Kia ora!

Thanks for visiting my website. This is a new thing for me so I won’t commit to regular blog postings just yet, but will be updating this page with notes on bookish things, what I’m reading, what I’m writing, teaching, and so on. I will try not to overshare (get a Facebook, Perkins) but there may be the occasional holiday snap.

We’re about to finish filming the last series of The Good Word – as New Zealanders will know, TVNZ7, the public service channel that broadcasts it, is being closed down. There were plans to replace 7 with a shopping channel but it looks as though that was going to shrink the reality/satire gap just a bit too much, so at the moment plans for the channel’s Freeview capacity are unknown. Maybe we can hack into it and run wall-to-wall book readings. (Although the Law of Public Readings would apply and someone would read for 20 minutes too long then look up shyly and say, ‘Shall I keep going?’ There is no polite answer to this.)

That reminds me – tip for Aucklanders – Sunday Painters on Ponsonby Road screens excellent poetry videos in the bathroom. Also it’s my friends’ place so go there!

It’s a funny thing, books coverage on television – programmers get very worried that there’s nothing to look at except talking heads. ‘How do we make it look interesting? There’s no time jeopardy, no weight loss, no DIY. It can’t possibly work.’ But people are interesting – people talking about what they’ve discovered in a book, or challenging each other’s opinions, or enthusing about something they really love – that’s enough for me.

A couple of books I’ve liked recently:

The Broken Book, Fiona Farrell, AUP

Bird North, Breton Dukes, VUP