Nine live
Nine lives is a novel concept of coupling nine notable New Zealanders with nine New Zealand authors who have been connected to them one way or another. Hence we have sports journalist Paul Thomas writing about cricketer John Wright who he knows through his profession. Author Lloyd Jones writes on potter Paul Melser a friend through cricket. And author Elspeth Sandys writing of her cousin Rewi Alley
In each case resulting in an interesting, mostly lengthy, essay about aspects of the subject’s life.
The subjects are a well chosen eclectic mix covering a wide range of interests including a doctor, Pacific Island author, a Māori academic, a bookshop proprietor, politicians Māori and Pākeha, and, of course, a rugby player.
The curious thing is that the chooser, or choosers, of who picked the subjects remains anonymous. The term ‘we’ was used in a very short unsigned introduction explaining that the subjects were chosen first and then suitable authors with connections to the subjects were asked to do the essays.
I found the book really interesting and often enlightening. With insights available through the authors personal connections, often differing from what I had been given to understand and snippets of information only somebody close to the subject person could know. In other cases simply completely new information. It was also a novel experience to have each chapter a completely different writing style. This made for interesting reading.
It is quite a small book, (180 pages) and I got to the end wishing there was more it could well do with two or three more of the interesting essays. For me, the only small let down was the poor photographic reproduction of each subject at the start of their chapter.
The availability of this book from Masterton library illustrates the advantages of the hugely expanded selection now available through our library service now being connected to, and with books available and easily ordered from, Masterton, Hutt Valley, Porirua, Kapiti and Weltec libraries
