The White Pearl by Kate Furnivall

In 1941 Malaya, a local woman is hit by a car while walking, and dies at the scene. The driver is Constance Hadley, the British wife of a plantation owner and mother of a seven-year-old boy.

The opening scene encapsulates, in a few neat pages, the virtues and flaws that make reading The White Pearl such a discombobulating experience. While Furnivall has put great energy into setting her scene and conveying the socioeconomic, cultural and political complexities of the time and place, when it comes to language and story, she seems to not know when to stop.

Seconds before dying, the woman curses Connie, who, troubled and guilty, seeks out her two children, Maya and her twin brother Razak. The latter will come to play an role in the disintegration of Connie’s already moribund marriage, but the promise Furnivall instills in the character of Maya – that she loathes Connie and is plotting against her – comes to naught. The bid for vengeance simply trails off.

There may be good reason for that, however: the Japanese are advancing, and the novel commences under the threat of invasion and eventually evolves into a boys’- own-adventure story in which Connie, Nigel and their son Teddy flee with some acquaintances on their boat The White Pearl toward the beckoning safety of Singapore.

Do they make it? What happens in the interim? These are the plot’s most important questions, but Furnivall exhausts most of the overweighted 430 pages before she even starts to address them.

First, we experience life on a rubber plantation through Connie’s eyes. The product, referred to as ‘white gold’, is tremendously lucrative, and Nigel is extremely proud of his familial possession.

His dual devotion to productivity and appearances is juxtaposed by a singular lack of interest in his wife (for reasons semaphored to the reader if not apparent to her), though he is enamoured of his son. Connie yearns for home, and much of the novel is given over to her musings on the inhospitable environment: “. . . no one had warned her that it was a country of sweltering nights and fierce smells . . . of the stink of bad drains . . . of ferocious insects that would devour you alive, and of jungle sounds that haunted your dreams.”

Overpopulated and hyperkinetic, The White Pearl is bogged down by a trilogy’s-worth of plot. Infidelity, murder, double-crosses, surprise confrontations . . . it’s all here.

Imagination and research are Furnivall’s strong suits, but I wish she’d directed more energy toward the development of character. With all the people roaming in and out of the pages, not one is truly, fleshily human, either sufficiently villainous to provoke the reader’s ire or noble enough to make you care about their fate. In particular, Connie has the makings of a memorable heroine, but through all her travails remains somehow opaque.

For all that, Furnivall’s gift for evoking mood is remarkable, and she provides a rare fictional portrayal of an often-overlooked place in history at a time of profound disintegration.

2 / 5 stars: An historical novel that reads like a maximum-velocity fun-park ride.

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Daughters of Rome by Kate Quinn

The Year of the Four Emperors was one of the most messily eventful in a Roman regime that never had qualms about the gratuitous shedding of blood (but then, who ever heard of a squeamish empire?).

Such historical drama cries out for creative representation, and the latest comes in the form of Daughters of Rome, a prequel to California native Kate Quinn’s first novel Mistress of Rome. Where that tale was set during the 15-year reign of Domitian (who when he appears late in Daughters of Rome is depicted as favouring a Caligulan style of personal relations), this addresses the blood-soaked instability of June 68AD to December 69AD, when first Galba then Otho, Vitellius and finally Vespasian seized the title of Caesar.

And seize they did. In Quinn’s Rome, assuming the precarious position of emperor is the outcome not of merit but of skill in the game of daggers at dawn. It is hard to avoid pondering the parallels with modern-day corporate warfare – the likes of Michael Eisner would probably find a lot more to identify with in the character of Piso than he would care to admit.

Piso is the beloved, kindly and ambitious husband of the eldest of the titular ‘daughters’, 24-year-old Cordelia Prima. Her younger sister, the self-pitying schemer Cordelia Secunda, goes by the nickname Marcella. Cousins to the elder women are Cordelias Three and Four, known as Lollia and Diana.

Lollia’s superficial flightiness disguises a core of steel common to all the women, each of whom is one marriage or stab-wound away from the seat of the empress. At 19, Lollia is on her fourth marriage and prefers the company of her slave Thrax to that of her husband, while Diana, though sought by every well-bred man in the empire, prefers males of the equine variety.

