Staff Reads: Books

From the pen of J.K. Rowling: The co-creator of a popular cartoon, The Ink Black Heart, Edie Ledwell is being persecuted by a mysterious online figure who goes by the pseudonym of Anomie. Robin and her business partner, Cormoran Strike, become drawn into the quest to uncover Anomie’s true identity.

Detective Matthew Venn is called out to a rural crime scene at the home of a group of artists. Dr Nigel Yeo has been fatally stabbed. Dr Yeo seems an unlikely murder victim. Matthew is unnerved though to find that she is a close friend of Jonathan, his husband. Then another body is found - killed in a similar way.

Discover the darkness that lurks around every corner in the latest instalment of Peter James's award-winning detective series, which is now a major ITV programme starring John Simm as Roy Grace.

First Rule: Make them like you. Second Rule: Make them need you. Third Rule: Make them pay. They think I'm a young, idealistic law student, that I'm passionate about reforming a corrupt and brutal system. They think I'm working hard to impress them. They think I'm here to save an innocent man on death row. They're wrong. I'm going to bury him.

For more than five decades, Olivia Newton-John has been one of our most successful and adored entertainers.

Raw, honest and compelling, Scrubbed is Dr Nikki Stamp's account of her life as one of Australia's leading cardiothoracic surgeons. A life lived at the very edge of modern medicine, where heart surgeons walk the thinnest of lines between life and death, and yet where the greatest challenge can be the medical system itself.

This is a unique piece of history that follows eight stories of people in Wuhan during the early months of the coronavirus pandemic and lockdowns. Deadly Quiet City is an unforgettable collection of true stories from the early months of the COVID-19 outbreak in Wuhan.

Five Victims, one killer. When five teenage girls are abducted, Chicago PD Detective Billy Harney leads the investigation to find them.

I was dreading the Cunningham family reunion even before the first murder. Before the storm stranded us at the mountain resort, snow and bodies piling up. The thing is, us Cunninghams don’t really get along. We’ve only got one thing in common: we’ve all killed someone. My brother.My step-sister. My wife. My father. My mother. My sister-in-law. My uncle. My stepfather. My aunt. Me.

Welcome to Charon's Crossing. The tea is hot, the scones are fresh and the dead are just passing through. When a reaper comes to collect Wallace from his own sparsely-attended funeral, Wallace is outraged. But he begins to suspect she's right, and he is in fact dead. So when he's given one week to pass through the door to the other side, Wallace sets about living a lifetime in just seven days.

At thirty-two years old, Travis Devine's swapping fighting the Taliban and Al Qaeda for a different kind of danger in the cut-throat world of high finance. As the deaths pile up, and the major players show their hands, he must question who he can trust and who he must fight.

John Puller is the top investigator in the US army's criminal investigative division with unstoppable drive to find the truth.

Learn how spoken words can change a mind, a community and the world with this collection of remarkable speeches by women. What She Said is an inspiring collection of speeches from passionate and persuasive women from around the world and throughout history. From Queen Elizabeth I to Maya Angelou, Greta Thunberg, Julia Gillard, and Michelle Obama, What She Said shows not only what was said but also how the speech worked and why it was effective.

One of the most dynamic and globally recognized entertainment forces of our time opens up fully about his life, in a brave and inspiring book that traces his learning curve to a place where outer success, inner happiness, and human connection are aligned. Will Smith's transformation from a fearful child in a tense West Philadelphia home to one of the biggest rap stars of his era and then one of the biggest movie stars in Hollywood history, is an epic tale of inner transformation and outer triumph, and Will tells it astonishingly well.

From one of the most famous former members of the British royal family, Sarah Ferguson, Duchess of York--a mesmerising novel of a young noblewoman's coming-of-age that richly details both high society and low in Victorian England.

At the height of the Holocaust twenty-five young inmates of the infamous Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp - mainly Jewish women and girls - were selected to design, cut, and sew beautiful fashions for elite Nazi women in a dedicated salon. It was work that they hoped would spare them from the gas chambers.

The Storm Sister is the second book in Lucinda Riley's spellbinding the Seven Sisters series.

The Shadow sister is the third book in Riley's spellbinding series.

Sweeping from Manhattan to the magnificent plains of Africa, this is the sixth book in the series.

First of a set of seven books. Addictive storytelling with a moving, emotional heart. Five sisters gather together at their childhood home, after being told that their beloved father, an elusive billionaire, has died.

The Missing Sister is the seventh instalment in Lucinda Riley's multimillion-copy epic series

Detective Sergeant Gemma Woodstock finds herself lost and alone in the city, broken-hearted by the decisions she's had to make. Her new workplace is a minefield and the partner she has been assigned is uncommunicative and often hostile. When a homeless man is murdered and Gemma is put on the case, she can't help feeling a connection with the victim.

Called out to a rural crime scene at the home of a group of artists, Matthew finds an elaborately staged murder, Nigel Yeo, a local doctor, has been fatally stabbed.

A haunting tale of love and war ... and saving a precious legacy.

