Forget the world by diving into a different one this summer
By Rachel O'Neill
Reading satisfies two very different impulses during the holiday season – the desire to escape and forget the world, and the desire to engage far more profoundly with it once we have the time to retreat, reflect and be rejuvenated.
For many of us, books are at the heart of the holidays. No matter if we’re enjoying a highly predictable narrative romp or lavishing our minds with something with more literary ambition, we trust in this experience. Perhaps, it’s because the world feels closer when we’re inspired to make new connections in our own lives.
Reading for me has always been an act of reconnaissance into new territories of thought and experience. It requires one to embark on a journey, step out of comfort zones and be prepared to rework the complete reading list. It’s about developing a willingness to reshape who we think we are and what we think we know by having faith in what books do.
So, you’re up for reading reconnaissance this summer, but how to get the most out of it? Here is a reminder of some of the more reliable pathways to good reads:
1. Keep a list. If you’re anything like me, you’ll walk into your local library or bookshop and be immediately overwhelmed by choice. I’ll often forget my ambitions to pick out a new kind of book, and relapse into old habits. By keeping track of interesting books you hear about and noting them down, you’ll get the most out of the reading time that you have and probably discover some new corner of the book world.
2. Keep up with new releases. You’ll find a great representation of new releases in your library, bookstore and through people or organisations that love books and promote new writing. The Book Council canvases New Zealand children’s and adult’s new releases monthly on our website.
3. Use reviews to refine your literary expeditions. Reviews appear regularly online, in magazines and newspapers and on radio. Our booklovers magazine, Booknotesfeatures regular reviews of New Zealand literature. Booksellers New Zealand commissions a wide range of reviews, and other review hotspots include New Zealand Books, Metro, NZ Listener, BookTV.nz and Landfall Review Online, to name a few. The Book Council’s Review of Reviews webpage goes one step further and collates reviews so you can take in the reception of recent New Zealand releases at a glance.
4. Keep an eye on the awards. I tend to think of award-winning books as recommended reads. Reviewing past and current New Zealand Post Book Awards winners, is one way to scoop the cream from the top. Booksellers New Zealand’s website lists all winners and Wikipedia (useful at such times) has a rather comprehensive list of literary awards from around the world.
5. You know what authors you like, but what are your favourite authors reading? Many authors share what they're reading via their blogs, websites, in reviews or via their social media pages. Keep an ear out for what’s inspiring them. We’ve been asking a range of writers about what they’re reading in our Five Easy Questions e-newsletter segment for a while now.
6. Finally, saying sayonara to your favourite genre. Be brave and choose a book from a genre or about a subject that you’re not familiar with. Not a reader of crime fiction? Peruse Crime Watch, Craig Sisterson’s blog for a recommended read, buy or borrow it, and put your trust in what books do best – gifting you with the ability to forget the world by diving into an alternative one.
Five Easy Questions with Peter Wells
We ask Peter Wells a few things about his biography of complex historical personage William Colenso, The Hungry Heart: Journeys with William Colenso, which recently hit New Zealand bookshelves.
1. What drew you to William Colenso?
Colenso was 'in the hood' where I had come to live and he seemed a natural. I loved his maverick nature. And the fact he had a terrible reputation meant I was drawn like a bee to honey.
2. What impact did travelling to the places significant to William Colenso have on how you shaped the biography?
The travelling was as much psychological as physical, but I loved the disjunction between the way things are today and how they must have been at the time. It was time travel with a hallucinogenic.
3. Why was he compelled to write the essays he did?
Colenso was a refusenik. He had a highly individual, quirky point of view. It was publish or perish for him - but 'perish' in this sense meant not existing in human society, not having a voice, not being able to articulate his ideas. And with Colenso, ideas were everything.
 4. Can you tell us a little about the cover art?
The Hawke's Bay Museum Trust asked Gavin Hurley to paint a new portrait of Colenso. I saw an early collage which I thought was perfect to give the sense of a new kind of history book: conversational, lively, personal. And then Alan Deare of Area Design took the beautiful kowhaiwhai pattern which came from William Cotton's 1842 journal and made a liquorice-like spine for the book. And it's a hardcover. It actually weighs one kilo so you could do weight lifting with it, if you want.
