Arts & Culture | Western Downs Libraries

Feb, 2020

Debut Australian Authors

By: dalbywordpress | Tags: Australiana, author, books, dalby library, great reads, Historical fiction, New Releases, reading | Comments: 0

Sink your teeth into one of these debut novels from Australian authors! We highly recommend: Beneath the mother tree “Beneath the Mother Tree plays out in a unique and wild Australian setting, interweaving Indigenous history and Irish mythology.” Sign “A captivating novel full of strength, courage and the struggle to overcome silence.” The Van Apfel Girls are gone “Blackly comic, sharply observed and observed and wonderfully endearing, this is Picnic at Hanging Rock for a new generation. A haunting coming-of-age story with a shimmering, unexplained […]

Jun, 2019

What were Australian’s Reading in the Victorian Era?

By: dalbywordpress | Tags: australian history, books, History, libraries, literature, public libraries, reading, reading habits | Comments: 0

Whilst reading The Guardian Australia our library team came across a very interesting article. The Australian National University has conducted a study analysing the borrowing habits from a selection of Australian libraries between 1861 and 1928. They have a created a entire database where you can filter Australian reading habits by age, occupation, gender, and library. The data found that males were the predominant borrowers, mining the biggest occupation, and that fiction vastly outweighed non-fiction in borrowing choices. Quite a few of the popular titles are still in circulation in […]

Nov, 2018

Silence can be deafening

By: dalbywordpress | Tags: books, dalby library, great reads, New Releases, patriarchy, reading, women | Comments: 0

“Jean McClellan spends her time in almost complete silence, limited to just one hundred words a day. Any more, and a thousand volts of electricity will course through her veins. Now the new government is in power, everything has changed. But only if you’re a woman. Almost overnight, bank accounts are frozen, passports are taken away and seventy million women lose their jobs. Even more terrifyingly, young girls are no longer taught to read or write.” Vox is the debut novel by Christina Dalcher and a great book to read […]

Nov, 2018

Milkman takes the prize

By: dalbywordpress | Tags: author, dalby library, great reads, reading | Comments: 0

“A novel that is at once unlocated and profoundly tethered to place is surely a novel for our times.” Milkman is a tale of gossip and hearsay, silence and deliberate deafness; a story of inaction with enormous consequences and decisions that are never made, but for which people are judged and punished. It is the 2018 winner of the Man Booker prize. Set in a society divided against itself, Milkman explores the insidious forms oppression can take in everyday life. Middle sister is the protagonist and we follow her as she navigates her way through […]

Jan, 2017

Author review – Paula Hawkins

By: dalbywordpress | Tags: author, author review, crime, into the water, myster, paula hawkins, the girl on the train, thriller | Comments: 0

Paula Hawkins was born in 1972 and raised in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). Around 2009, Hawkins began to write romantic comedy fiction under the name Amy Silver, writing four novels including Confessions of a Reluctant Recessionista. She did not achieve any commercial breakthrough until she challenged herself to write a darker, more serious story. Her best-selling novel The Girl on the Train (2015), was a complex thriller, with themes of domestic violence, alcohol, and drug abuse. The novel took her six months, writing full-time, to complete, at a time when she was in a […]

Aug, 2016

Lynda Will be Your New Best Friend

By: Vanessa Ernst | Tags: learning, Lynda | Comments: 0

Did you know that as a member of Western Downs Libraries, you have full and free access to an amaaazing website called Lynda.com? Never heard of it? Well now is your chance to explore the thousands of online video courses available to you from Lynda; all you have to do is create an account by clicking here and you’ll be ready to get started. From courses in software, to ones that will help expand your creative side, or even courses that will develop your business skills, Lynda has it all. Need some […]

Aug, 2016

Have You Met Lynda?

By: Vanessa Ernst | Tags: Lynda | Comments: 0

Western Downs Libraries has partnered with Lynda.com through State Library of Queensland to help all of its members become experts in… well.. anything! If you are a Queensland Public Library member, you have free and unlimited access to thousands of online video courses. If you’re interested in learning a new hobby, developing some professional skills to further your career, or if you just can never quite remember how to do that one thing on your computer, Lynda is for you. Sign up to Lynda today to get started. All you […]