Lost in the Museum - reviewed by Lee Murray

Lost in the Museum by Phoenix Writers

Reviewed by Lee Murray

ISBN 978-0-473-28320-9, 220pp.

Available in print from The Children’s Bookshop, Retrospace, and other good bookstores.

New Zealand’s National Museum, Te Papa Tongawera, is not simply a place to get out of the Wellington wind. It is Our Place, the place where we keep our stories, our treasures, where we remember where we came from, and where those beginnings might lead us. It is a place which reminds us of our connectedness. Inspired by this theme, Lost in the Museum is a collection of stories, connected not only by the magic of the artefacts—recognisable to anyone who has visited the museum—but also by the museum’s employees, its visitors, the lost children, wayward spirits, toy telephones, even the lifts get a mention. The stories journey—sometimes at breakneck speed on John Britton’s V-1000—through history, through time, guided by fictional Director Tui Merriweather, and the corridors cleared by resident ghost-buster, Miss Evangeline Marple. They follow the lives of goddesses, ghosts, kings, a cross-dressing bridegroom, a misplaced ice-cream vendor, and a stray pterodactyl. Tutankhamen makes a quick appearance.

Of course, while our national museum is a place of quiet reflection and historical import, it isn’t immune to the vagaries of office life. Like any other institution it is affected by inter-departmental politics, office romance, IT security issues, attempted robbery, and rampaging hordes of time-travelling Vikings, all of which have been chronicled in this full accounting of museum life.

A rollicking cavalcade of adventures, Lost in the Museum features writing by members of Phoenix Writers, including international names like Phillip Mann, Tim Jones, Lyn McConchie and Glynne MacLean, as well as some excellent tales by newer writers. A favourite story? It’s hard to single one out, especially since the stories are so closely connected, but I particularly enjoyed Jeena Murphy’s Queen of Heaven for her characterisation of the great Queen Semiramis, and her twisted, and yet startlingly appropriate, conclusion.

Beautifully presented, with stunning cover art by Geoff Popham and interior artwork by William Carden-Horton, Lost in the Museum something of a taonga itself.

Self-publishing is not revolutionary - it's reactionary

Trumpeted as a democratic broadening of the publishing field, 'authorpreneurialism' actually narrows the world of reading and writing

Thursday 29 May 2014   theguardian.com

Home improvement for publishing? … a DIY decorator. Photograph: REX/Image Broker

Self-publishing has always been possible and, indeed, for centuries was part and parcel of literary culture. Then it became expensive and, frankly, less prestigious, until digital books came along and made it affordable. Now price and success, too often the determinants of value, have made it respectable.

The idea of writers being able to bring their creations directly to readers is widely touted as a radical advance in authorial control and a revolution in the creative process. Its popularity has soared and its champions, such as the writer and founder of the Alliance of Independent Authors, Orna Ross, proclaim it as something "radical, really revolutionary within my world".. Self-publishing is the revolution du jour, the change that will liberate writers and democratise publishing.

Unfortunately, self-publishing is neither radical nor liberating. And, as revolutions go, it is rather short on revolutionaries. It is actually reactionary, a contracted version of the traditional publishing model in which companies, who produce for a wide range of tastes and preferences, are replaced by individual producers each catering to very narrow range.
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Blackwell's Charing Cross to relocate as lease ends

30.05.14 | Lisa Campbell - The Bookseller

The Blackwell’s Charing Cross Road store is set to close after 19 years on London’s world-famous bookselling street.
The well-loved shop has been blighted by falling footfall on the road due to the Crossrail development, which has obstructed customers’ access from the busy Oxford Street for the past three years. The shop will relocate elsewhere in London; the company is currently looking for an alternative site.
David Prescott, c.e.o. of Blackwell’s, said: “We are reaching the end of our lease in April 2015 and the Crossrail development isn’t going to be completed until 2018. Therefore we have decided to relocate to another venue in London.”

