List by Tosca
"Out of the quarrel with others we make rhetoric; out of the quarrel with ourselves we make poetry."
- W.B. Yeats
I'm an inveterate dog-ear folder of pages. Not because I'm intentionally destructive (although some ardent bibliophiles may argue otherwise). Maybe more because when I connect with a book emotionally I feel as if I have to create some obvious landmark that says, 'Epiphany here!' Once I've finished reading the book in its entirety I tend to go back and re-read the marked pages and try to figure out why I had such a lightbulb moment. Sometimes the reasons aren't always so clear why some lines strike a chord and others don't. I had lots of those moments when reading Michael Harlow's The tram conductor's blue cap. So much so that narrowing down my selection to 5 wasn't so easy. So many passages, if not the entire poem, came to life for me. This is a whimsical post and I make no apologies for my flights of fancy. Here I do little more than share the titles of 5 of Harlow's poems that struck a chord with me although I couldn't begin to tell you why.
Showing posts with label NZ Book Month. Show all posts
Showing posts with label NZ Book Month. Show all posts
Wednesday, March 30, 2011
Thursday, March 24, 2011
Top 5 New Zealand cookbooks
List by Barbara
Please note: This top 5 list has been transferred across from our Manukau Libraries website.
"The biggest seller is cookbooks and the second is diet books — how not to eat what you've just learned how to cook."
- Andy Rooney
Writes Barbara: The books below are for people like me who avoid the kitchen like the plague if they can possibly help it. Just quietly, I know exactly how Barbara feels :-/
Please note: This top 5 list has been transferred across from our Manukau Libraries website.
"The biggest seller is cookbooks and the second is diet books — how not to eat what you've just learned how to cook."
- Andy Rooney
Writes Barbara: The books below are for people like me who avoid the kitchen like the plague if they can possibly help it. Just quietly, I know exactly how Barbara feels :-/
Monday, March 21, 2011
Top 5 nonfiction books I've enjoyed thumbing through for NZ Book Month
List by Tosca
"Never lend books, for no one ever returns them; the only books I have in my library are books that other folks have lent me."
- Anatole France
EEK! This published before I even had a chance to finish it properly LOL Cursed technology :) It's a quick list of NZ nonfiction titles I spotted by chance and really, really (I can't stress *really* enough) enjoyed. From fish to holidays to museums to baches...
Honourable mention:
101 must-do weekends edited by Renée Lang - 101 great suggested weekends away in different parts of the country, divided into 10 broad themes. Whether you're into history and culture, or prefer to concentrate on food and wine, you'll find the perfect weekend here. Baches of Raglan edited by Venetia Sherson, David Cook, Andrea Wilkinson ; foreword essay, Bery Fletcher - "This is a book about Raglan's older baches. Many were built in the "boom years" of the 50s and 60s when thousands of Kiwis invested in a bit of land by the sea; others are much older and have been handed down through families with long connections to the Raglan community. Built of wood, concrete or firbrolite with iron roofs, they remain largely unaltered. Their owners have no interest in granite bench tops, polished concrete floors and tinted glass" - Publishers blurb Baches & cribs : a pictorial journey through New Zealand's favourite holiday places by Jeff Grigor - Fishing shacks at river mouths, beloved family hideaways at the beach or on a remote rocky shore, follies perched precariously on cliff edges, converted railway carriages, mountain huts above the snowline... The Kiwi bach or crib is likely to be a very long way from SH1, have a fantastic view, perhaps not even have electricity - and be regarded as paradise by generations of a New Zealand family. This colourful book is made up of photographs of their favourite baches and cribs supplied by ordinary New Zealanders. Often under threat from local councils and spiralling land values, some of these baches and cribs are now being torn down. This book is thus an invaluable record of an iconic New Zealand way of life.
"Never lend books, for no one ever returns them; the only books I have in my library are books that other folks have lent me."
- Anatole France
EEK! This published before I even had a chance to finish it properly LOL Cursed technology :) It's a quick list of NZ nonfiction titles I spotted by chance and really, really (I can't stress *really* enough) enjoyed. From fish to holidays to museums to baches...
Honourable mention:
Top 5 New Zealand titles
List by Josie
'Though methods of warfare have changed, the military machine remains essentially the same; and the record of my own battle against that machine, on behalf of my fellow humans, is therefore relevant to this time also.'
~ Archibald Baxter, Preface to the 2003 edition of 'We will not cease'
Another in our series of posts celebrating New Zealand Book Month, here we present Josie's favourite NZ titles of all time. Josie works in the South Auckland Research Library as an Assistant Reference Librarian.
