"Read this book if: you struggle with your own endurance goals but know you are capable of far greater output. Buy this book for friends who: have a penchant for type II or type III fun. Live for the uphill slog and have big lofty dreams of mammoth ascents." --StillStoked.com

This book arrived yesterday from our book wish list - thank you! I have already told a few students about it who are eager to borrow it.

Training for the Uphill Athlete translates theory into methodology to allow you to write your own training plans and coach yourself to endurance goals. Steve House, one of the best mountaineers, and his coach Scott Johnston, an Olympic-level cross country ski coach, along with Kilian Jornet, hands-down best endurance athlete at this time, present training principles for the multisport mountain athlete who regularly participates in a mix of distance running, ski mountaineering, and other endurance sports that require optimum fitness and customized strength.

This is an authoritative but accessible training manual for athletes and coaches who feel most alive in the mountains or pushing the uphill ascent. Distance running, ski mountaineering, skimo, and skyrunning are becoming increasingly popular all over the world, and are often undertaken by the same person during a single year. This book collects the scientifically backed and athlete-tested wisdom and experience of three of the best uphill athletes and coaches and extrapolates both to educate outdoor athletes of all stripes to perform their best.

"A brilliant, vivd, gripping, heart-stopping account of their terrifying adventure... Superbly written" Sunday Express

"One of the absolute classics of mountaineering...a document of psychological, even philosophical witness of the rarest compulsion" -- George Steiner Sunday Times

"On every level it is an outstanding literary achievement" Independent

"A quite extraordinary and moving book...Touching the Void touches the Great Questions in an understated yet utterly compelling way" Guardian

"A truly astonishing account of suffering and fortitude...the narrative acquires an irresistible force, carrying all before it" Sunday Times

This book also arrived in this week from our book wish list - borrow it while you can!

We have also received in a stash of the diary of a wimpy kid series from our book wish-list, filled with laugh-out-loud humour and cartoons and perfect for those younger or middle year students looking for a light, quick, easy read. No reading snobs in this library - humour and cartoons are a great way to get kids interested in reading. How's your wimpy kid knowledge? Can you answer the quiz?

A young codebreaker at Arlington Hall - the secret WWII Signals Intelligence unit in Washington DC - joins forces with other female codebreakers to hunt a murderer who is killing US government girls. Another page-turning YA thriller from the author of None Shall Sleep, perfect for fans of A Good Girl's Guide to Murder.

'Miss Sutherland … what would you say if I told you I might be able to offer you a job helping the war effort?'

1943. World War II is raging across Europe and on the Pacific front. Kit Sutherland is hiding a huge secret when she is unexpectedly recruited to work as a young codebreaker at Arlington Hall, a US Signals Intelligence facility.

When Kit's roommate doesn't return home from a dance, it sparks a search that ends in a gruesome discovery. And soon it turns into a horrifying pattern: Government girls are being murdered in Washington, DC.

Kit joins forces with three other girl codebreakers, Dottie, Moya and Violet, and as they work to crack the killer's code, two things become terrifyingly clear: the murderer they're hunting is getting closer every moment … and Kit's own secret could put her in more jeopardy than she ever imagined.

When new girl Millie shows up at Lena’s boarding school, she arrives with a question. Why is Lena pretending to be someone she’s not? Lena ignores her. Until Millie shows her photo after photo of someone who looks like her. Exactly like her. Intrigued, Lena agrees to meet her look-alike, Saskia. Saskia is wild. And rich. And money is something Lena desperately needs if her mother is to stay in the care home she currently lives in.

So when Saskia offers Lena cold, hard cash to stand in for her at family events, Lena finds she can’t say no. Sometimes, she doesn’t even want to say no—to the weekends away, the beautiful clothes, the amazing food and Saskia’s on-again-off-again boyfriend, Rhys. Until, of course, she agrees to one last job. The one she definitely should have said no to. Because that job might be the last thing she ever does.

