Fresh Words Daily » Opinion

Kindle v i-pad

freshwordsdaily — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 04:24:23 +0000

The i-pad has arrived and there is some excitement although I don’t think it has reached the pitch that the manufacturers had hoped. The name is a disaster and for many women it has an entirely different conotation, but I won’t explore that here. The Kindle has a better name – to kindle is to ignite or arouse or inspire and reading should do that. These gizmos are all the thing at the moment. You can download hundreds of books and cart the little screen with you to read constantly as you circle the globe. It does have a place perhaps. What amuses me the most though is when I see keen owners showing how with just a touch of a finger it will turn a page. Now I have known all my life of reading that with just a touch of a finger I can turn a page. The other advantage of course is that it saves paper and fewer trees will be chopped down to serve our thirst for literature. That has to be a good thing. But something it cannot do which I always like as a surprise factor is that there can never be any ‘marginalia’ or as we call it ‘the phantom scribbler’. In a recent New Yorker magazine there was an article about an exhibition at the wonderful New York Public Library where there were examples of famous people’s marginalia. In a book I had about bombing in England during World War 2 a phantom scribbler had disagreed in several places with the times of the bombing and with the places the author had mentioned. Or in one book written across the bottom of the page was “This is rubbish!” I notice that usually there is a proliferation of exclamation marks with these comments. I have a mental picture of these people always reading with a pen in hand – where is the fun for them with an i-pad. Where is the fun for me thinking about what it is that pressures people to scribble comments in books. Perhaps it is just that we all believe we are writers. We believe that we can all do better than the last person who wrote something. And that we have a book in our head right now and just haven’t had the time to get it down. But boy if we did wouldn’t it be a best seller? So Kindle and i-pad can never take the place of a book for me when I have the chance of coming across the works of stunted writers scribbled over my latest library book.

Book Groups

freshwordsdaily — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 21:27:52 +0000

The best book groups, I believe, are more than just the books. It is the interaction between those who make up the group and their combined love of reading, it is also the care that develops for each of the members of the group. This is the third book group I have belonged to. The first, I realise now, was superb; great readers with good grasp of the craft of writing and keen to analyse what it was they read. That group met in a church hall. We put in $2.00 to pay for tea and coffee and plain biscuits – the whole purpsoe was to talk about books and we did that with vigour and often much laughter. The second was more social and pleasant enough but I wanted more stimulation and although the wines were usually good and the nibbles even better the range of books was limited and so I quietly excused myself.

The third group and the one I now belong to is a mixture of the two. Good discussion and good wine and nibbles. There are a range of ages and we meet every six weeks. That gives those who have less time because of work commitments to have time to read and it means that when we do meet we are all very keen to talk about the books. The system we have is that each meeting we all put in $10.00 as there are 12 of us in the group that is $120.00 to spend on books. Each person has a turn as the book buyer and they can choose any books they want. They can be new or second hand and at the end of the year all the books that are left in the boxes go back to the original purchaser. It is a way to extend personal libraries.

There are various ways of buying books and we try to support the indpendent bookshops. It was Tess’ s turn to buy for our last meeting so she went to Doris Mousedale’s new shop Arcadia. Doris recommended ‘The Museum of Innocence’ by Orphen Panuk a book set in Turkey – all 537 pages of it. Tess took it home and read it and thought it was boring and dreary, so she went back to Doris and told her so. It is to Doris’ s credit that she listened and although she didn’t agree with Tess she gave her a book which she thought the group might enjoy – Tess went on to buy several more books, but a cheer for Doris who values the business from a book group. I am about to read the new book ‘The Vagrants’ by Yi Yun Li and after a brief glance at the first page I think it will be a winner. There are often tart comments about book groups – “You just drink wine and gossip” is one I’ve heard. Well yes we probably do but we also read and talk about our books and we have a damn good time.

theatricals

freshwordsdaily — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 22:28:27 +0000

It was very quiet in the auditorium. Usually the set builders are talking, arguing, hammering or there is the swish of the paint brush. They were silent, the temperature was cool and every action was definite. Things were not going well with the director. There had to be changes made. “Bloody directors” said one of the men to me daring me to react. When a play goes on in any theatre there is often more drama before the opening night. Set designers are fantastic people but it is the set builders that I take my hat off to. The ones at Howick Little Theatre are the best – they can build from a shaky bit of a drawing dashed off on the back of an envelope to a sophisticated plan with all the measurements. They try hard to do what the director wants but not everyone who can direct, or act can hold a colour in their head – understand dimensions outside of reality, or realise the size of furniture in relation to the set – the set builders accommodate, and if it is sometimes with gritted teeth I don’t blame them. What always fascinates me that through the maze of irritations, grumbling, director’s mind changing, out of it all comes a play. A set which is spectacular, a play which entertains. Howick Little Theatre do it well – always worth going to perfomances in this jewel of a theatre. When the play ends the set gets broken down, furniture goes back into store or is sold on Trade Me and they are ready to start the process all over again. A cheer loud and long for the forgotten heroes in the theatre – the set builders.

