No Friend but the Mountains, by Behrouz Boochani
This is an indescribably sad book about inhumanity. A man, born and raised in a war zone, escapes his home country with nothing more than his life (and “home” is a word that needs re-thinking in the context of this story) and yes, he gets away and is rescued at sea from a sinking boat by the Royal Australian Navy.
Thank God, you would think. Wouldn’t you?
Continue reading “No Friend but the Mountains — book review”The Dickens Boy, by Tom Keneally
Definitely my book of the year so far. I’m a Keneally fan (since Schindler’s Ark all those years ago) and a Dickens fan with a keen interest in Victorians and colonial history and here’s The Dickens Boy with all that wrapped up in a gloriously written novel. Keneally is a master storyteller with characters I can really care about and a honesty that makes me believe that everything here could be true (and quite a lot of it seems to be). Just goes to show you don’t need clever literary devices or pretentious language to write a captivating book, you just need to tell a bloody good story.
Continue reading “The Dickens Boy – book review”Hell Ship by Michael Veitch
This is a book club book if you are a group of readers with a fanatical interest in the minutiae of colonial immigration in the 1850s. In which case, I salute you. Invite me along to join you, sometime.
Veitch, though, might be a bit much of an enthusiast, even for me. The cover and title promises a book set on the high seas but there is way more than that. Most of the detail is of the societal conditions and politics behind the immigrations: the Wakefields, the lure of colonial wool and gold, the Scottish clearances. There is a full chapter about the Birkenhead emigration depot in Liverpool where the passengers collected before departure and the last quarter of the book covers the crisis in immigration that followed the ship’s arrival in Port Phillip and its quarantine.
Continue reading “Hell Ship—book review”The Telegram by Philippa Werry
I love a good YA fiction that goes deep, and The Telegram by Philippa Werry certainly delivers. A young reader will enjoy the story of Beatrice cycling around her small kiwi town on her bike, changing from a schoolgirl to a young woman with the harrowing responsibility of delivering telegrams during the first world war. She makes and loses friends, delivers news of celebration and (more often) tragedy to families, writes letters as she waits for the boy next door to return from the front, and celebrates the war’s end just as the ‘flu rolls into town. Continue reading “The Telegram – book review”
With Dad’s Army at Ocean Beach
We’re building a new forest on the hills at Ocean Beach in Hawke’s Bay. There’s a strip of land behind the sanctuary fence where a gap between the pines and the sand dunes – once farm land – is being lovingly covered in native plants.
I say lovingly because the whole project is wrapped in aroha, from the care with which the seedlings are planted to the breathing living forest on the hill. It’s a beautiful place with magnificent views down the coast; now thick with healthy New Zealand natives and full of birds.
Continue reading “Planting a forest”Thanks to Unity Books and Wardinis
We launched my novel Jerningham this week to coincide with the young Wakefield’s 200th birthday. The book launch in Wellington was at Unity Books and it felt so right: beneath our feet in colonial times was the beach, before all the infill began. Jerningham would have leapt ashore from the whale boats right there onto the shingly sand, walked along the beach to Dicky Barrett’s pub and ordered a bottle of his favourite Hokinaga red. I had been a bit worried that no one would come out to help celebrate but there was a good crowd, in a big part because of our three wonderful kids who brought along every friend who had ever sat at our table over the years and made them buy a book. They probably came for the wine, but that’s ok. It was Decibel. Can’t blame them.
Then we moved up to Hawkes Bay and had a bit of fun dressing up like Victorians at Duart House. Decibel again sponsored the wine along with Maison Noire so we were guaranteed a good turn out. People drank local, read local and our local Wardini Books sold the book.
To all those who came along, thank you very much. And what did I tell you? Everyone looks better in a top hat (though the ladies rocked the flowers, too)
Happy birthday, scoundrel
Colonial Wellington’s original wild boy, Jerningham Wakefield, was born 200 years ago today. The son of New Zealand Company founder Edward Gibbon Wakefield, Jerningham was a member of the advance party of the Wellington colony, arriving in Port Nicholson on the Tory in September 1839. He was nineteen years old and sent away from England by his father to keep him out of mischief. It was a mistake Edward Gibbon probably came to regret.
Continue reading “Jerningham Wakefield, 200 today”The Bell in the Lake, by Lars Mytting
Norway, 1880. So cold a woman leaned against a wall in church and froze to death, her skin stuck to the wall. No wonder my ancestors left. I love stories like this that are so atmospheric you need to wrap yourself in a blanket to read them.
Continue reading “The Bell in the Lake – book review”Jerningham Wakefield and the first colonial settlement of Wellington
I walked into a bookshop yesterday and my book was on the counter. Does an author ever get used to that? Felt like the first day out with a new baby. They cooed over me in the shop and asked me to sign the copies.
That was a pretty exciting day.
