What We're Reading

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Neil

Born To Run, by Bruce Springsteen (Simon & Schuster, 2016)

Seven years in the writing, Born To Run tells the extraordinary life story of one of the world's most successful musicians, in his own words. He was born in 1949, grew up Catholic in Freehold, New Jersey, and was driven to play music from an early age. In fact, he has never had any other job, and the book tells us of his early struggles to make a living through music, as well as his endless conflict with his working class father. It's a remarkably honest memoir, somewhat clunky in parts, and perhaps too long, but revelatory, and sometimes inspiring.

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Neil

Love of Country: A Hebridean Journey, by Madeleine Bunting (Granta 2016)

Having been to the Hebrides earlier this year, I'm pretty excited about books concerning that singular landscape and history, although I thought I was well informed about both. I was wrong! Madeline Bunting, in her exquisite and evocative prose, uncovers endless hidden histories about the islands, but also revisits the widely known with fresh insights.

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Neil

In Love With These Times: My Life With Flying Nun Records, by Roger Shepherd (HarperCollins 2016)

Roger Shepherd founded Flying Nun Records in 1981 in Christchurch, mostly because he was a huge fan, and realised that the bands he loved needed someone to make their records. These bands produced some of New Zealand's best and most successful music and helped define an era, and created what became known as the 'Dunedin Sound'. They were also successful internationally, and many of the bands developed cult followings around the world. Bands such as The Chills, The Clean, The Verlaines, The Bats, Straitjacket Fits, Chris Knox and Tall Dwarfs, Sneaky Feelings and so on.

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Neil

This Model World: Travels to the Edge of Contemporary Art, by Anthony Byrt (AUP 2016)

Anthony Byrt is an award winning journalist and art critic, arguably New Zealand's most widely read art critic. This is a survey of how he found the state of NZ contemporary art on his return from a period in Berlin, in 2011. He visits galleries and artists' studios in NZ and internationally, interviews the artists and unpacks their work, their inspiration and motivation. I've always found contemporary art difficult and obscure, but Byrt manages to explain, not simplistically, but more by providing a pathway to understanding the works discussed.

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Neil

Spirit of Jura: Fiction, Essays, Poems From the Jura Lodge (Polygon 2009)

The Jura Malt Whisky distillery sponsor a writers' retreat programme on the Isle of Jura off the west coast of Scotland, and this is a collection from the writers associated with the retreat. It includes writing from Kathleen Jamie, Romesh Gunesekera, Janice Galloway, Will Self and others. It's a varied collection of writing from a disparate collection of writers, but all evoke the wildness of the Jura landscape. Jamie's description of her arrival on Jura is particularly atmospheric, and Janice Galloway imagines George Orwell on Jura in 1948 while he was there writing '1984'.

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Neil

Comrade Baron: a journey through the vanishing world of the Transylvanian aristocracy, by Jaap Scholten (Helena History Press, 2016)

On the 3rd of March 1949, most of the Transylvanian aristocracy were arrested by the Romanian Workers' Party, deported, imprisoned, tortured, and dispossessed. They were the ultimate class enemies. They were forced into hard labour in steelworks, quarries and the like, but secretly maintained connections and rituals. Jaap Scholten travels extensively through Romania and Hungary, meets survivors of the Romanian Gulag, and the next generation, and relates what happened to them, and how the process of restitution of assets is now under way.