In 2030 a virus is hijacked and mutated into a biological weapon. A lab leak results in a deadly encephalitis virus sweeping the world affecting white people. Searching for help for his sick parents, 17-year-old Stephen enters a time shift to Serendib 2131. An advanced civilisation of coloureds who care for brain damaged white people.

The leader and his 15-year-old apprentice Aletheia offer to help Stephen develop an antidote to the encephalitis super-virus. But Stephen must understand the racist attitudes and prejudices that caused the problem. They take him to where his parent’s money comes from. His mother’s ancestors—slave traders in Virginia 1960; and his father’s in the era of the British colonisation in Sri Lanka. Finally, to 2030 to see the plight of refugees in detention centres.

He returns to 2131 determined to change the course of history. Scientists in Serendib can develop a cure and vaccine using Stephen’s body. It is risky. He agrees. And survives. Stephen returns to 2030. His memory of Serendib wiped but he and his parents work on a cure.

Tim is nearing the end of his final year of secondary school and all he wants is for it to finish. Against his better judgement he agrees to the Principal’s request for him to “buddy up” with Gabriel, a refugee from South Sudan. Two months and it’ll be done, he tells himself. But when both Tim and Gabriel’s father each make one simple, but momentous decision, they are propelled in directions they never imagined they’d go. Murph doesn’t get it, Cat is shocked and angry, and Gabriel is in a coma.

Tim must re-evaluate his relationships with his mother and estranged father and ultimately decide if he’s got everything all wrong, and if there’s any coming back.

Burning with the fires of hope and possibility, AS LONG AS THE LEMON TREES GROW will sweep you up and never let you go.

Salama Kassab was a pharmacy student when the cries for freedom broke out in Syria. She still had her parents and her big brother; she still had her home. She was even supposed to be meeting a boy to talk about marriage.

Now Salama volunteers at a hospital in Homs, helping the wounded who flood through the doors. She knows that she should be thinking about leaving, but who will help the people of her beloved country if she doesn't? With her heart so conflicted, her mind has conjured a vision to spur her to action. His name is Khawf, and he haunts her nights with hallucinations of everything she has lost.

But even with Khawf pressing her to leave, when she crosses paths with Kenan, the boy she was supposed to meet on that fateful day, she starts to doubt her resolve in leaving home at all. Soon, Salama must learn to see the events around her for what they truly are not a war, but a revolution and decide how she, too, will cry for Syria's freedom.

Dust Makers is a collection of short stories about our impact on the world around us. With a focus on simple sustainability, care for the environment and for each other, these stories consider the impact we have on the spaces we live in and the legacy we leave for the future. We want it to be about our consideration of what is around us and what we leave for the future. We want the stories to be contemporary, historical or futuristic with consideration of the impact we make on our environment and on one another.

Fall in love with this feel-good romance about the first messy, chaotic steps into adulthood, from the author of It Sounded Better in My Head.

From the author of the much-loved It Sounded Better It My Head comes a deliciously entertaining new rom-com, set in a run-down student share house in Melbourne.

Eighteen-year-old Brooke is the kind of friend who not only remembers everyone's birthdays, but also organises the group present, pays for it, and politely chases others for their share. She's the helper, the doer, the guarder-of-drinks, the minder-of-bags, the maker-of-spreadsheets. She's the responsible one who always follows the rules—and she plans to keep it that way during her first year of university.

Her new share house only has one rule - 'no unnecessary drama'. Which means no fights, tension, or romance between housemates. When one of her housemates turns out to be Jesse, her high-school nemesis, Brooke is nervously confident she can handle it. They'll simply silently endure living together and stay out of each other's way. But it turns out Jesse isn't so easy to ignore…

Channelling the screwball comedy of New Girl with an enemies-to-lovers twist, Unnecessary Drama is a joyful story about leaving home, dealing with the unexpected complications of life, and somehow finding exactly what you need.

Calendar

See our Calendar on Compass for up-to-date calendar info and to approve/pay for all events. The dates below are indicative only - more details will be posted on Compass when they are available.