Simon

Yeah, I often have a fiction and non-fiction book on the go at the same time... but also have an audiobook which I only listen to in the car. I don't tend to drive a lot, so the one audiobook I finished in January had taken about 60 days, which skewed my numbers :)

Highlights of the month - Glorious Exploits by Ferdia Lennon, Trees by Percival Everett and Mother Mary Comes to Me by Arundhati Roy #booksky #pukapuka

Monthly reading wrapup image from The Storygraph app, showing 20 books / 7,047 pages read and an average rating of 3.81

Got out of the gate quick in January, with 20 books towards my 2026 reading goal... I suspect things are going to slow down now that I'm no longer unemployed and staying up til 4am to finish a book isn't really an option anymore ;) #booksky #pukapuka

News article image and headline from stuff.co.nz - Image is of a building fire being put out by firefighters, with the headline below reading "Ministers condemn firefighters union for 'gambling with lives' after major blaze during strike"

Alternative headline - Simeon Brown, while overseeing massive cuts to a severely strained NZ health system, becomes poster boy for Alanis Morissette 'Ironic' lyrics meme by claiming other people "gambling with lives" #nzpol

Cover of the book Glorious Exploits by Ferdia Lennon, featuring an ancient greek drawing of a face with googly eyes stuck over the real eyes.

Ferdia Lennon's Glorious Exploits was such a refreshing read after the ham-fised humour of my last read. Somehow the Irish voice telling a tale set in ancient Syracuse worked perfectly for me. I'm not sure how a story with so much suffering made me so happy. Great craic out of 5 💙📚🇳🇿 🖋️📚

You know when a book's blurb completely puts you off, but it's everywhere so you hate it a bit more with each mention and you build up some snobbish attitude without actually having read it? Anyway, time for me to be the last person on the planet to get around to reading Dungeon Crawler Carl 🪐📚 💙📚

Text from Orange by John McPhee - "it is exported from Jaffa, and for that reason is known universally beyond Israel as the Jaffa Orange. The Jaffa Orange is the variety that British people consider superior to all others, possible because Richard the Lionhearted spent the winter of 1191-92 in the citrus groves of Jaffa." - Jaffas were a well known chocolate orange candy in New Zealand, comprising of a chocolate orange centre and hard candy coating... while Snifters were similar, but mint flavoured, with a mint nougat centre, surrounded by a chocolate layer then a hard candy coating.

On to book 3 of the year, Oranges by John McPhee - How did I nearly reach 50 years old and not know Jaffa was a place? What's next? Snifter is a region in Belarus famous for it's ancient mint varietals? Also, I think I might be living in the past and need some more current references... 📚🇳🇿

Just finished book 2 of the year, Deadhouse Gates by Steven Erikson. Listened to a character name pronunciation vid halfway through, it was like the novel just doubled it's character cast as I had just about every name wrong in my head ;) Who's Ka-lamb? I think you mean Callum ;) 🪐📚 💙📚 #malazan

Text from the book Deadhouse Gates by Steven Erikson - "I've heard of Kurald Galain - the Tiste Andii warren." "This is Tiste Edur. You surprise me, Mage. You are Meanas."

My kiwi brain keeps getting shocked out of this fantasy novel by one of the magic groups being called Meanas... I was fully expecting the next line to be something like, "aw... chur bro, you're mean as too!" 📚🇳🇿 #meanas #tumeke

2 hours editing epubs, converting back and forth between formats, trying to get chapters to work on my kindle... then figured out a minute removing spaces from the chapter file names fixed everything. Nothing like overcomplicating tech issues to keep your days filled with frustration ;) 💙📚🇳🇿

Trust by Hernán Díaz... part of my long term project to read all of the NYT's 100 best books of the 21st century, which will only get longer as they update the list each year ;)

Decided the best way to get through some of my TBR was a 2026 reading plan... fast forward two hours and I'm 50 books in and a bit overwhelmed. So, yeah, if all authors out there could not release any books in 2026 so I can catch up some... that'd be appreciated. #pukapuka #booksky #self-sabotage

Great selection by Santa! I just read Gardens of the Moon this month... after buying it in 2014 - It doesn't make itself easy to follow initially, but what a book!

So, uh, anyone hiring a security engineer or infrastructure engineer? ;) #nzpol #firingCVsintothevoid

No doubt including great subjects like "The bits of History that don't make me uncomfortable" and "Art, but only using the colour white"

Just checking, is this the same John Key who said Trump should win the US election because he'd be better for their economy? Beginning to question the story that's been told for years that he's some sort of economic wunderkind.

