I’m not a great fan of flying, but being an avid people watcher I find nothing better than sitting at arrivals and departures and finding myself being pulled briefly into other people’s lives. Surely then one of the best writing jobs would be the writer in residence at Heathrow Airport?
Alain de Botton, billed on the Heathrow Airport website as one of the world’s most respected philosophical authors , and author of The pleasures and sorrows of work and The architecture of happiness, was given this opportunity by BAA, a British airport company that owns the likes of Heathrow and Gatwick. An obvious promotional tool, De Botton was however given a free rein as to what he wrote, and passengers could see what he was writing on large screens placed behind him. Out of this experience came A week at the airport : A Heathrow diary.
The Guardian weekly was rather lukewarm in its response to the book.
De Botton’s run-ins with priests, shoe-shiners and pilots provide a nice glimpse behind the scenes of a familiar facade, but don’t turn to the book for industry analysis, journalistic dirt-digging or flashy first-person writing: it’s as chipper and soothing as an air stewardess.
Nothing wrong with a bit of chipper I say, and I have this book on my list of soothing books to read.
I’d have to say that I’m Brian Falkner’s number 1 fan. He is my favourite New Zealand author and just a really cool guy. He’s a passionate promoter of reading and writing and goes around lots of different schools throughout the country with his Story Sports programme. His books are all so original and his last few books have delved into science fiction, a genre that you don’t see a lot of in New Zealand children’s fiction. The Tomorrow Code was his last gripping read and I was glad to see it nominated for the New Zealand Post Book Awards this year (unfortunately it didn’t win).
Brian’s amazing new book Brainjack has just been released and it gives us a glimpse at a not-too-distant future. A new piece of technology called a Neuro Headset has been introduced and is becoming popular all over the world. While wearing the headset you are able control your computer using only your brainwaves without the need for a keyboard or mouse. However, if people can hack into your computer through the internet, does this neuro connection allow them to hack into your brain? Sam, an experienced hacker, finds himself in deep trouble when he hacks into the White House computer system, but when cyber terrorists threaten the world, he will have to use all of his skills to save the human race.
Brian makes some excellent book trailers to promote his books. Check out this one for Brainjack:
From a private Collection. Collated for 2009 Beca Heritage Week’s ‘Doves & Defences’ – Discover Christchurch in Peace and Conflict.
Christchurch City Libraries is inviting the public to be part of a gathering and documentation of historical photos on peace and conflict in Christchurch from 14 September until 23 October. We are collecting images of Canterbury’s involvement in peace and conflict over the years and will publish them on the libraries’ Flickr site. This year we are looking at three broad themes in fitting with this years Heritage Week: Life at Home, Away from Home, and Peace and Remembrance. So gather up those photos and send them in! The Christchurch City Libraries Photo Hunt 2009 is open from 14 September until 23 October and is part of the Beca Heritage Week’s ‘Doves & Defences’ celebrations. Winners will be announced and contacted on the 2nd November 2009.
On Monday 5 October it was 40 years since Monty Python debuted on the BBC. Their name was a combination of the BBC’s desire to have Circus in the title and their idea of a name a dodgy theatrical agent might have.
My favourite Python sketch – “NOBODY expects the Spanish Inquisition – our chief weapon is surprise, surprise and fear…our TWO weapons are surprise, fear and a ruthless efficiency…our three weapons are surprise, fear, ruthless efficiency and an almost fanatical devotion to the Pope…AMONGST our weaponry are such diverse elements as fear, surprise…I’ll come in again.”
I was so happy when I realised the Library has heaps of stuff by Monty Python (including audio, books and DVD’s) and about Month Python and its members and if you are a YouTuber, you’ll be pleased to know that you can watch high quality versions of their stuff on their own approved YouTube Channel! There is a great clip of them explaining why they’ve decided to fight back against the pirated, grainy, unfunny recordings of them that have been posted on YouTube by others.
Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall has taken out the big one!
Her book revolves around Thomas Cromwell ‘the blacksmith boy who became Henry VIII’s right-hand man’:
Wolf Hall stands on its own, as a complete story – it is the end of one vital chapter in Thomas Cromwell’s life, and perhaps when we meet him again he will be slightly different. Five years are before him, his rise and rise – the destruction of Anne Boleyn, the battle for the soul of Henry’s daughter Mary, a revolt which is almost a civil war, the shaking and remaking of England…
I love her quote on the enduring fascination of the Tudors: ‘Almost all the stories you might want to tell are lurking behind the arras’.