Another in our series of posts celebrating New Zealand Book Month, here we present Josie's favourite NZ titles of all time. Josie works in the South Auckland Research Library as an Assistant Reference Librarian.
Top 5 Kiwi cookbooks
List by Rachel (wongrae)
'Cooking is like love. It should be entered into with abandon or not at all.'
~ Harriet Van Horne
~ Harriet Van Horne
Rachel, a Customer Services Advisor at Botany Library, is also a frequent and fabulously entertaining reviewer on the Manukau Libraries website - have a looksee through her reviews of cookbooks, scurrilous romances, fashion tomes, rock chick bios and more...
Friday, March 18, 2011
Top 5 New Zealand non-fiction recommendations
List by ex-Manukau Research Library and Central Services staff
'For me each day starts with the same ritual - drawing the curtains and gazing out to sea, often for just a split second, or, if I'm lucky, for a minute or two. I find it's like checking on a friend...'
~ From 'Go fish', by Al Brown
Like the New Zealand fiction recommendations, the 5 books below are the favourite picks of local library staff, and really only just a drop in the bucket of great NZ titles... they aren't so much a 'Top 5' as a sampler platter of the 'Top 1' for each of the staff who responded. Non-fiction covers so much ground, so we've got biographies, gardeners, grandmas, an artist and a chef, as well as an award-winning sharing of traditional teachings and local history.
'For me each day starts with the same ritual - drawing the curtains and gazing out to sea, often for just a split second, or, if I'm lucky, for a minute or two. I find it's like checking on a friend...'
~ From 'Go fish', by Al Brown
Like the New Zealand fiction recommendations, the 5 books below are the favourite picks of local library staff, and really only just a drop in the bucket of great NZ titles... they aren't so much a 'Top 5' as a sampler platter of the 'Top 1' for each of the staff who responded. Non-fiction covers so much ground, so we've got biographies, gardeners, grandmas, an artist and a chef, as well as an award-winning sharing of traditional teachings and local history.
Wednesday, March 16, 2011
Top 5 NZ fiction recommendations
List by ex-Manukau Research Library and Central Services staff
'I have always known that in another life I was - or will be - a dolphin. I am a pink human, caught in a net of ambition and years of hard work. In a few minutes I will dive into artificially turquoise water waiting at my feet. A minute later I'll either be ecstatic or a failure.'
~ From 'Alex', Tessa Duder
In honour of New Zealand Book Month, I put out a call for votes for top reads by New Zealand authors, and here are the favourite fiction picks from my neighbouring librarians. I decided not to number them because I would have had to have asked the librarians in question to duke it out for rankings (though I have a sneaking suspicion that Jolene's passion for the Alex quartet may have taken out top spot, so's you know)...
'I have always known that in another life I was - or will be - a dolphin. I am a pink human, caught in a net of ambition and years of hard work. In a few minutes I will dive into artificially turquoise water waiting at my feet. A minute later I'll either be ecstatic or a failure.'
~ From 'Alex', Tessa Duder
In honour of New Zealand Book Month, I put out a call for votes for top reads by New Zealand authors, and here are the favourite fiction picks from my neighbouring librarians. I decided not to number them because I would have had to have asked the librarians in question to duke it out for rankings (though I have a sneaking suspicion that Jolene's passion for the Alex quartet may have taken out top spot, so's you know)...
Top 5 reads for my NZ Book Month challenge
List by Tosca
"No entertainment is so cheap as reading, nor any pleasure so lasting."
- Mary Wortley Montagu
I don't read a lot of NZ authors as an adult. As a child, yes. As a teen, absolutely. As an adult - very, very few. If I see an NZ sticker on the spine in the library I tend to wince and move on. The 3 most recent NZ books I read were Mr. Pip by Lloyd Jones, The 10pm question by Kate de Goldi and Ruined: a novel by Paula Morris and those were well over a year ago. It was while reading 'Ruined' that I realised I'd become an NZ-book bigot and, really, my reason for being so wasn't good enough: I don't identify with a lot of NZ books. Which sounds totally daft because, as some of you know, I edit our romance newsletter and there's no way in Hades I identify with a Greek gazillionaire tycoon nor an impossible virgin secretary. Maybe, then, it's that I identify too much with NZ characters. I don't read romance stories with Maori or African-Americans because the character voices - and the possibilities - would feel too much like I was looking into my sibling's backyard. That would strike too close to home. And I think I'd prefer to have it all one giant step removed.
