Wellington Reads discussion

I'm getting into Little Exiles which I picked up from the library. A story about young orphan boys sent from England to Australia to help work the land.
I'm also about to start reading Shadows of the Workhouse. I really enjoyed the first book in the series so looking forward to this one!

How often can it be said that you "miss a book"? - in the sense that you wish you hadn't finished it ,if it's a library book then you're reluctant to return it and you keep wanting to pick it up again. I felt this about the nanny's diary'Love,Nina" (B STI)and have returned to it several times. The rather chaotic domestic life portrayed in it and the quirky humour really appeal to me.
Not having found a book to interest me in a similar way I have returned to several old favourites "Corduroy Mansions" by Alexander McCall Smith among them- but now I have found another really good biography " Coming up Trumps" by Jean (Baroness) Trumpington (B TRU)- a very English , very dry and generally excellent account of an unusual upper crust life. Jean Trumpington is " a good old girl" (she is 91) endowed with tremendous grit and intelligence Another book I will miss!!

All of these sound really neat -- although Victorian stories I often find too grim. It really depends on the author and the writing (and also the setting inside Victorian society), whether I keep going with them.

I've been reading mainly John Green books, building up my excitement for the release of The Fault in Our Stars movie in June :-)

As well, I heard an interview with author Rose Green on the radio about her book, Ninety Percent of Everything: Inside Shipping, the Invisible Industry That Puts Clothes on Your Back, Gas in Your Car, and Food on Your Plate

So, I read this one, and really enjoyed it -- it's something I'd never really thought much about, and I think assumed most of the online shopping shipped (!)around the globe went by air (not sure why I made this assumption), but shipping is a massive industry that's changed hugely over the last sixty years with containerization and shipping containers happening after WWII. The merchant navy and all the issues there are really interesting as well... although I have a feeling I haven't made it sound interesting -- she does, though! :-)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Containe...

No- you have made it sound interesting Chloe. I have read "Ninety percent of everything" too and I endorse your comments about it. It received a very good review in one of the glossy travel magazines we get -I think it was "Conde MastTraveller"

I currently have a few books on the go. I'm reading my first ever Agatha Christie, The Mysterious Affair at Styles. I'm also reading Witi Ihimaera's White Lies (want to read it before watching the movie) and also Chinua Achebe's No Longer at Ease, as I enjoyed Things Fall Apart. I'm finding it a bit hard to get into the second two; I think because I've been reading a few mysteries lately! I've gotten into the habit of craving real page-turners for my reading material.

I got into Agatha Christie a few years ago after seeing The Mousetrap in Wellington. I really enjoy them - they're nice and gentle (um, for murder mysteries...) but also really intriguing, and I just quite like them.

There was a neat article in The Listener not too longer ago (I found it: http://www.listener.co.nz/current-aff..., about the founder of Landfall, Charles Brasch, and his time in London during the war) where she got a mention as well -- she lived in the same block of flats during the war as Charles Brasch and a number of writers and artists who may have been involved in the intelligence community. She actually named a character in one of her novels (written during the war) 'Major Bletchley', and subsequently was investigated by MI5, because of suspicions she may have knowledge of Bletchley Park.

She's just a really interesting character, I think. If you find you like her books, you might also like Ngaio Marsh's Inspector Alleyn books, if you haven't already found these :-)

Celeste wrote: "I got into Agatha Christie a few years ago after seeing The Mousetrap in Wellington. I really enjoy them - they're nice and gentle (um, for murder mysteries...) but also really intriguing, and I ju..."

If you're a fan of Agatha Christie, and the 'cosy murder' sub-type, then the Agatha Awards (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agatha_A...) could be good place to look for more books.

Thanks Chloe and Celeste for the recommendations! I do really enjoy murder mysteries but I try not to overindulge myself; mostly because when I am partway through one, all I want to do is read! I become frighteningly addicted! I think because of the suspense and 'whodunnit' factor of murder mysteries, I engage with them completely differently than I do with other genres.
I checked out the Agatha Awards and have read a couple from that list. I think my favourite murder mystery series so far (apart from Sherlock, of course) is the Maigret series by Georges Simenon. Very addictive!

I watched the first season of Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries, but missed the start of the second, so I've been watching the box set of it from the library. Now I just need to catch up with reading the Kerry Greenwood books!

I finished another two books in May - The Paris Wife and Caleb's Crossing. They were set in completely different eras but really enjoyed them both.