It is the relationships between the four women, and how the ambitions and cares of each prompt them to act for and against one another, that form a fictional parallel to some of the most unpredictable months in human history. And in a useful footnote, Quinn explains which of her characters actually existed, which historical events are real to history, and where dates were conflated or fudged for dramatic effect.

(Rather sweetly, she so admired the bravery and loyalty of one historical figure that she erases his death on the night of an emperor’s assassination and instead sets him up in a happy relationship with one of the Cordelii.)

Quinn’s writing is vivid and fanciful, and invites comparison with the sober, considered historical fiction of Philippa Gregory. While unlike the latter’s protagonists Quinn’s female characters are mostly inventions, she has the potential to make key events in the Roman empire as lively and accessible for women readers as Gregory has Tudor history.

Indeed, much of what transpires in Daughters of Rome is eerily familiar. The bloodbath that ends the seven-month reign of the first of the four emperors is reminiscent of the famous multi-family assassination scene in another Italian drama, The Godfather Part I – frenzied wailing and gnashing, the glint of metal, blood and corpses. Perhaps there is nothing new under the Roman sun.

2.5 / 5 stars: In this Rome, the women are the warriors.

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The Conductor by Sarah Quigley

The themes of her latest work suggest that New Zealand author Sarah Quigley has been communing with the artistic and historical ghosts of Berlin, her home for the past decade.

The Conductor is extraordinarily ambitious, and for the most part it succeeds. Its conceit is the survival, and importance, of artistic pursuits under extreme duress – how the human urge to make and create can triumph over the dark desire to dominate and destroy.

Quigley has chosen as her setting not the German capital but Leningrad, in the grim months of 1941 and early 1942, as the Third Reich conducted the fateful Operation Barbarossa to conquer Russia.

Her people – who grow smaller both literally and figuratively, as the enemy approaches and the siege of the city and the starvation of its citizens begins – are a small, endearing coterie of artists, some historical figures and some inventions.

She presents the Russian composer Dmitri Shostakovich as a mid-30s workaholic who obsesses over his symphonies at the expense of his young family. At this time, Shostakovich was writing his renowned Seventh Symphony (nicknamed Leningrad), and combining periods of compulsive creativity with rest breaks in which, by Quigley’s description, he would down vodka with his close friend Ivan Sollertinsky, a professor at the Leningrad Conservatory and the competitive, egoistic artistic director of the city’s Philharmonic Orchestra.

A more fleeting appearance is made by Yevgeny Mravinsky, who by the time the novel begins has cemented the Philharmonic’s reputation as one of Europe’s greatest. Quigley glosses over the flight from the falling Leningrad of Mravinsky and his principal orchestra, choosing instead to devote much of the narrative to the superhuman efforts of Karl Eliasberg, who was left behind with the ailing members of the reserve orchestra and conducted the premiere of Shostakovich’s symphony.

Another plotline is more personal, following the travails of Eliasberg’s lead violinist, a widower who believes his young daughter, a talented cellist, to have died on her way to a safe haven outside the city.

At times, the intensity with which Quigley evokes her characters’ inner lives is reminiscent of the visceral, portentous prose of Edgar Allan Poe: unable to sleep for fretting over his professional responsibilities and the destabilization of Europe, Shostakovich, “his mind stretched as tightly as rope”, hallucinates the sensation of a rat running across his face – “rasping claws, a dragging leathery slither, a foul breath mixing with his.”

Later, she neither shies away from nor glorifies the horror of the siege, as food supplies run out and survival becomes a matter of cunning and a willingness to consume what others will not. Nikolai’s suspiciously healthy-looking neighbours are revealed to be capturing and cooking rats, while human bodies in the street, once disinterred from the ever-present snow, are found to be missing their fleshiest parts. These have been removed and eaten by others.

While the nature of the completed symphony is not Quigley’s concern – it was celebrated at the time as an impassioned, defiant response to Nazi militarism – her homage to the beauty and power of art, and to the value of courage, is her own, deserved triumph.

3.5 / 5 stars: A New Zealander’s account of European artistry and war.

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In June 2010, Konica Minolta and the Vodafone Warriors launched the third annual League in Libraries programme in Auckland.

The Alexander Communications team was challenged to show kids that ‘reading and writing is cool’, and to encourage them to learn that reading is a valuable life skill whether they dream of becoming a rugby league player, doctor, firefighter or dancer.

