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Big Fat Brown Bitch | Regional News

Big Fat Brown Bitch

Written by: Tusiata Avia

Te Herenga Waka University Press

Reviewed by: Miya Dawson

Tusiata Avia is big, fat, brown, and angry about the treatment of Pacific peoples in New Zealand. Big Fat Brown Bitch is the latest poetry collection by Avia, written after ACT party leader David Seymour’s criticism of her award-winning previous poetry collection The Savage Coloniser Book created news. In bold, direct language, it addresses racism and how the colonisation of Aotearoa still affects people today – from the personal, such as name-calling at school, to the national, as when Avia calls out specific government leaders who’ve made decisions she disagrees with.

The first section of the book, Werewolf, is the most political. It’s arresting and doesn’t shy away from swearing or discussing hate speech. It’s not one for all audiences, but Avia has an undeniable way of making you stop and take note of her words. “I am the girl who bites like this,” reads one poem, and the lines do feel like furious dog bites at the world.

The final section, Malu | Protection, is the most abstract and covers traditional tattooing practices. The narrator and her niece search family records for the best symbols to use, and she imagines being deep underwater with taniwha while the painful tattooing process takes place. The poems explore being half-Samoan, growing up separate from your ancestry and not speaking the language, exemplified in The opening lāuga, the ceremony where the Samoan orators speak from one side of the page and Avia’s narrator is aligned to the opposite side.

If I had to critique, a couple of the poems didn’t feel very distinct from each other. However, overall, it’s a cohesive collection which doesn’t falter in sharing the strengths and trials of Avia’s life. FCC Theatre Company will be performing an adaptation of Avia’s The Savage Coloniser Book, directed by Anapela Polata’ivao, this Aotearoa New Zealand Festival of the Arts if you’re interested in seeing more of her work. And if you’re not – “Come for me babe, what else have I got to lose?”

Epic Adventures Across Aotearoa | Regional News

Epic Adventures Across Aotearoa

Written by: Ray Salisbury

Exisle Publishing

Reviewed by: Kerry Lee 

Starting with Graeme Dingle and Jill Tremain in 1971 as they attempted to traverse the Kā Tiritiri o te Moana, aka the Southern Alps, Epic Adventures Across Aotearoa takes readers on an adventure of a lifetime.

Each chapter is its only little story, where the new protagonist(s) dare to push themselves to the limit on adventures that will in some cases take your breath away. Despite all the obstacles, they found a way to keep pushing and overcame hurdles that some (myself included) would find insurmountable. For someone like me who is more of an ‘armchair adventurer’, this book inspired me to get out of my comfort zone and start exploring – although not quite to the extent of what is covered here!

Salisbury’s writing is fantastic and a real standout component of the book. I felt that I was there living each adventure alongside the heroes the author encapsulates. Illustrations and maps make them seem even more alive than they are and bring their journeys to life. Non-fiction writing can be boring, but not Salisbury’s. I was engaged on every page.

My favourite part was chapter four, where mountaineer Richard Ackerley set himself the goal of climbing to the top of Aoraki/Mount Cook before turning 20 – something he achieved. I also especially liked the summary at the end of each chapter as I got a little taste of what became of each adventurer afterwards.

There are no downsides that I can see to this book; it’s well written with great additional visual content that leaps off the page and sucks you in.

As previously mentioned, Epic Adventures Across Aotearoa gave me a little inspiration to see more of my country, and I hope it does the same for you. If you see this on a bookshelf and haven’t explored New Zealand but want to, I seriously encourage you to pick it up.

The Mystery Guest | Regional News

The Mystery Guest

Written by: Nita Prose

HarperCollins

Reviewed by: Courtney Rose Brown

The Mystery Guest follows head maid Molly Gray as she tries to keep the edges of sheets crisp and the memory of her nan alive, all while being a murder suspect. 

With a tainted past, the five-star Regency Grand Hotel desperately wants to improve their reputation. The staff are just able to reopen the renovated tearoom in time to host a special event for a bestselling mystery author. On the precipice of his exclusive announcement, the author dies suddenly and all hands point to the maid. After a previous false accusation, the police reluctantly work with Molly to solve the case due to her attention to detail.  

