More from Tea with Tales

At Tea with Tales, a book group where the participants all have a significant vision loss, we share what we have been reading in either large print or audio. At the October meeting we read a wide selection of books as well as looking through the upcoming Hawke’s Bay Readers & Writers Festival programme.

The book excerpt was from one of the writers attending this year’s festival, Ruth Shaw. Her book The Bookseller at the End of the World tells Ruth’s life story interspersed with anecdotes of the many people who visit her two tiny bookshops. Situated in Manapouri in Fiordland, this small town (with a little over 200 permanent residents) attracts visitors from all over the world for its walkways and cycle tracks. One of those books that will make you laugh and make you cry. Available in large print, audio CD, eAudio and eBook from Hastings District Libraries and audiobook from Blind and Low Vision.

The latest and last in the Seven Sisters’ series was read by two readers this month. The Story of Pa Salt has been keenly anticipated by Lucinda Riley fans. One reader found this book hard to put down while the other struggled, in part due to a narrator she found boring to listen to.

Another book that didn’t resonate was J P Pomare’s Call me Evie. Our reader wished the author would get on with the story. However, the autobiography Daughter of Empire: Life as a Mountbatten by Pamela Hicks certainly did entertain. It bought back memories of being in London when Pamela’s father Lord Mountbatten was killed. The Family Secret by Fiona Palmer was deemed an enjoyable light read.

The joys and frustrations of reading eBooks is that you can get a book you wouldn’t normally read. So was the case for one of our readers who read the fantasy novel Dead Man’s Hand by James Butcher and enjoyed it.

The Wily O'Reilly: Irish Country Stories by Patrick Taylor made on of our reader’s laugh at loud. Narrated with a delightful Irish accent this compilation of amusing vignettes was very descriptive and a definite recommendation.

Lee Child’s Jack Reacher series is being read by one of our reader’s interspersed with Dorothy Sayer’s Lord Peter Wimsey detective series.

The sequel to Elspeth Huxley’s The Flame Trees of Thika, The Mottled Lizard, proved very informative for one of our reader’s. We were interested to note that both Kenya and New Zealand gave returning WW1 soldiers farmland.

Described by our reader as a passionate love story the book version of Michael Ondaatje’s The English Patient wasn’t quite as good as the movie. Becoming by Michelle Obama was recommended by one of our reader’s last year and a new reader described the book as wonderful.

Posted by Miss Moneypenny

5 October 2023

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