So congratulations to Hilary, and if you’ve read Wolf Hall do chime in and tell us what you thought. I’m still patiently waiting to get my hands on a copy …
Last night I went and saw the Back of the bus show presented by Java Dance Company as part of the Body Festival currently under way in Christchurch. This dance work is highly innovative in the way that it dissolves the boundary between performers and the audience found in the conventional theatre setting. It does this by taking the audience along for the ride, on the bus and beyond, always intimately close to the lives of the characters being portrayed.
The show consists of a number of scene specific pieces danced solo or as a group by several very different characters. The dancing is performed with astonishing physicality and intensity by the Java dancers Rosanne Christie, Sacha Copland and Natalie Hona. There is also a humorous cameo by local dancer Jessica Kennedy.
The choreography is principally by Sacha Copland but with pieces contributed from the rest of Java also and is wonderfully varied but always intense and physical. It makes clever use of the bus and other props.
This show contains some wonderful moments but I don’t want to give away the special surprises involved. Let’s just say its a unique experience and a rare opportunity for Christchurch audiences to see such innovative and high quality contemporary dance. The show is emotive and moving but also a lot of fun and is well worth the ticket. Don’t miss it! There are two performances per night for the rest of this week with the final show at 8pm on Friday 9th. You can make bookings at the Body Festival site.
… Manchester’s gobbiest musicians tell the story of the city’s thriving music scene in their own words. When the Buzzcocks put on the Sex Pistols at Lester Free Hall in 1976, they kickstarted a musical revolution and a fervent punk scene exploded. In 1979 the legendary Tony Wilson founded Factory Records, the home of Joy Division/New Order and later the Happy Mondays. The Hacienda, the Factory nightclub, became notorious in the late 1980s as a centre of the influential Madchester scene, led by the Mondays and the Stone Roses, with a unique style and sound of its own. Then, from the ashes of Madchester rose uber-lads Oasis, the kings of Britpop and the biggest UK band of the 1990s. Full of great characters, fierce conflicts, untold stories and seething controversies, Manchester In Its Own Words is indispensable reading for any music fan.
The oral history style works brilliantly well for this book, there is such a wide range of contributors and they rove around the people (Howard Devoto, Ian Brown, Tony Wilson, Noel Gallagher and such) and places (The Hacienda, Legends, dodgy studentville hangouts) like a pack of wild Mancunian geese. The topics discussed range from the ridiculous (the width of flares) to the sublime - music history moments like Ian Curtis on stage, Johnny Marr knocking on Morrissey’s door and selecting a tune from his vinyl collection, and Mani barrelling up to Stone Roses and offering his bass-playing wizardry to the upcoming band (he looked like a little monkey face & actor Hywel Bennett apparently).
And now I’ve just come over all double Northern music-funny because afore-blogged Sheffield troubadour Richard Hawley‘s new record Truelove’s Gutter is winging its way to Christchurch City Libraries.
So orient your ears to the North of England, chuck. It couldn’t hurt.
In one of my previous posts I was looking forward to reading Kate DiCamillo’s new children’s novel, The Magician’s Elephant, and I can now say that Kate DiCamillo has cast her spell on me once again with this magical story. One of the first things I notice about any Kate DiCamilo book is the names of the characters. In the past we’ve met Despereaux the little mouse with the big heart, Edward Tullane the china rabbit who learns what love is, and this time we have Peter Augustus Duchene. They’re all such pleasant names and whenever I read them I just savour the sound of them. In The Magician’s Elephant it’s not just the main character of Peter Augustus Duchene that stands out, but also the myriad of other characters whose stories are woven together to create this enchanting fable.
The story starts with Peter consulting a fortune teller to find out what has happened to his sister who he was parted from many years ago. The fortune teller says to him that “You must follow the elephant. She will lead you there.” Peter is confused but realises that his sister must still be alive. It is on that same night in a theatre in the town that the magician, who “intended only lilies” but in fact conjures an elephant, which crashes through the ceiling, crushing the legs of a noblewoman in the audience. As the story progresses, each of the characters in the book intersect and you learn that those characters who seemed minor are in fact important pieces of the puzzle. The Magician’s Elephant is one of my favourite books this year and I thoroughly recommend it, along with all of her other amazing stories.
