The Good Word: Under the Covers

It takes me a while to catch up with any changes in technology so I was most pleasantly surprised Tuesday evening to discover that I can access TVNZ's Freeview Channel 7 on Sky Channel 97. I wonder how long I have been missing out on this excellent channel ?!

On Saturdays and Tuesdays at 9.10pm; Sundays and Wednesdays at 10.10am and 2.10pm
TVNZ 7 as part of its partnership in this year's NZ Book Month, has compiled a special series of excerpts from The Good Word, which is being screened throughout October.

Tuesday night on getting home from the latest NZ Book Month event, (more about this below), I watched Finlay Macdonald's mini-documentary series, Under the Covers, which goes up close and personal with iconic New Zealand books and the stories behind them. He presented The Godwits Fly (Hyde), Under the Mountain (Gee) and The Edmonds Cookery Book (our biggest seller). The programmes were compiled from the first series of The Good Word especially for NZ Book Month and great viewing they make.

Prior to this I had been at St.Matthew-in-the-City, pic left, to attend a lively NZ Book Month event - The Good Word Debate sponsored by TVNZ7 in which the teams, for the affirmative Emily Perkins, Roger Hall and Jo Randerson, and for the negative Finlay Macdonald, Selina Tusitala-Marsh and Steve Braunias, chaired by funny man Te Radar, debated the moot “We still need the great New Zealand Novel”. And most entertaining it was too.
If you were not fortunate enough to have been among the three hundred strong crowd then the god news is that you will have a chance to see it when the Good Word Debate will go out on TVNZ 7 on Saturday, Oct. 17 at 9.10pm, with a repeat the same time on the following Tuesday. Remember if you have Sky then it is Sky channel 97.
And more good news is that the Under the Covers series will resume screening in that slot the following Saturday, to the end of the month.
And I am chuffed because when the next series of the excellent book programme, The Good Word screens I’ll be able to watch it.

Photograph right shows the debaters (entertainers):

Left to right - Steve Braunias, Roger Hall,Emily Perkins, Te Radar,

Jo Randerson, Selina Tusitala-Marsh, Finlay Macdonald.