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Inspiration and introspection

27/2/2019

Outrageous Living: A daily guide to a life without limits
by Bernadette Soares

I was drawn to this journal by its gorgeous cover, and its positive vibe around empowerment.
The author’s credentials are perfect for this type of writing.
The spiral bound pages work well for a journal intended to be referred to on a daily basis.
The only indication that this work contains religious references is a bible verse (in small print) on the back cover. An improvement suggestion would be to add a reference on the front cover so that it is purchased by its intended audience. Delving inside, the religious affiliations are obvious from the Affirmation Index.
The contents are structured into 31 daily sections with affirmations, contemplations, actions, and challenges. Plus there are blank lines for scribbling down your own thoughts.
The pages are beautifully designed and this will become a treasure trove of personal inspiration and introspection.

Review by Wendy Scott

Title: Outrageous Living: A daily guide to a life without limits
Author: Bernadette Soares
Publisher: Wild Side Publishing
ISBN: 9780473449155
RRP: $39.99
Available: bookshops

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Pride of place on coffee table

23/2/2019

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Henley Lake from Wasteland to Wetland
– A Wairarapa Community Anthology
Compiled by Viv Walker

‘A community is like a ship; everyone ought to be prepared to take the helm.’
Henrik Ibsen (pg 114)
‘NZ Department of Conservation research suggests that exposure to natural environments has direct, positive effects on human health and wellbeing.’ (pg 74)

   This is a glorious book. It’s bright, beautifully presented, eminently readable and a testament to community support and effort. I learned so much and this book has pride of place on our coffee table.
     It was the early settlers who felt a pull to their nearest body of water, the Waipoua River, to swim in and even then they saw the potential for sailing. From the end of the 1880’s Joseph Payton called on the Masterton Borough Council to build a swimming pool but it would be ‘nearly twenty years before Payton’s plea was taken up. After the ‘Masterton Trust Lands Trust gave ten acres to be added to Masterton Park’ the ability to create something very special was begun.
     There are voices from the Masterton community all through. From the current mayor, Lyn Patterson, to past mayor Bob Francis. There is a lovely tribute to his ancestry and memories of Henley Lake from Joseph Potangaroa. The voices and stories of patrons, poets, artists, walkers, this book comes wonderfully alive and the love and dedication to an idea shines through.
     Lucky are the students at Lakeview School, ‘nestled on the north-western corner of Henley Lake Park only a hop, skip and jump away.’ But, in the traditions of their community, these students not only enjoy the beauty of the lake, they contribute to its upkeep, taking on increasing responsibility for annual plantings, picking up rubbish and being involved in working bees. In 2012, for example, students planted flaxes to be used for weaving and making Maori costumes. They are truly becoming ‘kaitiaki’ – guardians of the land.
     Many community groups use this place from The Men’s Shed to the Big Dog Day Out, taking advantage of the lovely setting of Henley Lake.
     The stunning detail in this book is testament to Viv Walker’s own vision and creative drive to bring to us the history of Henley Lake. Her commitment to acknowledging all involved, her own lovely artwork throughout in collaboration with other artists equally talented, the research required to interview, to gather the personal stories and archival history, the clear presentation of photos and maps – hats off to Ms Walker.
     This is more than a celebration of effort in one New Zealand town. It shows us what can be achieved with vision, passion and drive by ordinary people committed to providing the best for their community. It shows us love.

Review by TJ Ramsay

Title: Henley Lake from Wasteland to Wetland – A Wairarapa Community Anthology
Author: Viv Walker
Publisher: Swirld books
ISBN: 978-0-473-37163-0
RRP: $29.99
Available: Soft cover available from Swirld Books [email protected]. Masterton: Paper Plus, Aratoi Wairarapa Museum of Art and History, Hedleys Book shop. Carterton:
Almos bookshop, Take Note. Greytown: Cobblestones Museum, Sandra Wong Art Gallery. Pukaha Mount Bruce wildlife centre. Wellington: Unity Bookshop. Wheelers Books Online https://www.wheelers.co.nz/

