CHAPTERS & VERSES BOOKSHOP, TIMARU

For several years now Jeff & Ros Grigor have put out a monthly e-mail newsletter talking of books read and browsed. They kindly gave my blog a plug in their latest newsletter, thanks guys.

In case you do not see it I am enlcosing parts of the latest issue. feel free to contact them if you would like to be added to their mailing list.

Chapters & Verses
272 Stafford Street Timaru.
Ph.036886491.Fax 036884436.
Email, chapvers@paradise.net.nz

Invitation to Book Launch.

Enclosed with this newsletter is an invitation to the launch of Owen Marshal’s new novel “Drybread” to be held at
At Chapters & Verses on Monday the 6th of August at 7:00 pm.
An invitation is extended to all of our newsletter recipients to attend. Dame Fiona Kidman will officially launch “Drybread”. Refreshments
will be provided. A review of “Drybread” follows later in this newsletter.

Beattie’s Book Blog

If you are interested in the world of books both in NZ and overseas one of NZ’s foremost readers has set up a “Book Blog” which is updated daily with interesting news and facts from the world of books. Graham Beattie founded Beattie and Forbes Bookshop in Napier and from there moved to become Managing Director of Penguin NZ and then Scholastic NZ. His blog address is “http://beattiesbookblog.blogspot.com”

Bishop John Spong is coming to Timaru.

We are delighted to announce that Bishop Spong is coming to Timaru and will speak for an hour on the evening of the 19th of September. We have yet to confirm a venue. Make sure you keep this night free to hear this most interesting and challenging of speakers. Bishop Spong is in NZ to promote his new book “Jesus for the Non Religious”. We have copies in store now at $39:99. We will keep you informed about the time and the venue of this exciting event.

Paullina Simons is coming to Timaru.
Another extremely exciting author event for us. Paullina is one of the world’s bestselling authors. Her bestselling novels include “The Bronze Horseman”, “The Bridge to Holy Cross” and “The Summer Garden” She was born in Leningrad and emigrated to the USA in 1973. She currently lives close to New York with her husband and four children. Paullina will be here in November and we will keep you informed as to venues and times etc.

Ros has been reading

Mother’s Ruin. By Nicola Barry. Autobiography $39:99
Nicola’s mother was a chronic alcoholic. Not only did it ruin her career as a well respected and liked doctor, but caused Nicola to be born with what was later recognized as foetal alcohol syndrome. This caused problems with her bones, and many of her formative years were spent in hospitals. While many people may have found that hard, Nicola actually enjoyed being in hospital. There she found love and security which were lacking at home – by this time her father, also a doctor, spent as much time away from home as possible due to his wife’s alcoholism. Years of terrible neglect were hidden behind middle-class doors and only came to an end after her mother drank herself to death. By this time Nicola had become an alcoholic herself. But if her mother was such a dreadful person, who were all these strangers at her funeral, and why did they speak so highly of her?
Mother’s Ruin is a remarkable true story of alcohol addiction and its devastating effects on the family. Yes, it is emotional, but also inspirational.

On Hitler’s Mountain My Nazi Childhood by Irmgard Hunt Autobiography $28:00.
Irmgard Hunt grew up in Berchtesgarden, Bavaria, her childhood seeming ordinary at the time; but her story is a first hand account of what it was like to be a child in Nazi Germany and reveals a child's-eye view of a brutalizing time when an entire people lost their way.On Hitler's Mountain is a powerful, intimate, riveting, and revealing account of a seemingly halcyon life lived mere paces from a centre of evil and madness; a remarkable memoir of an "ordinary" childhood spent in an extraordinary time and place. Born in 1934, Irmgard Hunt grew up in the picturesque Bavarian village of Berchtesgaden, in the shadow of the Eagle's Nest and near Adolf Hitler's luxurious alpine retreat. The very model of blond Aryan "purity," Irmgard sat on the Führer's knee for photographers, witnessed with excitement the comings and goings of all manner of famous personages, and with the blindness of a child accepted the Nazi doctrine that most of her family and everyone around her so eagerly embraced. Here, in a picture-postcard world untouched by the war and seemingly unblemished by the horrors Germany's master had wrought, she accepted the lies of her teachers and church and civic leaders, joined the Hitler Youth at age ten, and joyfully sang the songs extolling the virtues of National Socialism. But before the end -- when she and other children would be forced to cower in terror in dank bomb shelters and wartime deprivations would take a harrowing toll -- Irmgard's doubts about the "truths" she had been force-fed increased, fuelled by the few brave souls who had not accepted Hitler and his abominations. After the fall of the brutal dictatorship and the suicide of its mad architect, many of her neighbours and loved ones still clung to their beliefs, prejudices, denial, and unacknowledged guilt. Irmgard, often feeling lonely in her quest, was determined to face the truth of her country's criminal past and to bear the responsibility for an almost unbearable reality that most of her elders were determined to forget.
Highly Recommended.