Hollywood legend James Cameron gets NZ citizenship For most of the past 14 years, the Titanic director has called Wellywood - not Hollywood - home.

Brooke van Velden celebrating James Cameron getting citizenship on the day redundancies are confirmed at Weta FX pretty much sums up the "NACT First" economy to me... #nzpol www.stuff.co.nz/nz-news/3607...

Normally I try to keep things on an even keel, but I'm more and more enraged by the sideshows we're getting while real issues are not being dealt with. Who needs another enquiry which amounts to a carnival for science-dodging village idiots + pearl clutching about the word spineless? #nzpol

Scrum is also a weird term for someone like me from a rugby playing nation... To me a scrum is an event where two sides push against each other to try and force their will/advantage over the best efforts of their opponent.

"Going forward" - Too often I head things like "We need to figure out how to deal with this going forward" and my thought is always "what else were we going to do, figure out how to change the past?"

I'm always torn by comments like this from the NACT First types... not by whether I think it's a good plan or not, but by whether they're dumb enough to think punishment is the only sensible approach to any situation or if it's purely performative cruelty meant to appeal to their base.

I also like the constant reference to "Shane Jones' wife" to frame her as some sort of innocent bystander... rather than "NZ First Board Member Dot Jones"

SILKSONG IS REAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAL

Hollow Knight: Silksong releasing 2025 according to Nintendo

Cover collage of the 19 books I read in March... The Claw of the Conciliator (The Book of the New Sun, #2) - Wolfe, Gene The Shadow of the Torturer (The Book of the New Sun, #1) - Wolfe, Gene Daisy Jones & The Six - Reid, Taylor Jenkins Hunchback - Ichikawa, Saou Tigana - Kay, Guy Gavriel Raising Hare: A Memoir - Dalton, Chloe Nemesis (Orphan X, #10) - Hurwitz, Gregg Between the World and Me - Coates, Ta-Nehisi My Father's House (Rome Escape Line Trilogy, #1) - O'Connor, Joseph The Mires - Makereti, Tina Pretty Ugly - Gunn, Kirsty At The Grand Glacier Hotel - Fearnley, Laurence Delirious - Wilkins, Damien Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body - Gay, Roxane Iron Flame (The Empyrean, #2) - Yarros, Rebecca Fourth Wing (The Empyrean, #1) - Yarros, Rebecca Eurotrash - Kracht, Christian Perfection - Latronico, Vincenzo Reservoir Bitches - de la Cerda, Dahlia

Despite not getting the highest rating as I read them, highlights for the month have to be Gene Wolfe's Shadow and Claw... think they'll need a second read to really make complete sense of. Also looking forward to the recently released sequel to My Father's House, The Ghosts of Rome 🖋️📚💙 #pukapuka

March reading summary from The Storygraph, showing 19 books read, 6229 pages and an average rating of 3.59

Mixed reading month in March... including a few short books on the Booker International longlist, some questionable romantasy to see what the fuss is about, the Ockham NZ Fiction award shortlist and some gems while trying to find fantasy that doesn't read like it's written for YAs. 🖋️📚💙 #pukapuka

Have been searching out some decent literary fantasy recently and found a goodreads review containing "honestly, this is the most pretentious book i have ever read. its so far beyond high-brow, its in an obnoxious league all on its own." - I think I might have found my next read! ;) 💙📚 🪐📚 #pukapuka

Can we get an alcohol interlock put on Hegseth's phone?

A screenshot from the goodreads website showing a user has marked the book 'Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity' as 'Did Not Finish'

Normally I don't pay too much attention to my goodreads recent updates feed, but enjoyed this one... Does marking something as Did Not Finish count as getting something done? ;) 💙📚

Book covers of the four books that made the shortlist for the 2025 Ockham New Zealand Book Awards Jann Medlicott Acorn Prize for Fiction. The books are At the Grand Glacier Hotel by Laurence Fearnley, Pretty Ugly by Kirsty Gunn, Delirious by Damien Wilkins and The Mires by Tina Makereti.

Just finished the Ockham NZ fiction award shortlist... enjoyed them all, but the standout was The Mires by @tinamakereti.bsky.social - reminding me that while it's easy to see the differences between ourselves and others it's our commonalities and connections which are truly important. #pukapuka 💙📚