THE GROOVE BOOK REPORT

Phew! We made it!  What a year it's been. The Groove Book Report will be taking a short break over the Xmas break to re-charge our batteries, put our feet up and nestle in with a good book.  It's a Kiwi summer, so we'll be out on the bike, in the kayak and behind the barbie, spending time with friends and whanau. We don't want to wax on about what an unprecedented year it's been.  We all know that.  We just want to take this time to thank all our loyal readers and publishers and guest writers for all their in put, their generosity and kindness supporting what we do.  We love books and writers  -that's at the heart of why we do this. So, thank you one and all. Meri Kerihimete from the Groove Book Report!

We continue our catch ups with a couple of eye-openers that loosely scout around the subject of the law and human rights.   Tree Of Strangers - Barbara Summer (Massey University Press $35.00)  ‘I live at the end of a gravel road at the top of a valley consumed by bush. My husband is here, and my three girls. But the bush swallows them up like the road.’ I wrote those words at the kitchen table in 1983. A letter to the mother I’d never met. But how do you convey your life in a few sentences when almost every memory is missing? Barbara Sumner is a New Zealand writer and film producer.  Tree of Strangers, her memoir of adoption, loss and discovery, will be published by Massey University Press in September 2020.   She co-founded the film production company Cloud South Films with her husband Tom Burstyn and has served as a writer for The New Zealand Herald. Sumner grew up in a family filled with secrets and lies. At twenty-three she decided she had to find her m...

Thanks to Covid and lock down many of the books requested for review were delayed.  Meaning, their delivery was held up and when they finally arrived we here at Groove Book Report were overwhelmed.  It's taken us a while to work through all these wonderful books.  So, before Christmas comes, we're putting as many short reviews and notices out there.  We recommend all of these for your Santa list.  First up: Poetry.  3 incredible volumes by upcoming poets that need to be heard.   Under Glass - Gregory Kan (Auckland University Press $24.99) A colossal jungle. Two suns. The sea on fire. If the mind were a place, what might it look like? Under Glass is an ambitious new collection by one of the most exciting young poets writing today. Gregory Kan’s second book is a dialogue between a series of prose poems, following a protagonist through a mysterious and threatening landscape, and a series of verse poems, driven by the speaker’s compulsive hunger to ma...

“I had so many flowers when I was little, I got to know them all so well that they are simply the breath of life to me. It’s no ordinary love; it’s a passion.” - Katherine Mansfield in a letter to Dorothy Brett, 26 January 1922 Last Saturday, at the Wellington Bridge club in Thorndon, compiler/Author Beverly Randell and Illustrator Jenni Shoesmith launched this fabulous new book.  Beverley Randell gave an illustrated talk, highlighting Mansfield's special literary relationship with flora and fauna.  This was followed by an afternoon tea and a visit to Katherine Mansfield House & Garden. 'Heart of Flame' reveals the exuberance and originality of Katherine Mansfield’s words, and Jenni Shoesmith’s lively and lifelike illustrations make it easy to identify the plants Mansfield loved so much. The talk will include readings from the book, compiled from Mansfield’s stories, poems and letters. Copies are available from Katherine Mansfield House:  https://www.katherinemansfiel...

For writer Jenny Robin Jones the United States has always been an enigma, a series of questionable notions formed through a lifetime. ‘What is America?’, she asks herself. Can she rely on her own personal impressions? In an interview, recorded at the National Library in Wellington the CoffeeBar Kid talks to Jenny about her book.   "Love America On the Trail of Writers & Artists in New Mexico by Jenny Robin Jones" is a New Zealander on a journey, from Wellington to the desert lands of Taos and Santa Fe in New Mexico, following the paths of writers such as D H Lawrence, Willa Cather, Georgia O’Keeffe, Dorothy Brett, Ansel Adams, Dennis Hopper, and many others.    ‘All my life the idea of America had occupied a space in my psyche . . . I needed to see it. I needed to find a way to live with it and not despair. I needed to update my idea of America.’   Her journey takes her to the spectacular desert lands of Taos and Santa Fe in New Mexico, where she...