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Well-drawn characters

18/2/2019

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Oriental Parade: A Novel Of Inter-Woven Stories
by David Fountain

Creating the small Wellington boutique, Hotel Oriental, around and through which all of the characters’ stories are told, was such a wonderful way to construct this book. Setting up the main players in Roger and Bethany with their infectious curiosity is ingenious. It builds the drama of some of the tales and delivers the humour in others.
Another constant throughout is the talented hotel chef, Rene who, despite being mainly behind the kitchen door, helps to complete a very real picture indeed and I found myself feeling that I too was a guest in Hotel Oriental, such was the atmosphere that formed around me as I read. Perhaps watching a drama unfold from my table in the dining room as I ate breakfast or sharing in the conversation at the reception desk with the next influx of guests. This was cleverly achieved without being overly descriptive and allowed me to conjure up my own idea of what the hotel and its surrounds might look like.
From overseas students supplementing their incomes, to a secretive orchestral conductor, vigilante justice meted out by a sub-group of Masons, to a confusion over the ownership of a beautiful jade-handled hairbrush, from love stories to intrigue and even murder there is much to keep the reader’s attention. Despite this variety, the style is even and Roger and Bethany are always on hand to ensure that we never stray very far from the door of the hotel.
When we do leave the comfort of Hotel Oriental, we might learn of poachers who help make Rene’s menu so mouth-watering, or the life of the ex-owner of the lovely old house that became the hotel, or even the love that draws couples together despite time and distance.
Although I found the epilogue did not detract from anything preceding it, I would have been just as satisfied if the stories had been left as they had ended in their respective chapters. It might have been nice to have been left to imagine what followed on from some of these marvellous tales but, that said it did close the book tidily. I do enjoy a believable plotline and well-drawn characters to guide the way and this delivered both. I may even book in for my next holiday….

Review by George Hollinsworth

Title: Oriental Parade: A Novel Of Inter-Woven Stories
Author: David Fountain
Publisher: Fountainworks Ltd
ISBN: 9780473415471; EISBN 9780473415488 (ebook kindle amazon)
RRP: $34.95 NZD
Available: Paperback: Unity Booksellers, Wgton; National Library Store Wgton; Bruce McKenzie Books Palmerston Nth. Ebook @AmazonKindle

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Mysteries and eccentricity

11/2/2019

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Wild Garlic
by Peter Thomas

When River Rhein leaves Auckland’s North Shore to begin a new life in a remote cabin built by her ex-husband’s grandfather in a tiny West Coast settlement, she scarcely imagines that she is taking herself and small son into danger and long-standing intrigue.
     Anyone who has ever moved from a city into a small community will identify with the warm welcome, tinged with friendly curiosity, that River and 2-year-old Davy receive from Kurupaenui’s handful of permanent residents. However, nothing can prepare her for being woken by a cannon salute the next morning. The story behind this noisy awakening is the first indication of just how different Kurupaenui folk are to the city people River has left behind.
     Thomas lets River tell her story in a chatty, colourful style that drew me into her situation immediately. Evocative descriptions of the West Coast paint a vivid picture of its isolation and ruggedness.
     Several unsettling events in the cabin soon after her arrival warn River that there is something amiss in this outwardly idyllic place and in fact, as the story unfolds it is clear that Wild Garlic’s plot has all the ingredients of a gripping thriller.
     However, Thomas has used the daring technique of alternating fiction (River’s escape from Auckland, the mystery surrounding the cabin and her fledging relationships with Kurupaenui’s inhabitants) with chunks of non-fiction which range from the story of HMS Revenge (1577-91), dealing with stress, the plight of Romany people in Nazi Germany and astronomy. While the inclusion of this factual information, related by the people in the village, each according to his or her background, tells River more about her neighbours, I felt that it interrupted the flow of the story: the information is often delivered in the context of a conversation which has degenerated into a lecture with River reduced to the role of listener. I would have preferred Thomas to have aimed less at ‘teaching’ River (and his readers) and to have invested more in developing the intriguing plot.
     Wild Garlic spans several generations and embraces different cultures, religions and socio-political views: the very nature of the plot means that there is a dark thread running through it and I would have liked to see the characters involved much more in solving the mystery that surround River’s cabin.
     Even more daring, perhaps even reckless, than this mix of fact-fiction is River’s frequently repeated contempt for the National Party and Auckland’s North Shore. Considering how many potential viewers this could alienate, I feel Thomas could have played down River’s opinion of her ex-husband’s politics and their neighbourhood.

