The library will be closed from 4pm Tues 24 December and will reopen 10am Thurs 2 January. Enjoy the festive season!
New-Look One Book One Wagga: Embrace the Magic of Reading
Welcome to the 2024 edition of One Book One Wagga, where we celebrate the power of storytelling and the joy of communal reading!
We're excited to unveil this year's featured novel, The Hummingbird Effect by the talented Kate Mildenhall. Dive into this epic, kaleidoscopic story of four women connected across time and place by an invisible thread and their determination to shape their own stories.
Join us at the Riverina Playhouse on July 12th for an evening of stimulating discussion, featuring Kate Mildenhall in conversation with author and podcaster Karen Viggers. Gain valuable insights into the creative process, discover the inspiration behind The Hummingbird Effect and participate in thought-provoking conversations that delve deep into the heart of the novel.
After the event canapes will be served in the foyer. Where you can chat with fellow book enthusiasts and meet Kate Mildenhall in person when you get your copy of The Hummingbird Effect signed.
This is a new chapter for One Book One Wagga, and we invite you to be a part of it. Let's embark on this literary adventure together, as we celebrate storytelling and the transformative power of the written word.
Book your CSU Riverina Playhouse seats
About Kate
Kate Mildenhall is a writer and teacher. Her debut novel, Skylarking, was named in Readings Top Ten Fiction Books of 2016 and her bestselling The Mother Fault was longlisted for the 2021 ABIA General Fiction Book of the Year and shortlisted for the 2020 Aurealis Awards. Kate teaches creative writing and co-hosts The First-Time podcast – which features conversations with Australian writers – and is currently undertaking a PhD in creative practice at RMIT University. Kate lives in Hurstbridge on Wurundjeri lands, with her partner and two children. Kate’s third novel is The Hummingbird Effect.
About Karen
Karen Viggers is an author, veterinarian and podcaster. She is co-host of the Secrets from the Green Room podcast, in which she interviews writers and other book industry colleagues about books and writing. Karen is the author of five novels, The Stranding (2008), The Lightkeeper’s Wife (2011), The Grass Castle (2014), The Orchardist’s Daughter (2019) and Sidelines (2024). Her novels have been translated into several languages and have enjoyed great success in France, where she is a bestselling author and has won a literary award. Karen is the mother of two adult children, and lives on Ngunnawal and Ngambri land in Canberra with her ecologist husband.
Synopsis of The Hummingbird Effect
One of the lucky few with a job during the Depression, Peggy’s just starting out in life. She’s a bagging girl at the Angliss meatworks in Footscray, a place buzzing with life as well as death, where the gun slaughterman Jack has caught her eye – and she his.
How is her life connected to Hilda’s, almost a hundred years later, locked inside during a plague, or La’s, further on again, a singer working shifts in a warehouse as her eggs are frozen and her voice is used by AI bots? Let alone Maz, far removed in time, diving for remnants of a past that must be destroyed? Is it by the river that runs through their stories, eternal yet constantly changing – or by the mysterious Hummingbird Project, and the great question of whether the march of progress can ever be reversed?
Reviews
Kate Mildenhall is such an exciting writer to read … This generous, playful novel speaks to themes of climate change, survival and holding space for each other, as well as the enduring power of female friendship. The Guardian
Spellbinding, genre-defying, and powerful in its vision of the future … The Hummingbird Effect is a devastating novel that exposes the ways the future is seeded in the past. Australian Book Review
The Hummingbird Effect Award Nominations
Longlisted for the Stella Prize 2024
Longlisted for the Indie Book Awards 2024
Sydney Morning Herald Best Reads of the Year for 2023
