General Stuff – Cristina Sanders' blog

Books for taking on Holidays

I don’t know why people say they want ‘trashy’ books to read on holidays. Who wants to read trash any time? It’s like getting stuck with a boring companion on holiday when you should toss them aside and pick up someone vibrant and exciting. With that in mind, here are ten of my favourite books, hammock tested, good company assured.

But before I hit the list, a quick plug! ‘Tis the season for long haul flights, wandering across walking trails, or hammocks. Kindle-time. I have it on good authority that my historical fiction novels have kept many travellers entertained on their journeys. So why not?
Type Cristina Sanders into kindle you’ll find them all:

Jerningham,
Mrs Jewell and the Wreck of the General Grant,
Ōkiwi Brown,
Displaced.

Four award listed, best-selling, kiwi historical novels to put in your pocket.

Here are ten other great holiday reads from Christmases past, ones that shouldn’t be missed but may now be out of stock in your local bookshop, so perfect to put onto your kindle and into your travel bag. In no particular order, and with links to reviews:

The Axeman’s Carnival, by Catherine Chidgey. The narrator is a magpie. This farming family story works on every level. A must read.
Everything is Beautiful and Everything Hurts, by Josie Shapiro. In case you’re thinking of taking up running.
Poor People With Money, by Dominic Hoey. Just because its cool.
In Ascension, by Martin MacInnes. You think you’re far from home? This will take you further.
Wonderland, by Tracy Farr. An amusement park in 1912 Miramar and the Loverock family. Plus Marie Curie. Mixed up wonderful.
Foster, by Clarie Keegan. Or anything by Claire Keegan. Quick Novellas. Brilliant.
The Smuggler’s Wife, etc, by Deborah Challinor. If you want a bit of fun, lots of swashbuckling New Zealand history with a feisty heroine.
A Gentleman in Moscow, by Amor Towles. War & Peace lite, the descendants, sort of.
This Thing of Darkness, by Harry Thompson. A very long read that takes you all around the world on the Beagle with Darwin and Fitzroy and makes sense of so much. Can be re-read many times.
The Ministry of Time, by Kaliane Bradley. Let’s bring back arctic explorer Graham Gore and set him loose in modern London. Provocative, funny, sexy. Goes a bit James Bondy at the end.
Pretty Ugly, by Kirsty Gunn, well crafted, morally complex short stories.

Whoops, that’s eleven. Bonus!

I hope your holiday finds you in a hammock with a bowl of cherries and a good book.
xxx

Trust – book review

Trust, By Hernan Diaz

‘I am a financier in a city ruled by financiers. My father was a financier in a city ruled by industrialists. His father was a financier in a city ruled by merchants. His father was a financier in a city ruled by a tight-knit society, indolent and priggish, like most provincial aristocracies. These four cities are one and the same, New York.’ And here’s me trying to boycott all American culture until they get themselves a decent president! It was a book club choice, inescapable. Interesting book, though and a topic that’s resonating, so it gets a review.

Seascraper – book review

Seascraper, by Benjamin Wood

Thomas Flett lives in a fictional seaside town of Longferry with his mother. He is a ‘shanker’ and takes his horse and cart out on the mudflats when the tide goes way out, trawling for shrimp. Coasts like Morcombe Bay immediately come to mind, with its treacherous history of drowning as the tide races for miles on the ebb and flow, faster than you can run, leaving quick sands and strandings. In this beautiful, hugely atmospheric book, Thomas, a thinker and observer, takes us with him out on the shifting sand.

James – book review

James, by Percival Everett

Do you think you know the story of Huck Finn? Think again. In this marvelous book by Percival Everett, the adventure is turned on its head and you find yourself reading a totally different story that seems to come tumbling out from between the lines of Twain’s. It’s still an adventure story, in which a boy called Huck and a slave he calls Jim run away by floating down the Mississippi river and get into all sorts of trouble, but this time the point of view belongs to James. The pair become true friends, they look out for each other, care for each other, discuss ideas and try to see the other’s point of view, but the world is different when the one telling the story is a piece of property which needs to be returned to its owner.

Earth – book review

Earth, by John Boyne

This post has been moved to Books that don’t make the cut. Sorry, John Boyne fans (of which, sometimes, I am one).

John Boyne’s Earth follows Water which I thought was fabulous. Unfortunately in Earth, Boyne returns to the emotionally dysfunctional narrator style he used in his horrible Ladder to the Sky (again, not one of my recommendations) where charm, gorgeous looks and undeniable talent are a facade over a morally corrupt man. Good writing, but again, not characters I want to spend time with and no lessons to learn here, except to recommend to girls who are raped to never, ever, to press charges or you will suffer truly awful humiliation and the ruin of your life may be revisited on you tenfold.

Can’t recommend this as a good read.

Ripiro Beach–book review

Ripiro Beach, by Caroline Barron

There is so much to enjoy in this book. I felt immediately I was in good hands, with a writer who had the confidence to take her time describing scenes to bring me into her space and letting me settle into the surroundings before moving on to the action. We could be in a park by an Auckland motorway, in a nightclub, or at Ripiro beach, and each scene is painted with a keen sense of observational detail. Here’s a paragraph that really is worth reading twice, just for the pleasure of the writing:

Home Truths – book review

Home Truths, by Charity Norman

Home Truths is everything I expect from a Charity Norman thriller. It’s compelling and chilling. Also, and this is the frightening thing about many of Charity’s stories, it’s very close to home. It could happen to any of my friends. It could happen to me. And yes, it could happen to you.

Corkscrew You – book review

Corkscrew You, by Catherine Robertson

OK, enough of the serious stuff – fancy something feel-good, easy to read and quite a bit saucy? Catherine Robertson has just launched two vineyard romances, the first in the Flora Valley series, and they are exactly what romances should be. Smoking hot (4 chillies, my friends), all the sex is consensual and, frankly, glorious. The characters are well rounded but as hand-picked as a 1980s pop band – there is the bubbly one, the smart one, the cool executive type, the strong silent one, sporty, ginger – you get the picture. They all bring different things to the party.

Ockhams Digital Sampler

The four finalists of the Jan Medlicott Acorn prize for fiction.

It is such a privilege to be on this year’s Ockham shortlist, along with Michael Bennett, Catherine Chidgey and Monty Soutar. It’s a very happy period, these weeks between the shortlist and the announcement of the winner, which will be on May 17th at the Auckland Writers’ Festival. A girl can dream!

Here is the Ockham Sampler, where you get to read an extract from each of the books for free. If you like what you read, please head to your nearest bookshop and buy the book. Not sure about the others, but I’m saving for a gold frock.

Ockhams Digital Sampler Download

Three Woman and a Boat–book review

Three Women and a Boat, by Anne Youngson

Inspired, of course, by Jerome K Jerome’s Three Men in a Boat, but updated and given a gender twist, Three Women and a Boat is a feminist book. All three of the women characters (four, including a young friend) are out in the world without being beholden to, or reliant on men. They’re complete. There are men around, but the story is not about their relationships, but the women themselves. And there’s a dog like the one in Jerome’s version, who sparks some of the action, as dogs tend to do.

Anastasia has lived most of her life on a canal barge. But she’s ill, needs to take a break for treatments and is looking for someone to take her boat, The Number One, north to the yards in Uxbridge to get overhauled.

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