Children were invited to write a short story or poem about their favourite Vodafone Warriors player for the chance to win a reading and writing session at an Auckland library with some of the team’s players. The four selected libraries that hosted League in Libraries 2010 were Pakuranga Library, Waitakere City Library, Glenfield Library and Manurewa Library.

Konica Minolta has received an overwhelming response from Auckland schools since the programme began in 2008. From just two schools, the programme grew to 50 schools (more than 500 entries) in 2009.

Each year, Konica Minolta has the tough job of choosing eight winning schools from the many entries. Not only do the students get to meet their favourite Vodafone Warriors players, but each of the eight schools receives two Canterbury of New Zealand rugby league balls and tickets to a Vodafone Warriors home game.

In addition to the library literacy sessions, League in Libraries 2010 included a surprise school visit from Vodafone Warriors NRL Reading Captain Jerome Ropati. Dropping by Northcote Primary School, Ropati presented overall winner Finn Nicholson with a signed Vodafone Warriors shirt, and tickets to a Vodafone Warriors home game for his entire class. Finn’s winning entry was a brilliant short story about the Warriors hat-trick win against the Brisbane Broncos which included colourful descriptions like ‘fighting over the ball like lions’.

Because League in Libraries Auckland received such a great response, there is consideration for a national campaign. To get the ball rolling, some of the Vodafone Warriors took the programme to one lucky Christchurch school – Central New Brighton School. Two classes were selected to meet some of the Vodafone Warriors players and take part in a League in Libraries activity afternoon. 

Results

The local community newspapers were very supportive and super-keen on the involvement of the Vodafone Warriors. We achieved excellent coverage in the Eastern Courier, Howick and Pakuranga Times, North Shore Times, Upstart Magazine, Christchurch Mail and Pegasus Bay News.

Popular children’s television show Studio 2 Live (TVNZ) were most interested in this initiative and sent host Matt Gibb along with his television crew to capture the action at Pakuranga Library. 

The clip included interviews with Vodafone Warriors NRL Reading Captain Jerome Ropati, team mate Michael Luck and stories read by participating students from Oranga School and Sunnyhills Primary School.

Hitch-22 by Christopher Hitchens

Few matters of great political or cultural import have escaped the lacerating gaze of journalist, columnist and author Christopher Hitchens over the past four decades. British-born and Oxford-educated, and now a United States citizen, Hitchens has worked as a foreign correspondent and contributor to publications including The Nation, The Atlantic Monthly, Vanity Fair and Slate, in between producing 11 books (on Thomas Jefferson, Mother Teresa and atheism, among other topics).

His turn of phrase is rightly legendary. He once described Mother Teresa as a “thieving tyrannical Albanian dwarf”, and he is no kinder to the objects of his contempt and dislike in his memoir. His account of a meeting with Argentina’s murderous General Videla is one of Hitch-22’s finest passages: “I possess a picture of the encounter that still makes me want to spew: there stands the killer and torturer and rape-profiteer . . . Bony-thin and mediocre in appearance, with a scrubby moustache, he looks for all the world like a cretin impersonating a toothbrush.”

Hitch, as he is called by those who know him, writes lovingly, almost romantically, of his dear friends the writers Martin Amis, Ian McEwan, Salman Rushdie and Peter Fenton – whole chapters are titled ‘Martin’, ‘Salman’, ‘The Fenton Factor’, and the book is dedicated to Fenton.

Though there is no suggestion that any of the friendships have been more than platonic, Hitchens is frank about the commonplace nature of homosexual encounters in British boarding schools, and his own participation in such adventures, having been dispatched to prep school at the age of eight: “The three great subjects of Beating, Bullying and Buggery are familiar enough to me in their way . . . “, and of the latter, “[t]he unstated excuse was that this was what one did until the so-far unattainable girls became available.” In the end, though, Hitchens concludes that the entire schooling experience was emancipatory, and in fact, the whole book, with one notable exception, is suffused with a sense of his appreciation of life.

