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Things I Learned at Art School is Megan Dunn’s brand new collection of bite-sized, infectious essays that tell of an eighties childhood, a nineties art school education and a stint as a brothel barmaid on Karangahape Road.
Spend an hour with Megan Dunn & photographer Yvonne Todd as they chat about book covers, art school life, wedding shoes and Desiderata.
Introduced by Claire Murdoch from Penguin Random House NZ and recorded on Zoom.
Time Out Bookstore's All Tomorrow's Poets come together in audio,
giving you a incredible dose of poetry for #NZPoetryDay.
Divyaa Kumar
Frances Libeau
Elizabeth Welsh
Sam Te Kani
Lily Holloway
Hosted by Manon Revuelta.
Thank you to our poets, National Poetry Day & Phantom.
Becky Manawatu’s Auē is shortlisted for the Jann Medlicott Acorn Prize for Fiction at this year’s Ockham New Zealand Book Awards. You can listen to Kiran’s rave review on 95bFM Breakfast’s Loose Reads here. Manawatu spoke to Kiran ahead of The Ockham NZ Book Awards Winners’ Ceremony which will be live-streamed from 6pm May 12 on the Ockhams YouTube channel where you can now also view readings from the shortlisted authors.
How do you balance fiction writing with journalism? Do you have a preference and do the two different forms inform each other?
My experience as a reporter helped me with editing, and has improved my writing in general. Writing human interest stories, interviewing people gives me a unique, though I admit sometimes sanitised, insight into people's lives. I just love working with words.
Arundhati Roy says fiction is her first love and greatest love, and that is true for me too. Fiction means so much to me. It does not keep me or my family fed or clothed, however if I could immerse myself in it more often, either reading or writing, I really would.
Congratulations too for your nomination for the Best First-Person Essay or Feature at the Voyager Media Awards for your striking personal essay published by Newsroom. Is this area of writing something you’d like to pursue?
I do enjoy personal essay writing, but it is a tough one, while writing them I am obviously mining my own life and writing with the belief that someone might be interested in what I tell them - about myself, this feels like an immensely indulgent thing to do.
But it is not just out of an interest in myself, but an interest in the world and people. And I guess I am my own access to other people and the world and I like to write with that access kept intact. I also prefer reading essays where that connection is kept intact. If it's severed, ie, the writer removes themselves completely from what they are expressing, I have to work harder to hold my attention on it. It is probably important I try to do that more often, maybe.
However, I have thought about cutting down on the number of personal essays I write, as I really want to write another novel. To write a novel I need to have a bright, burning hunger to say something, to feel heard.
If I keep saying things and being heard, I'm afraid it'll keep the fire in my belly just smouldering away, contentedly, the hunger consistently satiated. But I think the personal essays around Auē were important ones for me to write, and I hope I can continue to write the odd first person essay.
Becky Manawatu’s lockdown bookstack
What was in your lockdown bookstack?
I read Bernadine Evaristo's Girl, Woman, Other. I re-read 'patches' of Renee's memoir These Two Hands, and re-read Janet Frames' Owls Do Cry. I read poems and prose in Sport 47 edited by Tayi Tibble. I listen to Zadie Smith on Youtube lots too, then read any of her essays I could find online. Every Saturday I read Newsroom's new short story.
What book is your comfort read/re-read and why?
Women who Run with the Wolves, by Clarissa Pinkola Estes. I like to reread parts of Witi Ihimaera's Tangi and parts of The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy. Tangi and The God of Small Things are both books to pick up and flick to a page and reread because they are poetic, as is Frame's Owls Do Cry.
Women who Run with the Wolves is to me, mostly about creativity. It's deep and yum and honours storytelling and makes me want to write.
I have ordered myself a wee stack of books from my main book squeeze. Order includes Hemi Kelly's A Māori Phrase a Day and Hurricane Season by Fernanda Melchor and Ice Monster by David Walliams for my 11-year-old girl who loves reading too.
What was the last book that really moved you, and why?
