Poetry

National Poetry Day, this year on Friday 30 July, aims to involve as many people as possible in celebrating poetry, poets and poems. There are events all over the country and also newspaper and radio items and interviews. The New Zealand Post Poetry Award for 2010 will be announced in August.

Newly published, and not eligible for this year's poetry award, is a lovely little book by Fiona Kidman called Where your left hand rests. Within the attractive cover and endpapers are beautiful illustrations and fascinating poems that encapsulate a deep sense of family and history. Various images of Victorian embroidery separate the sections of the book but the repetition of a perfect rose provides continuity. This is a special book to hold, look through and read - a little treasure.

Private life

The latest novel by Jane Smiley, Private life, describes the lifetime of one woman, a very private life indeed but it occurs over 70 years of public and significant events in American history including the 1905 San Francisco earthquake, the Great War, the Spanish flu epidemic and the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour. What unfolds against this panarama of history is Margaret's internal struggle to understand herself and her relationships with those around her. In conversation with Kim Hill, Jane Smiley admitted that she set out to write an interesting story and used an eccentric character from her own family as a basis for Captain Andrew Jefferson Early. Posing the question "how does a normal person keep up with abnormality around them" Jane Smiley suggested the book could be seen as a parable for modern American society. I think what she has brilliantly achieved is a distillation of the many threads, forces and coincidences that shaped the life of Margaret and her sad marriage, into a symbolic study of selflessness.

Jane Smiley's book contains several other effective character studies; a Japanese midwife, an elusive male friend and the very independent Dora, a journalist who becomes a European war correspondent in 1916. Another novel worth reading with a female war correspondent, this time during the Second World War, is the Postmistress by Sarah Blake; also a study in the personal versus the political and how people cope in difficult situations.

a book or a Kobo?

Not the right question? It's the content that matters. Ask instead - a novel or a biography, historical or contemporary, funny or serious, light or challenging?
What we read is more important than how and I am increasingly concerned about the articles and letters stating that the feel of a book, the smell of the pages is an integral part of the experience. For me it's the story every time.
Now I can choose to read a printed book or to download to my Kobo and I'm doing both quite happily. The pleasure of hunting out a good read and then getting hold of it and then just reading and reading - thank goodness it's the weekend!

The June issue of Good Reading Magazine, available by the way in print or online, included an article on music in novels. One title listed that I haven't read is now on my Kobo, immediate transfer, no waiting in a reserves queue or travelling to the bookshop and I can fit it easily into my bicycle basket.

Shortlisted - but how to choose the winner?

Two novels and a book of short stories are the finalists for the fiction category of the New Zealand Post Book Awards 2010.
I want both the novels, As the earth turns silver by Alison Wong and Limestone by Fiona Farrell, to win and almost wish they had been listed in separate years.
I enjoyed both of them as they are highly readable quality fiction and well deserve being on this shortlist.

Contrasting these two novels reveals: a first time author and a very well established author; a story firmly set in New Zealand and a story that roams the world; a story that includes historical reality and a story that is wonderfully imaginative; a novel of short, sharp chapters and a novel of long complex chapters; an exploration of the past and an analysis of the present. Comparing the two books we find expressive writing and wonderful metaphors, character development and poignant personal moments, a feeling of how the past explains the future and the satisfaction of reading a well structured book and learning from it.






Since I chose As the earth turns silver for my banner above I think I must back this one as the winner - the announcement will be on Friday 27 August. I can even vote for it in the People's choice award.

Here is another recommendation for you



2010 NZ POST BOOK AWARDS FINALISTS:
Fiction: As the Earth Turns Silver by Alison Wong, Limestone by Fiona Farrell, Living as a Moon by Owen Marshall.

Poetry: Just This by Brian Turner, The Lustre Jug by Bernadette Hall, The Tram Conductor's Blue Cap by Michael Harlow.

General Non-Fiction: Aphrodite's Island by Anne Salmond, Beyond the Battlefield: New Zealand and its Allies, 1939-1945 by Gerald Hensley, Cone Ten Down: Studio pottery in New Zealand, 1945-1980 by Moyra Elliott and Damian Skinner, Encircled Lands: Te Urewera, 1820-1921 by Judith Binney, The Invention of New Zealand Art & National Identity, 1930-1970 by Francis Pound.

Illustrated Non-Fiction: Art at Te Papa edited by William McAloon, Go Fish: Recipes and stories from the New Zealand Coast by Al Brown, Maori Architecture: From fale to wharenui and beyond by Deidre Brown, Marti Friedlander by Leonard Bell, Mrkusich: The Art of Transformation by Alan Wright and Edward Hanfling.

All are available through North Shore Libraries.