Parts of the book are somewhat sluggish – I could have done without quite such an exhaustive recollection of his worthy experiences as a young political activist in Europe and Cuba – and the level of detail in relation to his public life, and his friendships, serves to highlight what is starkly absent from Hitch-22: any account of his relationships with his first wife or his current wife, the writer Carol Blue, or with his three children from the marriages. He explains this away, rather weakly, in a preface, where he notes that he can claim copyright only in himself, so as to imply that he lacks the right to share his family’s stories. But then, he calls it a memoir rather than an autobiography, so fair play.

(In a cogent review in the Guardian, Blake Morrison points out that Hitchens’ objective is intellectual historiography rather than emotional catharsis, which I think is on the money. He has never been one to talk about feelings.)

One aspect of his private life from which he doesn’t flinch is the suicide of his mother, Yvonne, when he was 24 (the aforementioned exception). It occurred as the result of a pact with her lover, with whom she had fled to Greece after the breakdown of her marriage to Hitchens senior, a Royal Navy man referred to by his son as The Commander. In the opening chapter, which bears her name, he movingly describes his last conversation with her and his journey to Athens to deal with the aftermath of her death. Characteristically, this is followed by an intellectual examination: ‘A Coda on Self-Slaughter.’

All beloved Hitchens topics are canvassed – atheism, God, Islam, his conversion from Trotskyism to conservatism, his support for the Iraq War, the Jewish Question – in service of a text that, depending on the depth of your existing knowledge of Hitchens may not greatly enlighten you as to the man, but will certainly leave you more informed than you found it.

4.5 / 5 stars: A rich romp through the mind and memories of one of the intellectual heavyweights of our time.

Note:

There is a sad addendum to the publication of Hitch-22: while on tour in the United States in June to promote the book, Hitchens fell seriously ill and was shortly after diagnosed with oesophageal cancer – the same disease that claimed his father’s life. In subsequent interviews, and in this extraordinary piece on vf.com, Hitchens has indicated his condition is terminal, though he may have up to five years to live. There is no sign that he feels sorry for himself, though; he said in an August interview with CNN’s Anderson Cooper that his long-time heavy smoking and drinking – the cover of my copy of Hitch-22 features a close-up photo of the author mid-cigarette – made him a “candidate”. On a lighter note, he instructed Cooper to disbelieve any rumours he might hear of deathbed conversions.

Complicit By Nicci French

This is the ultimate whodunit – when one of a group of acquaintances is murdered, everyone thinks they know who is responsible and why. The suspensefulness of the book stems from the gradual teasing-out of the truth, through the eyes of Bonnie Graham, the protagonist and (unreliable) narrator.

Embarking on this book, I learned a surprising thing about Nicci French. She isn’t, in fact, a person – the name is the pseudonym for Nicci Gerrard and Sean French, a British couple who, in an admirable display of marital collegiality harmony, collaborate on bestselling thrillers. Complicit is their twelfth combined endeavour.

Chiefly, what makes Complicit an intriguing example of its type is its unusual structure, which aligns nicely with a fairly standard crime-thriller plot – it alternates between two timeframes, before and after the murder of one of the characters. Showing a practiced hand – the skilful slow-feed of clues and pertinent information being critical to success in this genre – Nicci French manages to withhold the identity of the deceased for the first third of the book.

The structure creates a rapid pace, with entries varying in length from a few sentences to several pages. Complicit opens with an ‘after’ passage, as Bonnie stands in her friend Liza’s flat looking at a body on the floor. It’s the beginning of what will be a long, hot summer in London (this is fiction, after all), and Bonnie, a music teacher, is one member of a band that has come together temporarily to play at a wedding.

As the ‘before’ portion unfolds, the band members find their friendships starting to unravel in the face of platonic rivalries and budding and collapsing romantic liaisons. If the style of the storytelling gives you pause, fear not – there is a natural chronology to the plot development that ensures even the most attention-deficient can’t lose track. Finding out who’s come a cropper and seeing how Bonnie reacts to her discovery is balanced with deft character exposition which sets everyone up as a suspect – there is no one in this book who doesn’t have some malevolent or unlikable aspect to their personality. The murder victim is the most repellent of all, leaving no shortage of motive.

As crime thrillers go, this is an atypical one – it is a whodunit, but not in the more classical, modest style of Agatha Christie or PD James.

3/5 Stars – This is a good read for anyone looking for a thriller that’s a bit off the beaten track.  Click here to listen to the Easy Mix Audio review.