The Mystery Guest follows Molly both as an adult and as her 10-year-old self. The flashbacks provide insight into who Molly is today, and why her job as head maid means so much to her. She is an endearing protagonist who views the world as black and white, struggling to read social cues and always working towards making things right.

As a child, she calls on her imagination and uses her fairytale-like wonder to create a protective shield around her to get through tough experiences. She doesn’t understand that correcting the grammar of other kids won’t gain her any friends, nor why the teachers want to hold her back a grade. But with a close connection to her nan, her imagination, and her passion for cleaning, it doesn’t get her down and she carries on. 

As an adult, she is by the book and for the book, living and quoting the Maid’s Manual she’s working on as she works to solve the crime – whilst also trying to solve the mysteries of those around her and maintain the proper etiquette of a head maid.

The Mystery Guest exists in the realm of cosy crime and is an easy read as the past unfolds the mysteries of the present. Solving the crime is all part of the fun. It’s a great summer read.

Dolly Parton: 100 Remarkable Moments in an Extraordinary Life  | Regional News

Dolly Parton: 100 Remarkable Moments in an Extraordinary Life 

Written by: Tracey E. W. Laird

Epic Ink

Reviewed by: Courtney Rose Brown

“Writing is my first love… it’s my doctor, it’s my therapist… but it also gives a voice to a lot of folks who don’t know how to express it.” – Dolly Parton. 

Dolly Parton has always been a prolific writer. In her five-decade career, she has penned over 3000 songs, with the first written at age five. She easily steps into the shoes of other people and writes with her heart from a place of truth. However, this skill has led to the banning of some of her songs due to conservative views at radio stations. 

Known for a high head of blonde hair, acrylics, and an hourglass figure, Dolly’s look has remained the same as her character. Author Tracey E. W. Laird ensures Dolly’s personality shines through Dolly Parton: 100 Remarkable Moments in an Extraordinary Life, making it clear that she has been a hard-working, kind, charismatic, smart businesswoman every step of the way.

Coming from nothing, Dolly grew up as the fourth child of 12 in the Smoky Mountains, a place she is always giving back to. She focuses on her faith and love for all without alienating or passing judgement. Over the years, she has donated generously and founded charities, including Imagination Library, which gives a child one free book a month from birth to kindergarten. 

Dolly will always be full of surprises, whether it’s making a rock album in her seventies, writing a thriller with James Patterson, or sealing an unheard song in a time capsule that can’t be opened until 2045. It is hard to sum up Dolly in snapshots of her career, but Laird does well. The author excels when she writes about the stories behind Dolly’s songs and the feelings they evoke, mixed with what she was wearing when performing, transporting you into the moment with her. This novel is a great introduction to Dolly and serves as an impressive collection of her accomplishments throughout her legendary career. 

The World I Found | Regional News

The World I Found

Written by: Latika Vasil

Black Giraffe Press

Reviewed by: Jo Lucre

A few pages into The World I Found, I was ambivalent about whether I was going to enjoy it, but as it happens, I did.

In what is author Latika Vasil’s first foray into the young adult genre, The World I Found is narrated by 15-year-old Quinn. A seemingly innocuous sea-bound trip in the Spirit of Discovery to Campbell Island for a year, with her scientist mother, screams boredom – one personified by the distinct lack of the sweet trappings of youth: shops, junk food, fellow teens, the internet, and most importantly, her best friend Frankie.

The relative safety of the island soon dissipates when Quinn and Jeroen, the son of her mother’s peer Dr Waslander, are swept overboard as the team, hitching a ride on Greenpeace’s Artic Star, makes its way back to the homeland after communications are lost. Afar, something disturbing is afoot. Both Quinn and Jereon wash up, bruised, sea-beaten, and separated from the others on a remote beach on the mainland they came from, but no longer recognise.

They awake to the haloed face of an equally alone 12-year-old boy, Cal, peering down at them. They are soon confronted with the new normal brought about by the ravages of a deadly virus, one quickly spread with little recovery (sounds all too familiar) that has swept the mainland. Quinn, possessed with a fighting spirit yet calm demeanour, quickly realises she has more grit and tenacity than belies her youth to respond. The trio soon meet Jack and Robyn, kindly old folk living off the land, hunkered down and hoping for normality to return. But there’s something nefarious, cult-like, waiting round the bend...