The  Bibliotheca Alexandrina  (  الإسكندرية ‎  Maktabet al-Eskendereyya ) is a major library and on the shore of the Mediterranean in the city of Alexandria. It is both a commemoration of the original library,  that was lost in antiquity and a new champion of academic study, in recognition of the brilliance that this earlier center of study and erudition represented. The idea of reviving the old library dates back to 1974, when a committee set up by  Alexandria University  selected a plot of land for its new library. Construction work began in 1995 and, after some US$220 million had been spent, the complex was officially inaugurated on 16 October 2002. In 2010, the library received a donation of 500,000 books from the  Bibliothèque nationale de France  (BnF). The gift makes the Bibliotheca Alexandrina the sixth-largest French spoken library in the world. The library has shelf space fo...

Schrödinger's Books are accepting new children's books, or donatations when buying  Christmas books with them. Please be quick as the deadline to drop in a book is by December 14th. The Kiwi Christmas Books campaign, collects brand new children's books (baby to teen, fiction and non-fiction), which will be donated to Wellington City Mission and the Wellington Hospitals Foundation. You can drop your book at Schrödinger's Books, Jackson St, Petone.  www.schrodingersbooks.co.nz

Newly returned to Aotearoa New Zealand after four years teaching and writing in Edinburgh, Lynn Davidson is to be the 2021 Creative New Zealand Randell Cottage Writing Fellow. Davidson will be using her time at Randell Cottage to write a memoir of her move to Scotland in 2016 and how, when prevented by Covid-19 from returning to New Zealand, she began exploring the life of her great aunt Vida. A poet and novelist. Davidson’s most recent publication is the poetry collection Islander . She won the Poetry New Zealand ’s 2020 poetry Award and holds a PhD in Creative Writing from Massey University. Selection panel convener Stephen Stratford says, “We soon got it down to five applications to argue over, then four. And then there were three. A while later, there were two. This was a close-run thing, but Lynn Davidson’s project was in the end a unanimous choice. Everyone on the panel saw it is as a valuable contribution to New Zealand history and a project that, given the author’s track re...

When you are five, what matters most? Stability, new friends, fitting in at school, parents, love / amore? Maybe all of that.  Swedish author Rose Lagercratz and illustrator Eva Ericsson have been creating books for children for over 30 years. They know their readers well.   Lagercrantz has been writing since the 1970's, her first book was published in 1973.  She has since had her work translated into English, German, Korean, Japanese, Italian,Russian and Slovak.  She has received many of the top Swedish literary awards, including the August Prize and the Astrid Lindgren Prize. Eva Eriksson, is from Halmstad, Sweden.  She's illustrated several children's books for writers like Barbro Lindgren and Viveca Lärn.  Some of her illustrated books have also been translated into English.  She was educated at Konstfack University of Arts and Design, Stockholm and between 2003-2012 she held seat number 1 of the Swedish Acad...

  Photo: Tim Gruar  Michalia Arathimos is a Greek-New Zealand writer. She has published work in many places, including Best New Zealand Fiction Volume 4, Lost in Translation, Sport, Turbine, Overland, The Lifted Brow, Westerly, and JAAM. She completed her Masters in Creative Writing at the IIML in 2006, and was a Writer in Residence at the Robert Lord Cottage in 2008. She is is the Randell Cottage New Zealand Writer in Residence for 2020, and also a Grimshaw Sargeson Fellow for 2020.  She talks to the CoffeeBar Kid about her time at the cottage and her project 'Cartographia'.  She is here with her partner and son and is settling back in to Wellington, her home town.  She tells us about her writing and her 'Covid' experiences amongst other thing in this intriguing and candid interview.   In 2015 Michalia edited Blackmail Press 41, a special issue entitled 'Piercing the White Space', which was published in November. She also won the 2015 LIANZA Libra...