5. What are you reading right now?
I am reading a beautiful essay by James Wood in the Nov 7 2011 New Yorker which is about what is involved in dispersing a library. The essay is called 'Shelf Life' and it's fitting I mention the New Yorker as I used its writing style as a model for The Hungry Heart (in the sense that vast subjects are presented in a readable entertaining, form rather than as a pedantic monologue underwritten by political correctness).
Book Council news
True Stories Told Live – Twas the Night before Christmas
 Wellingtonians will enjoy personal family Christmas tales at the Book Council's next True Stories Told Live event.
Twas the Night before Christmas will see a stellar literary line-up share live and unscripted family Christmas stories.
Writers Fifi Colston, Miranda Harcourt, Catherine Robertson, Fleur Beale, Fiona Kidman and two special guests will have ten minutes each to tell true stories the festive way to raise funds for the Book Council.
The Book Council's True Stories Told Live events have been exhilarating and entertaining sell-out audiences in Auckland for the past two years. True Stories came to Wellington for the first time in October, and returns in December with a captivating storytelling line-up.
There are no notes. No readings. No questions. Just true stories that promise to delight, entrance and entertain.
The December 8 event at Meow Cafe will raise funds for the Book Council's Writers in Schools programmes, which has been bringing books, authors and children together since 1973.
Join our festive fundraising event for Writers in Schools and help us create happy young readers.
True Stories Told Live: Thursday 8th December, 6.15pm at Meow Café, 9 Edward Street, Wellington.
Ticketing: Book your tickets now online: $20 ($15 for members).
What's new on bookcouncil.org.nz
Rants and Raves
In case you missed the link to our latest Open Book blog post on Facebook or Twitter, click through to read our Q&A with new Director of Auckland Writers & Readers Festival, Anne O'Brien. She talks about deepening the reading life, what’s exciting her about Kiwi literature, and her most memorable reads.
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Review of Reviews
As mentioned in the lead article of this e-newsletter, we regularly gather together a bunch of online reviews of bestselling or much-talked-about books for your convenience. Our most recent addition to Review of Reviews is Small Holes in the Silence: Collected Works by Hone Tuwhare.
Travel Light this Summer with Library Ebooks
 Are you curious about ebooks? Would you like to find out more and have the chance to try out an ereader?
From this summer e-books will be available from 56 of the 67 public library systems nationwide. Two library related organisations have banded together to organise hands-on ebook and ereader experience for members of the public in libraries throughout New Zealand.
The Association of Public Library Managers (APLM) and Finding Heroes are organising the “Travel Light this summer with Library Ebooks” tour which will complement the launch of the Wheelers and Over Drive e-book lending platforms in libraries across the country.
The tour will comprise of two parts: an overview of how to use e-books at your local library and e-reader education on a range of e-reading devices. The tour leader is ebook enthusiast Sally Pewhairangi of Finding Heroes. Some of the e-reading devices that will be demonstrated are the Kindle, Kobo, iPad2, M12 and I8 Android tablets.
The road show has set a preliminary goal for sessions in at least 100 library branches across the country over the summer months. Librarians nationwide are excited to be hosting Travel Light tour stops and look forward to helping to demystify all things ‘ebook’ to the reading public.
A pilot tour is planned for public libraries within the Wellington/Wairarapa regions (from 11-18 December), with the tour travelling throughout New Zealand during February and March 2012. This is a real collaborative effort across the public library sector and beyond with input by public libraries and the wider library profession as well as ebook content and ereader distributors.
If you would like to find out more, including when the Travel Light tour will visit a library near you, visit the tour blog at http://libraryebooktour.wordpress.com/.
Residency, workshop and competition opportunities
Please note this is only a sample of literary opportunities from the news page on our website:
Commonwealth Writers final call for entries
A few days remain for writers to enter the new Commonwealth Book Prize and Commonwealth Short Story Prize. The prizes are part of a new initiative, Commonwealth Writers, an online hub to inspire, inform and create a community of writers from all over the world. Together with the prizes, Commonwealth Writers unearths, develops and promotes the best new fiction from across the Commonwealth.
Commonwealth Short Story Prize: Wednesday 30 November 2011 (5pm GMT)
The Commonwealth Short Story Prize is awarded for the best piece of unpublished short fiction in English (2000-5000 words). Regional winners receive £1,000 and the overall winner receives £5,000.
Commonwealth Book Prize: Friday 9 December 2011 (5pm GMT)
Awarded for best first book, the Commonwealth Book Prize is open to writers who have had their first novel (full length work of fiction in English) published between 1 January and 31 December 2011. Regional winners receive £2,500 and the overall winner receives £10,000.
