Biography deserved top book award

Your editorial (January 29) on Eleanor Catton’s remarks is itself misguided.

To say that it is odd that the Man Booker prize winner failed to get New Zealand’s top book award indicates your editorial writer has not read Jill Trevelyan’s awardwinning book.

By any standard the latter’s book about Peter McLeavey is a seriously well-written work, based on meticulous research, concerning a true icon of New Zealand’s art scene, and of Wellington.

To suggest posterity may not agree that Trevelyan’s book is a deserved winner is to perpetuate a stereotype of the New Zealand cultural cringe – that only a foreign accolade can validate a local author’s achievements.

Catton deservedly won New Zealand’s premier fiction award (and fiction is all the Man Booker prize covers), but non-fiction is equally worthy. Accordingly, it was neither a strange decision nor a bad mistake by the judges that Trevelyan’s book could and did win the top award for a New Zealand book published last year. It really is that good – a superb production in every respect – and I suspect that people who actually read through both books in question are likely to agree with the judges. NEIL ROBERTSON

Thorndon

Nowhere is there evidence that the council, the hospitality/liquor industry or suppliers acknowledge or express concern for the impact of current or potentially wider drinking hours. Nowhere is there concern for the impact on individuals and families, the costs of police and medical action to clean up the mess resulting from the uncaring and irresponsible attitudes of the providers and many of the drinking public.

There was a time when people sat in wind and rain, on cold concrete or grass, to watch sport without the stimulation of booze. Today, it is the availability of booze that draws many spectators. Unconcerned sponsors and vested interests enjoy the profits. DON ALLAN

Upper Hutt