Foyles’ Charing Cross Road branch has also complained that sales and footfall have been hit by the works in the area surrounding the development, which has been in progress since 2009.
Steve Orchard, manager of Blackwell’s Charing Cross Road store, said: “The biggest problem has been the Crossrail development. We are having to pay the same amount of rent for far fewer people coming down the street and it is not balancing out. That is why we are looking to move to a different area in London.

“It is a real shame we are having to move, but we used to get a real succession of people coming down from Oxford Street that we just don’t get anymore.” Orchard added: “Of course rent is high in this area of London and how people are buying books is changing, and that’s having an impact.”
While Foyles is building a new flagship store on the road, due to open at the beginning of June, a number of second-hand and antiquarian bookshops on the capital’s iconic bookselling street have closed in the past few years—including Murder One bookshop on Charing Cross Road.

Walter Kraut, manager of Quinto Books, which has been based on the street since the early 1980s, said: “There are four good bookshops on our block that have been there for a long time, but there used to be more than that until around five or six years ago. The rent prices certainly had something to do with it—they became more competitive—but trade has been slower in the past few years as retail has suffered generally in the bad economy.”

However, Kraut said he didn’t think Charing Cross Road was losing its status as a famous bookselling destination. “Trade is OK at the moment and I have a feeling actually that it is picking up a bit.
“On the first Tuesday of every month we change all our stock here and we always have a queue outside the door of people waiting to see what they can pick up on that day. It is quite exciting. I feel like Charing Cross Road has still retained its reputation as a bookselling destination.”

The £18.4bn Crossrail project will have 40 stations, bringing 1.5 million people to within 45 minutes of central London, linking key employment, leisure and business districts such as  Heathrow, the West End, the City and Docklands.

Walt Whitman’s “Song of Myself”: Just the Gay Parts

By Tyler Coates on May 30, 2014 - Flavorwire

This weekend marks the 195th birthday of arguably the most American of American poets, Walt Whitman. Equally beloved and hated by literature students across this nation (in the interest of full disclosure, I fall into the latter category), Whitman is best known for his seminal collection of poetry, Leaves of Grass.

 He’s also well known for his, well, overt homoeroticism, particularly in the epic poem “Song of Myself.” You could celebrate his birthday by reading the poem in its entirety, or you could just stick to the gay parts, which I have pulled for your convenience here. What does this truncated version of the poem teach us? Walt Whitman was a horny guy, for sure.  … Read More

McNally Jackson 'Celebrates the Power of Books'

Shelf Awareness

photo: fastcompany.com

Sarah McNally "is proving that the way to save publishing is to give people more books, not more gadgets," Fast Company observed in its "Who's Next" profile of the owner of McNally Jackson Books in New York City. Citing her many accomplishments as an independent bookseller, the magazine noted that she "has accomplished all of this, not because of luck, but a belief in knowing that book lovers are a loyal, and not dying breed--and that they will support a business that celebrates the power of books, not the power and whims of the book industry."

"I cater to my own tastes," McNally said. "It's like understanding that one night I can read Proust, the next night I can watch network TV, and there's no contradiction, it's just different parts of me, neither of which is invalid. So I experience the store as all my many selves, with all their different tastes, each of whom could be either alienated or seduced."

We Love This Book

HAY FESTIVAL DIARY I've been to the Hay Festival before twice as a visitor but this was my first visit as a journalist. Find out what I got up to, and what it's like visiting a book festival for the first time with a press pass. Hay is not easy to get to from anywhere. I set off from my flat in London at 7.30am on Friday and arrived at the festival site just after 1pm after a long train to Hereford next to a man eating bagels with an alarming intensity; an hour-long bus ride from Hereford to Hay; and then a shuttle bus from Hay town to the festival site. Naturally it was raining the whole time. The site was already muddy when I arrived but there were lots of excited visitors and plenty of smiling Hay volunteers pointing people in the right direction. READ MORE >

	FEATURES

   