Enter online at www.commonwealthwriters.org.
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NZSA Mentor Programmes 2012 – Now Open
NZSA Mentor Programme 2012
The NZSA’s Mentor Programme is calling for applications! This highly successful programme is available only to members of the NZSA and offers new authors the opportunity to spend 20 hours working alongside some of New Zealand’s best-known authors. Application forms can be downloaded from our website: www.authors.org.nz Alternatively, contact the NZSA national office at programmes@nzauthors.org.nz or send a SAE to Programme Manager, PO Box 7701, Wellesley Street, Auckland 1141.
Please note, the 2012 deadline for applications is different to previous years.
Deadline for applications: 5pm Monday 27 February. Funded by Creative New Zealand.
NZSA Youth Mentor Programme 2012
The NZ Society of Authors is calling for applications for a mentoring programme aimed at encouraging senior creative writing students. There are three places available to Year 11, 12 and 13 students nationwide. Each of the successful students will work alongside one of New Zealand’s best-known authors in a 10 hour mentorship during Terms 2 and 3. This is an exciting opportunity for young writers to work with an experienced writing mentor and hone their skills. For more information and application form, contact programmes@nzauthors.org.nz or download form from our website: www.authors.org.nz
Deadline: 5pm, 2nd April 2012. Funded by Creative New Zealand
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 The New Zealand Book Council receives core funding from Creative New Zealand. We are extremely grateful to our funding partners, who enable us to deliver our programmes. We also value your membership, which supports our work in schools and communities throughout New Zealand. |
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 The winner of the three-book young adult prize pack featuring Chameleon by Charles R. Smith and Blackthorn and Blackthorn's Betrayal by Elizabeth Pulford, is Anthea Levy.
 This month we are giving away two copies of Landfall 222, courtesy of Otago University Press. Landfall 222 features post-earthquake writing from Christchurch; a centenary tribute to Allen Curnow; announces results of the Landfall Essay Competition 2011; announces the winner of The Kathleen Grattan Award for Poetry 2011; and features art portfolios by Julia Morison and Miranda Parkes.
Enter by email, with the name of the book in the subject line, and your New Zealand postal address in the body of the email. Draw closes 12 noon on Monday 5th of December. E:reception@bookcouncil.org.nz
Each month an industry insider tells us about books they're looking forward to seeing in the bookshops.
This month Steve Laurence, owner of Almo's Books in Carterton, gives us his pick of up-coming releases. You can read more about Almo's Books in their Booksellers NZ profile.
 Present at the Creation: The Story of Cern and the Large Hadron Collider by Amir D Aczel ($34.99, Random House). The Large Hadron Collider is the biggest and by far the most powerful machine ever built. A project of CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, its audacious purpose is to re-create, in a 16.5-mile-long circular tunnel under the French-Swiss countryside, the immensely hot and dense conditions that existed some 13.7 billion years ago within the first trillionth of a second after the fiery birth of our universe. This is the story of the men and women who conceived and built the most ambitious scientific experiment in history.
 The Limit by Michael Cannell ($55.00, Allen and Unwin). A glittering account of Formula One's most thrilling and fatal era, culminating in the explosive championship battle of the 1961 Grand Prix. On 10 September 1961, at the boomerang-shaped racetrack at Monza in northern Italy, half a dozen teams are preparing for the Italian Grand Prix. It is the biggest race anyone can remember. Phil Hill, the first American to break into the top ranks of European racing, and his Ferrari teammate, Count Wolfgang von Trips, a German nobleman with a movie-star manner, face-off in a race that will decide the winner of the Formula One drivers' championship.
 The Midwife of Venice by Roberta Rich ($37.99, Random House). At midnight, the dogs, cats, and rats rule Venice. The Ponte di Ghetto Nuovo, the bridge that leads to the ghetto, trembles under the weight of sacks of rotting vegetables, rancid fat, and vermin. Seeping refuse on the streets renders the pavement slick and the walking treacherous. It was on such a night that the men came for Hannah Levi, a midwife in the Jewish ghetto. She is known throughout Venice for her skills, aided by her "birthing spoons" - rudimentary forceps she invented to help with difficult births, themselves illegal. Will Hannah be able to save both mother and child? And if she fails how will she be able to save herself, let alone her husband?
