The “holiday season” will be here in a blink. It’s time to think about getting a stockpile of fiction and non-fiction for you and your visitors to read while relaxing – it doesn’t all have to be iPad, text and television.
Make sure you note book return dates and don’t leave the most expensive book you’ve ever taken out of your local library under a holiday home bed or under the cushion of your friends’ settee. And check the holiday season opening hours. If you’re a bookaholic there is nothing more depressing than reading all your stash and arriving outside an unopening library door.
These are some recent reads from the Tauranga City Library and remember if you would like to become an ARTbop book reviewer, either regularly or occasionally, email me at rosemary@artbop.co.nz or telephone 07 571 8722. And have a book filled Christmas.
TOP LOADER
Ed O’Loughlin, published by Quercus, Great Britain, 2011
I’d like to think this is satire but I’m not sure it isn’t absolute reality.
“From underneath the helmet, worried eyes considered the fruit trees,
three hundred metres away across the track churned dirt of the free-fire
zone. Then they turned to look at the Rorschach blot of blood and
crushed bone and offal which glistened on the otherwise unmarked
surface of the wall.Beneath this viscous stain, mirroring it, was a crater
full of gore and pulverised tissue, marking the spot where the donkey
had dematerialized. It looked as if someone had folded the wall and the
ground together, pressing the donkey between them like an insect in a
book. Flies were buzzing loudly. There was a churning stench of blood
and stomach contents, burnt meat and half-burnt chemicals.”
I’ll never look at the donkeys and washing machines in the same way again.
The brief author description says Ed O’Loughlin was born in Toronto and raised in Ireland. As a reporter he’s been in Africa for the Irish Times and others and was the Middle East Correspondent for the Sydney Morning Herald and the Age (Melbourne).
Like other “fiction” I’ve read and reviewed about the Middle East; Springsteen says it “what once was black and white turns to many shades of grey..”
If you’re lying down, full of Christmas dinner have a look at The Guardian (UK) Friday 10th October 2014 – Shlomo Sand “I wish to resign and cease considering myself a Jew”.
HAVANA FEVER
Leonardo Padura, Bitter Lemon Press, UK 2009, reprinted 2010 (first published in Spanish as La neblina del ayer by Tusquets Editores, S.A., Barcelona, 2005) Translated from the Spanish by Peter Bush
I need to say that this Cuban story was so engaging that I read it all at once. I’m only reading the back cover comments now:-
“Havana Fever is many things: a suspenseful crime novel, a cruel family
saga an ode to the literature and music of Padura’s beloved, ravaged island.”
The word pictures of Havana and the people were enhanced for me by an earlier reading of a book of historic Cuban architecture. Grandeur and style slowly disintegrating. I’m not telling you anymore. Wanting a reason for a big, summer holiday reader’s rest. Get this book – you won’t move till you finish it.
FLORENCE BROADHURST Her Secret & Extraordinary Life
Helen O’Neill Chronicle Books LLC, USA, first published by Hardie Grant Books, Australia 2006
Her life reads like fiction. There are examples of the fabulous wallpaper and fabric designs throughout the book.
“I’m sure there would be no psychiatric wards if there was more art.
People who take LSD must be terribly bored.”
Florence Broadhurst, Australian Home Journal, February 1968
A contemporary Australian company has the rights to reproduce Broadhurst’s designs; the ultimate revenge against contemporary minimalism. Take a look online at the amazing wallpaper and fabric patterns and www.signatureprints.com.au
Rosemary Balu
TAURANGA CITY LIBRARIES BOOK CLUBS:
Tauranga City Library meets:
3rd Wednesday of every month of 2014 at the Tauranga City Library
10.30am to 11.30am and 5.30pm to 6.30pm
Papamoa Library Book Club meets:
3rd Wednesday of every month of 2014 at Papamoa Library
10.00am
17 December, Best of 2014 – Novels, food, travel, history, memoir or DVDs.
FRIENDS OF THE TAURANGA CITY LIBRARIES
Any one can join the Friends. Annual membership is $10. and members receive six issues of Bookline, the Friends newsletter. Monthly meetings with guest speakers. Friends are volunteers who link the general public and library management; support library initiatives and raise money for special library projects.
Contact: President Barbara Murray barianre@enternet.co.nz Phone 07 579 5378
Secretary Barbara Moore barbara.m@xtra.co.nz Phone 07 575 6823
Bringing out the Book in You
Every first Saturday
10am -12 noon & 1 – 4pm
Arts Market @ The Cargo Shed
Dive Crescent, Tauranga
A free drop-in session throughout the day with Jenny Argante of The Little Red Hen Community Press – to talk about getting your writing project off the ground.
tel 07 576 9212, txt 022 053 48 68
wordwizard41@xtra.co.nz
(Excludes public holidays.)
