It's NZ Book Month!

It's time for the book nerd in me to celebrate my love of books! Her in NZ, it's Book Month, with a bunch of bookish events happening around the country, touring authors and people just generally loving and appreciating books. So I thought I would give myself a little interview to start things off - feel free to join in on your own blog or in the comments, even if your not from NZ, I'd love to hear from you!

What have you just finished reading?
Flashback Forward by John Cairney

What did you think?
Started of brilliantly, then went downhill from there with weak characters, dislocation from the central issues and an anticlimax.

What are you reading now?
The Collected Stories of Katherine Mansfield.

What do you think?
I fell in love with Katherine Mansfield after watching the movie about her early life, called Bliss, and I do love her writing, although I haven't read much of it yet - I've only just started.

Top five favourite books?
Outlander by Diana Gabaldon, One Day by David Nicholls, Water for Elephants by Sarah Gruen, Goodbye Sarajevo by Atka Reid and Hana Schofield, The Catcher in the Rye by J.D Sallinger.

Favourite book that's been made into a movie?
The romantic in me says The Notebook... but Water for Elephants was truly amazing.

What's on your 2013 To Be Read list?
They're all New Zealand books, because I just decided to explore a bit of my local literature for a change: The Edge of the Alphabet by Janet Frame, Scented Gardens for the Blind by Janet Frame, I got his Blood on me by Lawrence Patchett, Tamar, White Feathers, Blue Smoke (series) by Deborah Challinor, The Girl Below by Bianca Zander.

What's your favourite place to read?
I can read anywhere really - growing up in a noisy family I trained myself to be able to read even when the TV was blaring, siblings arguing, mum cooking dinner. But in summer I do enjoy a nice comfy chair outside in the sun with a glass of orange juice beside me and in winter it's always nice to curl up in front of the heater in mountains of blankets and a cup of tea. Simple pleasures really.

What was your favourite book as a child?
That would have to be Go Dog Go! Even though Dad would read it to me like, every night, I still got so freakin' excited when he would slooooooowly turn the last page and there it was, A DOG PARTY!

If you could be any character from a book, who would you be and why?
Claire from the Outlander series because she's just so damn fearless! And she's married to Jamie Fraser..

It's SPRING tomorrow!!!

In case you haven't noticed... this post may have given it away... I'm really looking forward to spring! So I thought I would regale you with a list of what I'm looking forward to about the upcoming sunny/silly season.

♥ Reading Katherine Mansfield's short story collection, Catcher in the Rye, and Nancy Wake in a sunny spot outside somewhere

♥ Swimming in the ocean

♥ Cheery blossoms

♥ Walking barefoot

♥ Eating summer fruit

♥ Feeling sand between my toes

♥ Having lots and lots and lots of barbecues

♥ Roasting marshmallows

Ahhh sunshine, welcome back :)

Patriotism through fiction

Recently I read an article on Stuff.co.nz called What's so wrong with NZ fiction?. It basically explains (through a bunch of statistics) that New Zealanders love and support New Zealand fiction, but not many of us actually read it.
This article has come about at the most appropriate time for me because I've recently become obsessed with Katherine Mansfield, one of New Zealand's greatest ever writers, and I've also decided that all the books I read next year, for the entire year, are going to be New Zealand fiction.
Why? Because I am one of these statistics. I love and support our fiction, but for the life of me I cannot think of one kiwi novel I've read, and I'm ashamed of myself for that. I figure that if I'm going to strive to become one of the great kiwi writers, I need to know who my predecessors are - I was going to say "what I'm up against" but that sounds like I have a lack of respect for other kiwi writers and I want to be humble and accept that people like Katherine Mansfield were and probably always will be the best.
The article got a lot of comments, and a main theme I noticed was that people think New Zealand fiction is too much about New Zealand and most of them say things like "When I read I want to escape, I don't want to read about places I know, places I can drive down the road and see".
It's the same with young people going travelling and moving to Australia - people that think the grass is greener elsewhere. Sure, travelling when you're young is something kiwi's do - it's a rite of passage and something that I'll be doing myself soon. But, we have a strange culture... we are a loyal and supportive nation when it comes to things like sporting events, tragedies, and triumphs, but when it comes to the quality of life debate, people start complaining, when really, compared to most countries, we live in one of the best places in the world. Yet people still take off in search of greener pastures. Maybe it's because we're a young nation and we struggle with our identity a bit, or maybe it's because we're so far away from everywhere that we have this great amount of curiosity in us.
I understand where those "When I read I want to escape" people are coming from, but I think there is a lot of merit in learning about your own country, even if it is through fiction.
On the other hand, a few months ago I decided to go browsing through the Whitcoulls New Zealand section to see what I had to live up to with my own novel that is set in Wellington, and, first of all, I think our fiction should take pride of place at the front of the store where it can't be missed (some of our bookstores don't even have a New Zealand section!) instead of being squished on a small shelf in between trashy romance and sci-fi. Second of all, I noticed that every single novel I picked up had some sort of international influence attached to it - whether it was written by a kiwi writer and set overseas, or the characters were here from overseas, having immigrated from England or Scotland or Ireland.
And I thought, how sad that is, that New Zealand writers feel they have to draw on outside influences in order to write an interesting story.
In a way, it was a good thing for me, because I'm writing a story with all New Zealand characters (excluding a couple of minor American characters - soldiers who were in Wellington during WWII) set in Wellington during the present day and during the first and second world wars.
We say we are a loyal and proud country, but reading those comments made me question that a little bit - are we really? Do we actually practice what we preach? I know I do and I know a lot of people who do, but it would be nice if more kiwis did.

Happy Monday :)

Good morning friends and a happy Monday to you! Hope you had a great weekend. I for one am a little worse for wear this morning after a five hour hike up a really high mountain yesterday that was a lot harder than we thought it would be - and it was all my idea but I only have myself to blame. But it was worth it for the view and the amazing sense of accomplishment we all felt when we made it to the top... and then to the car at the bottom. It was great practice for the Tongariro Alpine Crossing, which we plan to tackle in January 2013. I will post photos of our amazing adventure later this week as part of my WellyLove feature, so watch this space. I also have a little business venture to tell you about, which is small, but super-exciting and something I have been wanting to do for a long time.
So here is some Monday inspiration, have a great week!

Risk! Risk anything! Care no more for the opinions of others, for those voices. Do the hardest thing on earth for you. Act for yourself. Face the truth.

Katherine Mansfield

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