The Free-Range Bookclub
Bookclubbers without boundaries in Nelson, New Zealand
Category: Kiwi lit
Audition – Pip Adam
READ FOR NZ BOOK AWARDS Oversized people crammed in a space ship hurtle through space. Experimental fiction about New Zealand’s unjust justice system, the state of our prisons and how to be a good coloniser. It was one of the worst places Alba had… Continue Reading “Audition – Pip Adam”
Lioness – Emily Perkins
READ FOR NZ BOOK AWARDS Therese Thorn is a luxury homewares retailer and married to a wealthy man who is accused of corruption. Newly 50, Therese must now take control of her life and reinvent herself, with the help of her kind-of-muse and friend,… Continue Reading “Lioness – Emily Perkins”
Birnam Wood – Eleanor Catton
READ FOR NZ BOOK AWARDS A guerilla gardening group and an immigrant billionaire are both using beautiful New Zealand land illegally. Unsurprisingly they discover one another and clash but when trouble strikes there is benefit in them colluding. A political and eco thriller about… Continue Reading “Birnam Wood – Eleanor Catton”
Pet – Catherine Chidgey
READ FOR NZ BOOK AWARDS Pet is a psychological thriller, about 12-year-old Justine and her fascination with her glamorous new teacher Mrs Price. She, and many of her classmates, are determined to be the teacher’s pet, clambering to help or do after-school jobs and… Continue Reading “Pet – Catherine Chidgey”
Backwaters – Emma Ling Sidnam
READ FOR NZ BOOK AWARDS Backwaters addresses the consequences of feeling distant from your ethnic heritage. It starts with fourth generation New Zealander, Laura, being asked “but where are you from from?” New Zealand has been her family’s birth place and home for generations,… Continue Reading “Backwaters – Emma Ling Sidnam”
Bird Life – Anna Smaill
READ FOR BOOKCLUBChosen by Suzy Set in Japan with memories of New Zealand, Bird Life is about Dinah, a young Kiwi woman who moves to Tokyo to escape grief only to gravitate towards a colleague who is also in the grip of loss. Both… Continue Reading “Bird Life – Anna Smaill”
Sorrow And Bliss – Meg Mason
READ FOR BOOKCLUBChosen by Jo Martha has an undiagnosed mental health issue, a loving husband who says she is fine and a family who fall outside of the norms. In this book Martha examines her upbringing and her failing marriage through the lens of… Continue Reading “Sorrow And Bliss – Meg Mason”
2023 – NZ Book Awards
What is the job of fiction? To entertain? To educate? To document? To insert the reader into an unexpected place or mindset so they can see the world through another lens? The authors on this year’s shortlist took their roles to the next level,… Continue Reading “2023 – NZ Book Awards”
Mrs Jewell and the Wreck of the General Grant – Cristina Sanders
READ FOR NZ BOOK AWARDS In 1866 a ship bound for London from Melbourne crashed into the Auckland Islands and sunk, taking with it many lives and an undetermined amount of gold, direct from the goldfields of Australia. Fourteen men and one woman made… Continue Reading “Mrs Jewell and the Wreck of the General Grant – Cristina Sanders”
Kāwai: For Such A Time As This – Monty Soutar
READ FOR NZ BOOK AWARDS In the opening pages a 19-year-old man walks onto his family Marae and asks the local koroua about his whanau’s history. The man’s answer is provided over the following 300-odd pages. He tells of Kaitanga, born 1734 into a… Continue Reading “Kāwai: For Such A Time As This – Monty Soutar”
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