Lincoln in the Bardo – book review

A caveat before I put this on the book club list. It may be just too weird for many people, and there is no shame in that. It won the Booker in 2017 and follows my usual rule: read everything on the Booker short-list and avoid the winner, which will be be too edgy for its own good (it is sandwiched between Milkman & Sellout, two obvious cases in point).

However, if you’re willing to try something a bit different, and your book club has been a bit samey for a while and needs a re-boot: here you go.

Lincoln in the Bardo is the kind of book best read drunk. Continue reading “Lincoln in the Bardo – book review”

Brickbat for Jerningham

For his 199th birthday

Today is Jerningham Wakefield’s 199th birthday. Happy Birthday, you old thing.

Jerningham came to Wellington with the New Zealand Company in 1839, the thin edge of the colonial wedge.  For that we can throw many brickbats. And hey, it’s his birthday! So here is my favourite Jerningham brickbat: a letter to the editor from a missionary, in reaction to Jerningham’s recently published Adventure in New Zealand.

It’s a hell of a book review. Jerningham and the missionaries never did see eye to eye Continue reading “Brickbat for Jerningham”

Converstations with Friends & Normal People – book reviews

Sally Rooney is my new discovery. Sure, I’m behind the play on this one, the last two years have seen her plastered with awards. Don’t ask me why she is so good, I find it hard to say why I find the lives of twenty something Irish students and their friends so compelling. They don’t go on adventures or do remarkable things. Their journeys are mostly internal and all about relationships. They’re going through the  pretty mundane stuff of growing up, involving incidents that you’ll probably recognise, things that you or your friends might have struggled with.

The two books are similar, each with the main character a very bright girl at university in Dublin, with family issues pulling her emotional strings and intense friendships. Continue reading “Converstations with Friends & Normal People – book reviews”

The Cyprus Tree – book review

The Cyprus Tree, by Kamin Mohammad

Let’s add a bit of fire to your book club reading with this book about Iran by Kamin Mohammadi.

It begins, rather dauntingly, with dense chapters of Iranian history and Kamin’s family history, both of which are complicated matters. I admit I stopped trying to make sense of it and lost track of all the uncles’ names (the book shows a family tree though the kindle version doesn’t), but I did enjoy the way these chapters give a rhythm to the story which was unlike western fiction. I got a real sense of how details are so important to this culture and understood why Kamin was introducing us so diligently. In the same way Māori will tell you an iwi history to give you a real sense of who they are and where they came from, Kamin carefully lays out the past for us. Continue reading “The Cyprus Tree – book review”

This Mortal Boy – book review

This Mortal Boy, by Fiona Kidman

Paddy Black killed a man. But does he deserve to hang? The question on the book cover is no hook. Our answer is instinctive. We don’t hang kids. But we did.

This is a bleak story, with not much to love here. Not the characters, who are all flawed and self-serving; some have my sympathy, but not my love. Nor the setting, which is a dingy and bleak 1950s Auckland, set around squalid squats, drinking joints and the streets of Mount Eden leading to the jail. The judgemental society of the time and place will break your heart. Continue reading “This Mortal Boy – book review”

New Zealand’s first capital

Was it Russell, Kororareka, Waitangi, Okiato?

I followed Governor William Hobson and ran around in a circle to discover New Zealand’s first capital. If you’re thinking it’s Russell, you’re wrong. Kororareka? Think again. Waitangi? Nope.

My final run during my month in the Bay of Islands was the grand loop: it’s 13.5 km, involves two ferry rides, coastal track, beaches, lush bush, some road and long stretches of board walk. And LOTS of history, including the answer to the question: where was New Zealand’s first capital? Continue reading “New Zealand’s first capital”

Opua Kauri Walk

20 minutes from Paihia

This is one of my favourite walks around Paihia and a great way to get up close and friendly with some magnificent kauri trees, while respecting their roots and not contributing to die-back. I call it a walk rather than a run, because it’s only 1km in and out and it’s something to do slowly while you breathe deeply and contemplate the declining green spaces in the world and why it is so important to treasure them. Continue reading “Opua Kauri Walk”