Paris, 1925: To enter the Secret Circus is to enter a world of wonder--a world where women weave illusions of magnificent beasts, carousels take you back in time, and trapeze artists float across the sky. Bound to her family's circus, it's the only world Cecile Cabot knows until she meets a charismatic young painter and embarks on a passionate affair that could cost her everything.

Somewhere out beyond the edge of the universe there is a library that contains an infinite number of books, each one the story of another reality. One tells the story of your life as it is, along with another book for the other life you could have lived if you had made a different choice at any point in your life. While we all wonder how our lives might have been, what if you had the chance to go to the library and see for yourself? Would any of these other lives truly be better?

1940. Parisian seamstress Estella Bissette is forced to flee France as the Germans advance. She is bound for Manhattan with a few francs, one suitcase, her sewing machine and a dream: to have her own atelier. 2015. Australian curator Fabienne Bissette journeys to the annual Met Gala for an exhibition of her beloved grandmother's work - one of the world's leading designers of ready-to-wear clothing.

A wartime legacy. A lost love. A friendship to last a lifetime.

When she is sent to an orphanage at the age of eight, Beth Harmon soon discovers two ways to escape, albeit fleetingly, her surroundings: playing chess and taking the little green pills given to her and the other children to keep them subdued. Before long, it becomes apparent that hers is a prodigious talent.

This #1 New York Times bestseller and deliciously creepy horror novel has a storyline inspired by the Ripper murders and an unexpected, blood-chilling conclusion.

Every evening, Allison watches her husband's new house, desperate to find some answers. Every morning, she puts on a brave face to teach kindergarten. She's a good teacher, everyone says so - this stalking is just a tiny crack in her usual self-control.

For years, rumours of the "Marsh Girl" have haunted Barkley Cove, a quiet town on the North Carolina coast. So in late 1969, when handsome Chase Andrews is found dead, the locals immediately suspect Kya Clark, the so-called Marsh Girl.

Texas. 1934. Fearful for the future, Elsa wakes up to find her husband has fled, she is forced to make the most agonising decision of her life.

Of all the uplifting sports stories that have captured the world's imagination, few have been greeted with such spontaneous and unanimous acclaim as tennis champion Ashleigh Barty. This book covers her journey from a knockabout kid from QueenslandAustralia to Wimbledon Champion and World No. 1 player and explores her rare gift for the game, engaging personality, innate modesty and relentless determination to be the best.

Climate catastrophe, police brutality, white genocide, totalitarian rule and the erasure of black history provide the backdrop for stories of love, courage and hope. In this unflinching new anthology, twelve of Australia's most daring indigenous writers and writers of colour provide a glimpse of Australia as we head toward the year 2050.

Inspired by a personal moment of profound love and generosity, Trent Dalton spent two months in 2021 speaking to people from all walks of life, asking them one simple and direct question: 'Can you please tell me a love story?' The result is a book about love in all its guises, including observations, reflections and stories of people falling into love, falling out of love, and never letting go of the loved ones in their hearts.

A desperate act in a small town with big secrets.

At a busy festival site or a warm spring night, a baby lies alone in her pram, her mother having vanished into the crowds.

Gundagai, 1852. The powerful Murrumbidgee River surges through town leaving death and destruction in its wake. It is a stark reminder that while the river can give life, it can just as easily take it away. Wagadhaany is one of the lucky ones. She survives. But is her life now better than the fate she escaped?

A country boy who grew up watching his old man play local footy in Leongatha, Jarryd Roughead's talent and dedication turned him into an AFL star. Lining up alongside some of the greatest to ever play the game, he was a key player in a Hawthorn team that will live on as one of the best of any era.

Summary: The Dreaming Path has always been there, but in the modern-day world, it can be hard to find. There are so many demands on us -- family, health, bills, a mortgage, a career -- that it can be hard to remember what's most important: you. It's time to reconnect with your story. Through conversations, exercises, Dreamtime stories and key messages, Paul Callaghan and Uncle Paul Gordon will sit you around the fire and share knowledge that reveals the power of Aboriginal spirituality as a profound source of contentment and well-being for anyone willing to listen. (Back cover)

A delightful new novel about friendship, love and finding yourself set in Far North Queensland.

A book for book lovers, The Last Bookshop is a uplifting novel that reminds us never to underestimate the power of people who love books.

He was top of the world, with numbers bettered only by Don Bradman - then captain Steve Smith led his Australian team into a cheating scandal that stunned cricket.

Richard runs his alternative healing centre from an old houseboat in a scrapyard on Trusting Lane. The Little Mother Earth Ship provides spiritual sustenance at regular meetings of the Circle of IEWA.

Some are born great, some achieve greatness and some have greatness thrust upon them by virtue of their skills with the ball and bat. This book is about the latter.

Bachar Houli is as accomplished an AFL footballer as they come. Yet it's as the AFL's most prominent Muslim player that Houli is best known.

488 Rules for Life is Kitty Flanagan's way of making the world a more pleasant place to live. Providing you with the antidote to every annoying little thing, these rules are not made to be broken.