Janet Frames' Owls Do Cry. I love the feeling that I am moving around in other human's minds, not being held out, allowed into the strange landscape that is the human psyche. Frame makes these allowances like few other writers can.
What are you working on next, Becky?
I've started writing about this character, a young girl. I have given her a single experience from my childhood to plant a kind of seed.The experience is when I was very young, probably six,I squashed a fly on a windowsill at my house I lived in Birchfield (West Coast). I had been so bored and in my boredom, simply killed this little fly. Small maggots writhed out of it and I was stunned by them. (Mistrusting this memory, because I believed flies laid eggs I googled it and found flies can lay eggs or have live maggots in their bellies).
Anyway, I recall sitting there watching the maggots and looking at the dead fly and feeling like I had done something enormously bad.
Probably months later - I can't be sure - I was watching a nature show on TV and it was about termites, and when I saw the termites I was consumed by guilt because I thought they might have been the things that came out of the fly's belly and on the TV the termites were turning wood to dust and I thought 'Oh no - the termites will be eating our house too and then it will fall down and we will all die and it will be all my fault.'
So I have given this character this story, this grain of worry, guilt, and I just want to see what happens, what the worry forces her to think, feel, do and how it shapes her. Also I just find it interesting how children perceive the world, and I think this personal experience is a good example. Who knows, it'll probably come to nothing...
More about the Ockham New Zealand Book Awards here
Owen Marshall’s Pearly Gates is shortlisted for the Jann Medlicott Acorn Prize for Fiction at this year’s Ockham New Zealand Book Awards. You can listen to Kiran’s review on 95bFM Breakfast’s Loose Reads here: Marshall spoke to Kiran ahead of The Ockham NZ Book Awards Winners’ Ceremony which will be live-streamed from 6pm May 12 on the Ockhams YouTube channel where you can now also view readings from the shortlisted authors.
Kia ora, Owen! Congratulations on being shortlisted for the Jan Medlicott Acorn Prize for Fiction! Pearly Gates is a charming novel set in a vividly evoked provincial South Island town. A sense of place and landscape is often a key element in your writing - how important is place and landscape to you?
Most of my writing is concerned with the investigation of character, and I like to give readers a sense of where my characters are, as well as who they are. Landscapes and cityscapes affect the people who live there, and the people in turn affect their settings. I enjoy the evocation of physical surroundings when I read and strive for that in my own work.
Pearly is a “good local son” who is accustomed to success in his life as a rugby player for Otago and a two term mayor. He is aware however, that the tide can turn. What were you interested in exploring there?
In regard to the themes of Pearly Gates - I wished to emphasise the complexity of personality even in apparently ordinary people, the moral ambiguities we all share. Pearly makes a bad decision and has to live with the consequences of that. Also I hoped to present a convincing portrait of provincial South Island life.
What book is your comfort read/re-read and what has been in your lockdown bookstack?
Despite the time provided by the present lockdown, I haven't been reading much over the last few weeks because we have recently moved to another home and chaos rules. I have been re-reading some of Alice Munro's fine stories from her collection Dear Life. As for a ‘comfort read,' I enjoy the Jane Austen novels and also the fiction of Irish writer William Trevor. In non-fiction, I find fascinating the works of neurologist Oliver Sacks. The novel that most moved and impressed me in recent years was Enduring Love by Ian McEwan.
What are you working on next, Owen?
After several novels, I have returned in my own writing to short stories, encouraged by a recent grant from Creative New Zealand. Short stories are not as commercially successful as novels, but have an especially honourable place in New Zealand literature and offer interesting challenges to both writer and reader.
Kiran has worked her way through the Ockham NZ Book Awards Jann Medlicott Acorn Prize for Fiction shortlist and reviewed Owen Marshall’s Pearly Gates on 95bFM’s Loose Reads. It’s a lovely, gentle novel set in a small North Otago town, and is based around Pat “Pearly” Gates. A good local son made good, Pearly is a real estate agent, two term mayor and ex rugby player. Marshall is great at evoking a sense of place and character, and Pearly Gates is charming.