A year or two ago I set an NZ book challenge and lost focus halfway through. This year I plan to step outside my comfort zone (or maybe step back into it, I'm not totally sure yet) and pick 5 books across kids, teens and adults (fiction and nonfiction) and read them all for this year's NZ Book Month. The hardest part of setting this challenge has been choosing the books. Remember, it's been years since I've really read anything NZ-ish that hadn't been picked by our branch book club so I had no clue where to start. In the end I looked up a mix of book award finalists and winners from the Montana Book Awards,NZ Post Children's Book Awards and the NZ Post Book Awards - and so I offer up a jumbled mishmash of all.
I'm already partway through my Top 5 NZ Book Month challenge and, so far so good! Touch wood it stays this way. This month could either be really interesting. Or really awful. I'm about to find out. There are no re-reads on this list - everything is a first-time read for me. Almost as if I were an impossible virgin secretary about to meet a Greek gazillionaire tycoon but yet not.
"No entertainment is so cheap as reading, nor any pleasure so lasting."
- Mary Wortley Montagu
I don't read a lot of NZ authors as an adult. As a child, yes. As a teen, absolutely. As an adult - very, very few. If I see an NZ sticker on the spine in the library I tend to wince and move on. The 3 most recent NZ books I read were Mr. Pip by Lloyd Jones, The 10pm question by Kate de Goldi and Ruined: a novel by Paula Morris and those were well over a year ago. It was while reading 'Ruined' that I realised I'd become an NZ-book bigot and, really, my reason for being so wasn't good enough: I don't identify with a lot of NZ books. Which sounds totally daft because, as some of you know, I edit our romance newsletter and there's no way in Hades I identify with a Greek gazillionaire tycoon nor an impossible virgin secretary. Maybe, then, it's that I identify too much with NZ characters. I don't read romance stories with Maori or African-Americans because the character voices - and the possibilities - would feel too much like I was looking into my sibling's backyard. That would strike too close to home. And I think I'd prefer to have it all one giant step removed.
A year or two ago I set an NZ book challenge and lost focus halfway through. This year I plan to step outside my comfort zone (or maybe step back into it, I'm not totally sure yet) and pick 5 books across kids, teens and adults (fiction and nonfiction) and read them all for this year's NZ Book Month. The hardest part of setting this challenge has been choosing the books. Remember, it's been years since I've really read anything NZ-ish that hadn't been picked by our branch book club so I had no clue where to start. In the end I looked up a mix of book award finalists and winners from the Montana Book Awards,NZ Post Children's Book Awards and the NZ Post Book Awards - and so I offer up a jumbled mishmash of all.
I'm already partway through my Top 5 NZ Book Month challenge and, so far so good! Touch wood it stays this way. This month could either be really interesting. Or really awful. I'm about to find out. There are no re-reads on this list - everything is a first-time read for me. Almost as if I were an impossible virgin secretary about to meet a Greek gazillionaire tycoon but yet not.
Labels:
cooking,
general fiction,
junior fiction,
Maori,
New Zealand,
nonfiction,
NZ Book Month,
nz fiction,
picture books,
poetry,
teens
Wednesday, March 9, 2011
Top 5 good childhood reads by Kiwi authors
List by Danielle
"At the same time, I think books create a sort of network in the reader's mind, with one book reinforcing another. Some books form relationships. Other books stand in opposition. No two writers or readers have the same pattern of interaction."
~ Margaret Mahy
NZ Book Month, salutations!
Things were pretty great for a budding fantasy reader in the 70s and 80s. Treasured and much re-read titles on my bookshelf included Susan Cooper's The Dark is Rising series, Tanith Lee's Companions on the Road and East of Midnight, Richard Adams' Watership Down, and a battered old ex-library copy of Diana Wynne Jones' The Power of Three. Alongside mostly British fare, Kiwi authors also provided some of my favourite childhood fantasy reads, as well as the less fantastical tales that gave me recognisable settings and characters I could relate to, as I lived through their adventures with them.
"At the same time, I think books create a sort of network in the reader's mind, with one book reinforcing another. Some books form relationships. Other books stand in opposition. No two writers or readers have the same pattern of interaction."
~ Margaret Mahy
NZ Book Month, salutations!
Things were pretty great for a budding fantasy reader in the 70s and 80s. Treasured and much re-read titles on my bookshelf included Susan Cooper's The Dark is Rising series, Tanith Lee's Companions on the Road and East of Midnight, Richard Adams' Watership Down, and a battered old ex-library copy of Diana Wynne Jones' The Power of Three. Alongside mostly British fare, Kiwi authors also provided some of my favourite childhood fantasy reads, as well as the less fantastical tales that gave me recognisable settings and characters I could relate to, as I lived through their adventures with them.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