WHAT ARE YOU READING? We asked visitors to Hay what they were reading, and here's what they said - everything from Stoner to Clarice Bean. MORE >

JUDGING THE CARNEGIE AWARD The chair of the judges for the Carnegie and Kate Greenaway awards told us more about the judging process. MORE >

	BOOK OF THE WEEK

TIGERMAN by Nick Harkaway The setting for Tigerman is the (fictional) island of Mancreau, where Sergeant Lester Ferris has been posted after a harrowing tour of duty in Afghanistan. Mancreau is an island under a death sentence – ongoing pollution has caused clouds of toxic chemicals to intermittently explode from the island's innards causing scientifically inexplicable problems such as the sex of the island's fish changing. Harkaway writes with such dexterity and delight, seemingly effortlessly melding witty descriptions of the island's inhabitants with moving and confronting moments as well as frenetic action scenes. The absurd never becomes the ridiculous and the heart of the story never wavers. That balance of proper storytelling with literary complexity is, for me, what makes a book really special and Tigerman does this with aplomb. It's a joy to read. MORE >

The Beijing Cookbook Fair: Tasting the $4bn Global Cookbook Market

Today's Feature Story: The Beijing Cookbook Fair: Tasting the $4bn Global Cookbook Market For Gourmand's new Beijing Cookbook Fair, launched this year, publishers came from around the world for a taste of China's and the world's $4bn cookbook market.

Discussion: Agenting Mega-merger as Carmen Balcells Joins Andrew Wylie Literary agent Carmen Balcells —the super agent of the Spanish-language literary world — has agreed to merge her agency with that of Andrew "The Jackal" Wylie.

News from PP: Kirkus Reviews Offers Three New $50k Book Prizes Book review magazine Kirkus Reviews has announced three $50,000 book prizes to be awarded for fiction, nonfiction and young adult literature.

From the Archive: Random House Launches Online Cookbook Store on TasteBook TasteBook, the Random House food community and blog, has announced the launch of The Bookshop, a cooking-focused online bookstore with over 10,000 cookbooks.

James Patterson: Amazon, 'a National Tragedy'

Shelf Awareness

"Hi, I'm Jeff Bezos. I can't do his hysterical laugh.... Amazon seems out to control shopping in this country. This ultimately will have an effect on every grocery and department store chain and every big box store and ultimately put thousands of mom and pop stores out of business. It sounds like a monopoly to me.
Amazon also wants to control bookselling, the book business and book publishing. That's a national tragedy. If this is the new American way, it has to be changed by law if necessary."

--James Patterson, speaking at the Celebration of Bookselling at BEA yesterday, where he accepted the Indie Champion Award, to a standing ovation from the crowd.

At BEA: Isaacson On Collaboration; Patterson On Amazon/Hachette, Again; and More

Publishers Lunch

Walter Isaacson discussed his forthcoming book THE INNOVATORS with Slate publisher Jacob Weisberg Friday morning at BEA. The book, which traces the lineage of technological innovation from Ada Lovelace ("I didn't know much about her until my daughter introduced me"), Charles Babbage and Alan Turing to the founders of Intel to Twitter's Ev Williams, was an antidote to his biography of Steve Jobs. "Almost every great innovator in the book had a great collaborator," Isaacson said, adding he wanted to show "three to four great types of leaders" as opposed to the singular, uncompromising vision of Jobs. "People would come up to me and ask 'how to be just like Steve?' I'd say 'don't try this at home!' It's actually *not* the best way to be a leader. You can be a really nice collaborator which provides sustained innovation."

Isaacson also discussed why he made chapters-in-progress available on platforms such as Medium, which he singled out as the most helpful -- one chapter received more than 18,000 comments in the margin in a single week. "I ignored a lot of them, but less than I thought." Isaacson hopes to produce an enhanced ebook "in the next two years" as well as a "Wikified multimedia book that I can curate."