The Ockham NZ Book Awards Winners’ Ceremony will be live-streamed from 6pm May 12 on the Ockhams YouTube channel where you can now also view readings from the shortlisted authors.
Carl Shuker has been shortlisted for the Jann Medlicott Acorn Prize for Fiction at this year’s Ockham New Zealand Book Awards for his novel A Mistake. Shuker caught up with Kiran to answer a few questions ahead of the awards.
Kia ora, Carl! Congratulations on being shortlisted for the Jan Medlicott Acorn Prize for Fiction! A Mistake is slim and concise, it’s neatly written and tightly wound. Stylistically, it’s a bit of a departure for you! It’s more clipped which suits the narrative. Did you enjoy writing in a different style?
Kia ora Kiran! Thank you! And thank you for the brilliant review you wrote. (You can read Kiran’s review of A Mistake here.)
Oh, I was so ready for a new way. The previous book (still in a drawer, still getting chipped away at) was all about multiclaused sentences and abstruse references, I suppose intellectual play, but geekery, really - it's set among a group of copy editors at a London medical journal after all, so it's about words and geeks who care about words.
This one, I wanted limits, I suppose because my life has new limits, but also because limits are fun and I've always wanted to do a short, brutally minimal book. There was a different story here and I wanted to be different. No more Pynchon, Wallace, Gaddis, Powers. That time for me - and I think for reading - is over. Also it's about New Zealand and so much of New Zealand is awkward, not quite socialised. So I realised awkwardness, the beauty behind the monosyllables, was the aesthetic.
Tell us about the character Elizabeth? Is she based on a real person and why did you call her Elizabeth Taylor?!
She's partially inspired by a real woman I know in healthcare who is brilliant but has no filters or time for politics. So she makes life hard for herself, almost on purpose. If she doesn't believe someone knows about something she has no trouble letting them know. It doesn't matter what that person is president of, or who they might know. This is obviously to her credit but also her detriment.
Of course what I see in this woman reflects myself to a great deal and I freely own Elizabeth has a lot of me in her too, the good and the less so. I wanted to create a character I could look to in life and say, what would Elizabeth do?
In regard to her name, it's both significant and not. I made a cover for the book early in the piece (as you may do when building up its world) and it was a heavily pixellated (real) Elizabeth Taylor. So there's both something about the transmutation of a "real" person in their complexity by media attention in its need for neat narrative.
But there's also that thing that characters' names don't mean anything. People's names don't. We imbue them with meaning after the fact. Most of my books have stuck to this rule - "Michael Edwards" for example (from The Method Actors). The more boring the better. However, there is the matter of the sculpture of words on a page, of which proper names are a part, and "Elizabeth Taylor" is a truly beautiful collection of syllables. But I also have secret resonances which I don't and won't let on. Lebanese names carry codes about religion that are very significant in that environment. So I know I'm contradicting myself.
You were a copy editor at the British Medical Journal in London and work as a Principal Publications Advisor to the Health Quality & Safety Commission - was there anything from your day job that inspired or informed your writing of A Mistake?
Yes - I was in the UK editing at the BMJ when they began publishing the individual outcomes of surgeons. It was a huge thing. It began happening here and we took quite a strong lead in this work and I basically had to read everything. And at the end of that reading I still wasn't sure of the right answer.
So part of this book was working out some of the issues for myself. An original drive was to have a chapter that was just a graph - a funnel plot - and it would by this point be for the reader so understood and laden with significance she might just see the graph and gasp. Also, in both jobs I am constantly surrounded by these brilliant, awe-inspiring people, predominantly women. A lot of my previous stuff has been about masculinity because I am a man, but I wanted to write about women.
Carl Shuker’s lockdown bookstack.
What has been in your lockdown bookstack?
