THE GROOVE BOOK REPORT

Children''s author Susan Diana Price was named in this year's New Year's Honours List. Supported by The Randell Cottage Writers Trust, the award was nominated by the Children’s Literature Association of Wellington.  Nor only an acclaimed writer but Susan was ultimately responsible for the existence of Randell Cottage.  Quite simply, were it not for Susan, the Randell Cottage Writers Trust would not exist. It was Susan who noticed her ancestors’ former 1867 home in Thorndon was for sale; who, with her parents Beverley Randell and Hugh Price, purchased it, saving it from property developers; and set about a painstaking rebuilding and restoration project with a view to preserving a small corner of Wellington’s colonial history.    While the building work was proceeding, a group of Wellington writers, including Dame Fiona Kidman and Vincent O’Sullivan, were looking for a suitable house in which to establish a writers residence. The two projects coincided, and...

New Zealand is a land of quiet legends.  Like Eldred Stebbing, a man who was in many ways, in the vanguard of many aspects of our early recording and music industry.  He passed away 10 years ago, aged 88. Eldred Stebbing (1921 – 2009) did it all, and this wonderfully illustrated volume leaves little of his empire untold. In nine chronological chapters, with stories and references going as far back in time as Eldred’s great-grandfather (a German imigrant of the mid-1800s).  There are separate but intersecting sound business paths of Eldred with mix with those of his brother Phil and local and early international business politics - these include Mercury Records, HMV, Benny Levin, RCA, Phil Warren and Harry Miller.  And plenty more, too. Stebbing at the Apras - Audioculture Stebbing was born at a time when air travel was only just taking off, the moving pictures were still silent,  and there were still market gardens around Avondale, where...

Melbourne-based but Wellington-born, writer, reviewer and editor Michalia Arathimos will be returning to her home city next year as the 2020 Creative New Zealand Randell Cottage Writing Fellow. Arathimos will be using her time at the Randell Cottage to work on her second novel,  Cartographia , which she describes as an exploration of place, migration and identity, through the eyes of a woman of Greek descent. Arathimos has published work in many places, including  The Lifted Brow ,  Overland Magazine ,  Landfall ,  Sport  and  Headland . She was twice short-listed for Australia’s  Overland  VU Short Story Prize and won 2016’s  New Zealand Sunday Times  Short Story Prize. Her first novel  Aukati  was published in 2017 by Wellington’s Mākaro Press. Arathimos holds a PhD in Creative Writing from Victoria University’s IIML and is currently fiction reviewer for the Melbourne-based  Overland Magazine . Sel...

New York Times bestselling author Karin Slaughter brings back Will Trent and Sara Linton in this superb and timely thriller full of devious twists, disturbing secrets, and shocking surprises you won’t see coming. This is Slaughter’s seventh novel featuring characters Medical Examiner Dr. Sara Linton and her boyfriend Will Trent of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation agent Will Trent (who came out of 2016’s book  The Kept Woman ). Sadly, this book is not a great read.  The plot is trite and unoriginal.  it goes that the happy couple are visiting her family in Atlanta when explosions rock the nearby University. The couple head down to the campus, encountering a multiple-car accident on the way. They stop to offer medical assistance and find that two of the accident victims contain armed men —two with gunshot wounds — and a very traumatized woman. Sara recognises the woman as the missing CDC epidemiologist Michelle Spivey. There's a huge and brutal fight scene ...

Here at the Groove Book Report we love Xmas and what makes a better pressie than a good book.  We also love music.  So what could be a better combination than a book about or by you favourite artist.  We've already covered off Elton's latest but there are loads more in the shops this year.  Here's our recommendations: Dead People I Have Known - Shayne Carter (VicoriaUniversity Press $40.00) Is Shayne Carter a legend?  We think so.  A musician that has existed on the fringes of our best music.  Skillful writer and producer of fantastically edgy, moody music. In his book Carter describes his life in music, holding our hands as we go behind the scenes and songs early teen bands like the Bored Games and Doublehappys, alongside his 'adult' bands - the infamous Straitjacket Fits and, of course. Dimmer. It's an intimate, almost avoiding history of the Dunedin Sound.  He refuses to specifically define how that distinctive jangly indie sound came ...

..... .. ... _... ._ _._. _._ (Morse Code for He is Back)  That's right, the Morse speaking, self appointed, agent and legend in his own lunchtime returns.  Off-beat and quirky as ever, comedian Rhys Darby delivers yet more words and more pictures in his second hilarious book for kids! In his first installment, Darby introduced us to Buttons McGinty (who is effectively a 12 year old version of the writer).  In Book 2, the character gives us more of the same nutty insights and oddball observations.  This time he's travelling through space and time... in search of his parents who are missing.  Well, presumed missing.  As with every McGinty story, we're never really sure.  Buttons and his friends enter a universe unlike any you’ve seen before.  It would be difficult to give anything away with out spoiling the plot but let's just say that this particular world could have easily fallen out of one of Darby's comedy stand up routines.  Once ag...

The 'Bitch is Back!' In print.  In his first, and only official autobiography, Elton John reveals the truth about his extraordinary career and life. Me is joyous, self lacerating, always funny, honest and moving. It's an almost impossible story of one of the most beloved, successful and enduring successful singer/songwriters of our lifetime. Elton John’s career has always been .  Over the decased there were two distinctive periods. There was Elton, the chaotic drug-addled, extravagantly dressed and ridiculously talented performer. This was the man that once wore a Mozart wig, a glittering baseball uniform, even a full Chicken suit! He even dressed in full feathers like a Vega Show girls.  The crazier the better.  His creativity was spurred on by a chemically enhanced confidence that made him belive that nothing was impossible - and nothing was too outlandish.  Reality and fantasy were one. And then there’s the sober, demurer, conservatively dressed fr...