Review by Carolyn McKenzie
Writer, freelance proofreader, copy editor, & translator from Italian to English.
Carolyn kindly offers accommodation at reasonable rates for FlaxFlower writers
in Thames (Waikato) and Ventimiglia Alta (Liguria, Italy). [email protected]

Title: Wild Garlic
Author: Peter Thomas
Publisher: Good Hope
ISBN: 9780994118844
RRP: $22.50
Available: Paper: order from bookshops; Good Hope Publishing House, PO Box 596 Picton 7250, [email protected]; or Copy Press www.copypress.co.nz
Kindle ebook from Amazon

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Stimulating and enlightening

7/2/2019

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Social Science Research in New Zealand: An Introduction
edited by Martin Tolich and Carl Davidson

This book’s focus, made clear right from the mihi whakatau (traditional greeting) that precedes the introduction, is on New Zealand and particularly on the responsibilities social scientists in this country have towards Māori and the spirit and detail of the Treaty of Waitangi.
It is in part a manual for social science students, particularly post-graduate students required to embark on their own research projects, and as such it succeeds very well indeed.
The sections of the book that are devoted specifically to the mechanics of research (mostly written by the editors, who are both sociologists) provide a meticulous guide, covering everything from an understanding of the purpose of research, through research design and the collection and analysis of data, and the drafting, testing and redrafting of the results.
The relative merits and problems associated with quantitative and qualitative research methods and inductive and deductive logic are considered, and by the time the last chapter is reached the contributions of the various authors make it seem self-evident that a mixed approach is almost always the best one to adopt.
An especially welcome feature of the technical sections is that the authors have explained the associated terminology so lucidly that such jargon is revealed to be simply a kind of precise and useful short-hand, and not the hermeneutic obfuscation that it might otherwise be taken for.
Both students and the general reader will find much of interest in those sections of the book that provide illustrations of the techniques described, and that demonstrate some of the directions that Social Science research in New Zealand is taking. This is fascinating stuff, and, for the student, will stimulate a desire to undertake research of their own.
But the editors asked the contributors to ensure that they wrote for ‘an educated lay audience rather than an academic or technical one’, and indeed the non-specialist reader will gain much from, for example, Barry Smith’s section on ‘Research with Māori’ and Lily George’s analysis of the complexities and tensions relating to the same issue, and from Marita Leask’s feminist perspectives, Louisa Allen’s engaging account on the use of photo elicitation and analysis, and Susan Morton’s description of the techniques involved in longitudinal research undertaken in the ‘Growing up in New Zealand’ Study.
The book demonstrates inter-disciplinary approaches that add depth and value to research in the social sciences, and how the borders between social science and the humanities are more apparent than real. As examples, Chris Brickell’s essay tracing what it meant (and means) to be a teenager in New Zealand relies largely on historical records, and Jane Kelsey’s article on secondary sources makes incisive comments regarding the way rhetoric and secrecy are used to influence attitudes and outcomes. Though not specifically discussed, no doubt literature and the other arts could also contribute to an understanding of social issues.
In the conclusion, the editors remind us that social research results help shape public debate and government policies, and thus the laws. An understanding of how research works is therefore of importance to us all. This book goes a long way towards providing just such an understanding, and it does so in a way that is stimulating as well as enlightening.

Review by Tony Chapelle

Title: Social Science Research in New Zealand: An Introduction
Authors: Martin Tolich and Carl DavidsonPublisher: Auckland University Press
ISBN: 9781869408848
RRP: $69.99
Available: bookshops

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Inspiration and introspection

Pride of place on coffee table

Well-drawn characters

Mysteries and eccentricity

Stimulating and enlightening

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