Manly Library Afloat turns one!

Manly Library Afloat is one year old! The daily mobile library service for commuters at Manly Wharf has steadily grown in popularity with many regular borrowers making it part of their morning ritual.

The service runs from 7:15 to 9:15 on weekday mornings just outside Manly Wharf.

Come and visit on Friday 4th of April for our birthday celebrations!

Fault lines

by Nancy Huston. Text Publishing, 2007.

Fault Lines is a compelling, touching novel about four generations of children and their parents. Huston captures the complex workings of a child's mind, as they listen and misunderstand what their parents say, often blaming themselves for events beyond their control. Shifting from one point of view to the next, the plot thickens to a searing climax. Describing the end of World War II, Huston writes breathlessly that, "the dreams overflow into the daytime days and nights are reversed…” Fault Lines has a backdrop of war and violence but it is an intimate novel chronicling life's smaller, domestic issues.

Fault lines is a best seller in France, where it won the prestigious Prix Femina in 2006 and is being translated into 16 languages.

It’s a great read.

- Wendy

Heritage Festival 2008

5 - 20 April 2008 Theme: Our Place

The program of events for the 2008 Manly Heritage Festival is listed below.

Brave and Bold: History of Manly Village Public School 1858-2008
March 2008
“Brave and Bold” will be launched at Manly Village School, Corner Darley Road and Wentworth Street, Manly during March 2008. Copies of the book will be available from the school and Manly Library during the Heritage Festival.
Venue: Manly Village Public School. Enquiries: 9977 3066

Manly Heritage Festival Launch
Thursday April 3 2008 6pm
Launch of Heritage Festival in Manly, NSW for 2008. Will include talk by Manly Council Heritage Planners about how heritage relates to everyone in Our Place, Manly. Light refreshments will be provided, plus an opportunity to be amongst the first to view the library’s exhibition “Growing by the Sea” a selection of photographs of Manly Village Public School.
Venue: Manly Library. Bookings: 9976 1732

“Growing by the Sea”: 150 years of Manly Village Public School
3 – 21 April 2008, during Library open hours
An exhibition of photographs of events and people associated with the school over its 150 year history. The photographs for this exhibition have been selected by Professor John Ramsland, author of the official history of the school to be published in March 2008.
Venue: Manly Library. Enquiries: 9976 1732

Family Art Stories
2-4pm Saturday 12 April 2008
An innovative concept by Mike Rubbo encouraging you to create your own family art book which illustrates and tells the ‘stories’ of the artworks in your own collection; how and when they came into your collections, the story of the artists and how generations of your family may have appreciated and enjoyed them over time. Mike will discuss his idea at the Manly Art Gallery & Museum and discuss the layout and content of the Family Art Book. All invited to come along and enjoy afternoon tea.
Venue: Manly Art Gallery & Museum. Enquiries 9949 1776

The Nature of Manly
Exhibition: 4 April 2008 – 16 March 2009
Curator’s Talk: 3-4pm Sunday 13 April
A new museum exhibition which explores Manly’s unique natural environment and how it has changed over time. What has shaped Manly and its basic elements? What changes have occurred both to its natural elements, animals and plants, and to its constructed environment? How have the people living in Manly affected it at different periods? Manly’s latest planning guidelines (Local Environmental Plan) also supplement the exhibition. Curated by Virginia Macleod.
Venue: Manly Art Gallery & Museum. Enquiries: 9949 1776

Return to Manly School
Tuesday 8April 2008, 10am – 12.30pm
Return to Manly School, tours of the school for former pupils and friends. The event will include a talk by Professor John Ramsland, author of the official history of the school to be launched early March 2008.
Venue: Manly Village Public School. Enquiries: 9977 3066

The Corso Heritage Walk
Friday 11April, 11am
Join a walking tour of the main street of Manly, lead by local historian Terry Metherell, revealing the history of this dynamic public thoroughfare. Meet in front of the Manly Council Chambers to begin the tour.
Cost: Free (numbers limited)
Bookings essential: 9976 1722

Seaforth Heritage Walk
Saturday 12April 2008 10.30am
Join a walking tour of the suburb of Seaforth, lead by local historian Brian McAteer.
Meet at the Balgowlah/ Seaforth Library to begin the tour.
Cost: Free (numbers limited)
Bookings essential: 9976 1722

Manly Congregational Church Organ Recital
Manly Congregational Church, Whistler Street
Listen to an hour-long organ recital and take the opportunity to view this historic church.
10 and 17 April 2008. Recitals at 2.30pm, church open for viewing 9am to 5pm (until 8pm on 17 April) and for worship from 9am to 10.30am and 7pm to 8pm.
Free. Enquiries 9938 3785

Manly Cemetery Heritage Walk
Wednesday 16 April 2008. 10am and 10.30am
Join one of two guided walks around Manly Cemetery led by Terry Metherell and Adele Heasman.
Meet: Manly Cemetery (numbers limited)
Cost: Free
Bookings essential: 9976 1722

Further information on the National Trust Heritage Festival 2008 is avalable on the Nation Trust website:
http://www.nsw.nationaltrust.org.au/events/festival/

Ann Skea interviewed

Fantastic and prolific contributor of reviews to Novel Ideas, Ann Skea, was interviewed on Wednesday's Radio National Book Show on ABC Radio. She discusses the poetry of Ted Hughes. The audio is available to stream and download here: http://www.abc.net.au/rn/bookshow/stories/2008/2175268.htm

Romantic links

Romance fiction counts for about 26.4% of all books sold in the US. And there are about 150 new titles published each week! If you’ve ever wanted a romance book without all the ‘graphic’ bits (or alternatively with lots of graphic bits) this site http://www.theromancereader.com/ features reviews with ratings (i.e. PG, R, NC-17). And not for the faint hearted is this site with very colourful language: http://www.smartbitchestrashybooks.com/ featuring reviews and articles.

