Load up your TBR pile with some excellent reading recommendations from the Papercuts team.

Books reviewed this episode:

KD: The Mirror Book by Charlotte Grimshaw and We Run the Tides by Vendela Vida

LK: Fake Accounts by Lauren Oyler

JT: No One is Talking about This by Patricia Lockwood

Not books:

KD: We Run the Tides by Vendela Vida.

LK: The Sopranos on Neon; Obscure Season 2: Frankenstein 

JT: The Casketeers season 4 on TVNZ

The TBR Pile:

KD: Greta & Valdin by Rebecca K. Reilly, Foghorn’s Lament by Jennifer Lucy Allan, Animal by Lisa Taddeo, Times Like These by Michelle Langstone, My Rock & Roll Friend by Tracey Thorn 

LK: The Magpie Murders by Anthony Horowitz; Times Like These by Michelle Langstone

JT: The Believers by Sarah Krasnostein, How the One-Armed Sister Sweeps her House by Cherie Jones, My Year Abroad by Chang-Rae Lee, Klara and the Sun by Ishiguro, Luster by Raven Leilani, How to Murder Your Life by Cat Marnell

This is the final episode of Papercuts – for now! We’ll be taking a hiatus from your feeds while we plot our next move. Thank you so much to our listeners, our producer Tina and The Spinoff Podcast Network!

Keep in touch: 

Email: [email protected]

Twitter: @papercutspod

Instagram: @papercutspod

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It’s the most exciting time of the year in the New Zealand book world as the Ockham New Zealand Book Award longlist has just been announced. We also have a line up of three New Zealand books for review and have a wee look at what’s on the reading pile and coming out in 2021.

Mentioned in this episode...

Books

KD: Gangland by Jared Savage, with a mention of Patched by Jarrod Gilbert (HarperCollins NZ)

Mary Holm on RNZ’s Bookmarks

Gyles Beckford on RNZ’s Bookmarks

LK:Victory Park by Rachel Kerr (Makaro Press)

Kiran’s interview with Rachel for the NZ Herald.

JT: Remote Sympathy by Catherine Chidgey (VUP)

Not Books

KD: Michael Apted’s Seven Up series 

LK: What Writers and Editors Do by Karl Ove Knausgaard on The Paris Review blog

JT: Bling Empire and Pretend it’s a City (both Netflix)

The TBR Pile

KD: The Mirror Book by Charlotte Grimshaw, A Crooked Tree by Una Mannion, Kitchenly 434 by Alan Warner, The Young Team by Graeme Armstrong

LK: Maybe You Should Talk to Someone by Lori Gottlieb, At Freddie’s by Penelope Fitzgerald, with a mention of I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith

JT: Remaining Ockham fiction longlist to read: Bug Week by Airini Beautrais and Toto Among the Murderers by Sally Morgan

Book News

• The Ockham New Zealand Book Awards Longlist is announced
• The 2021 samesame but different festival will run from February 10 - 14 in the Ellen Melville Centre
• The Rathbones Folio Prize Longlist has been announced! Some great reads to add to your pile, including ol’ Shuggie Bain

Get in touch with Papercuts

Email: [email protected]

Tweet: @papercutspod

Instagram: @papercutspod

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Representing Gone By Lunchtime, Dietary Requirements, The Real Pod, Papercuts, The Fold and On The Rag our hosts dive into the key events, issues, heroes and villains of 2020.

From National’s botched election campaign to Ben Thomas’ take on TikTok, via the collapse of Bauer, the rise of oat milk, with a detour through controversial frozen grapes and Simon’s Sausage Spot, there’s something for everyone in this year’s Superpod. Featuring special guests producer T and Covid-19.

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The gang are back with their usual witches brew of book news, insightful book reviews and discussions, not-book reviews and their dangerously teetering TBR piles.

Books reviewed this episode:

KD: Shuggie Bain by Douglas Stuart (Picador/Grove Atlantic)

LK: Real Life by Brandon Taylor (Daunt Books)

JT: Earthlings by Sayaka Murata (Granta)

Not books:

KD: Magazines are back! Welcome back Metro and North & South

LK: Season Two of His Dark Materials and Daisy Johnson’s horror fiction recommendations.