Near the end of the session, Weisberg asked Isaacson about the topic on most everyone's mind at BEA, the dispute between Amazon and Hachette. Isaacson said, "When you screw authors, publishers, and users, and you're trying to be what Amazon is trying to be, then you have a problem and it has to be resolved." He explained at length: "Amazon has done a lot of innovation and that's good: there are the Singles, and they enable people to self-publish. Amazon has had this way of saying 'here's how we do things in the future.' If they destroy that, it's bad for everybody. I love Amazon. I buy all my clothing from Amazon. In 1999 I said Amazon was a customer service company, focused on doing right thing for customers. I think Jeff Bezos is in danger of losing that sense that he's not in it just for the money instead of because he cares about making good products. That was the secret of Steve Jobs. I think this could be resolved, but it's about the perception that publishing a book is not the same as delivering a button-down Oxford shirt to a hotel room."

James Patterson also talked more about the Amazon/Hachette dispute at the ABA Luncheon Wednesday, a day removed from awarding another $1 million to independent bookstores around the country. His remarks echoed his earlier Facebook posting when the dispute was first reported widely to the public earlier this month, with further pointedness: "Amazon also, as you know, wants to control book selling, book buying, and even book publishing, and that is a national tragedy."

In other convention news, Next Big Book, the offshoot of Next Big Sound that has partnered with Macmillan on data analytics for book sales, won the BEA Start-Up Challenge Wednesday afternoon.

ABA's Teicher Says "The Book Industry Is Being Held Hostage" By Amazon; Celebrates Indies' Gains

ABA ceo Oren Teicher addressed the organization at their annual membership meeting on Thursday afternoon in an enthusiastic vein: "I could not be more pleased to be able to reiterate - the indie bookstore resurgence has continued."

At the same time, he noted how "the aggressive discounting and strong-arm tactics of the dominant online retailer continue to cause havoc. Its recent bullying assault of a major publisher is just the latest example of a unilateral and shortsighted strategy. To put it plainly: the book industry is being held hostage by a company far more interested in selling flat screen TV’s, diapers, and groceries. It is clear they are prepared to sacrifice a diverse publishing ecosystem to achieve retail dominance. That's not good for anyone."

Without providing exact figures, Teicher acknowledged that ABA members overall experienced a modest sales decline in 2013 after a strong 2012. His phrase was, "After a year of robust sales growth in 2012, the indie channel held on to the lion's share of those gains in 2013." The opening of 2014 was also soft, due in part to the weather, but "after a truly brutal winter that depressed retail sales nationwide... sales in the second quarter have recovered." Teicher said, "There's every reason to believe that 2014 will be another year of solid sales for the indie channel."

He celebrated the gains in association members and member store locations announced informally through the AP, and celebrated how "a number of established stores are expanding and opening in new locations, and a whole new generation of younger booksellers are continuing to join our ranks." Teicher also noted "what may be the most significant change," which is the recent pattern in which "many veteran store owners who have put their blood, sweat, and tears into building successful businesses are finding buyers for their businesses." He added, "Stores that just a few years ago might very well have closed are now beginning a new chapters of innovation and growth."

Teicher also announced that the ABA has signed a new seven-year agreement with Reed "to continue our partnership at BookExpo America." He noted, "our ongoing co-sponsorship of BEA with Reed is based on a shared commitment to providing indie booksellers with the best possible experience - and value - by attending a large national event such as this."

At the same time, Teicher acknolwedged "there are also a significant number of threats to indie bookselling." Among them, "Congressional gridlock seemingly has delayed progress on national e-fairness sales tax legislation and maintaining the sensible and needed reformations of the Senate’s USA Freedom Act." Apparently the ABA also has misgivings about minimum wage legislation, which "may soon pose very difficult business decisions for members as they work to maintain the business profits necessary to pay an equitable wage."

Teicher closed by saying, "While I do not ever under-estimate the challenges we face, by working together, I remain optimistic and confident that the best days of independent bookselling are ahead."

