Book Haul: Antipodean Edition
aka books I bought on vacation and why my family banned me from buying more
Is this my favourite book of the trip? Perhaps! Scroll all the way down to the bottom for a demo!
We just spent 3.5 weeks in New Zealand and Australia and as usual, my favorite travel souvenirs are books. For six years (1980s-90’s) I lived in Wellington, New Zealand and as a hungry teen reader, I discovered so many life-changing imprints and authors there. I obsessively read Virago Modern Classics books, picking their green spines and bit apple logo out easily from the spinners of the Poirirua Library. I read Katherine Mansfield and Witi Ihimaeria, and at Wellington Girls College, my 3rd Form / Grade 8 class studied The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath: life changed. So I was eager to dip into the bookstores and see what resonated now.
Puffin Books! British culture is much stronger in NZ/AUS than in Canada, including the books. Puffin Books is the kids' book imprint of Penguin Books and according to the Penguin Collectors Society, “Generally anything with the word Penguin, Puffin or Pelican is a book published by Penguin; there are several different series within each of these brands. In addition the names Porpoise, Ptarmigan and Peregrine are also published by Penguin”. All are fun to say IMO.
[As a Penguin aside, we went to the “Penguin Parade” on Phillip Island, outside of Melbourne, and though I am generally loath to participate in group viewing activities, especially of animals, watching these little Fairy Penguins toddle out of the sea at sunset and up the sand to their nightly burrows, generally oblivious to the crowds, was worth it, completely. Fairy Penguins!]
I already own the Folio edition of the Belloc Cautionary Verses but I couldn’t resist the Puffin cover. Ditto to the Rosemary Sutcliff title Warrior Scarlet, an author of historical/British/Roman fiction I remember loving as a kid.
The Runaway Settlers claims to tell the true story of the “ old days when beating the wife and kids was considered a legally sanctioned if unreasonable way for a husband and father to work off his hostilities” [Kirkus 1966] and of the mother Mary Elizabeth Small, who has finally had enough. Apparently a New Zealand classic, it follows the mother and her six children fleeing Australia for Lyttleton, NZ, and an attempt to start a new life on a piece of land. They wouldn’t have made it without their Maori neighbors but you can definitely feel the age of the book in how it treats the Indigenous people of Australia and New Zealand, casually racist at best. Single Mother Little House on the South Island maybe? Definitely a relic.
Decidedly more modern, if you consider the 90’s modern :), is the Tessa Duder edited collection Nearly Seventeen. Duder’s books Jellybean and the Alex Quartet had a huge impact on me as a young reader, and I’ve held a soft spot for her ever since. It’s safe to say NZ shares my opinion, she is the recipient of the Margaret Mahy Medal, an OBE and the CNZ and works tirelessly for NZ children’s literature. An icon.
Helen Oxenbury forever, and if you haven’t read the book Helen Oxenbury: A Life in Illustration, go now! This 1978 book has dry and witty text from Fay Maschler, who was the restaurant critic for London’s Evening Standard newspaper for over 30 years, so you know she has seen some things around manners.
Similarly, I’ll buy any Rumer Godden title I can find, even late-career unknown titles with soft-focus 90’s covers. Yes, she’s that good.
How could I resist this bonkers Judy magazine cover [1960-1991] with a pudding and mischievous chimps? The cover story involves a Dad being laid off, a catering business, an evil rival catering business and - oh yeah, chimps. So good.
The sweetest book I carried on this trip was the Hilma AF Klint gift from the wonderful Popawheelie, who I’ve been internet friends with for over 20 years and got to spend time with in person in Auckland. Isn’t it perfect? Art and books and internet friends 4eva.
I spent some rapturous time at the Len Lye Museum in New Plymouth, NZ where I picked up ZIZZ: The Life and Art of Len Lye. Some of my true loves are camerless animation and kinetic sculpture and Len Lye was a master of both. His film Free Radicals is going to be a guiding star for me this year, and watching it in a whole museum devoted to his work, THEN strolling outside to see his Wind Wand sculpture on the shoreline - magic.
The Harlequin Mills & Boon was a nod to the fact that right before I left NZ, I received a letter from Mills & Boon saying I had won THIRD PLACE in their short story contest and would be receiving 10 free Mills and Boons books a month for a year. Sadly, because I was literally leaving the country the next day, I never got to enjoy my prize but I would give ANTYHING to read my third-place winning entry. Could it be worse than the plot to A Typical Male!? Doubtful! An excerpt:
Tasha wanted Brett but she wasn’t interested in sex without commitment. She knew there could be so much between them, and there was only one way to test Brett’s feelings…How would he respond if he thought Tasha was pregnant with his baby?
Seems like a healthy start to a relationship!
The pie cookbook is a homage to my deep love for the sausage rolls and pies of New Zealand. I can’t wait to make my own.,
My last purchases were at op shops in Melbourne and one of the great used bookstores in the Newtown neighborhood of Sydney.
Apparently a classic of Australian kids lit, The Magic Pudding has sweet illustrations of koala and wombats and a grumpy, self-healing magical pudding. I can’t wait to finally read it.
I also sought out some Helen Garner - it’s virtually impossible to get her books in North America and I’ve been wanting to read her forever. I had to make do with what was in the used bookstores and luckily found a few titles.
So now you know why my family, dragging our heavy bags home, were making fun of my need to buy books on vacation. Postcards would be easier. But can postcards do this?
Not many books can replicate the sound of a Tui either, but that’s why this NZ birdsong book might be my very favourite of all I lugged home.