The World I Found has a simple but steady premise. Of course, now that we are no strangers to pandemics and what they can bring, the novel makes you think about what you might do or become in the same scenario – only this time with a more apocalyptic vibe.

The Being Human Collection | Regional News

The Being Human Collection

Written by: Dr Carrie Hayward

Exisle Publishing

Reviewed by: Fiona Robinson

Being Human might not be the most intriguing of titles for a series of books. However, I found it an enlightening read.

The collection is made up of four short stories in small hard-backed books. It’s written by Dr Carrie Hayward, a Melbourne-based clinical psychologist who specialises in Acceptance and Commitment Therapy. I had to look this up – it means acknowledging the full range of your thoughts and emotions rather than trying to avoid, deny, or change them.

Each story explores the roller coaster of emotions us humans commonly struggle with. My takeaway was that reading the collection creates the opportunity to sit with those complex feelings and reflect on them.

The four bite-sized books are an easy read about life’s ups and downs. When I first started reading them, I thought they were a little too simple and a bit trite. However, when I took the time to reflect, I realised I’d experienced many of the situations myself or observed them in others.

Flower in the Pocket, about a man struggling with his anger towards a noisy and untidy neighbour, particularly resonated with me because I’d seen it play out. The negative voice in our heads is illustrated in The Unwanted Friend. Our growing disconnect with the world and the people around us, as a consequence of spending time on social media or computer games, is explored in The Dragonfly in the Haze. The Lost Sun looks at the importance of living in line with our values. Some of these stories have stayed with me long after I finished reading them.

Each book concludes with a simple but effective reflection exercise at the end. I liked this practical exercise so much that I’ve used it several times since finishing The Being Human Collection. These books are packaged up in a way that would make a good gift and they would also make for a reflective holiday read.

Life Done Differently | Regional News

Life Done Differently

Written by: Lisa Jansen

High Tide

Reviewed by: Jo Lucre

It takes a brave soul to throw in the towel on a predictably routine life and venture into the unknown.

In Life Done Differently: One Woman’s Journey on the Road Less Travelled, author Lisa Jansen shares her unique journey from the moment she chose the ‘vanlife’ to travel the open road as a single, adventure-loving, remote-working woman.

Life Done Differently is a telling memoir filled with curiosity and insight into how a life path, previously undiscovered, can change your view of the world and yourself. Jansen’s jaunt takes her across the breadth of New Zealand – from Ōtaki Beach to the northern side of the Taranaki Pennisula to the wonders of Lake Taupō and beyond – as she meets kindred spirits and connects with communities along the way.

Jansen offers an honest account of her five-year life on the road. It’s not all summer loving, beach bathing, and basking in the discoveries of geographically hidden gems that only a nomad lifestyle can afford. For one thing, travelling the road also means travelling the seasons.

Jansen broke the lulls of her first winter on the road by finding housesitting gigs to avoid some of the things she hadn’t necessarily considered, like sharing a confined space with smelly, damp wetsuits and the moisture that ensues.

Giving up her affectionately named campervan, Josie, when rust issues arose, Jansen returned to Auckland for a winter in 2019, where the threat of being pulled back into a life of normal was palpable. The potential of consumerism and the rat race to swallow her up again was all too real. And so, she returned to life on the road, but a couple of seasons later the world took a turn, which meant navigating a pandemic in her new home on wheels.

Jansen paints a picture of a life less burdened, and how as a virtual marketing freelancer and author, she made her unconventional life on the road work.

If you want to live life differently, then go for it, she says. Equally, if it is a traditional life you’re after, then do that – but always be true to yourself!

On the Record | Regional News

On the Record

Written by: Steven Joyce

Allen & Unwin

Reviewed by: Kerry Lee

The magic of the autobiography is that it gives us a peek behind the curtain into the lives of people we look up to or admire. It shows us that, like us, they struggled and had their fair share of troubles before finding success, and that they found a solution after persevering.

