THE GROOVE BOOK REPORT

The best selling author of Elephants On Acid , Electrified Sheep and Hippo Eats Dwarf is back.  As well as being the creator and curator of a fabulous websites Museum of Hoaxes and a regular contributor to  www.weirduniverse.net . In this brilliant collection, ideal for bed times and train journeys, he delves into a series of curious alternative theories.  Some are totally bizarre - like the theory that we are all living inside a black hole.  Or that we've already found extraterrestrial life (yeah, it's housed in Area 51 isn't it?). The book opens with English Scientist Thomas Gold, Fred Hoyle and (former Austrian) Hermann Bondi's theory of Steady State - a counter argument to the Big Bang Theory which argued that the universe has already existed and will never change.  It won popular support right up to the early 60's and was well thought of until the Big Bang Theory finally won out.  Even now we ask "what happened before that first bang?" The...

WOMAD New Zealand has just announced the first two acts for next year's festival plus a whole heap of other goodies.   Up in Taranaki the organisers for the 2020 festival have been secretly brewing up a heady concoction of artists, writers and performers, culminating in over 100 hours of music, dance and voices across eight stages and running over three days at Ngāmotu's stunning Brooklands Park and the TSB Bowl of Brooklands.  Once again the venue will be transformed into a village of colour, energy and inclusion.   The full line up will be announced at a special event at Parliament on Tuesday, 15th October.  But for now WOMAD New Zealand is thrilled to share two of the international artists performing and the first two World Of Words artists for the 16th year anniversary of the festival.  For 2020, the mesmerising duo of Welsh harpist Catrin Finch & Senegalese kora player  Seckou Keita ...

The leading literary award in the English speaking world, which has brought recognition, reward and readership to outstanding fiction for over 50 years. Awarded annually to the best novel of the year written in English and published in the UK or Ireland.  The shortlist for the English Speaking World's most famous prize for literacy are: Margaret Atwood, The Testaments (Vintage, Chatto & Windus) More than fifteen years after the events of The Handmaid’s Tale, the theocratic regime of the Republic of Gilead maintains its grip on power, but there are signs it is beginning to rot from within. At this crucial moment, the lives of three radically different women converge, with potentially explosive results. Two have grown up as part of the first generation to come of age in the new order. The testimonies of these two young women are joined by a third voice: a woman who wields power through the ruthless accumulation and deployment of secrets. As Atwood unfolds Th...

Verb Festival Highlights   Double Crime Friday: On Friday 8 November see two of the world's biggest crime writers: Val McDermid & Michael Connelly. Event info for Val  here  and Michael  here . LitCrawl:  On Saturday 9 November there are 27 events in 3.5 hours in 23 venues with more than 130 writers in Wellington's CBD. They are all free (with the exception of  Drone ) with donations gratefully accepted if you can spare the cash. Full  programme is online here . Pūrākau:  We are celebrating this book of Māori Myths Retold by Māori Writers twice!  In LitCrawl  hear Paula Morris, Mitch Tawhi Thomas and Whiti Hereaka read aloud from the book, with music by Ruby Solly. And on  Saturday 9 November  listen to Apirana Taylor, Renée, Patricia Grace and Whiti Hereaka discuss the stories and why it's important to keep telling them. Collections Upon Collections: Some of Aotearoa's greatest poets gather to...

Think you have what it takes to catch a killer? CluedUpp is the exciting outdoor detective game that's just like a giant version of the board-game Cluedo - and it's coming to Wellington, New Zealand on the 30th November 2019. Transporting you back to 1960’s London, “The Latest Krays” will see over 100 teams of wannabe-sleuths compete to solve the double murder of the world famous Kray twins. Will your team be able to solve the clues, unlock the drama and crack the case in time? CluedUpp Games are an independent British games studio that boasts over 250,000 detectives in more than 25 countries across the world. Tickets sell out fast so grab your team place today!  Find out more at here

TODAY! You are warmly invited to attend the joint VUP and AUP launch of Lost and Somewhere Else by Jenny Bornholdt (VUP) & Always Song in the Water by Gregory O'Brien (AUP) on Thursday 19 September, 6pm–7.30pm at Unity Books, 57 Willis St, Wellington Both books will be launched by Chlöe Swarbrick, MP.

The Gobbledegook Book collects Joy Cowley's favourites in a beautiful hardback picture-book volume that will become a family treasure. It selects the best of Cowley's poems and stories to read aloud, including much-loved classics such as Greedy Cat and Nicketty-Nacketty Noo Noo Noo.  Fully re-illustrated with humour and energy by newcomer Giselle Clarkson, these short stories, picture books and funny poems will bring joy (pardon the pun) to a new generation. Yes folks, for the first time, we have a 'proper' collection of poems, nonsense rhymes  and stories for yougsters from one of our most beloved authors.  This is a book to be read out loud, with passion and vigour.  Like a box of chocolates, you never know what you are going to get.  But rest assured every morsel is work twisting the tongue around. There are plenty of starters, word experiments, audio delights and classic, tried and trues.  Nicketty-Nacketty Noo Noo Noo , for example,   has b...

