Thursday 22 December 2011

CHRISTMAS AND NEW YEAR OPENING HOURS

DITTON LIBRARY
closing at 5.00 Friday 23 December
re-opening 9.30 Tuesday 3 January

HALTON LEA LIBRARY
Monday 26 December closed
Tuesday 27 December closed
Wednesday 28 December 9.00 to 5.30
Thursday 29 December 9.00 to 5.30
Friday 30 December 9.00 to 5.30
Saturday 31 December closed
Sunday 1 January closed
Monday 2 January closed
re-opening 9.00 Tuesday 3 January

RUNCORN LIBRARY
closing at 5.00 Friday 23 December
re-opening 9.30 Tuesday 3 January

WIDNES LIBRARY
Monday 26 December closed
Tuesday 27 December closed
Wednesday 28 December 9.00 to 5.30
Thursday 29 December 9.00 to 5.30
Friday 30 December 9.00 to 5.30
Saturday 31 December closed
Sunday 1 January closed
Monday 2 January closed
re-opening 9.00 Tuesday 3 January

Monday 19 December 2011

Getting started on the computer

Computers really aren't that scary.

Would you like to sit with one of our staff on a one-to-one basis for an hour and learn the basics? Would you like to go on and a do a beginner's course after that? Just give us a call to book an appointment with one of our friendly and understanding staff. You can call Halton Lea library on 01928 704455 or Widnes library on 0151 9078383.

We're here to help get you started.

Help with your CV

Do you need help to create or update your CV? It's easy to book an hour-long session with one of our specialist staff. Appointments are available on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Just contact Halton library on 01928 404445 or halton.library@halton.gov.uk or Widnes library on 0151 9078383 or widnes.library@halton.gov.uk

Dawn and Jess are waiting to help you get back to work.

This service is supported by NEXT STEP.

Thursday 15 December 2011

Spread the joy of reading



World Book Night is a celebration designed to spread the joy of reading and books. On 23 April next year, 20,000 volunteers will be giving away a million books. If you're passionate about reading and want to spread the word, you could apply to become a 'giver' and pass on books to people who might not otherwise read them.

Why not get in touch with the World Book Night team and tell them why you'd like to be a 'giver'? Click here to read more.

Wednesday 7 December 2011

Vote for Halton Libraries Book of the Year 2011

Here is our shortlist of titles for Halton's libraries Book of the Year. You can vote now or at the evening event to be held in January. Vote on our Facebook page

A Change in Altitude by Anita Shreve  
Margaret and Patrick, married just a few months, set off on a great adventure ? a year living in Kenya. While Patrick practices medicine, Margaret works as a photojournalist, capturing a dizzying and sometimes dangerous city on film. When a British couple invites the newlyweds on a climbing expedition to the summit of Mount Kenya, they eagerly agree. But during their arduous ascent a horrific accident occurs. In its aftermath, Margaret struggles to understand what happened on the mountain and how it has transformed her and her marriage, perhaps for ever. With stunning language and striking emotional intensity, A Change in Altitude illuminates the irrevocable impact of tragedy and the elusive nature of forgiveness.



 A Tiny Bit Marvellous by Dawn French Everyone hates the perfect family. So you'll love the Battles.
Mo is about to hit the big 50, and some uncomfortable truths are becoming quite apparent:
She doesn't understand either of her teenage kids, which as a child psychologist, is fairly embarrassing.
She has become entirely grey. Inside, and out. Her face has surrendered and is frightening children.
Dora is about to hit the big 18 . . . and about to hit anyone who annoys her, especially her precocious younger brother Peter who has a chronic Oscar Wilde fixation. Then there's Dad . . . who's just, well, dad.

A TINY BIT MARVELLOUS is the story of a modern family all living in their own separate bubbles lurching towards meltdown. It is for anyone who has ever shared a home with that weird group of strangers we call relations.


Room by Emma Donoghue It’s Jack’s birthday, and he’s excited about turning five.

Jack lives with his Ma in Room, which has a locked door and a skylight, and measures 11 feet by 11 feet. He loves watching TV, and the cartoon characters he calls friends, but he knows that nothing he sees on screen is truly real – only him, Ma and the things in Room. Until the day Ma admits that there's a world outside . . .
Told in Jack's voice, Room is the story of a mother and son whose love lets them survive the impossible. Unsentimental and sometimes funny, devastating yet uplifting, Room is a novel like no other.





Sister by Rosamund Lupton Nothing can break the bond between sisters ...

When Beatrice gets a frantic call in the middle of Sunday lunch to say that her younger sister, Tess, is missing, she boards the first flight home to London.
But as she learns about the circumstances surrounding her sister's disappearance, she is stunned to discover how little she actually knows of her sister's life - and unprepared for the terrifying truths she must now face.
The police, Beatrice's fiance and even their mother accept they have lost Tess but Beatrice refuses to give up on her.
So she embarks on a dangerous journey to discover the truth, no matter the cost.




When God Was a Rabbit by Sarah Winman 

1968. The year Paris takes to the streets. The year Martin Luther King loses his life for a dream. The year Eleanor Maud Portman is born.

Young Elly's world is shaped by those who inhabit it: her loving but maddeningly distractible parents; a best friend who smells of chips and knows exotic words like 'slag'; an ageing fop who tapdances his way into her home, a Shirley Bassey impersonator who trails close behind; lastly, of course, a rabbit called God. In a childhood peppered with moments both ordinary and extraordinary, Elly's one constant is her brother Joe.

Twenty years on, Elly and Joe are fully grown and as close as they ever were. Until, that is, one bright morning and a single, earth-shattering event that threatens to destroy their bond for ever.

Spanning four decades and moving between suburban Essex, the wild coast of Cornwall and the streets of New York, this is a story about childhood, eccentricity, the darker side of love and sex, the pull and power of family ties, loss and life. More than anything, it's a story about love in all its forms.




Blueeyedboy  by Joanne Harris 
BB is in his 40s, still living with his mother and making his living with an unrewarding (in every sense) hospital job. His ‘real’ world is a virtual one.
On a website which he has called ‘badguysrock’, he has an avatar -- and as the blueeyedboy of the title, he deals in deeply unsettling violent scenarios which feature people from his own life. As we enter deeper into this murky world, we learn other equally disturbing facts.
BB has an unhealthy relationship with his mother, whose violent, controlling behaviour is some kind of a pointer to the unhappy man he has become as an adult. What's more, he appears to be the only surviving brother of a group of three.
His dead brothers were named after the colours in which their mother dressed them, and had died in mysterious circumstances. There are so many off-kilter aspects to this world that readers will quickly discern it is only a matter of time before something very nasty happens.