Rugby and Football

  Location: NF 796.33

Genre: The Heroes of Rugby and Football

Look back at an amazing year in football with the No.1 football series - over 3 million copies sold! Relive the GOALS, GAMES and GLORIES of the 2024-2025 season. This BUMPER SPECIAL EDITION is packed with stories of football heroes from across the world, plus stats and quizzes to test your knowledge - it's the ultimate yearbook for fans of the beautiful game!

Here is an exciting collection of biographies of 50 rugby greats for young fans. It is co-written by Matt Oldfield, the author of Ultimate Football Heroes, and Maggie Alphonsi, former England rugby international and now sports commentator. Perfect reading for the Women's Rugby World Cup in 2025, here are some of sporting heroes, past and present, it includes: Gareth Edwards, Eben Etzebeth, Jonah Lumo, Ellie Kildunne, Johnny Sexton, Emily Scarratt, Richie McCaw, Ardie Savea....

The Tomorrow project

 By: H Crichton  

Location: FIC CRI

Genre: Dystopia

‘A heady mix of heartache and hope, love and loss, in a world that’s splitting at the seams... I couldn’t come up for air till I turned the last page’ Robert Rutherford

The unmissable new speculative novel for fans of Station Eleven, The End We Start From and The Last of Us. When the end comes, what will you wish you had done? In 2050s London, fear grips like a vice as a deadly virus sweeps the globe. The British prime minister tells her people to remain calm. A vaccine will be available soon, and as a precautionary measure children will be whisked away to undisclosed locations, kept safe until the storm passes.

Marianne, Downing Street press secretary, doesn’t realise the futility until it is far, far too late. When the truth hits her, Marianne is forced to stay with her family, or do whatever she can to help the doomed survive.

As London falls, seven-year-old Maia is one of the last to escape the city. In an evacuation camp, she binds herself to in the absence of everything she knew, he becomes her everything.

Yet as the years roll on and hope fades, Maia sees the bubble of safety is also a prison. She realises there is only one to leave the camp and find what remains on the outside.

An utterly compelling and unforgettable tale of humanity, resilience and the lengths we will go to for love. The Tomorrow Project is the stunning first novel from H Critchlow.

Praise for The Tomorrow Project ‘Powerful and disturbing’ Harriet Tyce

‘Thrilling, heartbreaking, tense... I was immediately and incessantly caught up in it’ James Delargy

‘Dark, vivid and beautifully written, The Tomorrow Project is a poignant, immersive novel about a future that spools out in terrifying clarity. It's also a novel about bravery and hope - and it will make you cry’ Rachel Wolf

An Inconvenience of Penguins

 By: Jamie Lafferty  

Location: NF 598.47 LAF

Genre: Penguins and Travel!

The perfect mix of education, humour and reality.

The problem started, as problems often do, with a penguin.

From Kings and Emperors to Macaronis and Rockhoppers, penguins are one of the most immediately recognisable animals Earth. Yet for all that familiarity, what do we really know about them? An Inconvenience of Penguins follows award-winning travel writer Jamie Lafferty as he visits all 18 species in a bid to understand the birds and their extraordinarily varied habitats a little better. On voyages to some of the world's most inaccessible and challenging landscapes, he recounts the history of our unique relationship with the world's most popular bird, telling stories of the penguins, but also the people and places around them.

From getting stranded in the Galapagos to marching through African guano fields, and leading photography groups in the Antarctic to taking psychedelics on the Falklands, this is a birding quest like no other. Along the way Lafferty relives the experiences of early polar explorers, for who penguins were perplexing mysteries, welcome companions and even occasional meals, and meets the modern penguin lovers trying to save their fragile environments.

Featuring cameos from a wide cast of characters including Ernest Shackleton, Charles Darwin, and Sir Francis Drake, as well as beautiful photographs of each penguin species, An Inconvenience of Penguins is part-love letter to and part-biography of these remarkable creatures.

Crux

By: Gabriel Tallent   

Location: FIC TAL

Genre: Realistic Fiction and Rock Climbing

n this story of intense friendship and grit, two down-and-out teens escape the hopelessness of their lives and chase a different future through rock-climbing -- from the New York Times bestselling author of My Absolute Darling.

Dan and Tamma are two teenagers in their last year of high school in the southern Mojave Desert. One is a gifted golden child, the other a mouthy burnout. Climbing boulders in trash-strewn parking lots during cold desert nights, they seal their unique bond and dream of a life of adventure.

As the year progresses and adult reality looms, they are rocked by change and pulled apart by irreconcilable obligations. Differences of class, talent, and prospects take on new importance; options dwindle, and their decisions grow ever more consequential and perilous. It feels inevitable, finally, that something must give.

With a magnificent gift for nature writing and a joyful appreciation for the redemptive power of friendship, Gabriel Tallent gives readers a rollicking, adrenaline-filled, and soul-searching novel about risking everything to change your life.

Review by Candian Jen

Tallent has a talent for writing these incredibly shocking but gritty stories about life & relationships.

Two teens on the verge of adulthood trying to figure out their life paths. They grew up just outside the desert in squalor. Best friends who love to climb; it gives them identity. But as they end their final year of HS, they are blindsided with decisions they need to make rather than ones they want.

