Category: Book Reviews
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The Summer that Melted Everything by Tiffany McDaniel
The Summer that Melted Everything by Tiffany McDaniel is a narrative on the premise that the devil has arrived in small town Ohio in the form of a “very dark and small” thirteen year old boy. Fielding Bliss is the boy who befriends him, and brings him home. What follows is the reactions of the small town…
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The Letters of Ivor Punch by Colin MacIntyre
The Letters of Ivor Punch by Colin MacIntyre is a novel set on a Scottish Hebridean Island (again, by coincidence like the last novel I read, thanks Universe for leading me there again). This one is a very different one. It tells of the letters of the elderly Ivor Punch and a whole mix of…
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My Mother and the Hungarians by Frankie McMillan
My Mother and the Hungarians was my introduction to the ‘Flash Novella’ the first book of its kind that I had read. I was taken with it immediately, with the short ‘snapshots’ of stories that could be on its own, or sewn together with others to create a longer story. I liked the fluidy through…
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Tail of the Taniwha by Courtney Sina Meredith
Tail of the Taniwha has become one of my ‘muse’ books, a work that I find inspiring for Courtney Sina Meredith’s different ways of using words to get across story and ideas, and the depth of many of the pieces. It is a short fiction book – somewhat a blur between short stories and what…
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Secrets of the Sea House by Elisabeth Gifford
Secrets of the Sea House is a novel covering an interesting topic matter – the history of the northern Scottish Islands and the fables (and realities) of the seal people (selkies) and mermaids, through the weaving of two stories. The first is the modern tale of the orphaned Ruth, who is married and renovating the Sea…
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Hand Me Down World by Lloyd Jones
Hand Me Down World by Lloyd Jones was one of the multitude of books recommended in class at Hagley Writers’ Institute. This one was recommended by Bernadette Hall (who interviews Lloyd Jones here) as her favourite of his novels. Hand Me Down World is the story of Ines, an African hotel worker, on a journey…
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Mindfulness on the Run by Dr Chantal Hofstee #aotearoareads
This year I have about a hundred things I want to do with life. I can tend to be a bit of an overachiever. But I know from past experience, that this all goes well for a few months, and then I seem to burn out (‘cos family life doesn’t seem to slow down or…
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The Poetry of Karlo Mila #aotearoareads
I have to confess, I’m rather fresh on New Zealand poetry. Poetry is something I’m coming back to, a first since high school, rediscovering the reading and writing of poetry as an adult. Karlo Mila’s Dream Fish Floating and A Well Written Body were part of my reintroduction to enjoying local poetry. Her work is very…
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Summer Holidays and #aotearoareads
There is something about the long summer and devouring New Zealand literature. Days travelling or hanging locally, visiting local beaches, mountains and rivers. All this inspires reading and writing about local tales and atmosphere as we holiday in our beautiful country. Perhaps it is the magic of the South Island that we can be on an…
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Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
They say that every book you read changes you, how you think, act, speak or look at the world. I hope that is true of Americanah. Americanah is a novel about being an African (or non-American) black in the US and England, and then the comparison of that life on return to Nigeria. The lead female…