JT: Chris Parker’s This is How I Felt

The TBR Pile:

KD: 2020 NZ fiction for judging the Jann Medlicott Acorn Prize for Fiction for the 2021 Ockhams and books from a Fitzcarraldo Editions subscription

LK: White is For Witching by Helen Oyeyemi and The Residents by Lucy Revill

JT: Homeland Elegies by Ayad Akhtar and Remote Sympathy by Catherine Chidgey

Book news:

Shuggie Bain won the Booker Prize! 

The Sunken Land Begins to Rise Again by M. John Harrison won the Goldsmith Prize!

A book about the bloody Beatles has won the Baillie Gifford Prize! 

The National Book Awards 2020 winners have been announced!

Also mentioned:

A scathing review of Dolly Alderton’s novel Ghosts

An excellent Guardian interview with Brandon Taylor

The High Low podcast is drawing to an end

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The Papercuts gals are back to help you navigate the huge flood of incredible books that were delayed by Covid-19 and are now finally available for your reading pleasure. We also bring you our usual winning formula: a hot scoop of book industry news, our insightful book reviews and discussions, our not-book reviews and our dangerously teetering TBR piles. Come up the Papercuts lab and see what’s on the slab!

Books reviewed this episode:

KD: The Discomfort of Evening by Marieke Lucas Rijneveld, Summerwater by Sarah Moss and Mayflies by Andrew O’Hagan

LK: Sisters by Daisy Johnson (Jonathan Cape) & Nothing to See by Pip Adam (VUP)

JT: Deep Work by Cal Newport (Little & Brown)

Not books:

KD: Gloss on YouTube

LK: The Great on Neon

JT: Origins on TVNZ

The TBR Pile:

KD: Shuggie Bain by Douglas Stuart (Picador) and Real Life by Brandon Taylor (Daunt) and 2020 NZ fiction for judging the Jann Medlicott Acorn Prize for Fiction for the Ockhams!

LK: The Broken Earth trilogy by N. K. Jemison (Orbit), The Swimmers by Chloe Lane (VUP), Sprigs by Brannavan Gnanalingam (Lawrence and Gibson)

JT: Tree of Strangers by Barbara Sumner (MUP), Death in her Hands by Ottessa Moshfegh (Jonathan Cape), Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert (Bloomsbury)

Book news:

• The NZ Children’s and Young Adults Book Awards were held on 12th August. Congratulations to all the winners, especially Selina Tusitala Marsh, whose first children’s book Mophead (AUP) won Margaret Mahy Book of the Year.
• Maggie O’Farrell has won the 2020 Women’s Prize for Fiction for her novel Hamnet (Tinder Press).
• Marieke Lucas Rijneveld has won the International Booker Prize for their debut novel The Discomfort of Evening (trans by Michele Hutchinson, Faber).
• The Booker Prize 2020 shortlist has been announced! There’s no Hilary Mantel, and it’s the most diverse shortlist ever!
• Lineups for WORD (28 October–1 November), VERB (6–8 November 2020) and YARNS IN BARNS ( 8–18th October) have been announced – get amongst! 

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The Papercuts team are finally back in The Spinoff studio this month with their usual winning recipe of book news, book recommendations, not books and their ever-growing ‘TBR’ piles.

They anticipate the announcements of some big book prizes, deep dive into a hugely entertaining book about the apocalypse, the new Ottessa Moshfegh (Eileen, My Year of Rest and Relaxation), and how reading BWB Texts will make you much smarter. This month's ‘Not Books’ recommendations include Hollywood gossip, Drag Race and getting back to our Baby-Sitters Club roots on Netflix.

Books reviewed

KD: Notes from an Apocalypse: A Personal Journey to the End of the World and Back by Mark O’Connell (Granta); Funny Weather by Olivia Laing (Picador)

LK: Death in Her Hands by Ottessa Moshfegh (Jonathan Cape)

JT: Imagining Colonisation by Rebecca Kiddle, Bianca Elkington, Moana Jackson, Ocean Mercier, Mike Ross, Jennie Smeaton, Amanda Thomas (BWB Text); Ka Whawhai Tonu Matou: Struggle Without End by Ranginui Walter (Penguin NZ)

Not books

KD: Last Picture Show via You Must Remember This Polly Platt podcast

LK: Canada’s Drag Race, Race Chaser & The Chop podcasts; Hollywood Babylon by Kenneth Anger