I'm reading David Coventry's new novel in manuscript (Dance Prone, forthcoming from Picador UK and VUP) - and it's like mid-period Don DeLillo writes the early 80s US punk scene. You would LOVE it. It's nasty and transcendental and right and wonderful. I'm reading Middlemarch for the first time. I'm reading the same ton of graphs we all are. I love dipping into M. John Harrison's Viroconium before sleep to enrich my dreams.
What book is your comfort read/re-read and why?
My comfort re-read is Twelfth Night by William Shakespeare. I know parts of it almost by heart. I don't know - it's funny, it's mean, it's exquisitely beautiful, it's both utterly silly and completely serious. It contains everything and it reminds me of years of connections - studying it in university, deciding it would guide and be central to what for me was a huge book, so I was intimate with it for years on end, finishing that book and it going into the world, and now my daughter, age eight, reading it, getting the jokes. She transmuted the characters of Sir Andrew Aguecheek and Sir Toby Belch into "Hollowcheeks" and "Burp", which, you can't get any better transmuting than that. It's always been enriching to me, good luck, anchor and balloon.
What was the last book that really moved you, and why?
Aspiring by Damien Wilkins. Male adolescence is such a dangerous time I'm surprised we're not more organised about it as a society. I only say male because I am one and my own is quite personal to me, and the facts, dangers and failures of masculinity in New Zealand still concern me.
Also the consequences of failed male adolescence always affect others so much. The suicides and car crashes, all the physical acts and acting out. It's incredible to see people lose their way. It happens less and less as we get older and our bubbles shrink. We see people die. In high school we see all their changes up close - the deaths, the accidents, but also the triumphs, the transformations, the willed personality changes where people become other people sometimes over the space of months. The awful, rapid, rapid declines. It's a terrifying time and Damien captured it so well.
What are you working on next, Carl?
I'm working on work at the moment, gotta pay the bills, but I have a manuscript in a drawer I love to tinker on, one I love and may one day be ready for the world.
More information about the Ockham New Zealand Book Awards can be found here.
by Peggy Taylor (11)
Lizard’s Tale is an amazing book! This truly captivating mystery is set in Singapore when World War 2 was being fought. It tells the story of Lizard, a poor boy surviving on odd jobs and petty theft, and the people around him. Lizard’s Tale has it all - murder, mystery, codebooks, liars, friendship, traitors and even a little bit of history.
I would recommend this book for kids who love mysteries or want to try something new. After all this book has a little bit of everything, and I really enjoyed it.
Overall, this book is impossible to put down! So what are you waiting for? Go order yourself a copy!
David Vann has been shortlisted for the Jann Medlicott Acorn Prize for Fiction at this year’s Ockham New Zealand Book Awards for his novel Halibut on the Moon. Vann took time out from building a 50-foot aluminium sailing trimaran to catch up with Kiran ahead of the awards.
Kia ora, David! Congratulations on being shortlisted for the Jann Medlicott Acorn Prize for Fiction! Halibut on the Moon is a powerful but dark read. It re-visits a theme you have previously examined in your fiction - the suicide of your father Jim. How do you retain a sense of perspective when you are writing about such heavy personal history?
Interesting question, because I guess in fiction we don’t try to retain a sense of perspective. That implies a distance and not being affected, and the point here, in writing or reading Greek tragedy, is to suffer and be broken in order to see.
I was trying to get as close as possible to my father’s despair and final days and trying to forget my own perspective. I was writing without a plan or outline and was often surprised by what the characters did or said or felt.
Tragedy is refreshing because it offers us a descent within a safe space, art, and then we emerge refreshed. But we have to suffer first.
You’ve explored the men in your family from different angles - has this helped you understand them on a deeper level? And what angle are you interested in exploring next?
Writing about my father and grandfathers and uncle has helped me tremendously in understanding them better, understanding our past, and having some context for understanding who I am now. I don’t have a plan at the moment of writing more about my immediate family but instead am writing about our Cherokee heritage, a longer ancestry.
What was the last book that made you laugh, and why?
Less, the Pulitzer prize winning novel by Andrew Sean Greer, made me laugh a lot. The main character is a writer about my age who is seeing his career descend, so it was uncomfortable laughter at times, with too much recognition, but still wonderful fun. Everything he writes about what it’s like to have your career spiral downward in middle age is certainly true.
