Win 2 free tickets to our wonderful Wine Tasting Evening!

On Friday 29th July, Cardiff Central Library is hosting a Wine Tasting Evening - doors open at 7, corks pop shortly thereafter.

Tickets for this event are retailing at the very reasonable price of £10.00, but you Dear Readers, you have the opportunity to win 2 of these much sought-after items!

"How, oh how?" I hear you cry.  Well, I'll tell you.

All you have to do is answer these six easy questions and email your answers to centrallibrary@cardiff.gov.uk

And to make life even easier for you, I'm allowed to tell you that all answers can be found via our e-Reference resources here.


Right, here we go -

1. What is the difference between Syrah and Shiraz?
2. What is terroir?
3. Who painted "Bacchus and Drinker"?
4. In which country would you find Rioja?
5. The Master of Wine, Mrs.N. L. Lander is better known as who?
6. What is phylloxera?

Judges decisions are final (unless you're bigger than us), and will NOT be influenced by envelopes of unmarked, small denomination notes with non-sequential numbers left in a phonebox and/or supermarket car-park.

All correct entries will be placed in The Library Hat and a winner drawn on 22nd July.

Good luck.

I'm finding this quite exciting!  Must get out more.

Cardiff Central Library Author Event - Kris Taylor.

When she was four years old in 1917, Ruth’s German mother abandoned her and her brother in a children’s home in Dresden. When her Jewish father came there to reclaim his children two years later, Ruth was influenced by the matron to reject him. She never saw him again.

At fourteen she left the children’s home to become a Haustochter, and spent the next eleven years in various domestic posts. Despised as a half Jew, she escaped from Nazi Germany just eight weeks before the beginning of WWII, to become a refugee in England.

This book, written by her daughter, chronicles Ruth’s life in Germany, England and Wales. Struggling against poverty all her life, her fortune was dramatically changed by a very large inheritance from a totally unexpected source when she was eighty two.

Throughout her life she regretted her rejection of her father, and expressed a desire to know what had become of him. This led to her daughter’s ten year search, a DNA test, and an astonishing discovery.

Join Kris at the author event at the Central Library this Wednesday.

Happy feet! I've got those happy feet!

Don't forget the Dance Around the World event at Cardiff Central Library tomorow!

Here's the full programme -

12.00 - June Campbell-Black
12.20 - Appalachian dancing
12.50 - Chinese Fan dancing
1.10 - Bengali dancing
1.35 - Flamenco
2.00 - Zumba
2.30 - Street dancers
2.40 - Hip Hop
3.00 - Ceroc
3.30 - Portoguese dancing
4.00 - Latin American
4.30 - Bollywood dancing

Something there for everyone I think!

Young and funny? (Ha ha, not odd odd!)

Hello Everybody!

After the success of last year's comedy evening and the recent Laughing Matters 50+ event, we are once more offering anyone between the ages of 15 and 19 the opportunity to learn how to be a Stand Up Comedian in our workshops which will be taking place between Monday 18th July and Thursday 21st July right here at Cardiff Central Library. We are also offering those that attend the workshop the chance to perform in front of a live audience at the end of it all on July 22nd. 

If you are interested in attending the workshops, please contact Nicola Richards on nrichards@cardiff.gov.uk or telephone 02920780980. 

The details of the Free Stand Up Comedy event to be held at Cardiff Central Library at 7.00 on July 22nd will follow shortly...

Come and make us laugh - double dog-dare you!

"Hello darkness my old friend ..."

Hush, hush, whisper who dares - next week is Noise Action Week, and in celebration (if that's the word), we've put together a list of related books and dvds we've got in stock that may be of interest to discerning readers.

• Zero decibels : the quest for absolute silence by George Michelsen Foy
• The unwanted sound of everything we want : a book about noise by Garret Keizer
• In pursuit of silence : listening for meaning in a world of noise by George Prochnik
• A book of silence by Sarah Maitland
• Manifesto for silence : confronting the politics and culture of noise by Sim Stuart

And for those of you who enjoy a little spirituality with your silence, we have two critically acclaimed dvd documentaries in stock.

• Into great silence, you can read a review here
• No greater love, and here

And as for music - well, there's always John Cage's 4'33".

If anyone can think of any other interesting and appropriate material, please let us know.

Llyfr y Flwyddyn 2011 – Rhestr Hir y Llyfrau Cymraeg

Cyhoeddodd Llenyddiaeth Cymru Restr Hir Llyfr y Flwyddyn 2011 ar Ddydd Mercher 13 o Ebrill 2011. Gwobrwyir £10,000 yr un i awduron y gyfrol orau yn Gymraeg a’r gyfrol orau yn Saesneg.