Another Mother's Love Launch

5 Memorable Graveyards in Literature

Off the Shelf By Kate Mayfield    |   Thursday, May 29, 2014 Kate Mayfield was raised in a Kentucky funeral home. Her memoir, The Undertaker's Daughter, will be published by Gallery Books in January 2015. Here she writes about great (and spooky) graveyards that have characterized some of the finest novels in history. Visit xoxafterdark for more by Kate. The Freshly Dug Grave In The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain, two boys sneak out of bed and steal away into the midnight air in search of devils in the graveyard. What could possibly go wrong? Tom and Huck huddle behind a tree petrified as three men approach the mound of a fresh grave. Hidden from view, they watch in horror as men they recognize from town strike the grave with their shovels and begin digging up a corpse. When the job is done, one of the grave robbers demands extra payment. A fight ensues, a murder is committed, the weapon being a headstone no less, and the only witnesses to the crime flee in terror. All this in Twain’s inimitable voice. The Victorian Graveyard that Still Exists There is a London bus route that skirts the edge of the magnificent Highgate Cemetery where tombstones haphazardly protrude behind a black iron fence only hinting that the finest funerary architecture in the England lies within it. Since 1839 the famous and the unknown have been interred at Highgate and it is still open for burial. Full of Victorian Gothic tombs, mausoleums, gravestones, catacombs, chapels, home to the wildlife of a nature reserve and the remains of over 170,000 deceased, is it any wonder that an author should bestow Highgate Cemetery with the same importance as a character? In Her Fearful Symmetry, a set of American mirror twins are bequeathed an apartment in London that overlooks the cemetery.  And so the story begins… The White Tomb “I knelt down by the tomb. I laid my hands, I laid my head on the broad white stone, and closed my weary eyes on the earth around, on the light above. I let her come back to me.” Oh those Victorian authors who bind us to the pages through their intimacy with death! A much beloved novel by one of the kings of tension fiction, The Woman in White's graveside scenes of veiled women and ghosts is an exquisite classic in every sense. The Reluctant Gravedigger's Home Joyce Carol Oates’s novel of violence, reinvention, and the absence of personal history begins with a scorching visceral description of the life of a reluctant gravedigger. This is a gritty novel, the grains of which settle in the mind like the dirt of a grave - not easily washed away. The story soon moves away from the cemetery in a small town south of Niagara Falls where the Schwart family live in a cottage on the grounds, but not before tragedy occurs, perpetrated by Jacob Schwart, who was forced to seek his abhorred employment after he and his family fled the Nazis in 1936. The smell of the earth where the dead are buried, the mud that is caked in the creases of his trousers, the dirt that stains the skin under his nails, and the family’s polluted drin... READ FULL POST

Wellington Book Launch Invitation

Hue & Cry Press invites you to the launch of

Autobiography of a Marguerite by Zarah Butcher-McGunnigle

and Hue & Cry Issue 8: Holidays

6PM Thursday 5 June

City Gallery, Wellington

In association with Tuatara Open Late

Random House launches New Zealand’s first ever Book App and website dedicated to crime and thriller lovers.

Random House launches New Zealand’s first ever Book App and website dedicated to crime and thriller lovers. This weekend sees the launch of New Zealand’s first ever dedicated crime and thriller book app and accompanying website helping to address the needs and interests of avid crime and thriller fans around the nation.

In 2013 Random House commissioned a survey which gained insights into the motivations of fans of crime and thriller books. Some of the key findings were that readers were extremely passionate about the genre, and delight in finding others with similar tastes. They also discovered that recommendation is fundamental to discovery and sharing; readers rely on word-of-mouth to unearth new authors and books. In response to this, Random House Australia & New Zealand designed new digital tools to help readers connect with their favourite authors, discover new ones and, through a dedicated Facebook page, interact with each other. Featuring an array of content from authors, booksellers, publishers and more, these tools showcase the very best of crime and thriller books from around the world as well as local authors such as Ben Atkins the author of Drowning City whose book will be featured on the Crime & Thriller Books App launching this weekend.

