To participate: - Write a blog post about an Australian or New Zealander serviceman or woman’s family, and the impact war had on their family history - Post a comment with the URL on the Auckland Research Centre’s Facebook page under discussions or on the relevant post on the Twigs of Yore blog. - Publish your post by 25 April 2011.

After Anzac Day, all submissions will be listed in a summary posting on Auckland Libraries’ Kintalk blog and also Twigs of Yore blog.

Just to get you started, recommended resources for New Zealand and Australian research, see the Auckland Libraries Digital Resources. Access great online resources such as:

Coming Home virtual exhibitionThe virtual exhibition consists of "albums" containing photos/images and documents. Virtual albums entitled "Gallipoli", "Lest We Forget", "New Zealand Maori Battalion", "Peace", "Postcards" and "Returned Services Association". Also has a portal for searching content nationwide from organizations such as libraries, archives, museums and galleries, including Auckland Libraries. Courtesy DigitalNZ.

Index Auckland and New Zealand Card Index For references to articles and other resources regarding WWI and WWII.

Manuscripts Online For diaries, letters, postcards and albums

And Papers Past

Within the library catalogue: Auckland Libraries Searching using WWI or WWII etc will return you wonderful results of holdings throughout the whole of Auckland Libraries, which you can narrow down by location by using the "select location" dropdown menu on the right of screen. For example, available in all three Research Centres:- Central, South (Manukau) and North-West (Waitakere) are gems such as:* New Zealand Expeditionary Force casualties, WWI. Books I to XIV, 15 Aug. 1914 to 6 Jan. 1919

and you’ll also find Australian resources in the Central Auckland Research Centre; for example:

* Book of remembrance of the University of Sydney in the Great War 1914-1918

* Index to news items and obituaries of WWI servicemen and women in the Tasmanian weekly magazines

For other sites, try looking at the Auckland War Memorial Museum ; the Australian War Memorial site and the National Archives of Australia, or look further using the resources listed on Cora Num’s website.

A small bite for Monday

Since I arrived back at my desk I feel like I haven't achieved very much. Despite the fact that I enjoyed an extra hour's sleep courtesy of the end of daylight savings over the weekend, if today is anything to go by I feel Friday will arrive with the same sort of emotion.

Which is not to say I haven't been reading and reviewing. Since I finished The Passage (Justin Cronin) on Lisa's recommendation while on holiday (great, fantastic, wonderful, everything people said it was), I don't seem to have been able to get into anything adult (fiction or non-fiction) so I have been concentrating on short and snappy i.e. children's fiction. The latest one I picked up was The Savage by David Almond and Dave McKean Part chapter book and part graphic novel – two inspirational men tell the story of Blue, a young boy who is bullied, loses his father and turns to an imaginary world to cope. Blue creates the story of The Savage who lives in the caves under the Church. But how imaginary is the Savage really? Gritty, compelling, surreal… The message may be rammed home a little too hard and the solution a little too obscure. Blue's story of the Savage is authentic (including grammar and spelling errors so be warned if this type of writing irritates). But the combination of talents works well and this book should appeal as a story, especially to those reluctant readers graduating from comics and graphix and looking for suitable subject matter.

Top 5 for Friday - King Arthur for Teens

I am an Arthurian legend fan from way back - a fact that I may have mentioned previously on this blog. I was however disappointed at the "plastic" nature of Tintagel when I visited it ten years ago. Not one skerrick of magic or mystery despite a misty rain falling on the coast. Never mind, there are always the books and my imagination. Another Arthur fan is Annie, a colleague from Auckland Central and today's Top 5 comes courtesy of her pen. For a while there I was completely over King Arthur. Studying umpteen versions on Arthurian romances will do that to a girl. And, he just kept appearing everywhere! I mean – EVERYWHERE! Gargoyles (I *more than 3* Gargoyles), Babylon 5. Cartoon and sci-fi series – whodathunk. So, it takes a lot for me to recommend a King Arthur anything… these 5 YA novels, I do. 5. The night dance / Suzanne Weyn Rowena, the youngest of twelve sisters, loves to slip out of the castle at night and dance in a magical forest. Soon she convinces her sisters to join her. When Sir Ethan notices that his daughters' slippers look tattered every morning, he is certain they've been sneaking out. So he posts a challenge to all the suitors in the kingdom : the first man to discover where his daughters have been is free to marry the one he chooses. Meanwhile a handsome young knight named Bedivere is involved in a challenge of his own : to return the powerful sword, Excalibur, to a mysterious lake. While looking for the lake, Bedivere meets the beautiful Rowena and falls for her. Bedivere knows that accepting Sir Ethan's challenge is the only opportunity for him to be with Rowena forever. But this puts both Bedivere and Rowena in a dangerous situation ... one in which they risk their lives for a chance at love. What’s not to like? Arthurian romance meets Twelve Dancing Princess, with a side order of darkness. 4. Avalon High / Meg Cabot Having moved to Annapolis, Maryland, with her medievalist parents, high school junior Ellie enrolls at Avalon High School where several students may or may not be reincarnations of King Arthur and his court. King Arthur and his cohorts – and enemies – in a modern American high school. But they don’t know it . Fun, with a kicking heroine. 3. Black horses for the king / Anne McCaffrey Galwyn, son of a Roman Celt, escapes from his tyrannical uncle and joins Lord Artos, later know as King Arthur, using his talent with languages and way with horses to help secure and care for the Libyan horses that Artos hopes to use in battle against the Saxons. One of my fav all-time authors – it’s this book that got me out of my ‘I hate King Arthur’ brain. Fav rave. 2. Song of the sparrow / Lisa Ann Sandell In fifth-century Britain, nine years after the destruction of their home on the island of Shalott brings her to live with her father and brothers in the military encampments of Arthur's army, seventeen-year-old Elaine describes her changing perceptions of war and the people around her as she becomes increasingly involved in the bitter struggle against the invading Saxons. With a deep love of Anne of Green Gables, it’s a given I’d gravitate to a book from the point of view of the Lady of Shallott. I love it so much, I own a copy. 1. Here lies Arthur / Philip Reeve Gwyna is just a small girl, a mouse, when she is bound in service to Myrddin the bard - a traveller and spinner of tales. But Myrddin transfroms her - into a lady goddess, a boy warrior, and a spy. Without Gwyna, Myrddin will not be able to work the most glorious transformation of all - and turn the leader of a raggle-taggle war-band into King Arthur, the greatest hero of all time. Brilliant. Wish I owned this. Thought-provoking. Historically accurate (well, sorta, kinda, mostly?) WAY more that 3 this one (thanks Tosca for FYI-ing that expression J). ~ Annie Reference Librarian Teens Here's the link for the full list of Teen Arthurian fiction