{"id":1141,"date":"2010-08-30T08:30:14","date_gmt":"2010-08-29T20:30:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/?p=1141"},"modified":"2012-10-13T17:54:15","modified_gmt":"2012-10-13T04:54:15","slug":"what-im-reading-7","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/2010\/08\/30\/what-im-reading-7\/","title":{"rendered":"What I’m Reading: “Guardian of the Dead” by Karen Healey; “Mirabile Dictu” by Michelle Leggott"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Last week I had the chance to read YA author Karen Healey’s<\/strong><\/a> Guardian of the Dead<\/strong><\/em><\/a> ahead of both Worldcon<\/strong><\/a> and The Press Christchurch Writers’ Festival<\/strong><\/a> where Karen and I are going to be in a number of events together. And I have to say that I found Guardian<\/strong><\/em> <\/em>a fun read—an intriguing mix of <\/span>urban fantasy in not just a New Zealand, but a Christchurch setting, woven together with Maori legends of the patupaiarehe <\/a>(fairies) and taniwha<\/strong><\/a>, as well as the myth of Hine-nui-te-Po<\/strong><\/a>, the Goddess of Death.<\/p>\n

But I only had a few days to read it, so I had to put aside Emily Maguire’s<\/strong><\/a> Smoke in the Room<\/strong><\/em>, which I was enjoying—a very different story, it’s contemporary fiction about three troubled individuals trying to make sense of life and themselves. I’m looking forward to getting back into that now.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>In terms of books to read on the plane and in downtime (will there be any?) at Worldcon, I also have the Booker longlisted Room<\/strong><\/em><\/a>, by Emma Donoghue<\/strong><\/a> and will be re-reading a poetry collection that I personally feel should have been a finalist for this year’s NZ Post Book Award for Poetry, Michele Leggott’s<\/strong><\/a> Mirabile Dictu<\/a> <\/strong><\/em>(Auckland University Press, 2009).<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Of course, if I see it I’ll be grabbing a copy of Suzanne Collins’<\/strong><\/a> Mockingjay<\/strong><\/em><\/a> to read, since The Hunger Games<\/strong><\/em> was one of my three top reads<\/strong> <\/a>for last year.\u00a0 And maybe, just for something light—and because I’ll be missing my weekly Tr<\/a><\/strong>ue Blood<\/strong><\/a> fix while in Melbourne—I might pick up the latest Charlaine Harris<\/strong><\/a>, Dead in the Family.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Then again, I might just be too busy with my Worldcon schedule<\/strong><\/a> to do any reading at all!<\/p>\n

But how about you? What will you be reading this week?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last week I had the chance to read YA author Karen Healey’s Guardian of the Dead ahead of both Worldcon and The Press Christchurch Writers’ Festival where Karen and I are going to be in a number of events together. And I have to say that I found Guardian a fun read—an intriguing mix of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14,24],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1141","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-other-writers","category-what-im-reading"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1141","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1141"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1141\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16614,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1141\/revisions\/16614"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1141"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1141"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1141"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}