Tuesday, December 27, 2011

Day 3 of blogging the twelve days of Christmas #blog12daysxmas

You might have spent yesterday at the cricket, the Boxing Day sales or eating ridiculous amount of leftovers from your Christmas lunch.  By now you might be feeling that there should be more to life than watching men wacking balls around, low quality plastic wares supposedly marked down or inventing new ways to eat cold ham and turkey (turkey tacos, maybe?).

Then you need to get back into reading.

Here's some stimulating brain food to feast on for the summer holidays. Use our catalogue to reserve something today.

1835 : The founding of Melbourne and the conquest of Australia by James Boyce.  Go back in time to see Melbourne from a whole new light with this amazing historian.  Learn how Melbourne was established and how that history might still have an impact on how we see our city today.

Kinglake 350 by Adrian Hyland.  Follow Roger Wood police officer from Kinglake through Black Saturday as he attempts to comprehend the day that changed everything.  Hyland writes fiction and has crafted this nonfiction book deftly to tell the stories of the people of Kinglake.

The magic of reality: how we know what's really true by Richard Dawkins.  Ever contentious Dawkins takes on magic in his new book to get people excited about reality!  He explains how the universe works, what we are made of, how stuff happens and how to love science even if you hated it in high school!  His books are very readable but are great brain food too.

The immortal life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot. Henrietta had some of her cells taken from her during the 1950s without her knowledge. The cells were the first to be grown in a laboratory and are still alive today even though she had been dead for sixty years. They played a vital role in the development of a polio vaccine, cancer research and side effects of the atomic bomb.  This book tracks the authors search for more about this woman's life.

The psychopath test  by Jon Ronson.  This is a book about madness.  How is madness defined and why do people challenge and resist its definition? Jon is inspired by the Psychopath Test and the psychiatrist who developed it to use the test to see if he can spot a psychopath in the corporate world.   The book is funny, insightful and a little scary.



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