UPDATE : Sadly Donna's New Zealand Tour has been Postponed - We are not certain of the new dates at this stage. The CoffeeBar Kid has a chat with Aussie Food legend and culinary queen, Donna Hay, who was to coming to New Zealand in December for a three dat tour. Aged eight, Donna spent the school holidays cooking and baking with her Grandmother and a lifetime love of food followed.  Her real job she says, is to inspire people to cook at home. Today Donna’s recipes have an emphasis on simplicity, freshness and speed with a result that looks casually polished, effortless. It is this defining style that has helped create a place for her in the hearts and homes of cooks around the world. A proud mum of two boys, over the past two decades Donna has built a global brand producing cookbooks, homewares and baking mixes. With more than 7 million cookbooks sold worldwide she is an international publishing phenomenon. Donna's new book will be available soon!  Aust...

Wellington based author Dame Fiona Kidman has won Best Novel at this year's Ngaio Marsh Awards for her book This Mortal Boy , a recreation of the backstory of young Belfast immigrant, Albert "Paddy" Black, who was to be the second to last person to be hanged in New Zealand, set amongst the turbulent times of the Bodgies and Widgies and teenage dilinquency in 1950's Aotearoa.  The winners were announced during the WORD Christchurch Spring Event on Saturday September 14.  She won a trophy, a special edition of a Marsh book and a $1000 courtesy of Word Christchurch. Fiona is the first to win both the Ngaio Marsh Award and the Acorn Prize for Fiction.  They will sit along side the NZ Booklovers Award and the NZSA Heritage Book Award in her cabinet. The judges are quoted as saying that despite this being an historical account the themes of bigotry and discrimination toward immigrants were still very prominant in today's world.. They were also ...

The book chosen for the inaugural WOMAD Book Club is:  We Can Make A Life  - by Chessie Henry Book Club aims to bring people together to express their perspectives and explore the themes within the book while getting insights from Chessie herself. We Can Make A Life is an an extraordinary memoir about the psychological cost of heroism, home and belonging, and how a family made a life together. Hours after the 2011 Christchuch Earthquake, Kaikōura-based doctor Chris Henry crawled through the burning CTV building to rescue those who were trapped. Six years later, his daughter Chessie interviews him in an attempt to understand the trauma that led her father to burnout, in the process unravelling stories and memories from her own remarkable family history. We urge you to get a copy and get reading. In late January we will ask you to submit questions for Chessie to answer in the Book Club session at WOMAD .

At the Capital's National Library, amongst the books, the CoffeeBar Kid talks to Wellington Craig Cliff about his new book Nailing Down The Saint . This is a book both familiar and different: Hollywood, fatherhood, levitation. It's a smart, funny, thought-provoking novel is full of surprises. Duncan Blake is a Kiwi filmmaker whose move to LA has not gone to plan. After a series of setbacks, he's working at a chain restaurant, his marriage is on shaky ground after a porn-related faux pas and his son won't stop watching Aladdin. When Duncan gets the chance to scout locations for a famous director's biopic of Saint Joseph of Copertino, it's the lifeline he's been searching for. But in Italy, in the footsteps of the seventeenth-century levitator, he must confront miracles, madness and the realities of modern movie making. A novel about the pursuit of dreams, the moral calculus this entails, and the possibility that the rational, materialist worldview isn...

I am teaching my dog Māori. Nobody will object outside the supermarket when I tie Tiaki to the bike stand and bark, “E noho!” tenderly. “Enoho, what a lovely name!” one will say; then another, “What’s wrong with Jack? It’s a Jack Russell, isn’t it?” “Āe, tika tāu, ko Tiaki te ingoa!” I’ll reply, carefully so as not to offend. You can’t be too careful when speaking Dog to careless ears. On windy days out on the park, I’ll toss Tiaki tennis balls, call, “Mauria mai e te kurī, kia tere!” Cricketers in white will cheer, “Oh my Dog, did you hear that? That wee Jack Russell, speaking Māori?” Tiaki cocks an ear, then cocks a leg. Jeffrey Paparoa Holman, 2018

Māori Language week has been celebrated each year from 1975. Māori Language Day Māori language petition to parliament. Mahuru Māori is an initiative begun in 2017 to promote the use of te reo Māori throughout the month of September. Why a week? Why not a year? Why not a decade? A century? Because New Zealand is revitalising the Māori language and a part of that is celebration of our success and promoting te reo Māori. Māori language week is an opportunity for concentrated celebration, promotion and encouragement. And every minute of every hour of every day is a Māori language minute – we can choose to use te reo – every time we do, even just a ‘Kia ora!’ contributes to revitalisation. Te Wiki o te reo Māori is becoming a major fixture on the national calendar providing an opportunity for concentrated promotion, raising awareness and giving an opportunity for expert and advanced speakers to encourage others on their te reo Māori journey. Whakatauhia te reo Māori ki te wāhi ...

LitCrawl - Val McDermid - Shayne Carter - Michael Connelly - Patricia Grace - David Eggleton - Lip Synch For Your Life - Elizabeth Knox - Rose Lu - Christos Tsiolkas - Drone by Harry Giles - Chen Chen - Sinéad Gleeson - Nina Powles - Sarah Moss - Michael Pedersen, Omar Musa & Dominic Hoey - Helen Rickerby - Renee Liang - Annette Lees - Arihia Latham - LJ Ritchie - Newtown Sunday Stroll - The Talking Mural - Verb Digital . . . & so much more. There is something for everyone between 6 - 10 November in Pōneke as we welcome writers from around the world and Aotearoa to share their worlds with us. All Festival info online at  verbwellington.nz Verb Festival Highlights: Crime novelists  Val McDermid (Scotland)  and  Michael Connelly (US) , a cabaret experience from  acclaimed artist Harry Giles (Scotland) , musician  Shayne Carter , Australian novelist  ...