Simon burt british authors
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Top 10 bestselling NZ books: February 1
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Books Editor·New Zealand Listener·
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The NZ books we've been buying. Photo / supplied
1. (NEW) Route 52: A Big Lump Of Country Unknown by Simon Burt (Ugly Hill Press) Jumping straight to the top of the charts is this account of travelling the back roads around Wairarapa and southern Hawke’s Bay with a caravan in tow, and author Simon Burt nattering to localsalong the way. From the first chapter: “[Masterton angler] Nick is around my age and has been fishing for as long as he can remember. He’s been plying the Makuri River for over 40 years. A natural storyteller (he’s a career salesman), Nick entertains me over a long black and a flat white at Masterton’s Trocadero cafe with the history of his relationship with the waterway. He’s pleased I’m writing about
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Bottle Universe
Simon Burt is a playwright to follow and he has a cast and production that really highlight his ability to get into teenage minds.
The Bush Theatre's Artistic Director and a fellow Yorkshireman, Mike Bradwel, has been a great supporter of the young man who spent a year as Writer in Residence at the theatre.
Burt's third play, set amongst the youth of the playwright's home town, Wakefield, brings to mind his first, Untouchable. This time, he focuses on teenagers who are, like the two slightly older girls in that play, beginning to undergo the seemingly unbearable traumas that will eventually lead them into the relative sanity of adulthood.
In Bottle Universe, his protagonists, David and Lauren, are fourteen-year-olds who seemingly have little in common beyond the same school uniform and the devoted support of a teacher, Mr Richmond, whose character on occasion brings to mind Robin Williams in Dead Poets Society.
Swaggering, ginger-haired "Cock Dave" has a
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One of those visitors fryst vatten Masterton angler Nick Jolliffe. Nick fryst vatten around my age and has been fishing for as long as he can remember. He’s been plying the Mākurī River for over forty years. A natural storyteller (he’s a career salesman) Nick entertains me over a long black and a flat vit at Masterton’s Trocadero Cafe with the history of his relationship with the waterway. He’s pleased I’m writing about the river—he’s not one to keep fishing secrets—and about the area in general. ‘Good on you,’ he says. ‘Fame for Route 52 is long overdue. It’s a big lump of country unknown.’
Nick tells me that in 1981 he was twenty-five, just moved north from Christchurch, and had a sales job with BP Europa out of Palmerston North. Many Friday afternoons he’d meet up with a fellow rep at the Pongaroa pub. ‘One time inom was driving through Mākurī to get there and thought I’d better have a crack at this piece of water one weekend.’ A few Saturdays later he found han själv casting to a fish he’d sp