book no. 4 - september 2009

an angel at my table is the second book of Janet Frame's three-volume autobiography, first published in the 1980s and described by Michael Holroyd as 'one of the greatest autobiographies written this century'. It follows her life as a student and years of incarceration in mental hospitals.

In 1984, it won the Non-fiction Prize of the New Zealand Book Awards.

Janet Frame was born in Dunedin in 1924. She was the author of eleven novels, five collections of stories, a volume of poetry and a children's book. She was a Burns Scholar and Sargeson Fellow, and won the New Zealand Scholarship in Letters and the Hubert Church Award for Prose. She was made a CBE in 1983 for services to literature, awarded and honorary doctorate of literature from Otago University in 1978, and one from Waikato University in 1992. She recieved New Zealand's highest civil honour 1990 when she was made a Member of the Order of New Zealand. Janet Frame died in January 2004.

book no.3 - august 2009

Oliver Twist was born in a workhouse and lives there until the day he pleads for more gruel. Cast out into a harsh world, Oliver is taught to survive in London by Fagin and his gang of thieves. But can wits alone overcome poverty on the dangerous city streets?

book no.2 - june 2009

Eighteen-year-old Ram has just got twelve questions correct on a TV quiz show to win a cool one billion rupees.

Q: So why is he sitting in a prison cell?

A: Because the producers have arrested him for cheating.

Q: How can a street-kid from a Mumbai slum know who Shakespeare was if he has never been to school?

Read this book and find out.

Following the order of the twelve questions on the show, Ram tells us which amazing episode in his life taught him the answer to the question. From orphanages to brothels, gangsters to beggar-masters, and into the homes of Bollywood's rich and famous, Slumdog Millionaire brims with the comedy, tragedy, joy and pathos of modern India.

book no.1 - may 2009

As a young boy growing up in pre-Soviet Afghanistan, Amir befriends his servant's son, Hassan. Occupying polar ends of Kabul's social hierarchy, the two boys nevertheless play together and defend each other against neighbourhood bullies. However, during Kabul's annual kite-fighting tournament in the winter of 1975, Amir takes advantage of Hassan's guileless devotion and commits as terrible act of betrayal against him.

THE KITE RUNNER takes listeners on a psychological and spiritual journey with Amir as he becomes a man forced to face the far-reaching, tragic consequences of his disloyalty. Set amidst a culture and a country that existed before the Soviets, before the Taliban, before al Qaeda, and before the U.S invasion, "The Kite Runner" is an enthralling and totally absorbing story about fathers and sons, sin and atonement, injustice and the human yearning for redemption.