What was the last book that really moved you, and why?
So many. I’m often moved by books. I’m an easy audience. I cry even in bad movies. Like, The Rock has a nice moment with the ape and I cry.
But the book I’ll never forget for being so beautiful and wrenching is Shadow Child by P.F. Thomese, a Dutch author. It’s only 100 pages but so sad and also illuminating about writing, about making meaning again after it has left.
What has been in your lockdown bookstack?
I’m actually building a 50-foot aluminium sailing trimaran during the lockdown, a couple months in now. So I saw, grind, and weld aluminium all day. My stack has been only various aluminium extrusions and plates. I’m looking forward to finishing within the next six weeks and getting back to reading and writing.
What book is your comfort read/re-read?
I’ve read Cormac McCarthy’s Blood Meridian six times now in full, and in sections many more times. A violent book about an America born in war with a future of endless war, but so beautiful in every sentence. It’s a comfort because it reminds me that good writing matters and endures, despite all the pressures to the contrary.
What are you working on next, David?
I’m working on a novel about my Cherokee ancestors. I come from two Cherokee chiefs from about two hundred years ago, and I’ve written the first 65 pages of Cherokee creation myths revisited and will be writing about DeSoto next. I’m hoping for a longer book, and since no one wants anything from me at the moment, so I have plenty of time!
More information about the Ockham New Zealand Book Awards can be found here.
A Mistake is shortlisted for the Ockham New Zealand Book Awards Jann Medlicott Acorn Prize for Fiction.
One of my favourite novels from 2019, A Mistake is a clipped and refined novel from Wellington-based writer Carl Shuker who is excellent at illustrating the nuances of place, character and plot. Slim and concise, it’s neatly written and tightly wound. I loved Shuker’s 2006 novel The Lazy Boys. A white-knuckled, striking and believable depiction of toxic masculinity and scarfie culture in Dunedin, it was a thrilling, brutal and unforgettable read. I’ll pick up anything with his name on it.
Written in a diagnostic style, A Mistake is based around a woman named Elizabeth Taylor, who at 42 is the youngest and only woman consultant general surgeon at Wellington Hospital. With a pristine track record, she’s extremely talented, driven and committed to her craft and patients. A stickler for detail, Elizabeth is very process-focused. An intense scene early in A Mistake sees her leading her team in theatre for what should be fairly routine procedure. Her background music of choice is the punishingly pulverising and exhilarating ‘Angel of Death’ by thrash metal band Slayer. So it’s all very heightened and the tension is palpable. But then something goes terribly wrong. And people want answers as the implications for Elizabeth and the people around her escalate.
There are so many interesting issues at play, here. A Mistake examines process and burnout, but also the complexities and frailties around human error. Shuker intersperses chapters with pieces about the American Challenger space shuttle disaster in 1986 which broke apart 73 seconds into flight killing all seven crew members. The Challenger was troubled from the outset, and these interesting interjections punctuate the tension here.
Shuker plainly lays it all out: if you want to understand the implications of massive systems failure determined months in advance but happening in microseconds in front of you as you try to cope in real time, The Challenger timeline is the first thing you might read.
Elizabeth is co-writing a paper examining the public reportage of surgical outcomes for the Royal London Journal of Medicine. Meanwhile, at the hospital, there’s a new reporting system being introduced around big data. The atmosphere around this is increasingly paranoid and on edge. A Mistake is set in a strikingly vivid and recognisable Wellington, with additional scenes in Auckland and an uncomfortable conference in Queenstown.
I love the way Shuker has written this character. Elizabeth Taylor has a fixed smile, like a mask. All muscle and no feeling. She’s up for 27 hours straight and is so constipated that she hasn’t used the toilet in two days. But, she observes, that is quite useful for long stints in the operating theatre.