Master Chef

freshwordsdaily — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 20:58:45 +0000

It has hit New Zealand after many years in the UK. The Master Chef programme on television. All the hopeful cooks have lined up in fact queued way down the street in the hope that they would be the chosen one. I have to ask WHY? What is it about winning the title of master chef that is so seductive? Is it merely a chance to be on TV to cry a little to hug the judges when they give you a pinny. Gosh my mother used to make masses of them for the Presbyterian Church Bring and Buys – florals with matching plain bindings. Works of art really. But maybe it isn’t for the apron because every contestant talks about their passion for food, their passion to cook and they want one day to own their own restaurant. STOP!! It is a rotten job cooking in heat, trying to make food that fussy customers will like. Spending huge amounts of your life cooped up in a kitchen with people you may not necessarily like. Trying to pay the bills for rent, wages, product, and then the staff don’t turn up. Madness I say. I also have a passion for food, but I am happy to cook a little in my little kitchen for my family and friends, and then to eat a few times at restaurants I like – but doing it every day for a living. Never Never Never. I would be weeping on the programme too if I knew that I would have to have three fussy men looking at my food as if I have resurected it from the dustbin. Forget it folks. Go to the beach, go to the library, read a book, but cook every day of your life nada.

Remembering the Dead

freshwordsdaily — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 03:32:30 +0000

In Mexico they have a “Dead People’s Day” and those who have passed before are remembered. On the Marae when entering the meeting house after having removed your shoes you walk to the end and honour the ancestors – pictures of those who have gone before. Today I had lunch with a friend whose son would be 40 today if he had not died from an infection which spread like liquid silver through his body 3 years ago. We talked and wondered how those mothers whose sons went to war ever survived the grief of their death far from where they can be remembered. Then I said that at the weekend I had made a pineapple mustard sauce to go with the hot ham we were providing for a dinner of 12 people. It was my sister’s recipe and it was in her handwriting. And so there she was again in my kitchen over 30 years since her death. Not all memories are unhappy ones and we remember our dead often not from a gravestone which can become overgrown and rotten as time passes but through the tangibles we pass on. Recipes, books. And then there are the intangibles like laughter and ideas.

Book Shops

freshwordsdaily — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 04:01:58 +0000

Borders UK is under management and it seems about to go under but with the hope that it can be held bouyant and that jobs will not be lost. There have been a host of owners for Borders UK. Transferred from one investment company to another all hoping that it will be the golden goose. What the investment companies have forgotten is that books are different from any other product. It isn’t like selling a jar of jam. A book has a different genesis. It is created from an intellect, worked and re-worked and then finally produced for enjoyment, instruction, or illumination from one human brain to another. So selling books is not just cash and wrap, though I have to say that is about what you get in the Borders bookshops. There is no knowledge of the books, there is no love for reading. Most of the people employed are there for a job to enable them to live – and that is a good reason too – but they are not there because they love literature. I once asked a assistant at a Borders bookshop if they had a book on Ernest Rutherford, the famous New Zealand scientist. She looked a bit puzzled and said she wasn’t sure and then brightened and said: “What has he written lately?”

The only good thing about a large conglomerate bookshop going to the wall is that it allows space for the small independent booksellers. These small usually owner owned businesses do know their stock, and they do try to get to know their customers. They are in this world of selling books because that is what they love to do.

I am sorry that Borders may be on its way out – it employs a large staff and they will be amongst the many looking for jobs, but I know that I will always prefer the small independents. A real place for real book lovers.

Writing for Children

freshwordsdaily — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 01:11:05 +0000

This year Nitescope my first children’s book was published. It gave me huge pleasure to write it but it took ages. I would work on it than put it away and do some other work and then go back to it. The best result has been the response from children who have read the book. They are the fiercest critics. If it doesn’t grab them well forget it, they won’t persevere. So now I am about to embark on a new children’s story which has been rolling around in my head for a while now. It means research – which I always like and much of that will be done at Auckland’s National Maritime Museum a place of infinite information on things Marine in New Zealand. They also have a fantastic information officer called Marleene and I think I will pirate her away into my office cupboard and just pull her out when I need her. The excitement of a new project is always seductive. Then comes the real work.