The soloist : a lost dream, an unlikely friendship, and the redemptive power of music by Steve Lopez is one of those true stories that seem more astonishing that anything fiction writers can dream up. A journalist befriends a bedraggled street musician and ends up uncovering a story of a life that has gone down a difficult path, and a journey from prodigy to living on the mean streets.

Now a movie brings the story of journalist Steve Lopez and street musician Nathaniel Ayers to the big screen. Its release date is 3 September, and you can check The Soloist web site for more information:

Columnist Steve Lopez (Downey) is at a dead end …  one day, while walking through Los Angeles’ Skid Row, he sees the mysterious bedraggled figure Nathaniel Ayers (Foxx), pouring his soul into a two-stringed violin. At first, Lopez approaches Ayers as just another storyidea in a city of millions. But as he begins to unearth the mystery of how this alternately brilliant and distracted street musician, once a dynamic prodigy headed for fame, wound up living in tunnels and doorways, it sparks an unexpected quest.

The Soloist stars Jamie Foxx and Robert Downey Jr., and is directed by Joe Wright, who also directed Atonement (one of the best movie adaptations of a novel in recent years) .

WIN A TICKET

The kind people at Paramount are giving us some tickets so if you’re keen to see this on the big screen, email us at libwebteam@ccc.govt.nz with your name and contact details, and tell us what’s your favourite book, song, line of poetry, or movie about the power of music? Get creative! Coleridge’s poem The Aeolian harp talks about a “soft floating witchery of sound”, Jefferson Starship “built this city on rock and roll” …

• I loved the theme of August Rush and I sense this film has some similarities? Max
• My favourite movie about the power of music is definitely The Pianist. Vladek Szpilman was a famous pianist who survived the Holocaust in WWII thanks to luck, friends and music. Michelle
• My favourite movie about the power of music would have to be the Irish musical movie Once.  It shows you how music can bring people together and change their lives.  The fact that the actors are actually musicians is even better as they are so passionate about music and convey this in the movie.  One particular scene where they are in the music shop and both playing the song and singing together is amazing.  I think there is a shortage of this type of movie and somebody needs to get out there and write more. Zac
• My favourite movie, which may be showing my age is Fame, great story, music made you want to put your leg warmers on and leotard, showed if you have the music and talant in you you can over turn adversity. Christine

Editor’s note: The competition is now closed and Max, Michelle, Zac and Christine have all scored a double pass to The Soloist. Enjoy.

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Following up on my post on Women on Air another highlight of their events programme this year will be the visit of author Tracy Chevalier. The author of  Girl With A Pearl Earring will be speaking at the Christchurch Girls’ High School Auditorium on Tuesday 8 September at 7.30pm. Tickets are a very reasonable $12 and available from The University Bookshop or by calling Ruth 03 384 4721 or Morrin 03 329 9789.

Tracy Chevalier has a new novel, Remarkable Creatures, which tells the story of an early 19th Century fossil collector who transcends class and gender when she makes some of the most important discoveries of the century.

Novelist Fiona Farrell marks the publication of her work by taking the original manuscript out to the garden, setting fire to it, digging the ashes into the garden and planting carrots or broad beans or some other vegetable. How many writers around the world would do that to their manuscript? I found this out recently when I attended one of the events  organised by Morrin Rout and Ruth Todd of Women on Air.  Throughout the year they hold a number of these author events.

Women on Air happens each Saturday morning from 10 to 12 on Plains FM 96.9. This Saturday’s programme features a fairly typical mix of programming … Iranian born New Zealander Shabnam Dastgheib talks about her recent trip to Iran, what happened in the Iran elections and about Iran’s youthful demographic and how they are effected by the hardline regime. Elizabeth Gordon is in with her regular segment on the English language. Charmaine Nelson, a Project Manager at the education organisation LEARNZ who have taken a technologically innovative approach to teaching science based subjects at secondary schools discusses some of the projects they have undertaken and how they are trying to rejuvenate interest and learning in the subject.Barbara Allpress  has been involved in natural remedies and eating chemical-free foods for the past 30 years. She discusses the benefits of good diet and how with a few simple changes to our lifestyle, we will all feel a lot better. Budget Food Guru Sophie Gray has some great recession busting ideas and author Anna Taylor will also be on the show to discuss her new book “Relief”. Music is from Gillian Welch, Regina Spektor, Carol King and others.

If Saturday morning radio isn’t your thing or you are devoted to Kim, Women on Air is podcast from their website and the Plains FM website (which seemed to be a bit more up to date with last Saturday’s session available)

Ruth Todd and Morrin Rout are passionate about books and writing and as they say “they also talk to men” in another programme on Plains on Wednesday mornings from 10am – Bookenz. They are great enthusiasts for New Zealand writers so give them some airplay.

There seem to  be quite a few movie adaptations of children’s books coming out in the next 6 months or so and I just thought I’d put up the links to some of them up here so you can have a look.  I’m looking foward to seeing all of them because they all look fantastic!

Alice in Wonderland - directed by Tim Burton and starring Jonny Depp as the Mad Hatter

Where the Wild Things Are – the classic picture book by Maurice Sendak

Cirque du Freak - first in a series of vampire books by Darren Shan (particularly for boys – no icky love story here!)

