The Bookseller at the End of the World

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Shaw’s bookshops make up only a small part of her memoir, a book interspersed with heartwarming and occasionally heartbreaking vignettes detailing unexpected encounters with humans who cross her threshold – a traumatised NSW firefighter; a barely literate young man; a woman Shaw refuses to sell to, who only wants to buy books of certain colours to go with her decor. It was on Stewart Island she met “the love of my life”, Lance, a young fisherman. But as a Protestant, he was unable to accept the Shaw family’s insistence that their children should be raised Catholic. The marriage was called off after the invitations had gone out, and the final fitting of the dress had been completed. (It would be 20 years and three husbands later before Shaw heard a vaguely familiar voice down the other end of the phone: “You still a Catholic?”) The fascination with the end time runs through history. Ever since humans began speculating about their origins they have probably been wondering about the ultimate destiny of the world. Even before the time of the early Christians, who expected a spectacular Judgement Day at any moment, the ancient Romans had their own end-time scares.Over the last 2000 years prophets have come, and gone, with regularity. Around 1000 AD and also prior to the recent millennium switch, anticipation has beenheightened. The first of January2000 had its own distinctive variation on the theme when many feared that the world’s computer systems would crash simultaneously.

Before long, they were engaged, the church booked, the invitations printed, the dress fitted, and their rings made from gold Ruth’s father had mined in Central Otago. So what's the explanation for this massive end-time interest? If the world had a beginning, then logically it also has to end. It could be in millions of years to come, it could be very soon. Death is inevitable and dying is usually a solo performance. Thinking about doomsday, however, turns death into a community event. Rated 9/10 This was almost a 10 for me. Why? Ruth is a NZ author who writes frankly about her life growing up in NZ, the struggles she faced, physically and mentally, interlaced with anecdotes relating to a few of the folk she meets at her Bookshop at the End of the World. A bittersweet tale and one can only wonder what she didn't write about in her life. She travelled (perhaps to escape), and met, worked and lived in an array of places with an array of folks both good and bad. The Big Sleep , by Raymond Chandler (1939). Detective Philip Marlowe, hero of this genre-defining masterpiece, knows how to face an uncertain future: “I sat there and poisoned myself with cigarette smoke and listened to the rain and thought about it.” Underlining all her wanderings and adventures are some very deep losses and long-held pain. Balancing that out is her beautiful love story with Lance, and her delightful sense of humour.After eight months of mostly cheerful thumbs-ups, Evening Book Club has finally tasted the distinct pleasure of the universal, full-throated pan. Kleeman’s sort-of mystery, set in a fire-ravaged Los Angeles where synthetic WAT-R flows from every tap, barely topped 50 out of a 100 in our scores, with many folks happy to go quite a bit lower. This made for a spirited discussion indeed—there’s nothing quite like the glee of sharpening your knives alongside fellow indignant readers. A severe blood condition saw him baptised and buried on the same day, a plain wooden cross marking his grave, his death certificate all Shaw was left with. And yes it's a neat little bookshop they have there. Well worth the visit and to be fair I found a book (in the mens section The Snug) I had been seeking for some time there, after travelling from Kerikeri to Manapouri and visiting a number of bookshops. (Hawks. Another Kiwi author writing about deer hunting in NZ. Fiction but written around fact and a great read). I also found an old Rudyard Kipling book of children's stories which was too hard to resist. Ruth mentioned she had written this book but unfortunately didn't have any copies there or I would have bought it then. Having read it from the Library I may still go out and buy it as its a great book to have on the shelf to lend to other folk looking for a great NZ read. Annihilation , by Jeff VanderMeer. Deliciously weird thriller set in the slippery, post-everything frontier of ‘Area X.’ But just months into their new life, Peter was killed in a car accident, while working as a journalist.

Rogerson was a very charming man,” she recalls. “But he used that charm to get what he wanted out of people. The bottom line – he was a psychopath.” ‘My life was totally insane’ Nursing unbearable grief for the sons she had lost, Shaw attempted suicide, and spent time in a Melbourne psychiatric hospital. This 1962 novel depicts a postapocalyptic future in which global warming has rendered much of planet uninhabitable. In stark contrast to Station Eleven, it is a dark and depressing tale of survivors forced to reinvent their ethical and moral codes when civilisation collapses. It is widely regarded as one of the first climate-change fiction texts. Het voelde voor mij meer als een opsomming van gebeurtenissen en hoewel ik zeker begrijp dat sommige zaken die ze heeft meegemaakt traumatisch kunnen zijn, denk ik dat ik niet altijd heb meegekregen hoe ze zich voelde op die momenten, wat het echt met haar heeft gedaan en hoe het haar verder heeft gevormd, waar ik altijd wel op hoop wanneer ik memoires lees. En dat is niet gedurende het hele boek zo, maar ik bleef wel iets meer op afstand dan ik had verwacht en enkele gebeurtenissen werden eerder aangestipt dan volwaardig uitgewerkt. Zeker geen aanmerkingen op het verhaal (dat zou ook gek zijn bij zo’n persoonlijk boek), maar ik klikte niet overal met de wijze waarop het is verteld. When it’s busy, Ruth sits outside to let one or two more booklovers squeeze in. And if there’s still an overflow, she sends people next door, where Lance makes them a hot drink until there’s room in the bookshop.To be sure, there was grudging praise for Kleeman’s rich description and passionate engagement with our gloomy environmental dilemmas, but we found her characters thin and the plot thinner. One unexpected highlight: late in the book, a villain declares her dastardly plan to escape to “seventy-five acres of pristine farmland an hour outside Wellington.” Maybe she dreams of joining Evening Book Club, too.