THE BOOKMAN'S ABSENCE

Friday afternoon we headed off for the weekend, without laptop, to Waiheke Island which is 16 km north east of Auckland and is reached by a passenger ferry in 35 minutes or a vehicular ferry in an hour.

Here are some facts about the island from the October issue of CITYMIX magazine.

· Discovered and settled by Maori approx. 1000 years ago,

Waiheke translates into “cascading waters”.

· Of the Hauraki islands, it is the second largest (after Great Barrier Is),

the most populated and the most accessible by regular ferry and air services.

· Waiheke is the third most populated island in NZ after the North & South Islands.

· Waiheke Island has a permanent population of around 8000 residents.

· Around 1000 people commute daily to Auckland for work.

The island, although close to Auckland has a warmer, drier climate than the city and is especially suitable for growing Bordeaux variety grapes. There are a number of wineries on the island several making highly acclaimed wines. Among them are Goldwater, Cable Bay, Mudbrick, Stonyridge, Te Motu and Te Whau but there are many others also.

Waiheke Island is technically part of Auckland City but it is harder to imagine a place less Auckland. It was of course, back in the 70's, NZ's equivalent of Byron Bay, the hippie and dope-smoking capital of New Zealand. Today there are still a few aging hippies about, and still a disproportionate number of VW combies in varying stages of decay, but around the best sites, on the ridges high above the numerous bays, spectacular weekend homes have been built, largely but not only by rich Aucklaners, so gradually the nature of the island is changing,

One thing that remains largely unchanged though is the Ostend Market held every Saturday. This is a cross betwenn a craft market, a farmers market, and a giant school fair and there are loads of second hand book stalls.

At one of these I found, in very good condition, a hardback copy of PD.James' 1994 novel Original Sin, which surprisingly I had missed at the time of publication. At $5 I had to buy it especially as this murder mystery is set inside a long-established London publishing house.

Pic left shows The Bookman browsing at the book prior to purchase.

After we left the market we went to Oneroa which is the island's largest shopping centre. I guess there are 40 or so businesses there, mainly cafes, wine shops, gift and junk shops and shops selling surf gear. The bookshop that had been there for many years has gone but tucked away below the main street on the ocean side of the town I found a small, very interesting and unusual business called Tivoli. Outside on the sign it read Tivoli - Books/Exhibits/Internet so I was of course lured in.

There was a small, fascinating and eclectic selection of books comprising mainly graphic novels, books on politics (of every kind), old Penguins, contemporary fiction, new media, books on the gulf islands, art, and books from NZ private presses. Beyond that was a small exhibition space and I noticed works by Richard Killeen and James Ross, all most appealing.

In 2005 Penguin Books celebrated their 70th birthday at which time they published quite a number of special books to observe the occasion. I was pleased to find quite a number of these titles at Tivoli and in fact bought a copy of a title I had meant to buy back in 2005, Lady Chatterly's Trial.

In 1960, thirty tears after D.H.Lawrence's death Penguin published his previoulsy unpublished novel , Lady Chatterly's Lover, which lead to the famous trial where the Crown charged penguiin with publishing "an obscene article". This slight Pocket penguin from their 70 Years publishing programme provides abridged extracts from the trial which give a flavour of the proceedings rather than pursue all the complexities of the trial which of course eventually resulted in a not guilty verdict. For me, and I suspect for most readers, these extracts provide just the right amount of detail. I read and enjoyed it coming home on the ferry last evening.