Elizabeth Taylor is an alluring and fascinating character. I want to know why Shuker called her Elizabeth Taylor! The obvious comparison is to the famous iconic raven-haired, violet-eyed film star. But beyond that, her name actually immediately made me think of that great one-of-a-kind dystopian writer J.G. Ballard. In Ballard’s seminal 1973 novel Crash, the character Vaughan has an intense fantasy about dying in a car crash with Elizabeth Taylor. A far-fetched connection? Maybe, but both books share a similar clinical coolness, inner weirdness and steelyness.
A Mistake is a razor sharp and compelling novel from a singular, sophisticated literary voice in contemporary New Zealand fiction.
More information about the Ockham New Zealand Book Awards can be found here.
By Katie Swanson
Last time I wrote about keeping minds busy, but sometimes it’s more important for our sanity that our little darlings are just kept busy! These prolific authors and series just go on and on and on…
#BookshopsWillBeBack
#WaitForYourBookshop
Early Readers:
David Walliams: I assume this author needs no introduction. I don’t think this man sleeps and I have completely lost track of all of his titles. His new junior novel, Slime, is in stores in April (ish!)
Anh Do: On our shelves we have, the Weirdo series, the Hot Dog series, Ninja Kid, and now there’s E-Boy, Wolf Girl and the Mythix for slightly older readers as well. Any one of these collections are bound to keep the peace for a good long while.
Isla Fisher: Marge in Charge is the hilarious tale of a rainbow haired nana and the mischief she and her grandkids get up to. We’re at four books and counting so you can read them together or make the kids a pillow fort and chuck in these books. It might buy you enough time to drink a cup of coffee while it’s still hot.
The Treehouse Series: 117 Storeys high and still building. Andy Griffiths has gifted us hours where the only sound heard is giggles - at least until you get a description of the plot in agonising detail later.
Geronimo Stilton: There are seventy books in this series so far, and that’s just the paperbacks. Once you add in the special edition Kingdom of Fantasy, Hero Mice, Cave Mice and Geronimo does Classic Tales, it’s well over a hundred. Thea has a fair few devoted to her adventures as well.
Confident Readers:
Nevermoor by Jessica Townsend - They are chunky, they are captivating and if ever there was a worthy successor to Harry Potter, Morrigan Crow is it. The Trials of Morrigan Crow and Wundersmith are in store now, Hollowpox, the third instalment, will be hopefully out in late July or early August.
Mortal Engines by Phillip Reeve: There are four main novels and three prequels in this series and for any child who likes steampunk, sci-fi and adventure they’re a recipe for parental peace. As a bonus, The Traitor and the Thief series by Gareth Ward is fitting and thrilling follow up.
Percy Jackson by Rick Riordan: This series borders on an obsession for its fans. Once you get a child started with Percy, Magnus, Apollo or Kane there’s no turning back. Rick Riordan is the literary gift that keeps on giving.
Murder Most Unladylike by Robin Stevens: It’s a little worrying how often two twelve year old girls manage to get themselves right in the middle of a murder investigation but it’s also very entertaining. The mysteries and cases would make Agatha Christie proud, Robin Stevens also contributed to the London Eye Mystery after the sad passing of Siobhan Dowd, so there are two more equally twisty mysteries to enjoy.
Artemis Fowl by Eion Colfer: Artemis is back with fresh new covers to coincide with the release of the movie so this budding criminal mastermind is back on the shelf and ready to read. These fairy meets genius adventures are hours of fun, with a new spin off series The Fowl Twins to camp it off.
Young Adult Fiction:
Cassandra Clare: The world of The Mortal Instruments has six main novels full of angels, demons, action and romance, sequels, prequels and a brand new door stop sized novel to enjoy too.
Cherub: Seventeen Books! Robert Muchamore’s teen spy series does get a bit mature in places so it’s worth a bit of research to see if it’s appropriate for younger teens, but this series has personally given me over sixty long hours of peace and quiet. Bliss.