The free Crime & Thriller Books App will feature six page-turning local and international crime & thriller titles each month, with the first 10% of the book available to read. Readers can explore new authors, try prize winning authors that may have sparked their interest or review a book before recommending it to their book group. A select number of books will also have audio functionality so that people can hear the selection read aloud. “We now connect directly with over 300,000 book readers from across Australia and New Zealand across our digital marketing platforms. Our new crime and thrillers initiative allows us to grow that community of readers and excitingly to personalise conversations about our extensive crime and thriller list with readers who are passionate about the genre.“ - Brett Osmond, Director of Marketing and Publicity, Random House ANZ. From the atmospheric, chilly fields of  Scandinavian crime to the flawed hardboiled detectives; the horrors of true crime to the technicality of police procedurals; the distinctive style of Japanese crime to the pace of courtroom thrillers; the cross-country espionage to the gritty crime noir — the Crime & Thrillers app and website features big, brand name, authors such as Lee Child, Ruth Rendell, James Patterson, Kathy Reichs and Jo Nesbo, whilst highlighting lesser known authors, and championing debut authors in the field. The website also offers a specialised ‘Surprise Me’ function, where the reader is given recommendations based on genre they want to read. Combined, the app, website, newsletter and Facebook page  provide a platform for readers to access early information about upcoming International author tours such as Karin Slaughters visit on the 11& 12 August, global news, read and watch exclusive interviews and videos, discover captivating books and incredible authors, and engage with like-minded readers. For more information please contact: Yvonne Thynne, Publicity Manager ythynne@randomhouse.co.nz | 09 984 6173

Book Industry Salutes Karen Ferns

 PANZ News

Booksellers and publishers from all over the country packed the Oak Room at Auckland’s Victoria Park last night to celebrate the publishing career of Karen Ferns, former Australia/New Zealand joint managing director of Random House.

Paying tribute to Karen’s formidable achievements, Kevin Chapman said “It is right that we celebrate all that you have brought to the NZ publishing scene.

 “You became recognised as the best. Michael Moynahan says that when he was the Marketing Director of Random House, he knew you were a better Marketing Director than he was. So when he became MD, he set out to hire you. In his words “I didn’t interview Karen, I basically just begged her to take the job”. And you did, going on to much higher honours.

“Your industry work has been invaluable as well. You came to issues able to separate the industry need from your company’s need, and you weren’t political or agenda-driven or ego-driven, but outcome-driven.

“Your author relationships are also a high point. Kevin also noted Karen’s mentoring of staff. “You looked after them, gave them the freedom to be creative, and you had no fear of them shining.

“We all thank you for everything you have done, and we hope that we have not lost you to the industry or the sector. May good things be in your future. You deserve them.”

Among the out of town publishers and booksellers who made a point of attending the farewell were Julia Marshall, Fergus Barrowman, Bridget Williams, Lincoln Gould, Mike Paardekooper, Tilly Lloyd and David Thorp.

Joan Mackenzie said. “If you asked me to describe her, the words I’d use would be: calm, steady, considered, compassionate, and wise. Karen has led a company which by any measure has been at the forefront of our industry, and from which many of us in this room have benefitted.

 “During Karen’s tenure, Random House’s local list topped the Nielsen charts 15 times; their NZ books had 42 entries in the overall Top 3 titles, and 177 in the overall Top 10. It seems to me that you couldn’t get these kinds of results without a particular world view which then finds its way into everything you do.

“Karen’s management of people and the way she’s always fostered co-operation between both sides of the trade has all contributed to a substantial and impressive body of work.

“On behalf of all my bookselling colleagues, Karen, we salute you and we collectively wish you all the very best for the next chapter in your life, and thank you for the real difference you made in an industry which is not always collaborative,” Joan concluded.