I’ve been a fan of Meg Rosoff ever since reading her first novel, How I Live Now.  She is a fresh voice in the world of young adult literature, if somewhat provocative.  Since this first novel she has written several other unique novels with interesting, quirky characters and some quite strange plots, as well as a couple of very funny picture books about Borris, Maurice, Horace and Doris the Wild Boars.  I always enjoy reading them even if I get really confused in places ( I find these always make the most interesting books as you just want to find out what’s going on).

Meg Rosoff’s new novel, The Bride’s Farewell is a departure from her previous novels as it has a historical setting.  Even though What I Was was told from the point of view of an old man looking back on his past,  Bride’s Farewell is set in about the late 1800s in England (no specific dates are given).  Pell is the daughter of a preacher in rural England and she has grown up in a large family and watched her mother suffer under the burden of too many children and too little money.  Her mother is a broken woman and Pell decides that this is not what she wants to become and so escapes with her younger brother on her wedding day.  She heads to Salisbury Fair in the hope of finding work and starting a new life, but finds that life away from home might not be easy either.

As always, Rosoff’s language is magical and leads us through a world far different from what we know.  Her novels are all very different but well worth checking out.

• Henry Allingham, 1896-2009.
  Oldest surviving veteran of the Great War

• David Ashmole, 1949-2009
  Dancer who aroused the resentment of Nureyev at Covent Garden but flourished at Sadler’s Wells

• Naomi Lewis, 1911-2009
  Writer and essayist of talent and charm who had a childlike fascination with the tales of Hans Andersen

• Harry Patch, 1898-2009
  Last surviving veteran of the trenches

• Budd Schulberg, 1914-2009
  Novelist who depicted Hollywood’s seamy side and wrote the screenplay for On the Waterfront

• Bernice Thompson, 1923-2009
  NZ physiotherapist who became an expert in respiratory issues

The White Queen

There have been a few Twitter literary connections, here’s another starting today to tempt readers. As reported by The Bookseller, Philippa Gregory will be Tweeting her new novel The White Queen (copies of which will be winging into your local library soon).

The character of Elizabeth Woodville, Queen consort of Edward IV, King of England and mother of the famed Princes in the tower, will be telling the story. The tweets can be viewed at http://www.twitter.com/ElizWoodville with ”Woodville” will be tweeting between 5pm and 8pm from 11th August and 17th August (U.S. time).

It sounds like a clever way to tempt readers into a story, feed them tasty morsels of a story – and an interesting experiment for writers. Gregory said:

Tweets are a discipline, rather like a haiku, and the shortness of the sentence gives each one a rhythm which is really interesting for prose … And some of the tweets seem to me to be more arresting than the prose of the book. I especially like the first one: ‘If my mother were not a witch, and the descendant of the goddess Melusina, I think none of this could ever have happened to me. But it did’.

• See our earlier post: Philippa Gregory to tackle Mary, Queen of Scots then The War of the Roses
• Books by Philippa Gregory
• More on Elizabeth Woodville (mother of the Princes in the Tower)
• Books on The Wars of the Roses

I finished a funny blog-turned-book, Sleeping naked is green, over the weekend, about a Canadian journalist who decided to green her year by making one green change every day for a 366 days (she inadvertently chose a leap year for the challenge). 

While some of the changes were minor and common sense, such as check tire pressure and stay on the path while hiking, others were a touch more radical, such as unplugging her fridge, showering in the dark, reusing tea leaves to remove odour from hands and taking a butchery class.

It was an enjoyable and easy diary-style read, and it showed how doing one green thing each day could change your world for the better, and influence those around you as well.

She also talks about the end of the challenge, and what things she will continue to do, what things she will ease up on, and what other changes she might undertake. She continues to update her blog greenasathistle.com so you can check up on how she is doing now.

It’s a double whammy Library Week this year as Christchurch City Libraries celebrates its 150th birthday as well.

The theme this year is Escape, Explore, Discover. These have always been the stuff of which libraries are made.

There are some cool competitions – videoing, graphic novels, and writing.

There’s a history of Library Week on the brilliant nzhistory.net.nz site.

S0 celebrate by loving your local library – visit for a relaxing read, borrow a book, mag or CD / DVD,  apply for a job, use the free internet, read council documents and have your say, attend an event (I listened to some beautiful music at Hornby Library on Saturday and am looking forward to groovy foodie Richard Till and Zinefest).

To paraphrase the Manic Street Preachers (the opening line of their anthem A design for life):

Libraries give us power

The Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetu has entered the blogosphere with Brought to Light. Our fellow member of the Cultural Precinct is bringing you a behind the scenes view:

The collection galleries of Christchurch Art Gallery may be closed for the next few months, but the Gallery is still well and truly open for business. Here at the Brought to Light blog we’ll keep you up-to-date with all the developments on the project as we work to create a new visitor experience.

• Current exhibitions
• August’s events and talks including Literary Shorts with Kate De Goldi, Gavin Bishop and Sally Blundell – Favourite short stories from the past 150 years, plus the winners of the One-Day Short Story Competition are announced (Wednesday 19 August, 6pm)