Murder is a messy business

Yes, April is murder. Lock the doors, close the curtains and curl up with a killer.

Murder is a messy business. The motivations behind committing murder can be complicated. The murder weapon needs to be considered, a pistol perhaps? Or, the ubiquitous blunt instrument? The location and the timing of the murder need to be carefully planned. Witnesses are to be avoided. An alibi has to be constructed. Then, of course, the question of what to do with the body must be answered.

If murder is so difficult, why is it so fascinating?

Crime fiction is the world’s largest genre. One of the reasons for this is that crime fiction writers have so successfully capitalised on the appeal factors of reading: character; language; setting; and story. Many crime fiction readers are very familiar with these appeal factors: the numerous characters from cerebral sleuths who can solve a crime in their living room over a cup of tea (Edgar Allan Poe, Arthur Conan Doyle) to weapon wielding heroes who track cup of tea (Edgar Allan Poe, Arthur Conan Doyle) to weapon wielding heroes who track down villains on foot in darkened alleyways (James M Cain, Raymond Chandler, Peter Corris, Dashiell Hammett); the language of the cultured conversations from the novels of the genre’s Golden Age between World Wars I and II (Margery Allingham, Agatha Christie, Ngaio Marsh, Dorothy L Sayers) to the hard-hitting terminology of forensic procedurals (Patricia Cornwell, Gabrielle Lord, Kathy Reichs) and legal procedurals (Sydney Bauer, John Grisham, Scott Turow); the settings that range from Australian towns and cities (Shane Maloney, Peter Temple, Arthur Upfield) to glamorous locations around the world (Ian Fleming, Patricia Highsmith); and the diversity of detective stories from the classic locked room (John Dickson Carr, Fergus Hume) to modern day military thrillers (Tom Clancy, Matthew Reilly). Crime fiction also covers the continuum of stories that focus on solving the crime (G K Chesterton, P D James, Ellis Peters) to works that explicitly detail criminal acts (James Ellroy, Thomas Harris, Mo Hayder). There is, quite simply, a dead body for every reader.

So, this April read a work of crime fiction. If you are already familiar with the genre try a sub-genre or author you have not read before. If you are new to crime fiction then you're about to find out that as a great read, crime does pay.

What are your favourite crime related reads? Any films or games? What are the blogs, twitter streams or magazines you read for #crimeread? Any apps which form part of your #crimeread enviroment?

There will be a live twitter discussion on 30 April starting at 8.00pm Australian Eastern Standard Time. 9.00pm New Zealand Time, 6.00pm Singapore Standard Time, 12.00 noon Central European Summer Time. Note : this is a staggered start to the discussion.

Use the tags #crimeread and #rwpchat as you discuss the reading, watching playing that is your experience of crimeread, so others can join in the conversation too.
Rachel Franks @rachel franks

Eco reads at your library

2013 is the International Year of Water Cooperation.
March is celebrating #ecoread, where you can discuss all your ideas of ecology, environment, water use and conservation, whatever you think fits as an #ecoread.

How do you recycle or reuse your reading, watching and playing?

 

Libraries are part of a sustainable solution as you do not need to own everything you read.

What does #ecoread make you think of? Is is recycling/upcycling? Is it science fiction with tales of worlds destroyed because of overuse of resources?

What are your favourite water related reads? Any films or games? What are the blogs, twitter streams or magazines you read for #ecoreads? Any apps which form part of your #ecoread enviroment?

Don't forget our twitter chat on 26 March starting at 8.00pm Australian Eastern Daylight Time. 9.00pm New Zealand Daylight Time, 6.00pm Singapore Standard Time, 12.00 noon Central European Summer Time. Note : this is a staggered start to the discussion.

Use the tags #ecoread and #rwpchat as you discuss the reading, watching playing that is your experience of ecoread, so others can join in the conversation too.

You can add your pins to this board on Pinterest (once you follow it and we add you as a pinner) for #ecoread too. Please use #rwpchat in the text of items which you pin.

Love love love February

Is there anything better in this world than that rush of adrenaline, that natural high at the feeling of love? For the reader and viewer, genuine, swooning, pulse-racing, fever inducing, gleeful, heartful love can be so much fun.This month you could start at historical romance and indulge yourself in Julia Quinn’s On the Way to the Wedding. Or you could watch Shakespeare in Love or oh-so-many versions of Pride and Prejudice. If you prefer contemporary reads there are some wonderful characterisations in Rachel John’s Jilted. Susan Elizabeth Phillips' books pull at the heart strings with their depth of emotions that have you wrought by the end of her books. As for film and movies who can go past the hilarity of Coupling, the sweetness of Amelie.There are so many heartreads out there – this will be a month full of love.
Don't forget to join our live twitter discussion on 26 February starting at 8.00pm Australian Eastern Daylight Time. 9.00pm New Zealand Daylight Time, 6.00pm Singapore Standard Time, 12.00 noon Central European Time.  Everyone is welcome.

Use the tags #heartread and #rwpchat as you discuss the reading, watching playing that is your experience of love and romance, so others can join in the conversation too.