Standing Room Only for 1 June 2014 - Radio New Zealand National

12.40 Lost art work rediscovered

A long-lost art work has come to light in Auckland after going missing for decades. Artist Bronwyn Holloway-Smith has taken on the job of restoring this large-scale ceramic mural, tile by painstaking tile.

12.50 Hawke’s Bay Opera House Closes

The Fat Lady has sung and the curtain has come down on the Hawke’s Bay Opera House in Hastings. Earthquake strengthening rules means this heritage building has had to close and almost all of the fifteen strong staff have been laid off.

1.10 At The Movies with Simon Morris

Reviews X-Men: Days of Future Past, Grace of Monaco and Polish film Ida.

1.31 Ollie is a Martian

Clown Ollie Cox gets alienated in his new show about a Martian sent to Earth to figure out life, love and the universe.

1.40 Korean Artist Seng Yul Oh

It was in 2005 that Korean-born artist Seung Yul Oh graduated with a masters in fine arts from Elam. No sooner than he set foot into the big wide world, everyone began to take notice. Back then, working out of a shared studio space with other artists, he says, "I couldn't help myself, I had to keep making things... It's like cooking – you make food, you taste it, the next day (you) cook again."

Seung works across a multitude of mediums: video, performance, installation, sculpture and painting, and says he can't pin-point a favourite, "It depends on the idea."

Moamoa is a collection of works through his steadfast career, "Moamoa means to gather together and in French it’s ‘me, me’... so, this is me – my work."

2.05 The Laugh Track

Our guest on this week’s Laugh Track is actor turned screenwriter Sophie Henderson. Sophie’s first feature film, Fantail, is getting very strong support both here and overseas.

2.26 Irene Gardiner

In her monthly rummage through the film and television archives, NZ On Screen’s Irene Gardiner thinks “queen” – from Her Majesty’s visit to New Zealand in 1953, to 1960s' Beauty Queen pageants and an early TVNZ drama, Queen Street.

Clips:

1980 drama – Queen Street

1969 magazine item – Beauty Queens

1980’s drama – Jewel’s Darl

1953-54 Royal visit to Tonga

1953-54 Royal visit to New Zealand

2.40 Books

A young woman who can speak to the dead meets up with an opportunistic former British officer who exploits her abilities to make money. This is just one of the threads in Coral Atkinson’s new novel, Passing Through, set in Christchurch in the 1930s.

2.51 Sarjeant Gallery Redevelopment

After a ten-year delay, the redevelopment of Whanganui’s Sarjeant Gallery is to go ahead. The $28 million dollar project will mix earthquake strengthening with the building of a whole new wing for exhibitions, administration and desperately needed storage space. But why has it been given the go-ahead now, after a decade of wrangling?

3.05 The Drama Hour

Animal Planet by Martha Hardy-Ward and Sad Heron - Part 1 by Caroline Barnes.

Visit our webpage for pictures and more information: http://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/standing-room-only

Saturday Morning with Kim Hill: 31 May 2014 - Radio New Zealand National

8:15 Pollyanne Pena: #YesAllWomen

8:30 Janette Sadik-Khan: transport revolution

9:05 Chris Rainier: endangered cultures

9:45 Classical Music with Davinia Caddy

10:05 Playing Favourites with Clemency Montelle

11:05 Lorrie Moore: keeping it short

11:45 Poetry with Gregory O'Brien

This Saturday's team:

Producer: Mark Cubey

Wellington engineer: Damon Taylor

Auckland engineer: Ian Gordon

Christchurch engineer: Andrew Collins

Research by Anne Buchanan, Infofind

 .