Sometimes this inspires us to find ways around our problems and gives us ideas we never thought of.

On the Record is one such book. It chronicles Joyce’s early years, from his beginnings at RadioWorks (now MediaWorks New Zealand) to entering politics and becoming finance minister for the National Party.

While he may not look like the wild type, Joyce’s ride certainly was. He had a hand in many of the rock stations that I grew up listening to. Stations like The Edge and Solid Gold FM (now The Sound), among others, were all his doing.

My favourite story Joyce recalls is when The Edge presenters Jay-Jay Feeney and Brian Reid pranked the late Paul Holmes as he was going live on air. Holmes was stewing for weeks, and all sorts of threats were made before cooler heads prevailed.

Anecdotes like this mean that even if you’re not interested in politics, you will find something in On the Record to get into. But if you’re a dyed-in-the-wool Labourite, you might not even give this book a chance.

That would be a shame as it is an insightful look into someone who had an enormous influence in this country not too long ago and rubbed shoulders with some very powerful individuals.

While I did not agree with everything Joyce did while he was in power, I still admire the fact that he went into politics to help other people. Now, whether you voted for him or not, you have to admit there is no reason more noble than that.

Murray Ball: A Cartoonist’s Life  | Regional News

Murray Ball: A Cartoonist’s Life

Written by: Mason Ball

HarperCollins

Reviewed by: Kerry Lee

Written from the unique perspective of his eldest son Mason, Murray Ball: A Cartoonist’s Life is the story of not only how New Zealand got the award-winning cartoon Footrot Flats, but of a man who fought to follow his passions and won.

From his humble beginnings growing up in a small, rural town in Aotearoa, the book follows Ball’s adventures as a would-be All Black, father, and an aspiring cartoonist. Much like many of us, he set goals and had setbacks, but never gave up.

One of his greatest creations was undoubtedly the cartoon strip (and later movie) Footrot Flats. Centred on the adventures of small-town farmer Wal and his trusty dog in outback New Zealand, it showed us that there could be humour in the trivial, and not everything had to be zany to get a laugh.

In reading Murray Ball: A Cartoonist’s Life, one of the biggest surprises – at least for me – was how closely Footrot Flats resembled Ball’s own life. Examples included the farms Ball lived around and his cousin Arthur – the real-life inspiration for Wal himself.

Like all artists, Ball took inspiration from his own life and put it onto a canvas to create something truly special. Sorry if that sounds a bit melodramatic, but that is exactly what he did.

Mason Ball’s writing should also be applauded. While his father’s life was of course non-fiction, I nonetheless found myself swept up in his dad’s adventures, and more than once caught myself chuckling and thinking, ‘I can relate to that’. That is the power of skillful writing, and hopefully, we will see more of that in 2024.

As I mentioned in my Year in Review just before Christmas last year, biographies like these are important because they make us understand that our problems are not unique to us, and that others have faced them before and come out on top.

This is worth looking out for. If you see it, get it.

Gangster’s Paradise | Regional News

Gangster’s Paradise

Written by: Jared Savage

HarperCollins

Reviewed by: Kerry Lee

For decades, gangs have been a huge problem for New Zealand, one made even worse by the discovery of how much money illegal drugs could make them. With the arrival of newer and even more dangerous gangs from across the ditch, it was only a matter of time before the already-tense situation ignited and got out of control.

For many of us, Gangster’s Paradise talks about a problem that only existed when we turned on the six o’clock news. It shows us that far from being the happy-go-lucky country we would all like New Zealand to be, it has an underworld, one that goes toe to toe with the Sopranos any day of the week.

Jared Savage’s writing cuts right to the chase and tells us exactly how bad the gang problem in this country really is. I love how nothing is sugar-coated as readers are treated to the no-holds-barred truth of a reality that a lot of us are ignorant of. At the same time, Savage never casts the figures in the book in overly dark tones, instead writing them as people who have made mistakes – but who are still people nonetheless.

My favourite moments? Whenever the police triumphed and caught the bad guys (I love the classic hero arc). I have to say that while our boys in blue may take a bit of flak from time to time, I admit coming away with a newfound appreciation for them.

