All the best, Bill...

On Saturday night I had the pleasure of mixing and mingling with friends and booky people at the University Book Shop for Bill Noble's retirement do. It was great to see the affection and esteem everyone held for Bill and what he has achieved as a book seller.

Bill Noble talking to his adoring crowd.

Anyone who reads this blog will now I loooove the University Book Shop - it's my home away from home, and Hubby reckons I must be a shareholder by now, because I spend way too much money in there. I love UBS because it is a fabulous book shop - I'll often pop in just to breathe the books, and I love UBS because it is so supportive of its local writers. The fabulous staff recommend our books, and they have a big table, right in front of the door where everyone who walks in has to trip over the NZ latest releases. I've loved having my book launches there - they let you drink wine and eat food amongst the books! (They say the wine loosens people's wallets) They look after me so well.

So farewell, Bill. Thanks for everything! And looking forward to UBS with a new captain at the helm.

Christchurch Writers' Festival

Wow, what a wonderful event the Christchurch Writers' Festival was. Big bouquets to the organisers for putting on a fabulous event. I enjoyed sitting in on several sessions, and then had my moment on the stage for The Great Crime Debate on Saturday night (great fun!)(my team lost, but we lost with style) and then nervously awaiting the announcement of the Ngaio Marsh Award for Best Crime Fiction novel. Alas, I didn't come away with the trophy, huge congratulations to Neil Cross, who won the big one with his novel Luther: The Calling. You can read all about the event at Crime Watch. I had a great time catching up with friends, and meeting new ones, and came away with very find memories of Christchurch.

Must go pack my bag...Hubby and I are off for our first ever overseas trip together - San Francisco here we come!!!!

The End of The Wasp Season

The End of the Wasp Season 

by Denise Mina

I had the pleasure of meeting Scottish crime writer Denise Mina at the Wellington Festival of the Arts this year, so when I read that The End of the Wasp Season had just won the Theakston's Old Peculier Best Crime Book Award I had to go buy a copy. Theakston's Old Peculier is a beer, by the way, and the award trophy is a miniature beer barrel!

Glaswegian Mina is renowned for her depiction of the mean streets of Glasgow, much like Rankin with Edinburgh, and I can see why. In this book her series character Detective Sergeant Alex Morrow is investigating the brutal murder of a young woman in her own home in a wealthy Glasgow suburb. Alex not only has to deal with a very nasty crime, where she feels her colleagues don't care enough about the victim, but also departmental politics and the fact she is rather pregnant with twins.

From the outset the reader knows the crime was committed by two teenagers from a very posh private school, but Mina cleverly weaves in their stories, making the reader sympathetic towards them, and she also weaves in plenty of twists and tangles along the way. When I started reading this book I thought it rather grim and wondered if I could hack it, but I was soon drawn in and captivated by the characters.

Denise Mina is fabulous at describing the social classes, inviting you into their homes, seeing how they live, breathe and tick, from the poor, hardworking and genuinely caring but with everything stacked against her single mum of four teenagers, to the over-privileged but emotionally bankrupt Lars Anderson and how his suicide leaves his already broken family in tatters.

I thought this book was fabulous, and especially thought the way the author made us empathise with the good and the evil was incredibly well done. I can see why it won the beer barrel.

Bound - Ngaio Marsh Award finalist

The finalists have been named for the 2012 Ngaio Marsh Award for Best Crime Novel, and I am delighted to say Bound is among them!

The finalists are:

Bound by Vanda Symon
Collecting Cooper by Paul Cleave
Luther: The Calling by Neil Cross
By Any Means by Ben Sanders


For more information visit Crime Watch.

The award to the winner will be presented at the Christchurch Writers Festival on the 1st of September...

 

Fate & Philosophy

Fate & Philosophy

By Jim Flynn

Emeritus Professor Jim Flynn brought us The Torchlight List a couple of years ago - his recommended reading list to give a broad taste of literature, and life. Fate & Philosophy is the second book in what is to be his Modern World , the purpose of which is to get people to think about their place in the world. Flynn hasn't taught philosophy but is passionate about it and sees it as very personal. So this book very much reflects his beliefs, but also gives an overview of the beliefs of others. As he puts it in one chapter,

'Today is my seventy-seventh birthday, so it has taken me sixty-five years to replace Catholicism with a personal philosophy I can live with.'

In the book he looks at the big questions such as 'what is good?' Is it moral reality or language that tells us what is good, or economics, or ourselves? 'What is possible?' 'What exists?' And what tells us what exists? Religion? Science? Instruments? Or our own sensory experience? Does God exist?

In writing this book Flynn is trying to get us to think beyond what we have been told or brought up to believe by our parents, or religion, or society. To question what we thoughtlessly accept.

I did not find it an easy read, in fact for me there was quite a bit of mental gymnastics and re-reading required - but that probably says more about me than the book. I have no background in philosophy and a little knowledge would have been handy. In saying that, I am glad I read this book, in fact I will re-read it to help digest some of the argument. In this reader Jim Flynn has certainly achieved his aim, in getting me to think more about my perceptions of the world and my place in it. An interesting and challenging read.

Death in The Clouds

Death in the Clouds (1935)
by Agatha Christie.

I've been doing some nostalgia reading lately, as part of my ongoing fascination of all things Ngaio Marsh, I am reading works by her fellow Queens Of Crime, Agatha Christie, Margery Allingham and Dorothy Sayers.

Death in the Clouds is a locked room murder mystery, a locked room ten thousand feet in the air! Hercule Poirot happens to be one of the passengers on the airliner Prometheus traveling from Le Bourget to Croydon when the flight takes a deadly turn and Madame Giselle, in seat number two, is discovered to be dead, not sleeping. Poison is declared to be the cause, but not just any poison, poison delivered with a blow pipe. Suspicion falls on everyone, including M Poirot.

This was an entertaining read, and worth it just to see how different air travel was in the nineteen thirties - sitting at tables, bone china cups and saucers, sets of fish knives and forks laid out and sharp objects allowed. Those were the days...

Rewards for good (?) behaviour

For me the holy grail of Kitchenotopia has been the Kitchen Aid. Every time I've had a new novel come out I've promised myself I'll get one, but then, have baulked at the rather hefty price tag. Then this week, while sitting at home, full of a cold and feeling slightly sorry for myself I thought, I've got five novels out now - why the *%@# haven't I got that Kitchen Aid yet...

One hour later...

I am in loooooove, and why on earth didn't I do this after book number one?!!!!!

So far we have made five loaves of bread and a batch of bread rolls, plain meringues, chocolate and toasted coconut meringues and minced beef for homemade hamburgers. And we haven't even had it a week yet!

Of course, you'll be saying, why are you baking when you should be writing, Vanda? It's all a creative process, isn't it? This one is just a damn tasty one.

Let me leave you with the loaf of the day...