 
Bernard Beckett is the 2012 Writer in Residence at Victoria University of Wellington. During the 2012 residency, Beckett will work at the International Institute of Modern Letters at Victoria where he plans to concentrate on his latest novel Lullaby.
Novels by New Zealand authors Patrick Evans, Laurence Fearnley, Kevin Ireland, Lloyd Jones, Carl Nixon and Tim Wilson are among 147 titles that have been nominated by libraries worldwide for the €100,000 International IMPAC DUBLIN Literary Award, the world’s most valuable annual literary prize for a single work of fiction published in English.
Tina Makereti won the first-ever Fiction award at Nga Kupu Ora 2011, the third Maori Book Awards, for her short story collection Once Upon a Time in Aotearoa. Chris Winitana won the Te Reo Maori award for Taku reo, Taku Ohooho (My Language, My Inspiration), a book about the revitalisation of the Maori language, which has also been published in English.
Three further books were also recognised by the judging panel. The head of Massey University’s School of Maori Studies, Robert Jahnke, won the Arts category with Tirohanga o Mua: Looking Back. The Biography award was won by Joseph Pere for Wiremu Pere; and Te Taiao: Maori and the Natural World, published by Te Ara Encyclopedia of New Zealand, won the Non-Fiction award.
Auckland GP Dr Robin Kelly has won the Science Book of the Year at the 2011 USA Best Books Awards, for his third book The Human Hologram.
The New Zealand Society of Authors (PEN NZ Inc) announced that Waikato-based fiction writer Catherine Chidgey is the recipient of the 2012 NZSA Beatson Fellowship.
Eleanor Catton has been awarded The University of Auckland/Creative New Zealand Writer-in-Residence at the Michael King Writers’ Centre, a six-month residency in 2012.
Three New Zealand writers will take up residencies at the Michael King Writers’ Centre in Devonport next year. Whiti Hereaka, a Wellington playwright, novelist and screenwriter who has been admitted to the High Court as a barrister and solicitor and works for the Ministry of Culture and Heritage in her day job, has been selected for the Summer Residency starting in January. Lower Hutt author Chris Else has been awarded the Autumn Residency to work on a major new novel which explores how society began to change in the 1960s and 1970s. Te Awhina Arahanga from Christchurch has been awarded the Maori Writer’s Residency in May to work on a collection of short stories.
Jim Flynn, author of the best-selling book The Torchlight List and a recognised international expert on intelligence and IQ, has won The Royal Society of New Zealand inaugural Humanities Aronui Medal.
The two winning entries in the Royal Society of New Zealand Manhire Prize for Creative Writing are Bridget Stocker from Wellington, winner of the Fiction category, and Joanna Wojnar from Auckland, winner of the Non-Fiction category. They were each presented with $2500, and their winning entries will be published in the NZ Listener.
You can view the winners of CLL Educational Publishing Awards 2011 here.
Wellington based Singaporean/Chinese writer Rosabel Tan took first prize at the inaugural NZSA Asian Short Story Award ceremony in Auckland on Friday evening. 'Paper Butterflies' won the first prize of $3,000, which was kindly sponsored by Creative New Zealand. Second place was awarded to Angelique Kasmara for her story 'Asians with Perms'. Angelique received a cheque for $1,000. Equal third was given to Lee Murray for 'The Red Cardigan' and Latika Vasil for her story 'Open Home'. The four stories are available on www.authors.org.nz.
Please note this is only a sample of events from the events page on our website:
Ice Diver: NZ Poetry Society Anthology 2011 Book Launch
01 December 8.00pm
New Zealand Poetry Society - Te Hunga Tito Ruri o Aotearoa proudly presents the 2011 Anthology: Ice diver, edited by Linzy Forbes. This anthology was created from entries to the 2011 New Zealand Poetry Society competitions: the award-winning poems and haiku, and a selection chosen blind by the editor from this year's 2000 plus entries. It is a lively mix of work by adults, children, well-known and first-time poets, from fifteen different countries. The theme of the competition was open, as always. Subjects covered in the book include relationships, loss, landscape, the past, childhood, grandparents, animals, war, food and, not unexpectedly, earthquakes. There will be readings by a selection of Auckland contributors. Books will be available for purchase for $27 - cash or cheque only.
Venue: Whitespace Gallery, 12 Crummer Rd, Auckland
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