THE GROOVE BOOK REPORT

Join Nick Bollinger with Rosemary McLeod to launch Jumping Sundays: The Rise and Fall of the Counterculture in Aotearoa New Zealand. Unity Books 7 September 6.00PM

We went along to the fabulous Schrödinger’s Books in Petone for a night of poetry and chat featuring local writers - Joanna Cho, Michael Gould, Khadro Mohamed, Simon Sweetman and Erin Donohue. Joanna Cho is the author of ' People Person ' (Te Herenga Waka University Press, 2022). She was born in South Korea and currently lives in Wellington. She completed an MA in Creative Writing at the International Institute of Modern Letters in 2020 and received the Biggs Family Prize in Poetry. Khadro Mohamed, originally from Somalia, lives in Te Whanganui-a-Tara. Her writing has appeared in a number of Aotearoa online journals. She acknowledges her attachments to Somalia, Aotearoa and Egypt in her poetry, and her writing becomes a form of home.  Her book of poetry ' We’re All Made of Lightning ' is out now.  Michael Gould is a gay Canadian/Pakeha Jew who was, in 2021, awarded by the New Zealand Society of Authors for being an emerging writer of note. His poetry has appeared in...

Chris Tse accepting his Poet Laureate award at St Peter's today We are thrilled to pass on that Poet Chris Tse, regular writer at Verb Wellington Festivals has just been announced as the new Poet Laureate.   Tse, 39, was announced today as the country’s new poet laureate, a role appointed by the National Library. During the two-year tenure, the laureate receives a stipend of $100,000 and advocates for Aotearoa’s poet community, promotes poetry and produces published works. Tse said he was surprised to get a phone call from National Librarian Rachel Esson last week offering him the role after his name was put forward by members of the public. “I’m very honoured, and it’s very intimidating if I’m being honest,” he told stuff.co.nz, noting that he was greatly inspired by the work of some of our previous laureates: Bill Manhire, Jenny Bornholdt, Selina Tusitala Marsh and David Eggleton - all had meant “so much” to him as a young writer and poet. Tse will be our 13th poet...

Inspired by the well known BBC Radio series 'The History Of The World In 100 Objects', Historian Jock Phillips looks back on our own historical events and happenings through 100 objects - emphemera, artifacts, sporting equipment, costume, documents, sculpture, Coronation pottery, even a New Zealand motor mower and Eva Bowes' Depression era flour bag bloomers.   This is our history seen through a new lens - 100 entry points into the powerful, captivating stories of our shared past. And there are plenty of forgotten stories, revived and retold.  Like the rockets fired towards ailing ships off the Timaru coastline by the 'Volunteer Rocket Brigade'.  Or the sewing machine owned by the Amelia Haszard, wife of Tarawera a school master, which was found in layers of lava and mud after the eruption on June 10 1886.   Authored by award-winning historian Jock Phillips, best known for his book 'Man's Country', this is a fascinating and inclusive, often revelatory an...

www.poetryday.co.nz

  Returning to Aotearoa New Zealand for the first time since their sold-out tour of 2019, the award-winning entertainment podcast The Allusionist is back with an all new stage show ‘Your Name Here’. The show’s linguistic pincers get stuck into words that come from people’s names: eponyms. Eponyms find themselves all over menus, hats, exercise manoeuvres, streets, towns, measurements, flowers, space, guns, diseases… Sometimes they’re an honour, sometimes they’re an insult, but they’re always a good story. Join host Helen Zaltzman and musician Martin Austwick for a fun, fascinating and irreverent adventure into the chaotic world of words. Book here For more events go to  www.verbwellington.nz

'Still Life' by Sarah Winman spent weeks in the bestseller lists in Aotearoa and around the world. The story of war, art, friendship, travel and love has brought joy to so many readers. On 15 September we welcome Sarah for a special event in Wellington in which we will spend time learning why & how Sarah created this extraordinary story. Hosted by Maggie Tweedie (Radio Active), and including time for audience questions and to get your books signed. Don't miss this amazing chance to share time and space with one of the world's great storytellers.  Presented in partnership with Harper Collins NZ. From the author of 'When God was a Rabbit' and 'Tin Man', 'Still Life' is a big-hearted story of people brought together by love, war, art and the ghost of E.M. Forster. 1944, in the ruined wine cellar of a Tuscan villa, as bombs fall around them, two strangers meet and share an extraordinary evening. Ulysses Temper is a young British soldier, Evelyn S...

This is the funny, revealing, surprising and highly original memoir from former Pulp singer and musical agent agent provocateur Jarvis Cocker.   What if the things we keep hidden say more about us than those we put on display? We all have a random collection of the things that made us - photos, tickets, clothes, souvenirs, stuffed in a box, packed in a suitcase, crammed into a drawer.  When Jarvis Cocker starts clearing out his loft, he finds a jumble of objects that catalogue his story and ask him some awkward questions: Who do you think you are? Are clothes important? Why are there so many pairs of broken glasses up here? From a Gold Star polycotton shirt to a pack of Wrigley's Extra, from his teenage attempts to write songs to the Sexy Laughs Fantastic Dirty Joke Book, this is the hard evidence of Jarvis's unique life, Pulp, 20th century pop culture, the good times and the mistakes he'd rather forget. And this accumulated debris of a lifetime reveals his crea...