Email: Saturday@radionz.co.nz

Web page: http://radionz.co.nz/saturday

Twitter: http://twitter.com/RNZ_SatMorning

8:15 Pollyanne Pena

Pollyanne Pena is the Centre Coordinator for Shakti Ethnic Women's Refuge, and runs the Wellington Young Feminists. She will discuss the Twitter hashtag #YesAllWomen, which trended worldwide after the killing spree by Elliot Rodger in California this week.

http://shakti-international.org/shakti-nz/

http://wellingtonyoungfeminists.tumblr.com/

https://twitter.com/hashtag/YesAllWomen?src=hash

8:30 Janette Sadik-Khan

Janette Sadik-Khan was appointed New York City's commissioner of transportation by Mayor Bloomberg, and led many innovative projects including the creation of a pedestrian friendly Times Square, 365 miles of on-street bike lanes, car-free summer streets, and North America's biggest bicycle share system. She is now President of the National Association of City Transportation Officials in the United States, and visited New Zealand as a guest of Auckland Council.

http://nacto.org/

9:05 Chris Rainier

Chris Rainier is a National Geographic Society Fellow who has spent his career documenting endangered cultures and working as a photojournalist covering conflict, war and famine in such locations as Somalia, Sudan, Cambodia, Bosnia and China. He co-founded and is the present co-director of the Enduring Voices Language Preservation Project, and is director of the Last Mile Technology Project which brings solar power, internet, media training and technology to under-represented cultures. He is lead judge for the Nikon Photo Contest at the 2014 Auckland Festival of Photography, will present at the Festival's Talking Culture Cultural Memory Symposium (31 May), give two solo talks (30 May and 2 June), and participate in the Festival's portfolio reviews (2 June).

http://www.chrisrainier.com/

http://www.photographyfestival.org.nz/

http://www.nikon-photocontest.com/en/#/judge/0

9:45 Classical Music with Davinia Caddy

Dr Davinia Caddy is a senior lecturer at Auckland University's School of Music, and the author of How to Hear Classical Music (Awa Press). Her ten-part reading of How to Hear Classical Music will play at 10.45am weekdays from Monday 23 June on Radio New Zealand National. Today she will discuss timbre in music.

http://www.creative.auckland.ac.nz/people/music/d-caddy

http://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/thereading

10:15 Playing Favourites with Clemency Montelle

Dr Clemency Montelle is Senior Lecturer of Mathematics at the University of Canterbury, a Principal Investigator at the Marsden Fund (2011-2013), and a Rutherford Discovery Fellow (2013-2017), reading original texts in the Exact Sciences in Greek, Latin, Sanskrit, Arabic, and Cuneiform.

http://www.math.canterbury.ac.nz/~c.montelle/

11:05 Lorrie Moore

Lorrie Moore is an American short story writer (Self-Help, Like Life, Birds of America) and novelist (Anagrams, Who Will Run the Frog Hospital?, A Gate at the Stairs), and is Gertrude Conaway Vanderbilt Professor of English at Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tennessee. Her first new collection of stories in fifteen years is Bark (Faber, ISBN: 978-0-571-27391-1).

http://as.vanderbilt.edu/english/bio/lorrie-moore

11:45 Poetry with Gregory O'Brien

Painter, poet, curator and writer Gregory O'Brien, MONZ, is the author of a number of books. His most recent collection is Beauties of the Octagonal Pool (AUP, 2012). He will discuss the new collections Horse with Hat by Marty Smith (VUP, ISBN: 978-0-86473-927-8), and Edwin's Egg & Other Poetic Novellas by Cilla McQueen (Otago University Press, ISBN: 978-1-877578-13-7), whose exhibition, Intuition, is currently at Southland Museum (to 22 June).

http://www.southlandmuseum.com/exhibitions_now_showing.html

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On Saturday 31 May 2014 during Great Encounters between 6:06pm and 7:00pm on Radio New Zealand National, you can hear a repeat broadcast of Kim Hill's interview from 24 May with Sheila Natusch. Previous interviews with Sheila are available here: http://www.radionz.co.nz/collections/sheila-natusch

Next Saturday, 7 June, Kim Hill's guests will include Andrew Harvey and Mary Quin.