Last week, in this article on Beatties Bookblog, the Bookman added a footnote on his reading habits and asked readers to contibute a comment on theirs. I was one of those who did so, confessing—amongst other reading habits—to keeping up with my necessary book consumption, as a writer, by reading (standing up) at the kitchen bench with my lunch time cup of coffee. Why stand up—because if I sit down with a book I may end up parked for the rest of the afternoon while my own writing is neglected. But I do get through a lot of books in a year by chipping away with that lunch time reading.

So what am I chipping away at, at present?

This past week I’ve had two novels on the go. I’m re-reading Alison Wong’s As the Earth Turns Silver (Penguin), which won this year’s New Zealand Post Book Award for Fiction. I loved Wong’s poetry collection The Cup (Steele Roberts) which came out in 2006 and she brings the same spare lyricism to the novel. As the Earth Turns Silver is interesting from an historical perspective as well, since it concerns Chinese immigration to New Zealand in the late 19th, early 20th century whch is rarely addressed in NZ fiction. (I have a feeling that it is under-represented in non fiction as well, but hesitate to state that as fact without further research.)

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The second book I have on the go is Birth of the Firebringer by Meredith Ann Pierce, a Junior Fantasy first published in 1985 and reprinted by Firebird in 2003 (so it shoud be in libraries). A friend loaned me this a while back and I have only just gotten round to reading it—and it is good. It’s unusual in this era of urban fantasy to find a story with non-human (and non-supernatural) protagonists, but Pierce carries it off well in Firebringer. The story has complexity, too, and I think will be enjoyed by kids who’ve previously liked the Narnia books or Erin Hunter’s Warriors series.

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So how about you? What are you reading right now? Alternatively, what do you have in your TBR pile?