Emma Bovary is beautiful and bored, trapped in her marriage to a mediocre doctor and stifled by the banality of provincial life. An ardent devourer of sentimental novels, she longs for passion and seeks escape in fantasies of high romance, in voracious spending and, eventually, in adultery. But even her affairs bring her disappointment, and when real life continues to fail to live up to her romantic expectations the consequences are devastating. Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert is the novel for discussion at Pageturners on Wednesday 14th June at 5.30pm. Please RSVP online using Eventbrite.com or call 6393 8132.

Congratulations to all the entrants and organisers for the Orange Waste2Art Community Exhibition at Orange City Library until 10th June.  Here is a small sample of some of the wonderful artworks on display celebrating reuse and recycling of waste. This year’s theme was plastic bags and soft plastic packaging.

Plastic Bag Quilt by OOSH Calare

The Rusted Dog by Mullion Creek Public School

Swimming in Plastic by St Mary’s Catholic Primary School

The classic children’s nursery rhyme Hey Diddle Diddle was retold in an amusing style for National Simultaneous Storytime with Orange City Library staff acting the roles of the cow, cat and fiddle, dog and narrator. The shared story was the highly entertaining The Cow Tripped Over the Moon written by Tony Wilson and illustrated by Laura Wood. Thank you to all who came along and laughed along with the story and all the sound effects.

Patrick with grandson Sebastian, age 3

Libby with Ivy, 17 months

Tam, Sean and Julie acted out the story for National Simultaneous Storytime

Use your Library membership number to access the May Good Reading magazine online. ‘It’s the kind of thing that makes you feel like writing is magic.’ Find out about the moment when Kimberley Freeman knew her latest historical novel, Stars Across the Ocean, would be something special, and her research at London’s Foundling Museum. Read an exclusive extract from Gwen, the new novel from Perth author Goldie Goldbloom, and The Stars Are Fire, a stellar offering from American literary star Anita Shreve. Catch interviews with singer, songwriter and barrister Mark Holden, lawyer and thriller writer Malin Persson Giolito (who won Sweden’s Best Crime Novel of the Year 2016 for Quicksand) and YA author Allayne Webster, who tells us about the street kids of Paris. We also dip in to Steve McCurry’s On Reading, a stunning collection of photographs capturing readers from all corners of the globe. 

National Simultaneous Storytime is an annual campaign that aims to encourage more young Australians to read and enjoy books. The shared story that will be read in libraries across Australia  at 11am on Wednesday 24th May is The Cow Tripped over the Moon by Tony Wilson and illustrated by Laura Wood. Join in the shared story at Cowra, Manildra, Molong, Forbes and Orange Libraries.