There really is nothing I can fault here. Despite the intense subject material, I found the book both easy to read and enjoyable. Those who enjoy nonfiction mixed with a good crime caper will find themselves warming to Gangster’s Paradise. If you see it in store, I can’t recommend it enough.

For those who think little New Zealand cannot have anywhere near the gang problem that larger countries like America have, this will be a major wake-up call, and a thrilling read at that.

The Air Raid Book Club | Regional News

The Air Raid Book Club

Written by: Annie Lyons

William Morrow & Company

Reviewed by: Fiona Robinson

This heart-warming novel was a surprise hit for me. Annie Lyons wasn’t an author I’d read before, although I’m enjoying the current crop of books about the Second World War told from female viewpoints. The Air Raid Book Club is the perfect novel for booklovers like me and you, particularly fans of the 19th-century classics with the odd nod to the golden age of detective fiction.

The book revolves around Bingham Books – a shop set up in London in the 1930s by our hero Gertie Bingham and her husband Harry. But Harry has died and Gertie is left bereft and grieving. Life no longer holds the joy and sense of purpose it did for Gertie. She is drifting and so considers selling up the bookshop and retiring.

That is until her friend Charles asks her to take in a child refugee from a desperate Jewish family living in Germany. Despite a tough start, headstrong teenager Hedy gives Gertie a reason to keep going. They bond over the Brontë sisters and start an air raid book club to keep their neighbours’ spirits up during the Blitz.

As the bombs fall, the neighbours huddle in the bookshop’s air raid shelter and connect over Jane Eyre, Rebecca, and A Christmas Carol. Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier is one of my favourite books of all time, so I think Gertie has great taste! These connections over much-loved novels lead to deepening friendships that help Gertie and her neighbours get through the war and the tough times ahead for them all. They support each other through the highs and lows, celebrate signs of romance, and are there for Hedy as she awaits news of her family back in Germany and desperately seeks to be reunited with them one day.

This book was charming and reminded me of all the classics I have loved. It has inspired me to reread some of my favourites again, including Little Women. I guarantee you’ll enjoy The Air Raid Book Club and it would make a good gift to give to a book-loving friend.

Root Leaf Flower Fruit | Regional News

Root Leaf Flower Fruit

Written by: Bill Nelson

Te Herenga Waka University Press

Reviewed by: Margaret Austin

Subtitled A Verse Novel, this creative work suggests both forms. If you think ‘verse’ means rhyme, you’ll be disappointed. That said, there is rhythm and imagery aplenty. If you imagine ‘novel’ (a fictitious prose narrative of book length), you’ll be closer to the mark.

At over 100 pages and consisting of a story with a bit of a plot, albeit rambling, Root Leaf Flower Fruit relates a grandson’s experience of his grandmother’s physical and mental deterioration, a chilling parallel of his own. “Designed to look like an accident. / But no memory of what happened. / I might as well be someone else.” is how he describes a head injury due to a fall off his bike in the opening section Root. There are roots throughout, plus trees, mud, and paddocks: images that reflect and magnify the writer’s preoccupation with land as it used to be.

Inevitable change is foreshadowed. Our writer is studying how science can help predict climate change, but all is interrupted by his grandmother’s subsequent stroke and the decision to sell her farm. It must be tidied up first, however, and our man is landed with the job.

The second section Leaf recounts the discovery of his grandmother’s diaries – and that they are, intriguingly, written in the third person. From here, the narrative gathers pace, as efforts to clear the property, clean the house, and rid it of what can be judged rubbish alternate with accounts from the diaries – redolent with descriptions of farm life, experiences with WWOOFers, and some recalling scenes more troubling.

“The first viewing is a regional manager at Landcorp.” The penultimate section Flower sets the scene for what, inevitably, follows. “I pack everything into boxes and call the Salvation Army”. The language of auctions fills the air: bidding, reserve, last chance. The gavel falls – on a sale, and the end of an era.

Fruit, a lengthy interior monologue, recalling Grandmother’s life and her farewell to it, concludes a chronicle of joy, duty, necessity, and lament.