JT: The Baby-sitters Club & The Claudia Kishi Club on Netflix; AGC Gossip

The TBR Pile

KD: The Disaster Tourist by Yun Ko-eun (Serpents Tail); Sprigs by Brannavan Gnanalingam (Lawrence & Gibson); Sing Backwards and Weep by Mark Lanegan (White Rabbit); Rat King Landlord by Murdoch Stevens (Lawrence & Gibson)

LK: The Piano Teacher by Elfriede Jelinek; The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin; Pachinko by Min Jin Lee; Notes of a Native Son by James Baldwin

JT: Sigrid Nunez’s What are you Going Through; Carson McCullers’ Member of the Wedding; Jenn Shapland’s My Autobiography of Carson McCullers (Tin House)

Book news links

• The Booker Longlist will be announced tomorrow
• The International Book Awards Winners have been announced
• NZ Children’s and Young Adult Book Awards are being held virtually on the 12th of August, keep updated here
• Two new bookstores are opening in New Zealand! Bay Hill Books is open in Timaru and Good Books opens in Wellington soon.
• Kiran’s interview with Mark O’Connell on The Spinoff

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Book news

• Ockham results
• Congratulations to all the winning and shortlisted authors, and especially to Becky Manwatu for her sweep of Best First Fiction and the Jann Medlicott Acorn Prize for Fiction.
• Auckland Writers Festival 2020 Winter Online Series 
• Watch live via the Festival’s YouTube and Facebook channels, and then on their website.
• WORD Christchurch now running October 30 - 1 November
• They need your help to stage this year's festival! WORD is a charitable trust, and it's now easier than ever to donate. More information here. 
• VERB Wellington confirmed for 6-8 November, with Litcrawl on 7 November
• NZ Bookstores experiencing boom in Level 2 - Guardian article 
• The price of literature: writers take on Government over fair pay by Kelly Dennett

"This proposition that writers just do their work for love is a scurrilous attack on the integrity of all authors," says Dame Fiona Kidman.

Book reviews 

KD: A Terrible Country by Keith Gessen (Fitzcarraldo Editions)

LK: The Secret History by Donna Tartt (Penguin)

JT: Ripiro Beach by Caroline Barron (Bateman Books)

Not books

KD: Los Angeles is Burning by Anna Rankin on Newsroom 

LK: The Good Place on Netflix and The Wondrous Adventures of Mittens 

JT:  Nat’s What I Reckon on YouTube

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Book news

Women’s Prize for Fiction shortlist -- the Prize’s 25th year. The shortlist was announced on the Women’s Prize for Fiction social channels:

Dominicana by Angie Cruz

Girl, Woman, Other by Bernardine Evaristo

A Thousand Ships by Natalie Haynes

The Mirror and the Light by Hilary Mantel

Hamnet by Maggie O’ Farrell

Weather by Jenny Offill

#BookshopsAreBack!!

Newsroom has a list of retailers around the country.

Ockhams Out Loud

The 2020 Ockham New Zealand Book Awards was to be the first event of Festival week and will now be broadcast via the #theockhams YouTube channel.

In the lead up over the next few weeks, you can listen to each of the finalists reading from their shortlisted work, with one added each day until the winners are announced at the online ceremony on the evening of Tuesday 12 May. Take a look, and subscribe for updates.

Auckland Writers Festival 2020 Winter Online Series

Includes Bernardine Evaristo, Lisa Taddeo, Amy McDaid, Anthony Byrt and more.

9am on May 3rd and running live once a week for 13 weeks.

Three writers including at least two from the 2020 programme will chat with series host Paula Morris, read from their work and answer audience questions.

Watch via live the Festival’s YouTube and Facebook channels, and then on their website.

BookBound 2020

An 'antiviral' online literary festival, already in progress until 3 May 2020.

Includes a number of New Zealand authors, including Freya Daly Sadgrove, Pip Adam Becky Manawatu & Renée, who join literary talent such as Max Porter and Emma Glass from around the world.

The festival is raising money for a number of charities, and events are free on the BookBound 2020 YouTube channel

Verb Community

Verb Community members will ensure artists are paid for their work, help create content and experiences and lots of other good stuff. In return, they'll get access to the Verb Community hui where you can feed your ideas into what they do, discounts on ticketed events and festival sessions, and again lots of other good stuff!