Best loved books - reread

This January it’s time to pick up your favourite book and read it again, read a controversial book for a second time a decade later, or reread a book you first read at 16 at 30 or 60 to see if it still has the same impact or has improved on re-reading. Or, consider re-watching that favourite movie or television series, re-playing (again) that game which had you hooked so many years/months/weeks/days ago.
So if you’re hot at the beach, or curled up in front of a fire place during the coldest month of the year – January is the time to reconsider and reflect upon our reading, watching and/or playing.

Here’s a few of our favourite rereads :

Cloudstreet by Tim Winton

The year after by Martin Davies
Truth and The broken shore by Peter Temple
All creatures great and small by James Herriot
In the skin of a lion by Michael Ondaatje
Journey to the stone country by Alex Miller
Northern lights by Philip Pullman
Spirit House by Mark Dapin
The Obernewtyn Chronicles by Isobellle Carmody
and it’s always reread time for Jane Austen

 We have some favourite rewatches too:

Babe

Star wars
Men in black
Grease
Big bang theory
and anything by Jane Austen

Love to read!

This is the last month of the National Year of Reading, so we are celebrating what you love to read.

Is it

• devouring a book cover to cover, and then starting at the beginning again
• poring through each recipe, and the stories in between
• exploring the repair manual so you can fix your car
• discovering the story in the game so you understand the game
• watching the episodic movie breaks between one game level and the next to experience the story
• tweets
• blogs
• signs
• information to get stuff done
• information for fun
• in any format any time
• facts and figures
• lifesaving or death defying
• therapeutic
• relaxing
• searching flickr images
• flicking through pages, just reading a few words
• watching the faces in the crowd as an author/storyteller engages the audience in their story
• reading in games

Is it

• fun, sad, traumatic, confusing, fast, slow, episodic, continual
• collaborative
• participatory
• exclusive
• inclusive

I’m reading when I check my email, I’m reading while I download songs, I’m reading when I sort my bills from the ones I must pay now to the ones that can wait a little longer. The act of reading is an everyday activity. The act of taking time out to read the story behind the recipe, the description of the engine space, the context of the game.

I read while I’m driving, not just street signs and maps but also the behaviour of the cars/drivers around me – are they going to pass or not? I’m also reading fuel gauges and speedos to provide added context to my driving.

Is it reading on paper, on a screen, on t-shirts, signs, or buildings.

What do you love2read? Where do you love2read?

So while the  National Year of Reading 2012  will finish at the end of December,  the Readers Advisory blog will return in 2013 at this address http://readwatchplay.wordpress.com. More great monthly themes, more great suggestions. The monthly Twitter Reading Group will continue to meet on the last Tuesday of the month 8pm AEST. The library website remains at www.library.wsc.nsw.gov.au

Merry Christmas from the library, may your stocking be filled with Good Reads.

Crying in November

Boo hoo, the National Year of Reading is nearly over. There’s no need to cry over this though … This year is the beginning of a big adventure with life long reading!

Back to November though, and crying...  Books make us cry for lots of different reasons. It's not always the fault of the onions you are chopping up as you prepare that great new recipe you have just read (try wearing goggles next time, it’s guaranteed to make the rest of your family cry with laughter!).

If you want to be miserable tough,  well, there’s nothing like a good cry, you always feel better afterwards…

So, tissues at the ready, here’s a list of books that made us cry:

Believe: a horseman’s journey by Buck Brannaman

Call the midwife: a true story of the East End in the 1950s by Jennifer Worth

The colour purple by Alice Walker

Finding Jack by Garth Crocker

The horse whisperer by Nicholas Evans

Jessica by Bryce Courtenay

Light between oceans by M L Stedman

Me before you by Jojo Moyes

The mother’s group by Fiona Higgins

My sister’s keeper by Jodi Picoult

PS I love you by Cecelia Ahern
 

Sowing the seeds of love by Tara Heavey

The time traveller’s wife by Audrey Niffeneger

A woman of substance: the life and works of Barbara Taylor Bradford
 

So, tissues at the ready let’s cry our way through November...sob...

 

Exploring October

       

·       Explore the past, and read about ancient, modern or own your family history  -who knows what skeletons you may find rattling around in the closet!
·       Explore the present. The here and now, fact and fiction. You might like to explore a genre you haven’t read before. If you usually read romance, try reading adventure, or about pirates! Why not read more about Australian explorers.
·       Explore the endless possibilities of the future. Now’s the time to read some science fiction, with its fantastic yet possible and plausible worlds and futures.
·       Explore new technologies to find new ways to read. Download a book and read it on an ereader, follow your favourite authors on twitter, find some facts in databases, or in an e-textbook on your tablet. Use your smartphone to read about the latest breaking news as it happens.
·       Explore new countries and cultures by reading a travel guide, or try learning a new language-oui?
·        Explore what’s out there, whether it’s the outback of Australia or outer space.
·       Explore everything and anything. If it’s out there, you can read about it.
At you library too...