The City of Sydney Library is made up of nine branches and two link services. The network caters to office workers and international visitors in the bustling city centre on Sydney Harbour through to local neighbourhoods including Kings Cross, Surry Hills and Newtown.
Its newest libraries offer a state-of-the-art makerspace at Darling Square while Green Square is in one of Australia’s largest urban renewal projects. With a rapidly growing population across the local area, the City of Sydney Library is in an exciting period of change as its services grow with the community.
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SARAH
Library Assistant
What are you reading now?
You Dreamed of Empires by Álvaro Enrigue
Why did you choose this book?
You Dreamed of Empires is set in Mexico in 1519, as the Spanish conquistadors enter the Aztec city of Tenochtitlan (the future Mexico City). I chose this book to read because it’s a time and place I don’t know too much about and haven’t read about before. I was intrigued.
What’s it about?
The subject matter is the famous encounter between the conquistador Hernan Cortes and the Aztec emperor Moctezuma. It’s essentially a clash of cultures, a series of misunderstandings and miscalculations on both sides. But as the novel progresses a more experimental and hallucinatory quality appears, and the concept of time and history implodes.
At one point Moctezuma, terrifically high on psychedelics, glimpses the author Enrigue writing this very novel, as glam rock plays. Excellent stuff!
Are you enjoying it?
Yes, very much. It has a playful tone in parts, and lashings of dark humour. The descriptions of the city and people of Tenochtitlan are gorgeous. I also like that equal weight is given to the experiences of the Spanish and the Indigenous Mexicans (Mexica). Absolutely loving this!
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GAYLE
Team Leader – Outreach and Activities
What are you reading now?
Broken Bay by Margaret Hickey
Why did you choose this book?
I really enjoy reading Australian crime authors, and I found her first book, Cutters End, on a ‘staff picks’ display in the library and was hooked. I’m reading this one before the second in the series, Stone Town, which I’m looking forward to reading after I’ve finished this one.
Hickey also has a standalone mystery, The Creeper, which has recently been published.
What’s it about?
Set on the Limestone Coast of South Australia, Broken Bay is the third book in the ‘Detective Sergeant Mark Ariti’ series.
The detective is in the idyllic seaside town of Broken Bay for a holiday, navigating seasickness and a grumpy hotel owner, when the tragic scene of a cave diver’s drowning in a sinkhole on a local farm uncovers a second body. It is thought to be that of a young local woman who disappeared 20 years before.
After being asked to remain in the town and assist the investigation, he discovers a subsequent murder, which opens up small-town family rivalries and mysteries.
Are you enjoying it?
This is a very engaging book, as was the first book in the series, Cutters End and very enjoyable to read. The descriptions of the landscape make it easy to picture, and the characters are well written and very relatable.
It’s the kind of book you don’t want to put down until you get to the very end, which has made for some late nights!
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HEATHER
Manager Libraries and Learning
What are you reading now?
Cuddy by Benjamin Myers
Why did you choose this book?
It was recommended to me by two readers whose opinions I trust and value.
What’s it about?
Cuddy is based around the corpse of St Cuthbert, the patron saint of the north of England. It tells you a little of the story of his life as a religious leader and hermit but also the unusual story of what happened to him after he died.
This includes the decades-long transportation of his body around the country seeking a place safe from Viking raiders, the formation of the cult of St Cuthbert, the building of a cathedral to house his body and the community that lived around it.
The story is told over about a thousand years and in a variety of styles including historical snippets from near contemporary sources (à la Lincoln in the Bardo), prose, first and second person perspectives. You’ll hear the stories of people whose lives are shaped by being in the presence of his corpse.
Are you enjoying it?
Yes, although the topic is weird and the style is interesting, I’m finding that the stories and descriptions are really taking me to another time and place. I love a book that is both a good read and that I’m learning from it.
I was a bit hesitant to read another Benjamin Myers book after reading Beastings a few years ago, which was excellent, but horrific. I’m glad I got
the recommendation of Cuddy and picked it up.
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RYAN
Library Assistant
What are you reading now?
Foxfire: Confessions of a Girl Gang by JoyceCarol Oates
Why did you choose this book?
I found the book going to seed in our library stack. It hasn’t seen much use lately, which only adds to its appeal. It still has the stamped library card in the front showing the times it was loaned more than 30 years ago. I’ve read some of Joyce Carol Oates’s short stories and they were great, so I thought I’d try a novel. She has written a lot. This one was adapted twice, and I love a good book-to-film comparison.
I’ve been trying to read and watch anything set in New York, especially with a window into history, such as Lucy Sante’s Lowlife and Love Goes to Buildings on Fire by Will Hermes, and films like Smithereens and Ms .45.
What’s it about?
Foxfire is about a girl gang who seek vigilante justice after an attack on one of their own. The gang embarks on a long game of retribution against society. It’s written in the form of a journal with the qualities of an urban myth.
This book was published in 1993 and set in 1950s upstate New York. It’s a time Joyce Carol Oates writes about vividly, conjuring up all the unsettling aspects. She doesn’t shy away from controversial subjects or points of view. At times it’s shocking enough to make the reader question the author’s motives, and whether she’s writing from a place of empathy.
It’s interesting to read Carol Oates’s reflections on the world she knew as a young person in hindsight from 1993, as I read it 30 years later.
Are you enjoying it?
Joyce Carol Oates flips between the terse uncompromising style of her narrator’s journal to the more elaborate passages where the author is using her own voice. Her characters are clearly defined types but hard to get a read on. I like the moral ambiguity. It’s a little dated and jarring in places, which adds to the sense of taboo and danger.
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GABRIELLE
Librarian
What are you reading now?
Cakes and Ale by W Somerset Maugham
Why did you choose this book?
I chose this book because I was reading another book – The House of Doors by Tan Twan Eng. The House of Doors is set in colonial Penang and features ‘Willie’ Somerset Maugham as a character who comes to stay with the family. He is one of the greatest writers of his day but must live a ‘double life’ and mask his true self (his homosexuality) to accommodate the morality of the day.
Reading this book made me think of Somerset Maugham’s own books which I have not read in a long time. I love how reading one book can link you to another.
What’s it about?
Cakes and Ale is Maugham’s own favourite among his works, the one by which he most wished to be remembered. Published in 1930, it’s a satire of London literary society in the interwar years and the story of a writer who gets all his inspiration from his first wife to the horror of his second. Through the persona of Wille Ashenden, Maugham speaks to the reader in a confidential tone and gives the reader a series of self-portraits at various stages of his life.
It showcases Maugham’s acerbic wit and it is charming at the same time. Its themes are love, snobbery and what really lies under the surface of the characters’ behaviour. Maugham draws his characters beautifully, through what they say, what they wear, what they do and how they interact with each other.
Are you enjoying it?
I am enjoying it very much, especially the humour. I will be re-reading more Somerset Maugham novels.
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