Join the Randell Cottage Writers Trust and Friends of the Randell Cottage for an evening of readings and conversation with the 2020 Creative New Zealand Randell Cottage writer in residence Michalia Arathimos . For Michalia Arathimos notions of home are inextricably bound up with the notion of xenitia - a feeling common in the Greek diaspora, a feeling of being in exile, or of longing for ‘home’. But the real meaning of xenitia is untranslatable. It is a longing for a home that no longer exists, or which perhaps never existed in the first place. How does this longing, this loss play out in the life of a writer who is the child of migrants living in a colonised country? And how does she explore that in her work? www.randellcottage.co.nz  

Sometimes we get books here at the Groove Book Report that just blow you away.  Fran Dibble and a variety of photographers, including the couple themselves, document Paul's incredible sculptural projects and public art over the decade 2010 - 2020. This is Fran's third book on her husband.  But she still writes with fresh eyes and a real affection for him and his work.  She write like she really knows him.  'Course she does.  This is a 'family business' as photos later will show - both are sharing the load, forging, casting, cutting, loading.  This book seeks to illustrate Dibble’s art through the most recent period – 2010 to 2020, previously unrecorded and his most furtive years to date.   "All modern artists have tended to follow a similar path of first mastering realism and then successfully paring it away... first conquering realism and then, through a process of elimination, removing the unnecessary."  Fran Dibble Check the interview on B...

Ko tētahi o ngā tino kōrero mā ngā tamariki ā mohoa nei, ko tā J.K. Rowling Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, kua whakawhitia ki te reo Māori. Auckland University Press have released a version of J.K. Rowling’s most famous book - Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, translated into te reo Māori. In the first volume of one of the greatest children’s stories of all time, Ron and Hermione, Dumbledore and Professor McGonagall introduce Harry and the reader to Quidditch and You-Know-Who, to the promise of magic and the inheritance of the past. Now inspirationally translated into te reo Māori by Leon Heketū Blake, the story starts here.  The book promises to bring new perspectives with the translation and open up Rowling's work and te reo to a whole group of new readers.  T e Kaiwhakamāori / Translator Nō ngā iwi o Tūhoe, o Tūhorangi, o Ngāti Wāhiao, o Ngāti Whāwhākia, o Ngāti Porou, o Taranaki, o Ngāti Kahungunu, o Te Whānau a Apanui a Leon Heketū Blake, ā, kua roa ia ...

Simon Sweetman is a blogger, reviewer, podcaster, and author of the wonderful ' On Song: Stories Behind New Zealand’s Pop Classics ' has released his first poetry collection -'The Death of Music Journalism' ( Cuba Press ).  Simon's website ' Off The Tracks ' is essential reading for any keen music fan.  Simon’s been writing poems since he was first listening to bands on his Walkman, but then he started sharing them via social media and open mic nights.  He writes about late-night encounters on the phone with rock stars, hanging out as a student in Wellington flats, the simplicity of time spent with family and the unpredictable life of a freelance music reviewer, and what happens when these things occasionally intersect. A natural storyteller whose poetry is filled with characters both famous and ordinary, this eagerly awaited collection is unpredictable, anarchic, playful and surprisingly heartfelt. ___________________________________________________________...

Combined Open Days at Randell Cottage, Lilburn House and the Rita Angus Cottage were held on Sunday.  This is where the  homes of New Zealand writers, composers, and artists were open to the public as part of the Wellington Heritage Week.  Sunday 1 November  was an opportunity for the public to enjoy exploring and celebrating art, music and literature at three historic Thorndon creative residencies.  The wonderful Randell Cottage, Lilburn House and Rita Angus Cottage opened their doors and gardens to all comers.  At Randell cottage there were three writers presenting their works. Upcoming poet Ruby Solly read poems from her upcoming book.  Randell Cottage resident author Michalia Arathimos gave us a new short story and a glimpse into what she's working on while she's staying at the cottage, and seasoned writer Linda Burgess read from her best seller: 'Somebody's Wife'.  Ruby Solly (Kai Tahu) is a writer, musician and taonga puoro practitioner livi...