They launch alongside three new pieces of writing by Sinead Overbye (a reading list on love in isolation), Victor Rodger (love and quite a bit of sex), and essa may ranapiri (gender and language).

Book reviews

KD: White Sands: Experiences from the Outside World by Geoff Dyer

LK: Torpor by Chris Kraus

JT: Aue by Becky Manawatu

Not books

KD: Record shops!

LK: Home Cooking: a podcast from Samin Nosrat and Hrishikesh Hirway to help you figure out what to cook (and keep you company) during the quarantine. Thanks to Papercuts listener David for the recommendation!

Circus of Books on Netflix -- the charming and sometimes heartbreaking story of a middle-class Jewish family who ran a hardcore gay porn bookstore from the eighties up till the time of filming.

JT: Brideshead Revisited (1981 TV series)

The TBR Pile

KD: In the Fold and The Temporary by Rachel Cusk, Funny Weather: Art in an Emergency by Olivia Laing

LK: You'll enjoy it when you get there: the stories of Elizabeth Taylor, I'm working on a building by Pip Adam, Screen Tests by Kate Zambreno, Fake Baby by Amy McDaid (out June)

JT: Ripiro Beach by Caroline Barron (Bateman), Trick Mirror by Jia Tolentino (4th Estate). Tennis Lessons by Susannah Dickey (DD)

Also mentioned:

Green Girl by Kate...

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Welcome back to Papercuts, our monthly books podcast hosted by Louisa Kasza, Jenna Todd and Kiran Dass.

Well, we've all said we wish we had more time to read and now we've got what we wished for. Jenna, Kiran and Louisa delve into some book news (that's not too heavy for our weary heads), book reviews, not books and to be read piles. Tune in, switch your brain off and start making some notes for your upcoming, post-quarantine reads. Remember to wait for your local to open again! #bookshopswillbeback #waitforyourbookshop

Book news

How the NZ book scene is reaching people while we are under lockdown.

https://thespinoff.co.nz/books/29-03-2020/how-the-nz-books-scene-is-pivoting-in-response-to-covid-19/ Which includes microbiologist extraordinaire Siouxsie Wiles’ tips on lending books during lockdown: “If you are sharing or borrowing hard copy books outside of your bubble you might want to quarantine them for three days before getting stuck in.”

The Ockham Book Awards: Kiran is an Ockham Fiction Champion

http://www.nzbookawards.nz/new-zealand-book-awards/2020-awards/shortlist/

Animalia by Jean-Baptiste Del Amo, tr. Frank Wynne (Fitzcarraldo Editions) has won the Republic of Consciousness 2020 Prize

https://www.republicofconsciousness.com/the-conch/2020/2/11/republic-of-consciousness-class-of-2020-animalia-by-jean-baptiste-del-amo-tr-frank-wynne-fitzcarraldo-editions

Book reviews

KD: The Lonely City: Adventures in the Art of Being Alone by Olivia Laing (Canongate) with link to new Guardian article about art in an emergency and her forthcoming book Funny Weather: Art in an Emergency by Olivia Laing is published in April (ish) by Picador https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/mar/21/feeling-overwhelmed-how-art-can-help-in-an-emergency-by-olivia-laing two other soothing books I’d like to recommend for lockdown are Wanderlust and Field Guide to Getting Lost by Rebecca Solnit.

LK: Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat: Mastering the Elements of Good Cooking / Samin Nosrat.

JT: Cherry Beach by Laura McPhee-Browne (Text)

Not books

KD: Nathan for You: Finding Frances

LK: The Spinoff’s The Real Pod - RIP

JT: Chris Parker’s Felt Animals, Sarah Laing’s Quarantine Comics and Yoga with Adriene. Zumba link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=shUjcUcgk5M

The TBR Pile

KD: Hamnet by Maggie O’Farrell, Notes from an Apocalypse by Mark O’Connell, The Willd Laughter by Caoilinn Hughes, Utopia Avenue by David Mitchell, Specimen by Madison Hamill, Hurricane Season by Fernanda Melchor (60 pages away from finishing), A Girl’s Story by Annie Ernaux

LK: Don't go to sleep in the dark / Celia Fremlin. Torpor / Chris Kraus. Postcards from the edge / Carrie Fisher. Untold night and day / Bae Suah ; translated from the Korean by Deborah...

