New Zealand Book Month

Apparently it's New Zealand Book Month. Yay. Not that I'd heard much, or anything about it. Maybe I run in the wrong circles. Actually, I don't really have a circle in which I run, except the one where I'm chasing my tail. Figuratively speaking, of course.

Anyway, the one real circle I might run in, my writer's group, hasn't mentioned it either, so I'm assuming they didn't know about it. We're relatively rounded people. We all have jobs, and friends, and social lives. I listen to the radio all day. I spend 46 hours a day on the Internet. Haven't heard anything specific about it. No emails about it.

I found out about it while reading a blog. Which is fine. At least I got to hear about it.

To be fair, it's one of those things that just hangs in the back of my mind. I saw the Writer's Festival booklet, and I think I knew that was part of Book Month. I remembered that there is such a thing as Book Month, and if I had a gun to my head I would have guessed it was "coming up soon, I think?"

Maybe I would have been spared.

I went into Whitcoulls yesterday. Nothing about NZBM. You'd think they would have a display or something. I see Paul Cleave has a new book out. He's rollin' a book out every few weeks it seems. I still haven't read a whole one. I started The Cleaner (I think that was it), but as is so often the case, I didn't finish it before I had to get it back to the library. I hate to say that I just couldn't get into it, but okay, I just couldn't get into it. Something about the first person present that I just couldn't read for long.

I am however, going to actually buy Cemetary Lake, partly to support NZ writing, and partly so I don't have to return it. I'm not sure if it's FPP.

Anyway, I didn't see PC's book at Whitcoulls, I saw it a few days ago at The Warehouse. If that doesn't say something about NZ writing, the pathetic exhibition of NZ writing at Whitcoulls does. At Riccarton, it's tucked around the corner from the magazines, behind - yes, BEHIND - the newspapers. I wonder if Border's has any recognition of NZ writers. Will have a look today.

I have a theory about why NZ writing is so poorly supported by the book shops.

There are some interesting blogs an the NZBM page.