His Dark Materials: Lyra Silvertongue’s quest through multiple worlds are complex, thought provoking, and with the release of the Book of Dust series we are now five very large books deep. I wouldn’t recommend starting the Book of Dust Novels before fourteen or fifteen but these books, followed beautifully by the series on Neon, is a great way to crowbar kids off the Xbox.
Neal Shusterman: The Unwind series was The go to dystopia before The Hunger Games, and the Scythe series is a more than worthy successor. Set in a world without natural death two young apprentices to the Order of Scythes learn how to balance ultimate power with responsibility. The trilogy of Scythe, Thunderhead and Toll have all been released so they are ready and waiting for avid sci-fi and dystopia fans.
Patrick Ness: Chaos Walking is a trilogy that’s the size of five books at least. With a fast paced narrative, original sci-fi world building and a ‘talking’ dog, there’s a good chance you won’t see your teenager until they’re hungry. Patrick Ness’ stand alone novels are brilliant as well. His new release Burn, is due on the 7th of May.
And don’t forget the Harry Potter is a great read - or reread - at anytime!
By Katie Swanson
With our children are at home in these uncertain times, it’s a challenge to keep their minds active. These titles have themes, characters and narratives ripe for discussion and thought and will make a great addition to any impromptu home schooling. If any of these titles look good to you, give us an email and we will make sure to have one aside for you when we reopen.
#BookshopsWillBeBack
#WaitForYourBookshop
Early Chapter and Read Together:
White Fox by Chen Jiatong: Orphaned fox cub, Dilah, loves humans and wants desperately to be one, so much so that he follows an ancient fox legend on an adventure to find the magical moonstone to transform him.
Wild Robot by Peter Brown: Delightful, insightful and full of charm, the wild robot is the story of Roz, a curious robot who is activated by animals on a remote island and learns that you don’t need to be human to find your humanity.
Horrible Histories: Chock full of funny, informative and completely gross tidbits to make history age appropriate and fun for primary school readers.
The Little People, Big Dreams Series: No matter what your children are interested in, be it science, art, fashion, literature or sports, there is an inspirational Little Person just waiting to be discovered. From Stephen Hawking to Coco Chanel, this series of junior biographies helps children to dream big.
It Might Be An Apple by Shinsuke Yoshitake: This simple introduction to scientific inquiry is perfect for curious minds. With lovely graphic illustrations and plenty to learn, this book will spark questions, ideas and perhaps even experiments.
Confident Readers:
Ross Welford: Anything by Ross Welford blends science, adventure and humour in thought provoking and often hilarious ways. Kids will laugh out loud and learn without even realising it.
Jess Butterworth: Pick up any Jess Butterworth novel and you’ll find a tenacious heroine dealing with real situations in different cultures around the world. Her books are adventure with a message, plenty of animals and gorgeous covers. Her newest novel, Where the Wilderness Lives, is out soon.
Laura Ruby: The York series is an intellectual puzzle solving mystery set in an alternate solar powered New York. Each chapter has a new cipher, code or secret to uncover. The third book in the series, The Map of Stars, will be in store on the 18th of May.
Des Hunt: The Kiwis at War Series gives children an age appropriate glimpse into the realities of World War One. Each book focuses on a different role within the war effort, offering perspectives from fighter pilots, infantry and nurses.
Young Adult Fiction:
Frances Hardinge: This author wraps up complicated moral questions in adventure, ghost stories and well grounded fantasy. Themes like prejudice, fundamentalism and economic inequality are explored through a plant that grows on lies, a space in the soul for hitchhikers and the still beating heart of a dead god. All her books are guaranteed to get curious minds ticking.
World War Two: There are a number of titles for young adult readers that deal with the horror of World War Two. Below is a list of some of the most thoughtful and beautifully written stories on the subject:
The Tattooist of Auschwitz (Young Readers Edition) by Heather Morris
Munmun by Jesse Andrews: Munmun is the most imaginative and simple representation of privilege that I have ever read. In a world where your size directly correlates to your bank balance, life is bleak for the ‘Little Poor’ and a playground for the ‘Big Rich’. While humorous, Munmun deals with some heavy themes, like exploitation and poverty, so would be best for readers 15 and over.
