back into book life in nz

It’s been a bit of time between blogs. But I know I am excused because I have been zapping all over the show (thank goodness for Air NZ airpoints) and have just moved home in Auckland. A big thank you to Booksystems by the way – the most efficient team I have ever come across. This is very important if, like me, the majority of your possessions to be moved are books.

Speaking of boxes of books, my freight from Frankfurt turned up today! A delightful box of catalogues, contacts, samples and material from the fellowship and the fair. (By the way if I met you at the fair and promised to be in contact and still haven’t been – now you know why, my work was still following me home from the other side of the world). Also a bunch of German books. Really must learn to read German now.

Last week I appeared on the TVNZ Good Morning Show for our latest release Jandal Prints on the Globe. Just between me and any blog followers out there, Jane and I were incredibly nervous and clinging valiantly to our copies of the book. I had forgotten that the TVNZ guidelines were to not wear red, and turned up in a red dress. The make-up people took one look at my hair and broke out industrial strength straighteners (I refrained from telling them I’d been up since 6.20 am trying to straighten it myself) and the sound man seemed to spend a lengthy time up Jane’s dress ensuring the microphone was securely fastened to her stockings. However, the presenters and crew were all incredibly fun, relaxed and welcoming and I had an awfully good time. I am Good Morning Show’s latest and greatest fan. I even got a bit of Shortland Street gossip out of the studio a piece of Marmite toast. And we’ve had some great feedback on the show… even my parents, to whom daytime TV is a foreign concept due to their long entrepreneurial hours (clearly where I get my work(aholic) ethic from) were amazed at the amount of people who watched Jane and I. “Renee, people really watch daytime TV! Is that lipstick you had on or collagen?”

It was lipstick by the way, courtesy of the hair-straightening-make-up-team at TVNZ.

Now that I am back and settled I am resorting back to my readaholic behaviours. Just as well, as there are some excellent lists come out thick and fast in time for Christmas and summer. Also some not so excellent. Pre Germany I had a strong sense of intolerance for any literature which didn’t grab me in the first half-dozen chapters. Post Germany I have even less lenience. So many books, so little time. No point spending it on bad typography, inelegant layout, slow plots or undeveloped characters. On that note, I have a pile of manuscripts, a glass of pinot, and a 48 hour deadline for an article to the NZSA magazine next to me. I’ll leave you with this photo of Jane and I in the Avalon studios…

Book-dropping

Air New Zealand has safely delivered me home with some semblance of sanity intact. Only some though. The rest I leave in a trail from my 31 hour flight of Prague-Frankfurt-London-Los Angeles-Auckland. I am not sure who plans the seating on Air New Zealand flights but I am considering offering them some advise through analogy of passengers to typography: you just can’t have some letters spread out in haphazard fashion with excess space, and others badly kerned into a mush. Guess which category I was in? The badly kerned mush.

I chose ‘The Elegance of the Hedgehog’ as my in-flight reading. The book has been translated from French and I typically love translated works… the language seems to overflow with adjectives and elongated sentences that are almost convoluted in their composition. It delights me. However by page 44 of the Hedgehog I felt like I couldn’t focus on the convolution, and considered sacrificing the book to muffle the snores of my next-door passenger. By page 59 (and a set of ear plugs and two glasses of pinot noir later) I felt that all the discussion of phenomenology was a little too introspective for my tired, emotional, displaced and overworked soul. So I ordered another glass of pinot and closed the Hedgehog.

Fear not, I will return to it, as rumour has it the book is hard to obtain in NZ. So my copy has moved from potential snore-suffocating weapon to piece of literary treasure. I even took it out to dinner last night and flouted it round. It is like the literary version of name-dropping. I am also hunting for a copy of Herta Muller’s books… preferably the Nobel Prize winner but anything will do. (I feel quite connected to Herta since we stayed just around the corner from her when she won the award. When you are from a small isolated island at the end of the world this connection is comparable to being friendly neighbourhood pals. I really should have taken her some scones.) But why oh why does it take so long to get great books to New Zealand? Fellows, can we save Australasia from literary doom and do something about this?

On that note, I have contributed to literary liberation this week with the long awaited launch of Jandal Prints on the Globe. This has by far been the longest project I have ever worked on. It is almost as if the material of the book: short stories and photography by young New Zealanders travelling the world – came to life. This book has had misprints, been lost at international ports, and through the journey tears have been spilt, much laughter enjoyed and friendships formed. It sounds a bit cheesy but read the book and you’ll get it. Some of the stories are sad or serious, some hilarious and refreshing. The launch was a huge success and we have almost sold the first print-run. People came from as far as Abu Dhabi, Australia, and of course, Whanganui. We had a few TV crews there, and I must thank the Media 7 crew in particular for interviewing me in a dim corner to attempt to hide my severely jet-lagged appearance. At first they said “Ohhh, this light is not good for you!” I then explained that I had just been on a 31 hour flight post a (famous, if you watch the dregs of Irish TV) fellowship, and also had a touch of the flu (they were extra understanding when I said that the flu started from a South African, another case of poisoning) and that it was probably me, not the light that was bad. So I was ushered into a dark corner to give my interview and hopefully appear somewhat respectable.

I am refusing to settle back into any semblance of a comfort zone and “get back into routine” after my exciting publishing life of extravaganza of late. I am determined that literary life will remain enlivening. In saying that my email inbox is out-of-control with unread mail and I have spied a giant box of paperwork with my name on which no-one has been brave enough to pass on to me yet. However, tomorrow I am off to Wellington for an appearance on the Good Morning show.

Paperwork is so out of vogue, anyway. Book-dropping is where it is at.