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FISHING - 23rd Mar 2018

FISHING Not everyone is an experienced fisherman. Some are enthusiastic amateurs. Others need a chance to get started. There is no better way to get through the stage of being a complete beginner without massive embarrassment than with the help of a book! Make sure the old hands don't have a laugh at your expense.

Geoff Thomas: Fishing Secrets

Learn everything you need to know about knots, bait, rods, tackle and how to fish from a boat or the beach or the rocks or the wharf (because it's not all the same technique). Make sure you know how to identify what you're catching as well. This book is packed with practical information and great tips. Come in a get a copy of the book and while you're here, you can have a browse through our well stocked fishing section.

Booky books - 21st Mar 2018

Booky books Many of us who love books and reading also tend to enjoy what we informally call "booky books". We mean it to encompass things such as Tolkien's Gown by Rick Gekoski or The Diary of a Bookseller by Shaun Bythell or The Bookshop by Penelope Fitzgerald or Weird Things Customers Say in Bookshop by J Campbell Trafficking in Old Books by Anthony Marshall. There are so many to choose from and you come across some wonderful quotes as well, such as these from George Orwell..

Would I like to be a bookseller de metier? On the whole ....and some happy days I spent in the shop - no.

There are two well known types of pest by whom every second-hand bookshop is haunted. One is the .. person smelling of old food who comes every day and tries to sell you worthless books. The other is the person who orders large quantities of books for which he has no intention of paying.

Our shop had exceptionally interesting stock, yet I doubt whether 10% of our customers knew a good book from a bad one.

 

Read Yourself Happy - 20th Mar 2018

The grammar in the title might be suspect but these books claim to teach you all sorts of things that will make you happier.

These books are about doing what you love, learning to laugh at yourself, becoming more prosperous, dealing with disaster, finding peace of mind, being able to forgive yourself and lots more. You will find out how happy people think, why rich people get richer, why all your bills come at once, how to understand yourself, and how to stop blaming your mother!

Andrew Matthews' books are a guideline for living and a map to happiness. Lots of title to choose from: Follow Your Heart, Being Happy, Happiness in a Nutshell, How Life Works and Happiness in Hard Times. You get the picture.

Hold Tight Please! - 16th Mar 2018

Don McAra's
Hold Very Tight Please! The Cable Cars of New Zealand

Cable cars used to run up and down the streets of Dunedin in the good old days and for many people they are gone but not forgotten.

This lovely book of Don McAra's paintings brings alive those old cable cars and the days when the streets were thronging with them. This isn't just of interest to transport enthusiasts; it will appeal to anyone who remembers this vanished but much loved passenger system. 

You can see why the cable car was king when you peruse this book.

 

The Best of Whim Wham - 15th Mar 2018

The Best of Whim Wham Whim Wham was the pen-name of Allen Curnow when he wrote in the New Zealand Herald, the CHristchurch Press etc. Here's a taster from the time of the infamous under-arm bowling incident.

Sir, let's be grateful for the Game of Cricket
And I'll tell you why.
Could anything Else make our Rob and their Mal
See eye to eye?
Though I imagine our Ocker opposite number
Wouldn't care much
For the Muldoon idiom, and especially 
That 'yellow' touch.
Still, you can't say they didn't both step out
of the political role,
On the issue of a bowler and a ball his brother
Told him to bowl.
Now the fingers have been wagged and the breasts beaten, 
And the matches won,
We can laugh up our cynical sleeves, I suppose,
About what's been done -
And the old hands of cricket will grieve for 
The game that's past -
White the Tee-vee sponsors and Mr Packer have
The laugh that's last.
And the PMs can get back to the serious business
Of arguing out relations
(in the spirit of the game, of course) between
Our two great nations,
And I have this odd thought, however they play,
It's obvious that neither
Can say some government policy 'isn't cricket' -
Cricket isn't either!

THis is a very entertaining way to study history.

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society - 14th Mar 2018

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society was written by Mary Ann Shaffer. Annie Barrows did the rewrites and editing for her and so she is listed as a co-author.

If you haven't read this book yet, now is a good time to grab a copy. If you (like me) read it when it first came out about 8 years ago, now is a good time to re-read it. I can't remember much about it other than that I enjoyed it.

We are suggesting reading it because the film version of the book is about to be released. I have never heard of any of the actors or actresses in the film but that doesn't mean they're not well known (just that I'm not up with the times). The film is a British historical drama directed by Mike Newell and it stars Lily James, Michiel Huisman, Jessica Findlay, Matthew Goode and Katherine Parkinson. If you nodded through that list knowingly, lots of points to you for being more trendy than me.

Anyway, read the book before you see the film!

 

A Back Country Miscellany - 12th Mar 2018

A Back Country Miscellany Brian Turner
Into the Wider World: A Back Country Miscellany

What he says under his breath when someone says he's been wasting his time, "You Calvinist cretin, you dreary, self-opinionated, unworldly twat." and he opines, "They do not mean that I have been doing nothing.....They mean that I have been doing things they are not interested in."

Brian Turner is a keen fisherman (which is what I think he had been doing when accused as above), hunter, cyclist, climber and conservationist as well as being a respected and well known author and poet. This is a book to cherish and dip into again and again. It features beautiful photography by Grahame Sydney and Gilbert van Reenan and a fascinating selection of essays and poetry about the back country.

"..you have to accept that millions of sandflies are intent on unceasing intimate relations with any and every piece of you that you are foolish enough to bare."

 

Ngai Tahu - 9th Mar 2018

Ngai Tahu Rawiri Te Maire Tau
Nga Pikituroa o Ngai Tahu / The Oral Traditions of Ngai Tahu

In this book, Tau examines the waiata, karakia, whakapapa (songs, chants & genealogies, for those who don't know), myths, rituals, traditions and place names of Ngai Tahu. He addresses the question of what is myth and what history. He looks at the differences between the traditions and beliefs of Ngai Tahu and other tribes.

Ths is not meant to be a history of Ngai Tahu; rather it is a fascinating investigation into how, why and by whom the tribe's traditions were formed and how much the oral traditions can tell us about Ngai Tahu's past.

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