The Survival Game by Nicky Singer: In a post climate change world a young woman tries desperately to make her way to a place of safety. This is another mature title, but a worthy read for any older teen, bringing to light the challenges of displaced people.
Ghost Boys by Jewell Parker Rhodes: Be ready with a box of tissues, Ghost Boys is the story of a young American boy shot by the police. On the other side, he encounters the ghosts of all the other boys murdered for the colour of their skin, hears their stories and shares their anger and pain.
Our Book of the Month for February is The Yellow House by Sarah M. Broom which won the National Book Award for Nonfiction. A memoir of place, class, race and inequality, it tells the story of a hundred years of Broom’s family and their relationship to home after the devastating effects of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans.
”An extraordinary, engrossing debut… kinetic and omnivorous… instantly essential.” - New York Times Book Review
Olive, Again
Elizabeth Strout
Our Book of the Month for December is Olive, Again by Elizabeth Strout. Readers will be thrilled by the return of the much-loved character Olive Kitteridge. Olive adjusts to her new life with her second husband, challenges her estranged son, experiences loss and loneliness, witnesses the triumphs and heartbreaks of her friends and neighbours in the small coastal town of Crosby, Maine - and, finally, opens herself to new lessons about life.
On RNZ’s Nine to Noon, Kiran reviewed our Book of the Month, Girl by Edna O’Brien. O’Brien is an important writer who has long given a voice and created a space for girls and women in crisis. This novel tells the story of Maryam, one of a group of schoolgirls kidnapped by Boko Haram in northeastern Nigeria. Girl will rip your heart out, but you won’t be able to put the book down. What a writer!
Our Book of the Month for October is Edna O’Brien’s Girl. A clear-sighted and gripping novel about Maryam, one of a group of schoolgirls kidnapped by Boko Haram in northeastern Nigeria. At 88-years-old, O’Brien is as icicle sharp as ever - on a recent trip to Nigeria on research for this book, she smuggled £15,000 in her knickers to give to people there. Girl will rip your heart out, but you won’t be able to put the book down. What a writer!
You can listen to Kiran’s RNZ Nine to Noon review of Girl here.
Deborah Levy’s Booker Prize longlisted The Man Who Saw Everything may not have made the shortlist but it is our Book of the Month for September! An intriguing and expertly plotted novel abut politics, history, surveillance, beauty and envy, this book shows Levy is a clever writer of immense control and clarity. You can listen to Kiran’s 95bFM Loose Reads review here.
On 95bFM’s Loose Reads Kiran reviewed our Book of the Month The Man Who Saw Everything by one of her favourite writers Deborah Levy. An intriguing and expertly plotted novel abut politics, history, surveillance, beauty and envy, this book shows Levy is a clever writer of immense control and clarity.
Our Book of the Month for August is The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead who won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and National Book Award for his 2016 novel The Underground Railroad. Based on a real and brutal segregated Florida reform school in the 1950s, the Nickel Academy claims to provide “physical, intellectual and moral training” that will equip its inmates to become “honorable and honest men”. Time Out’s owner Wendy loved this book!
Our Book of the Month for July is Celestial Bodies by Jokha Alharthi which has won the Man Booker International Prize. It’s a powerful saga about three sisters living in al-Awafi, an Omani village on the brink of change. Exploring themes of slavery, urbanisation, women’s wisdom, patriarchy and masculinity, it’s a beautiful read. Celestial Bodies is also our Lit Reads title for July.
Click here to hear Kiran’s review on 95bFM’s Loose Reads.
On 95bFM’s Loose Reads Kiran reviewed our July Book of the Month and Lit Reads title Celestial Bodies by Jokha Alharthi which has won the Man Booker International Prize. It’s a powerful saga about three sisters living in al-Awafi, an Omani village on the brink of change. Exploring themes of slavery, urbanisation, women’s wisdom, patriarchy and masculinity, it’s a beautiful read.
