• Current Reading Header

    I’ve been reading

    Below are some of the books I’ve been reading.
    For an in-depth review of each book, please click on the cover image.

  • Everything is Beautiful and Everything Hurts

    Josie Shapiro - Everything is Beautiful and Everything Hurts

    everything is beautiful and everything hurts

    Josie Shapiro
    This debut novel by Auckland author, Josie Shapiro, tells the story of Mickey Bloom a young woman who has a complicated and turbulent relationship with running. The sport, while ultimately liberating, is also inextricably entwined with some of Mickey’s most challenging life experiences.

  • Current Reading – Holding the ACEs

    holding the aces

    Holding the ACEs

    Glen Colquhoun
    Essential reading. New Zealand GP and poet, Glen Colquhoun, reflects on the impact adverse childhood events have had on the lives of the young people he sees at the Horowhenua Youth Health Service. Powerful, poignant, and at times a devastating read, this essay will leave its imprint. Hopefully it can serve as a catalyst for change.

  • Current Reading – A Beginner’s Guide to Japan

    A Beginner's Guide To Japan

    A Beginner’s Guide to Japan

    Pico Iyer
    Brief reflections and musings on all that is Japan, by travel writer Pico Iyer – a ‘foreigner’ who has spent over three decades living in the country, and who has a Japanese wife. Droll, fascinating, and insightful.

  • REMEMBER ME

    Remember Me

    Remember Me

    Charity Norman
    As an ailing doctor’s dementia progresses, his guard and filters dissolve, giving his daughter, who’s returned from overseas to care from him, alarming glimpses into a life he had previously kept secret.

  • LESSONS IN CHEMISTRY

    lessons in chemistry

    lessons in chemistry

    Bonnie Garmus
    A delightful and thought-provoking story about Elizabeth Zott, a research chemist, who, after constantly coming up against the sexism of the 1950s/60s, has to navigate a more unusual route to fulfil her true potential.

  • The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida

    Shehan Karunatilaka - The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida

    the seven moons of maali almeida

    Shehan Karunatilaka
    This Booker Prize-winning novel is a sharp-witted and confronting political satire set in the liminal space between Sri Lanka of the 1990s and the afterlife. Murderer photojournalist Maali Almeida has seven moons to attend to any unfinished business (including finding out who murdered him), before he must move towards the Light or forever be condemned to exist in limbo. Powerful, disturbing, brave writing.

  • Megan Nicol Reed – One of Those Mothers

    Megan Nicol Reed - One of Those Mothers

    One of Those Mothers

    Megan Nicol Reed
    In this page-turning domestic drama, a dark secret hovers over the seemingly benign Auckland community of Point Heed. Doubt, suspicion and panic soon start to unravel close friendships. As the story moves towards the denouement, moral conundrums plague principal players and questions of complicity swirl, even after the close.