Important message

Changes to Library access and book drop

Construction of the new Civic Centre building will soon commence. The current Civic Centre carpark and nearby entrance will be closed from Monday 28 April and remain closed while works take place. The City Library will remain open and will be accessible from the Civic Centre Customer Services’ entry near Civic Park. 

Please note that the City Library returns chute will be temporarily unavailable. A new Book Drop will be installed at the Cavenagh St side of the Civic Centre soon. 

We kindly ask all customers to:

  • return items inside the Library during opening hours, or
  • use one of the 24/7 return chutes located at Casuarina, Nightcliff or Karama libraries.

For more information about the project, please go here.

We apologise for the inconvenience and thank you for your understanding.

Latest News

Lake Alexander has reopened for swimming and other recreational water activities as of this afternoon, Thursday 17 April 2025.

We do not part

Han Kang

One morning in December, Kyungha receives a message from her friend Inseon saying she has been hospitalized in Seoul and asking that Kyungha join her urgently. The two women have last seen each other over a year before, on Jeju Island, where Inseon lives and where, two days before this reunion, she has injured herself chopping wood. Airlifted to Seoul for an operation, Inseon has had to leave behind her pet bird. Bedridden, she begs Kyungha to take the first plane to Jeju to save the animal. 

Strangers in time

David Baldacci

Charlie Matters' life has always been a fight for survival. Orphaned with no prospects, Charlie steals what he needs, living day-to-day until he can enlist in the battle against the Germans. He miraculously emerges unscathed from the Blitz, but there's no telling when the next bomb will fall, and whether it will be the one to end his life. 

The secrets of Anzac Ridge in Flanders Fields

Patricia Skehan

The impact of World War I ripples through time. In this moving and essential book, historian Patricia Skehan brings to light secret details of Anzac experiences on the Western Front. In the annals of human history, the stakes are highest in war. And in World War I, what was at stake was the future of the world. Anzac troops, fighting and dying so far from home, were crucial to the result that shaped the twentieth century. Those troops wrote letters and diaries, materials that now form the record for the human face of war. 

Unsettled: a journey through time and place

Kate Grenville

Kate Grenville is no stranger to the past. Her success and fame as a writer exploded when she published The Secret River in 2005, a bestseller based on the story of her convict ancestor, an early settler on the Hawkesbury River. More than two decades on, and following the defeat of the Voice referendum, Grenville is still grappling with what it means to descend from people who were, as she puts it, "on the sharp edge of the moving blade that was colonisation". So she decides to go on a kind of pilgrimage,

The summer Guests

Tess Gerritsen

Maggie Bird’s ‘book group’ is an unusual one – a group of retired spies living an anonymous life in the seaside town of Purity. And this summer they plan little more than ‘reading’ (whilst sipping martinis), and some gentle birdwatching. But trouble is just around the corner as the summer guests arrive.

The Burrow

Melanie Cheng

A wise and moving story about a family navigating grief, hope, and healing through a bond with a new pet rabbit. The Burrow follows members of the Lee family as they navigate grief and hope in their quiet Australian Jin, an emergency physician and father; Amy, a published author and mother; Lucie, their bookish and introverted ten-year-old; and Pauline, Amy's mother who's trying to make amends. 

Lyrebird

Jane Caro

Lyrebirds are brilliant mimics, so if they mimic a woman screaming in terror and begging for her life, they have witnessed a crime. But how does a young, hung over PHD student and a wet behind the ears new detective, convince anyone that a native bird can be a reliable witness to a murder, especially when there is no body and no missing person? And what happens when they turn out to be right?

Cactus pear for my beloved

Samah Sabawi 

The story of a family over the past 100 years, starting in Palestine under British rule and ending in Redland Bay in Queensland.
Samah Sabawi shares the story of her parents and many like them who were born as their parents were being forced to leave their homelands.
Filled with love for land, history, peoples it is more than anything else a family story and a love story told with enormous humanity and feeling.

The Prospect

Fleur McDonald

No matter how much or how little you find, you will never, ever own the gold. It will always own you. After a scandal, investigative reporter Zara Ellison and her partner, policeman Jack Higgins have moved to Kalgoorlie - each struggling with this fresh start. This wild mining town has its own rules, and its inhabitants - drawn by the lure of gold and riches - guard their secrets carefully. Zara feels adrift in the swirling red dust of the lawless, bush city, without sources or any leads for the hard-hitting stories she's known for. 

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