Tallent’s writing is sharp. His characters as edgy as the ragged cliffs they climb.
The bedraggled Tamma, a lesbian, who has had an abusive upbringing. She is rude, crude but has the passion for the climb. Dan, the brilliant nerd, has realized he has an opportunity Tamma doesn’t. One that will take him away from the rocks and his best friend.
Crux is a layered story of hardships, ambitions, life decisions and friendships.

There is a lot of technical jargon here so the Crux of this is, it won’t be a climb for everyone.

Ghost Camera

 By: Darcy Coates

Location: FIV COA

Genre: Horror

SHORT STORIES

When Jenine finds an abandoned polaroid camera, she playfully snaps a photo without a second thought. But there's something wrong with the image: a ghostly figure stands in the background, watching her.

Fixated on her.

Moving one step closer with every picture she takes.

Desperate, Jenine shares her secret with her best friend, Bree. Together they realize the camera captures unsettling impressions of the dead. But now the ghosts seem to be following the two friends. And with each new photo taken, a terrible danger grows ever clearer…

*A woman survives a plane crash in a remote arctic tundra, accompanied only by a stranger who seems fixated on something moving through the blinding snow.

* A house stands empty. Hungry. Waiting for the children drawn to it like moths to a flame.

*A woman finds a shoebox filled with old VHS tapes. They have a note attached: "Don't watch. You'll regret it."

Lost Camera " by Darcy Coates is generally described as spooky, unsettling, and atmospheric rather than being a high-gore "slasher" style of horror. It leans heavily into psychological tension and the "creepy" factor of spirits appearing in photographs

Triggers: 

• Graphic: Death, violence, blood.
• Moderate: Body horror, child death (in specific stories), and confinement.
• Minor: Animal cruelty or death (specifically in "A Box of Tapes")

Bad Bad Place

 By: Frances Crawford  

Location: FIC CRA

Genre: Mystery

A gritty and poignant debut about a young working-class girl in 1979 Glasgow who happens upon the body of a murdered woman—and must face an insular community desperate for answers, as well as herself.

Glasgow, 1979: If it hadn’t been for her wee stupid dog, Sid Vicious, twelve-year-old Janey Devine might never have stumbled upon the corpse of Samantha Watson. And then maybe she’d still be able to sleep at night. And maybe her nana wouldn’t be so worried all the time. And maybe Billy “The Ghost” Watson, a notorious gangster, wouldn’t be on her tail—for it’s Billy’s daughter who was left for dead on those train tracks, and now Billy wants answers.

Fear and gossip have spread through the tight-knit community of Possilpark, and while Janey swears she can’t remember the details of that morning, the cops think she’s hiding something—and indeed, there’s something she knows that she’s not quite ready to tell anyone, not even her nana, who won’t rest until this whole thing is behind them.

Shot through with remarkable humor, Frances Crawford’s stunning debut is a coming-of-age whodunit, an intimate portrait of a working-class neighborhood that weaves Janey’s innocent candor and her nana’s hard-earned wisdom into a sweeping tale of grief and survival that marks the arrival of a major new voice in crime fiction.

Review from Caroline:

A Bad, Bad Place is a good, good book. Actually, scratch that, because it's not merely good, it's bloody brilliant. It's crime fiction done different, and that's what makes it stand out. How is it done different, I hear you cry. Well, instead of being told from the point of view of the police tasked with investigating the murder, it's told from the POV of the child who discovered the body, and her nana, Maggie. 🐕‍🦺
Meet wee Janey, who is 12 years old, and, had the misfortune of finding the body of a young woman, whilst out walking her dog. Actually, it was said dog, Sid Vicious (I kid you not) who found the deceased. 🐕‍🦺
From this point on we follow Janey as she becomes more and more withdrawn. The trauma of her discovery is apparent, as she tries to reassemble her memories of that day. 🐕‍🦺
Maggie's POV sheds more light on how Janey is coping, and gives us the family's backstory. 🐕‍🦺
Set in Glasgow in the late 1970's, A Bad, Bad Place is gritty and dark, but there is a black humour within. The characters are well fleshed out, and most of them are likeable. 🐕‍🦺
I loved this book. It was, hands down, one of my favourite books this year.

Love on Sight

 By: Asli Jensen  

Location: FIC JEN

Genre: Romance

A universal story that will resonate far and wide, Love
on Sight captures the heat and hope of the city,
and the magic of falling in love for the first time .

Sabrina has her life planned out – she’s going to
pass her A levels and go to university. But then she meets Jalaal,
a boy trapped on the wrong path, desperate for a way out.


An English Jamaican girl and a Somali Muslim boy being together
isn’t straightforward, with cultural expectations, disapproving
family and religious differences to overcome.


But is that the struggle you face when you fall in love on sight?

Explores themes of family, culture, friendship, redemption,
class, faith and different forms of love in a fresh and authentic
style, which will resonate universally.

Selina said...

I loved everything about this book, to start with loved the font it’s written in, the story was relatable loved the characters in the book. The book touched on so many different topic without going too deep just enough to make you think. Could see this story on a Netflix series. Can’t wait to read more from this author.