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Welcome back to Papercuts, our monthly books podcast hosted by Louisa Kasza, Jenna Todd and Kiran Dass.

It's February and our latest episode is packed to the gills. We chat trigger warnings, American Dirt, festivals, movies, poetry and of course, have our usual book reviews and TBR piles. Tune in!

Book news

• AWF Programme is out on the evening of 11th March
• Ockham Shortlist is out on March 4th.
• HIGHLY RECOMMENDED LISTEN: Digging into American Dirt pod: From four perspectives.
• https://www.npr.org/2020/01/29/800964001/digging-into-american-dirt
• Patti Smith helps Portland bookshop after break in.
• The 2020 NZ Festival of the Arts starts this week, 21 Feb – 15th March 2020.
• https://www.festival.nz/https://www.festival.nz/events/writers
• Writers programme including KD’s session with Booker International Prize Winner Jokha Alharthi https://www.festival.nz/events/all/writing-womens-lives/ and Alharthi and Rijula Das

Book reviews

KD: Strange Hotel by Eimear McBride, Rest and be thankful by Emma Glass.

LK: Separation Anxiety by Laura Zigman

JT: Head Girl by Freya Daly Sadgrove (with a mention of As the Verb Tenses by Lynley Edmeades), In the Dream House by Carmen Maria Machado

Not books

KD: Three Women by Robert Altman

LK: Next in Fashion on Netflix

JT: Emma.

The TBR Pile

KD: The Undying by Anne Boyer, Out of the Woods by Luke Turner,

LK: Middlemarch by George Eliot, Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout, Dept. of Speculation by Jenny Offill

JT: Topics of Conversation by Miranda Popkey, Burn the Place by Illana Regan, Days of Abandonment by Elena Ferrante (in preparation for the June release of The Lying Life of Adults), 2000f Above Worry Level by Eamonn Marra.  

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Welcome back to Papercuts, our monthly books podcast hosted by Louisa Kasza, Jenna Todd and Kiran Dass.

BOOKS NEWS:

Romance Writers of America Controversy

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/01/08/romance-writers-america-cancels-awards-program-writer-racism-controversy/

Booker Prize Judges Announced

https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-51018138

Ockham New Zealand Book Awards Longlist Announced January 30, 2020

http://www.nzbookawards.nz/new-zealand-book-awards

Elizabeth Wurtzel, author of Prozac Nation has died

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/07/books/elizabeth-wurtzel-dead.html?smid=fb-nytbooks&smtyp=cur

Margaret Atwood in New Zealand

https://margaretatwoodlive.com.au/

BOOK REVIEWS:

KD:

Late in the Day by Tessa Hadley

The Bradshaw Variations by Rachel Cusk

Weather by Jenny Offill

JT:

The Trauma Cleaner by Sarah Krasnostein

Ducks, Newburyport by Lucy Ellmann

Such a Fun Age by Kiley Reid

LK:

A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles

Tales of the City by Armistead Maupin

NOT BOOKS:

KD:

Desert Island Dishes podcast

https://www.desertislanddishes.co/

Missing Richard Simmons podcast

https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/missing-richard-simmons/e/49137432

JT:

The Casketeers

https://www.tvnz.co.nz/shows/the-casketeers

Bachelor US

LK:

Cats

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2019/dec/21/cats-review-tom-hooper-taylor-swift-judi-dench-idris-elba-jennifer-hudson-ian-mckellen

THE TBR PILE:

KD:

American Dirt by Jeanine Cummins

Strange Hotel by Eimear McBride

Actress by Anne Enright

At the Pond: Swimming at the Hampstead Heath Ladies' Pond by v/a

We Are Made of Diamond Stuff by Isabel Waidner

JT:

American Dirt by Jeanine Cummins

The Copenhagen Trilogy by Tove Ditlevsen

LK:

All Among the Barley by Melissa Harrison

Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy

ALSO MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:

Speedboat by Renata Adler

Sleepless Nights by Elizabeth Hardwick

Dept. of Speculation by Jenny Offill

Completely Perfect by Felicity Cloake

Obscure podcast

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