Bookathon - C

 Cathy Cassidy. Catherine Cookson. Clive Cussler. 

No I haven't read any of these. I looked in Whitcoulls yesterday and could really only come up with Paulo Coehlo and Eric Carle, who famously wrote in the book world some one-hit-wonders that eclipsed everything else they ever wrote.  The Alchemist is one of those books that every graduate should read in their 20's figuring out what to do with their life. It sold millions of copies worldwide and is translated from the original Portuguese. 

The Caterpillar that Ate Too Much Junk Food on the other hand is a staple of the Year 1 reading group. I am sure that voracious caterpillar has since celebrated it's 50th birthday.   I won't spoil the ending this time..

Then I looked further along the shelves and found out the NZ section was separate, and all our kiwi authors were huddled together on their own island. Elizabeth Catton, Joy Cowley, Barry Crump, and Deborah Challinor.

I pick Deborah Challinor for our C author today. Firstly because her books are not as fat as Elizabeth Catton's and you don't need to be an English major to understand them. Joy Cowley's Greedy Cat can be read in under 3 minutes. And Barry Crump's yarns, while rollicking, are a bit marred by allegations of marital abuse. He was a great possum/deer hunter, but wasn't so good at the marriage thing.

Deborah Challinor writes historical fiction set in these here parts, and while there is some elements of hormonal chicklit in them that has you rolling your eyes a bit, for the most part they are enjoyable reads. I would recommend the From the Ashes/The Restless years series which is set in Auckland from the 1950s because I quite like to imagine what Auckland was like back then and nobody has ever really written a story about that period where men worked hard all day then drank like pigs until 6 o'clock and the women had to do all the housework and wait on them hand and foot. They didn't have cars back then, being unaffordable but they did have a very good public transport system i.e the trams. There was also the Vietnam War, and nobody ever writes about that either, but kiwis did go and were traumatised just as they were mass slaughtered in Gallipoli. Also, if you were Maori back then you got awfully snobbed by the English. 

It all sounds quite terrible but then whoever said history was neat and tidy. They lived through it all and like all sagas you go on reading wanting to know just what happens next. Thank you Deborah Challinor for bringing it to life. I could just about go to Queen Street and imagine working in the department stores there and living in a state house in Orakei or starting up my own knitting business. Or trying to keep an incestuous relationship secret ? Or even, what it's like to be trans in Kings Cross. (There are some trans-Tasman cross over stories when life in NZ gets too tough, the kiwis cross the ditch to Australia for some relief and Dame Edna Everage/Priscilla type adventures). 

Otherwise there's several other series Challinor has written that I might immerse myself in at some point because the past is quite another undiscovered country. Those now uncovering the Aotearoa NZ Histories Curriculum might to well to assign some of her novels as required reading and ask the question - did this really happen??