Top 5 most requested titles for February 2011

List by Danielle and Natalie

"Popularity is the one insult I have never suffered."

~ Oscar Wilde

New titles by best-selling authors take up the majority of places on our list this month, rather than the books-into-movies heavyweights which often take out top spots. Speaking of which, if the recent Oscars made you curious enough to check out some of the books behind the hit films, here are some handy links:

True grit /Charles Portis
The accidental billionaires : sex, money, betrayal and the founding of Facebook / Ben Mezrich(The basis for 'The social network')
The King's speech : how one man saved the British Monarchy / Mark Logue and Peter Conradi(also have a look at Natalie's History and Current Events eNewsletter which discusses this film and King George VI)
127 hours: between a rock and a hard place / Aron Ralston

Winter's bone / Daniel Woodrell

Rabbit hole / David Lindsay-Abaire

Top 5 good childhood reads by Kiwi authors

List by Danielle

"At the same time, I think books create a sort of network in the reader's mind, with one book reinforcing another. Some books form relationships. Other books stand in opposition. No two writers or readers have the same pattern of interaction."
~ Margaret Mahy

NZ Book Month, salutations!

Things were pretty great for a budding fantasy reader in the 70s and 80s. Treasured and much re-read titles on my bookshelf included Susan Cooper's The Dark is Rising series, Tanith Lee's Companions on the Road and East of Midnight, Richard Adams' Watership Down, and a battered old ex-library copy of Diana Wynne Jones' The Power of Three. Alongside mostly British fare, Kiwi authors also provided some of my favourite childhood fantasy reads, as well as the less fantastical tales that gave me recognisable settings and characters I could relate to, as I lived through their adventures with them.