New Zealand November

With only two months left of my project to read books from and set in Oceania, I needed to make a few plans. A retired professor, who had spent considerable time in Australia, has loaned me a few books from her collection, and I had a few more on my shelf. Her contributions were almost all memoirs by female New Zealanders, and one of those stories has also been made into a movie!

Authors from New Zealand I have already read:
Eleanor Catton - I read The Rehearsal and started the Booker-Prize winning The Luminaries
Emily Perkins - I read The Forrests last year
Katherine Mansfield - I read The Aloe earlier this year (discussed on Episode 033 of the podcast)

I would really like to read more from Katherine Mansfield! My library has a bunch of volumes of her short stories, even her letters, so that is promising.

Books I have on hand that I plan to try:

One Whale, Singing by Marion McLeod and Lydia Wevers
The Bone People by Keri Hume (Booker Prize winner!)
Hot October by Lauris Edmond
Bonfires in the rain by Lauris Edmond
The quick world by Lauris Edmond
Once Were Warriors by Alan Duff
An Autobiography by Janet Frame

Despite the fact that I'd be lucky to get through the stack I already have, I have other ideas for what I would like to read during New Zealand November. I have never read anything from Maori authors, and feel like it only makes sense to do so, but I'm not sure where to begin. I've heard good things about Clayton Hamish, so I went ahead and requested Wulf from the library. I'd like to read some of Janet Frame's fiction, some of Lauris Edmond's poetry, and more from Katherine Mansfield. One of Rose Tremain's novels, The Colour, is historical fiction set in New Zealand but the author herself is not from NZ. Into The River by Ted Dawe has had a lot of press because it was banned throughout the entire country of New Zealand in a move that seemed to belong more in the 1910s, but I'm not sure if it's considered "good" or just "banned." 

One thing that really strikes me is that most of these authors are female! That is surprising but there are enough male authors around the world that I do not feel the need to balance this one out. Do you have any favorites from New Zealand? Anything I'm missing? What about food? I've made pavlova and have plans for a few more baked goods.

Reading Envy 042: It Begins with Rain

Jenny is joined by Jason, a welcome repeat guest! We take shelter from the incoming rain accompanying Hurricane Joaquin, but we had no idea how bad the devastation would be in our home state of South Carolina. Jason's home and my home were okay, but that definitely isn't true for everyone! You can donate to aid victims of the flooding in South Carolina if you so desire.

Download or listen via this link: Reading Envy 042: It Begins with Rain.

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Book selections:



By the Iowa Sea: A Memoir by Joe Blair
The Coroner's Lunch by Colin Cotterrill
The Painter by Peter Heller
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot
All the Living by C.E. Morgan
The Professor's House by Willa Cather

Other books mentioned:
The Monsters of Templeton by Lauren Groff
Delicate Edible Birds: And Other Stories by Lauren Groff
Arcadia by Lauren Groff
Fates and Furies by Lauren Groff
The Dog Stars by Peter Heller
Kook: What Surfing Taught Me About Love, Life, and Catching the Perfect Wave by Peter Heller
Hell or High Water: Surviving Tibet's Tsango River (Vintage Departures) by Peter Heller
The Whale Warriors: The Battle at the Bottom of the World to Save the Planet's Largest Mammals by Peter Heller
Welcome to Braggsville by T. Geronimo Johnson
Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail by Cheryl Strayed
Stoner by John Williams

Other mentions:
National Book Award longlists
NPR "Morning Edition" Book Club
Avid Bookshop (Athens, GA)
Wild (movie)
Dual Survival (tv show)
5 Under 35 Award from the National Book Foundation
"Twins" by C. E. Morgan (in the New Yorker)
The Readers (podcast)
Books on the Nightstand (podcast)

Related podcast episodes:
Reading Envy Episode 014: Flannery O'Connor with Zombies
Reading Envy Episode 025: Mule and Plow
Reading Envy Episode 037: Breakdancing to Bach

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Jenny at Goodreads
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Library Books Mid-October 2015

And lo it was October, when all the new books come out, and all the awards are named, and Jenny made frequent use of her library and interlibrary loan in an attempt to try as many as possible. Pictures first, list and chatter at the end.

Satin Island by Tom McCarthy
Elegy for a Broken Machine: Poems by Patrick Phillips
Ordinary Light: A memoir by Tracy K. Smith
Scattered at Sea by Amy Gerstler
A Brief History of Seven Killings by Marlon James
Honeydew: Stories by Edith Pearlman
Heaven: Poems by Rowan Ricardo Phillips
Mistaking Each Other for Ghosts by Lawrence Raab
How to Be Drawn by Terrance Hayes
Welcome to Braggsville by T. Geronomino Johnson
A Stranger's Mirror: New and Selected Poems, 1994-2014 by Marilyn Hacker

The McCarthy and James are the last of the Man Booker Prize shortlist that I hadn't read (other than the one that won't be available until 2016!) and hooray, Marlon James won the prize this week! I will try to get back to that one. It follows so many characters that I took a break for easier reads when I came down with the plague. I finished Satin Island and returned it already; I really wish I had liked it more! I had previously read and enjoyed a novel by McCarthy.

I always try to read the poetry nominees for the National Book Award, and that's why I checked out the Phillips, Gerstler, Ricardo Phillips, Raab, Hayes, and Hacker.  Honestly none of these volumes (or those I read as eBooks) really blew me away this year, even the Hayes wasn't as striking to me as his last one, but I did probably still like it the best of the bunch.

The Smith is shortlisted for the non-fiction category of the National Book Award, while the Pearlman and Johnson are on the long list for fiction (but not the shortlist.) I had previously read the Lauren Groff and Hanya Yanagihara, both of which made the shortlist, but since the Johnson and Pearlman did not, I may return them to the library. They aren't bad but they're not really pulling me in. I will keep the Smith and finish it since it is one of the finalists.