Dyma’r  Rhestr Hir Cymraeg –

• Cyffesion Geordie Oddi Cartref gan Tony Bianchi
• Ar Fôr Tymhestlog gan Elin Haf
• Hugh Griffith gan Hywel Gwynfryn
• Gwenddydd gan Jerry Hunter
• Cân yr Alarch gan William Owen
• Caersaint gan Angharad Price
• Lladd Duw gan Dewi Prysor
• Murmuron Tragwyddoldeb a Chwningod Tjioclet gan Gwyn Thomas
• Bydoedd: Cofiant Cyfnod gan Ned Thomas
• Creigiau Aberdaron gan Gareth F Williams

Datgelir y Rhestr Fer o dair cyfrol Cymraeg a thair cyfrol Saesneg ddydd Iau 19 Mai 2011 mewn dau ddigwyddiad arbennig a gynhelir ar yr un pryd yn Galeri Caernarfon, a Bar Espresso John Lewis, Caerdydd.

Cyhoeddir yr enillwyr mewn seremoni wobrwyo a gynhelir nos Iau 7 Gorffennaf 2011 yn Cineworld, Caerdydd. 

Cliciwch ar y teitlau i weld os oes copiau ar gael i’w benthyca ar hyn o bryd yn Llyfrgelloedd Caerdydd.

Diolch

Wales Book of the Year 2011 - English language longlist.

Literature Wales announced the Long List of Wales Book of the Year 2011 on Wednesday 13 April 2011. The awards, worth £10,000 to the winners, are presented to the authors of the best books of the year in English and Welsh.

The English language longlist is -

• Clay by Gladys Mat Coles (fiction)
• IntoSuez by Stevie Davies (fiction)
• Cloud Road by John Harrison (non-fiction)
• Fireball by Tyler Keevil (fiction)
• Jilted city by Patrick McGuinness (poetry)
• What the water gave me by Pascale Petit (poetry)
• Terminal world by Alastair Reynolds (fiction - Large Print only at the moment)
• In the frame by Dai Smith (non-fiction)
• In the shadow of the pulpit by M. Wynne Thomas (non-fiction)
• Doctor Placebo by Alan Wall (poetry)

The Short List of three English language books and three Welsh language books will be revealed simultaneously at two special events held at Galeri Caernarfon and John Lewis' Espresso Bar, Cardiff on Thursday 19 May 2011.


The winners of the 2011 Wales Book of the Year will be announced at a prize-giving ceremony on Thursday 7 July 2011, Cineworld, Cardiff.


As usual, just click on the titles to check on availibility in Cardiff Libraries, and gaps will be filled as soon as possible.


We thank you.

Orange Prize 2011 Shortlist Announced - and here it is.

The Orange Prize for Fiction, the UK’s only annual book award for fiction written by a woman, today announced the 2011 shortlist. Celebrating its sixteenth anniversary this year, the Prize celebrates excellence, originality and accessibility in women’s writing from throughout the world.

• Room by Emma Donoghue
• Great House by Nicole Krauss
• The Tiger's Wife by Téa Obreht
• The Memory of Love by Aminatta Forna
• Annabel by Kathleen Winter
• Grace Williams Says it Loud by Emma Henderson

To celebrate the 2011 shortlist, the Orange Book Store - www.orange.co.uk/bookclub - is giving away 250 free eBooks of The Lacuna by Barbara Kingsolver, winner of the 2010 Orange Prize, exclusively to Facebook fans. After the first 250 copies have been won, the Orange Book Store will offer all Facebook fans the chance to purchase The Lacuna at a special 50% discount for one week only, until 18 April. Visit www.facebook.com/orangeprize to enter.

The award ceremony will take place in The Clore Ballroom, Royal Festival Hall, Southbank Centre, London, on 8 June 2011.

Just click on the titles to check availibility in Cardiff Libraries.  Remember, if there are copies available, but not in your local library, we can get them there within about 48 hours.

If you know your user number and PIN, you can reserve them on-line yourself and choose where you want to collect them.

The book vs e-book debate continues - in pictures.

Lovely new picture book just been added to stock - for real book lovers everywhere.

And if that's not enough, there's a trailer too!

The CILIP Carnegie & Kate Greenaway Children's Book Awards 2011 shortlist announced (note - you guys so need a catchy acronym.)

The Carnegie Medal is a British literary award given by the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals (CILIP). It is awarded to an outstanding book for children and young adult readers. Nominated books must be written in English and should first have been published in the UK during the previous year.

The Kate Greenaway medal is also awarded by CILIP and given annually to an outstanding work of illustration in children's literature.

The short-listed Greenaway titles are -

  And the Carnegie titles (in no particular order) are -

Click on the covers to check availability in Cardiff Libraries - don't forget that if they're on-loan you can reserve them using your library card number and PIN.