Musicophilia

by Oliver Sacks. Pan Macmillan, 2007.

Reviewed by Ann Skea.

Do you suffer from earworms or brainworms? Most of us do. They are those fragments of music which repeat themselves endlessly in our heads, sometimes (as Oliver Sacks notes) "maddeningly, for days on end". In advertising, television and film, music is often designed to do just that. What is needed, these industries believe, is a catchy tune which no-one will forget. And how often do you find that some advertising jingle seems to be stuck in your brain?

"All of us, to some degree, have music in our heads", writes Sacks: but thankfully not all of us are possessed by music as are some of the people in Musicophilia. Some suffer musical hallucinations, hearing loud music just as if a radio had been left on. Some experience music as part of a pre-epileptic aura. One man, a surgeon, after being struck by lightning, dying and being resuscitated, became so obsessed with piano music that his whole life was devoted to satisfying that obsession. He taught himself to play the piano, took music lessons, and learned notation so that he could write down the tunes he heard in his head. Even a second, serious head injury did not change his obsession and, although he still practiced as a surgeon, musicophilia dominated his life.

Music, it seems is more deeply embedded in us than language. It stirs the emotions, alters our movements, sooths compulsive ticks and remains as a musical memory even in the most deeply amnesic people or in those isolated by disease and dementia. Sacks, in his work as a neurosurgeon, has seen the value of music in people suffering from Tourette's syndrome. He has seen its co-ordinating power in patients with mental and physical disabilities. And he has experimented with the use of music therapy in patients with Altzheimers and other sorts of dementia. He describes the astonishment of seeing deeply demented, mentally isolated, uncommunicative people respond and become alert when music is being played: people who never speak sing along with tunes they recognize, faces become unfrozen, immobile patients start to move. And he observes and describes the effects of music on many other very different conditions.

A glance at the chapter headings in this book suggests the wide range of areas and conditions in which Sacks has studied the effects of music: musical savants, Cochlear Amusia, Musician's Dystonia, Parkinson's Disease, aphasia, dysharmonia, Tourette's Syndrome, Williams Syndrome, hypermusicality, depression, musical dreams, emotional response - all these and more are discussed in the context of music and brain function, but in language and in a style which most readers will understand and enjoy.

Many of the case-histories in this book are fascinating and Sacks's seemingly boundless curiosity, excitement and sympathy are readily apparent in his writing. He is (understandably, since he is a neurosurgeon) what philosophers call a 'Mechanist'. For him, every aspect of our experience has some physical basis, is related to some particular brain function or neurological activity, and our response to music, miraculous as it seems in some instances, is no exception. He explores the many wonders he describes in this book with scientific rigour, and for the non-scientific reader this can be dry and difficult at times, although Sacks keeps his science as simple and non-technical as possible. If you are not a Mechanist, you might argue that not everything about music has yet been scientifically explained. Sacks would agree but he is sure that eventually it will be. So, if you wish to take spiritual comfort from the very similar things which people describe after near-death and out-of-body experiences (both of which are discussed in this book) you may need to do what the lightning-struck, musicophilic surgeon eventually did when he refused to have his condition analysed further, and chose, instead, to simply accept the mysteries of his experience and the grace and blessings of the music which changed his life.

And if you are not a Mechanist, there is much to ponder in this book. What, for example, is one to make of the most deeply amnesic patient, who cannot remember anything at all from one minute to the next, and yet is able to sight-read a musical score, play and improvise on the piano, and even conduct a choir through an entire musical score with intelligence, skill and feeling? His behaviour is anything but automatic and he seems totally present and engaged, yet he remembers nothing at all once the music stops? What, too, of the fact that although he has no memory of any previous moment, he knows at times that something in him is 'broken'?

Music, for the ancient philosophers, was what connected us with the Divine Source. Its harmonies created and shaped our world. And in spite of everything science has discovered about the brain, in spite of increasingly sophisticated tools which can map the minute areas of the brain which respond to music, its mystery remains. Whatever way we choose to explain its powers, however, the therapeutic value of music is immense, as Sacks convincingly demonstrates in this book. And his own "old-fashioned" method of close observation of his patients and imaginative empathy with their experiences, allied to clinical, scientific analysis, is not only necessary for our understanding and use of the therapeutic power of music, it is what makes Musicophilia such a warm, human, humane and valuable book.

- Ann Skea.

The battle

by Patrick Rambaud. Grove Press, 2000.

In recent years there have been some thrilling additions to the list of great novels about warfare, in particular Tim Willocks’ The Religion, about the Siege of Malta, and Stephen Pressfield’s Gates of Fire, about the Spartans at Thermopylae. Of comparable stature is Patrick Rambaud’s The Battle, originally published in French, which won several major literary prizes including the Prix Goncourt. It tells the story of the Battle of Aspern-Essling, in May 1809. Napoleon’s army takes on the armies of the Austro-Hungarian Empire near Vienna, at the villages of Aspern and Essling. With their backs to the swollen River Danube, the French troops find themselves overwhelmed by the Austrians’ sheer manpower. Over the course of the two days of the battle, over 40,000 men died in the fierce hand-to-hand combat. Rambaud excels at depicting the battle scenes in all their brutality and randomness. He is less interesting in scenes which feature the young Henri Beyle, who later was to find fame as the novelist Stendhal, but he paints a convincing picture of Napoleon, over-confident and on the verge of his first major reversal.

For those of us whose grasp of Napoleonic warfare only consists of the Retreat from Moscow and Waterloo, this gripping novel adds considerably to our knowledge.

- John.