WHAT I AM READING –
CANVAS MAGAZINE – NZ HERALD - Saturday August 2, 2008.

Here is my piece from the Weekend Herald's Canvas magazine,

One of the joys of being a book reviewer is getting books before publication and this is the case with MY AMALAFI COAST by Amanda Tabberer which is published 29 September under Penguin's Lantern imprint, NZ$80.
Four years ago we spent a wonderful week on the Amalfi Coast but oh how I wished this book had been available then.

The author lived on the Amalfi Coast with her Italian partner for 10 years. She now lives back home in Australia with her son Sergio but pays regular return visits and this sumptuous book is the result of her latest stay there. It is a huge and handsome hardback, with a compelling text and lavishly illustrated by hundreds of gorgeous photographs by Carla Coulson. I want to go back to Amalfi!

On the fiction front I am reading Sebastian Barry’s The Secret Scripture,(Faber $38), a haunting Irish novel, while at the top of the pile to be read next are three more novels, The Ringmaster by Vanda Symon (Penguin), The Guernsey Literary & Potato Peel Society, (Allen & Unwin),and The Rehearsal By Eleanor Catton (V.U.P).