Isn’t it gratifying when an author you’ve followed from their very first book starts to gather momentum and eventually reaches bestseller status? This is what happened to Richard Russo whose likeable novels I’ve been following since his first, Mohawk, appeared back in 1986. He started with small town tales, often in upstate New York and usually places that had seen better days. His leading character was usually a not very reliable but basically good natured man at the bottom of the insurance risk pool (The risk pool was actually one of his earlier titles and it was announced as a movie vehicle for Tom Hanks but it has never materialised.
Two of his books have been filmed: Nobody’s fool, which became an excellent movie with Paul Newman, Bruce Willis and Melanie Griffith, and Empire Falls, his Pulitzer Prize winner, which became an HBO miniseries (never seen here but I was lucky enough to pick it up when foraging through bins at my favourite DVD emporium). He’s also worked as a scriptwriter: he did that odd black comedy where Rowan Atkinson was a vicar and Maggie Smith went around being helpful murdering people.
Maybe it’s something to do with a writer becoming more successful over the years but Russo seems to be leaving behind the small town dreamers and losers who filled his early novels. They’re now more likely to be academics and in the latest, That old Cape magic, the main character is a middle aged man who works as a lecturer at a New England college and as well as a fix-it scriptwriter in Hollywood. The novel moves around in time but the focus is on the wedding of his daughter and the collapse of his marriage.
The marriage collapse is realistically done but I could have done without some of the introspection which just seemed too American (in the let’s dwell on exactly how we’re feeling mode which can get a bit annoying for those of us with let’s just get on with it Anglo-Saxon natures). It’s, however, the other characters who make the novel shine and especially our hero’s awful parents, a couple of arrogant academics, the sort who look at the world around them and feel it all just so inferior. Some of this is very funny and some of it, especially as it relates the main character’s childhood, quite sad.
This is a slow novel that ambles along and takes time to observe other characters and events as it passes and yet it is an effortless read. The main character is convincingly likeable in his efforts to make the best of things despite things around him gunning up against him (there’s a wedding rehearsal which goes wrong and ends up with most of the participants at the nearest A & E department) and the satire is quite gentle. This is probably in a middle aged man ruminates genre and there’s a lot it about these days (says he, having recently read similar titles by Justin Cartwright, William Nicholson, Philip Roth, etc) but it’s very well done and it deserves its success.
We have some amazing children’s and young adult’s authors and illustrators in New Zealand. There are the legends like Margaret Mahy, Joy Cowley, Pamela Allen and Gavin Bishop as well as some authors and illustrators that not so well known but will soon become household names. For New Zealand Book Month I want to highlight some of my favourite New Zealand authors and illustrators, and shout about some brilliant new books that have been published recently.
A hilarious new picture book was launched at The Children’s Bookshop in Victoria St on Saturday, called The Wonky Donkey, with words and music by Craig Smith and illustrations by Katz Cowley. Craig Smith is well known around Christchurch as a fantastic musician who performs a variety of popular music and writes and performs his own unique children’s songs. We have his first CD Not Just for Kids in the library and I suggest you check it out. As the title suggests, the songs aren’t just for kids, adults find them hilarious (myself included). The Wonky Donkey is one of the best tracks on the CD and won the Children’s Song of the Year 2008 in the APRA Music Awards. Craig, with the help of up-and-coming illustrator, Katz Cowley, has now turned this song into a picture book. As you read through the book or listen to the song, you find out more about the Wonky Donkey, such as how he only has three legs and one eye, making him a winky wonky donkey. Both the story and the illustrations are absolutely hilarious and are perfectly matched. I’m sure it will be enjoyed by everyone. It is also good to hear that Craig Smith is bringing out another children’s album next year with a new bunch of great songs and Craig and Katz will be collaborating again on another picture book of Craig’s song Wilby the Bumblebee.
Alain de Botton, billed on the Heathrow Airport website as one of the world’s most respected philosophical authors , and author of The pleasures and sorrows of work and The architecture of happiness, was given this opportunity by BAA, a British airport company that owns the likes of Heathrow and Gatwick. An obvious promotional tool, De Botton was however given a free rein as to what he wrote, and passengers could see what he was writing on large screens placed behind him. Out of this experience came A week at the airport : A Heathrow diary.