Jeff has been Reading.

Drybread by Owen Marshall. Fiction $27:99.

A graveyard is all that's left of the remote Central Otago settlement of Drybread, where miners, often hungry and disappointed, once searched for gold. It is to an old cottage nearby that Penny Maine-King flees with her young son, defying a Californian court order awarding custody of the child to her estranged husband. And seeking her in this austere, burnt country is journalist Theo Esler. He is after a story, but he discovers something far more personal and significant. Drybread, Owen Marshall's third novel, is a moving study of love and disappointment, of the harm we do to each other, knowingly and unknowingly, of the power and significance of landscape in our lives. Rich and subtle, it is a compelling book from one of this country's finest writers.
Owen’s last novel “Harlequin Rex” won the Montana NZ Book Awards Deutz Medal for fiction in 2000. I believe “Drybread” is an even better book”.
Very Highly Recommended

Rocking Horse Road by Carl Nixon Fiction $27:99

The body of a teenage girl is found on the beach in the days leading up to Christmas, 1981. It's an event that makes a huge impact on all those who live along Rocking Horse Road, which runs through the Spit, a long 'finger of bone-dry sand' between the ocean and the estuary. It's an event that for one hot summer brings together a group of fifteen-year-old boys and then keeps them linked for the rest of their lives. Evolving from Nixon's celebrated short story, this powerful novel is much more than an intelligently evoked murder mystery. It's a book about coming of age and loss of innocence, not just for the characters but also for New Zealand, as the country turns upon itself during the 1981 Springbok Tour. It examines how early events can impact on the rest of our lives, and probes ideas of community, collective memory and story telling. Above all, it's a compelling story, set in a New Zealand we can all recognise. This is a wonderful novel. Carl Nixon will be a force to be reckoned with in NZ literature in the years to come.
Just read what Warwick Roger says about it in his review in North and South this month;
“I usually bridle when a new work of NZ fiction lands on my desk for review. Most NZ fiction is crap. There are certainly no more than 10 honourable exceptions among authors currently writing. Carl Nixon is a major talent and this is a very good book. You should read it.”
Very high praise indeed.

Rainbow’s End by Lauren St John. Memoir $37:00

This is a story about a paradise lost. . . . About an African dream that began with a murder . . . In 1978, in the final, bloodiest phase of the Rhodesian civil war, eleven-year-old Lauren St John moves with her family to Rainbow's End, a wild, beautiful farm and game reserve set on the banks of a slow flowing river. The house has been the scene of a horrific attack by guerrillas, and when Lauren's family settles there, a chain of events is set in motion that will change her life irrevocably. “Rainbow's End” captures the overwhelming beauty and extraordinary danger of life in the African bush. Lauren's childhood reads like a girl's own adventure story. At the height of the war, Lauren rides through the wilderness on her horse, Morning Star, encountering lions, crocodiles, snakes, vicious ostriches, and mad cows. Many of the animals are pets, including Miss Piggy and Bacon and an elegant giraffe named Jenny. The constant threat of ruthless guerrillas prowling the land underscores everything, making each day more dangerous, vivid, and prized than the last. After Independence, Lauren comes to the bitter realization that she'd been on the wrong side of the civil war. While she and her family believed that they were fighting for democracy over Communism, others saw the war as black against white. And when Robert Mugabe comes into power, he oversees the torture and persecution of thousands of members of an opposing tribe and goes on to become one of Africa's legendary dictators. The ending of this beautiful memoir is a fist to the stomach as Lauren realizes that she can be British or American, but she cannot be African. She can love it -- be willing to die for it -- but she cannot claim Africa because she is white.
I loved this book.

Friend of the Devil by Peter Robinson Crime Fiction $36:99

Inspector Banks is back in this stunning new novel from bestselling author Peter RobinsonWhen Karen Drew is found sitting in her wheelchair staring out to sea with her throat cut one chilly March morning, DI Annie Cabbot, on loan to Eastern Area, gets lumbered with the case. Back in Eastvale, that same Sunday morning, 19-year-old Hayley Daniels is found raped and strangled in the Maze, a tangle of narrow alleys behind Eastvale's market square, after a drunken night on the town with a group of friends, and DCI Alan Banks is called in. Banks finds suspects galore, while Annie seems to hit a brick wall until she reaches a breakthrough that spins her case in a shocking and surprising new direction, one that also involves Banks. Then another incident occurs in the Maze, which seems to link the two cases in a bizarre and mysterious way. As Banks and Annie dig into the past to uncover the deeper connections, they find themselves also dealing with the emotional baggage and personal demons of their own relationship. And it soon becomes clear that there are two killers in their midst, and that at any moment either one might strike again.
A Superb Read

Don’t forget our author events. Everyone is welcome.