Festival highlights

Fiona Farrell's Quake story at the Gala Night

Gail Jones' articulate analysis of her writing process

Michelle Leggott's wedding poem

Barbara Strauch saying that logical reasoning is at its peak by age 60 but you still won't know where the car keys are!

Best round up of events as usual is from Christchurch City Libraries

Auckland Writers and Readers Festival 2011

The 2011 Auckland Writers and Readers Festival is bigger then ever with a schools programme, the Wordy Day Out, a series of workshops, special foody events, a free Poets Laureate event, words and music with the APO and lots of "meet the author" sessions.
I'm looking forward to hearing Aminata Forna, Fiona Farrell, Meg Rosoff, Madhur Jaffrey, Emma Neale, Charlotte Randall, Gail Jones, Elizabeth Smither, Tea Orbreht, and as many others as I can fit in to the packed weekend.
Hope to see you there!

A bird house

I think I've got it! Several of my previous posts have questioned memoirs as a literary genre but I now realise that adding a memoir to a book title is the publisher's construct. Authors writing about important parts of their life are not confined by genres - they are telling their own story. Annie Proulx in her latest book Bird Cloud is telling the story of her dream house and woven into that story are many strands of history, genealogy, zoology, geology, ecology, philosophy and literature, in wonderful crystal clear writing. Penelope Lively in A House unlocked described her childhood house through its many generations of residents discussing the relevant social conditions of the day and the psychology of families and relationships.

These books are more than memoirs, wider than biography and deserve not to be pigeon-holed into any particular genre. They do deserve wide reading!

5 bells

Character studies of four people who visit Sydney's Circular Quay one bright sunny day are carefully created, echoes from their past are carefully constructed into their present preoccupations, while hints about their future are carefully implied in their musings in the latest novel by Gail Jones. Five bells is a novel about individuals but it explores connections: personal, social, historic and literary. It is accurate, evocative writing and includes four different brilliant descriptions of the Sydney Opera House.

I enjoyed reading this book, becoming fully involved in the lives of the characters. The entry of the fifth person and the impact of the ending have kept me thinking about the story ever since I put it down with a sigh.

Gail Jones, who has written four previous novels, will feature in the Auckland Writers and Readers Festival in May. I am looking forward to finding out more about her and reading the other novels.

Navigating memories

Another example of how memoir is becoming the preferred genre to autobiography. When approached to write her autobiography Joy Cowley was reluctant but by putting together her memoirs, she has created in Navigation a set of stories on the main themes of her life that combine description, analysis and insight. A writer for children, teenagers and adults, Joy Cowley has produced hundreds of readers for schools and is a founding member of Storylines, the Children's Literature foundation of New Zealand. Her literary life is extremely interesting and it is fascinating and enlightening to read about the background to Mrs Wishy-Washy and The Silent One to name just a couple of outstanding examples of her story making.



I like the title as it suggests navigating through life to reach a destination but I found myself wanting to know more; how did she manage to write Nest in a falling tree while raising four children and helping to run the family farm? Joy Cowley is an amazing woman - what is it that shapes such creativity and output?


I'm drawn to literary biography for answers to such questions but it seems that currently I will only find such information from authors themselves through their selective memoirs.

a novel idea

With all the recent discussions about book stores and book selling, here is a timely fictional tribute to the knowledge and helpfulness of the independent bookseller that is a novel read. In fact it is a novel about novels. Some reviewers describe the book as a mystery, some a love story, some a fairytale but all agree that it is amusing, intriguing and enchanting.

Translated from French by Alison Anderson, who also translated The elegance of the hedgehog, another book about books, The Novel Bookstore is essentially a list of the best novels ever written. How these books are selected, sourced, organised, promoted and sold to readers is fascinating reading but the descriptions and explanations of how the book world reacts provide some wonderful quotable comments on writers, readers, publishers and reviewers.

At the book's website you can peruse a list of the good novels. I'd choose this list above The torchlight list any day!

Comfort stops

A comfy chair, a view of the sea and a good book - what more could I need?

The book is the catalogue to headland Sculpture on the Gulf 2011 and worth reading from start to finish as well as using as a guide around the exhibition. An excellent collection this year. Recycling and sustainability were common themes; seen in the plastic flags along the walkway and the data cables in the bush and emphasised by the group of nesting boxes around a pond that listed New Zealand endangered bird species.

The selectors have chosen thoughtful, humourous and questioning installations that fit perfectly with the environment: the figures in Barebottomland cascading down the hillside, the Comfort Stops at viewpoints, French knitting in the pohutakawa tree, Throwaway Fix by the water's edge.

Take the ferry to Waiheke soon, the scultpures are only there for 2 more weeks.