What I’m Reading Peter Dowling
Like many a publishing person, my winter reading is dominated by advances of forthcoming titles.
One set of proofs that have been gladdening our hearts is Blimmin’ Koro / Ka¯tahi ra¯, e Koro e!. Jill BevanBrown’s bilingual picture book tells of a wha¯nau’s love for their ‘‘blimmin’ Koro’’ as he develops dementia, with lovely illustrations by Christchurch artist Trish Bowles.
On the leisure reading table there’s more history and a fair bit of running: Ross Calman’s magnificent He Pukapuka Ta¯taku Nga¯ Mahi a Te Rauparaha Nui / A Record of the Life of the Great Te Rauparaha(AUP, 2020) and Anna Roger’s lively A Lucky Landing: The Story of the Irish in New Zealand (Random House NZ, 1996) are sitting atop Chris Napier’s Science of Running and Lonely Planet’s Epic Runs of the World (armchair dreaming for the Covid era).
Top of the bedside book pile is Gianni Rodari, the brilliant Italian writer for children whose work is sadly little translated in English.
C’era due volte il barone Lamberto is a story I never want to finish, a virtuoso leap into the imagination that speaks to adults as well as it does to children. Fortunately one of Rodari’s key works is available for non-Italian speakers, his masterful
The Grammar of Fantasy. Also on that pile is Poems of Burns. I’d never got my head or tongue around Robert Burns’ verse until the other week, hearing his Coming Through the Rye sung on Bob Dylan’s Theme Time Radio
Hour show. My late Mum won this collected Burns as a school English prize in 1949, and her handsome Thomas Nelson edition is now passing the test of time.
Peter Dowling is a former president of the Publishers Association of New Zealand and founder of West Auckland-based indie publisher, Oratia Media, which last month was announced as Children’s Publisher of the Year, Oceania, at the Bologna Children’s Book Fair in Italy.