Crowds of readers

Saturday sell-out successes at the Writers and Readers Festival were:

• Colm Toibin, best known for The Blackwater lightship, who was recently named in the Costa Book Awards for Brooklyn, a story about an Irish woman emigrating to Brooklyn in the 1950s
• Lionel Shriver, best known for We need to talk about Kevin, explaining her newest novel So much for that, an indictment of the state of health services in America and an exploration of how individuals come to terms with serious illness and dying
• Charlie Higson, the writer of the Young James Bond novels, proving with his new horror series beginning with The Enemy that books can appeal to teenage boys
• C.K.Stead who filled the upper room to capacity with the very first outing of South-West of Eden: a memoir 1932 -1956

Quotes from Lionel Shriver

• Libraries are expressions of social generosity
• Book groups are a healthy cultural phenomenon

Thanks to Roberta Smith from Christchurch Libraries for her interesting interview with Lionel Shriver