Say You’re One of Them By Uwem Akpan

A sleeper bestseller, Say You’re One of Them is a collection of short stories by a man with an astonishing personal story – a Jesuit priest from southern Nigeria, Uwem Akpan left Africa temporarily to complete a Masters in creative writing in the United States.

It is remarkable not least for not being at all the sort of book, filled as it is with tales of African children battling malice and catastrophe, that should have found a large audience. Much of the credit must go to Oprah Winfrey, who has done a great service to both new authors, such as Akpan, and those in danger of being forgotten (William Faulkner, Pearl S Buck), through her Oprah’s Book Club, for which Say You’re One of Them was a recent pick. The corresponding uptick in sales of her chosen books, sometimes several million copies’ worth, is known as the ‘Oprah effect’.

There is abject grimness: the last of the five stories, the Rwanda-set My Parents’ Bedroom, centres on a young girl, Monique, and her baby brother Jean, who have the misfortune to be the offspring of a Hutu father and a Tutsi mother as the now-notorious genocide begins. The bald violence of the story, with the children cowering in a corner of the room as a Hutu militiaman thrusts a machete into their father’s hands and issues instructions, pierces the heart – “Say you’re one of them” is the command given to the children by their mother.

There is also stunning courage: in Luxurious Hearses, Jubril, a young Nigerian Muslim, pretends to be Christian in order to travel safely to Niger in a crowded bus. Over a long ride, he must conceal the absence of his right hand, a common Islamic punishment for stealing, and avoid speaking to anyone lest they identify he is Muslim by his accent.

Despite the claustrophobic, lonely terror of his circumstance, Jubril doesn’t feel an ounce of self-pity. He understands what is happening to him, doesn’t ask why, and gets on with the business of surviving.

The three other stories reference Kenya, Benin, Gabon and Ethiopia, and all feature children confronting everyday horror. One of Akpan’s best achievements is his description of emotion, from fear to excitement to relief, that is devoid of sentimentality. His young protagonists reject pity and invite admiration of their extraordinary strength. Each one is indomitable.

4/5 Stars - Compelling, devastating and uplifting all at once.  Click here to listen to the Easy Mix Audio review.

The Complaints By Ian Rankin

Lovers of crime fiction will need no introduction to the celebrated Ian Rankin, and indeed, will have many fond memories of his Inspector Rebus, who, in a bold move, Rankin dispatched into retirement at the end of his last novel, the 17^th to feature Rebus. Thus, The Complaints was awaited with breath more bated than usual – would the first exploits of the crime master’s complicated and endearing new hero, Malcolm Fox, pass muster?

Well, it starts off jolly well. Inspector Fox works in the Edinburgh police’s Complaints and Conduct Department, colloquially known as ‘The Complaints.’ This is the dark side of the police force – the officers in The Complaints spend their time investigating other cops and sniffing out corruption, malfeasance and general bad behaviour. Unsurprisingly, Complaints officers are treated rather like pariahs by their fellows.

The novel starts with Fox savouring the success of a long investigation into a fellow officer, Glen Heaton, who after being on the grift for a long time has been pulled up short by Fox’s team.

In his personal life, Fox is financially responsible for the care of his aging father Mitch, and has a complicated relationship with his sister, Jude. As siblings, they’re quite close, but Jude has a violent partner, Vince Faulkner, and the habit of making excuses for him and denying his physical abuse of her. Fox, haunted by a brief, troubled marriage and a former battle with the bottle, is distressed and helpless.

Just as the Heaton case is being tied up, Fox is called in to investigate another officer, a younger man by the name of Jamie Breck, whose name and credit card number have popped up in connection with an internet child pornography ring. Fox dutifully starts his enquiries, and mere pages later, guess who turns up murdered? None other than Vince Faulkner, and the lead officer on the murder enquiry is Jamie Breck. Fox’s interest in the case is clear, and he and Breck get to know each other and swiftly form a distinctly rule-breaking friendship.

Sound good? It gets better, as evidence builds to suggest that Fox and Breck being brought together was far from a coincidence. Are they are somehow being set up? But by whom, and why? There are powerful forces at work, and the book is set deep in the recession, with complex financial issues and illegalities shading the action, and sinister underworld figures making appearances that are no less cataclysmic for their brevity.

This carefully constructed and entirely unpredictable story makes for a thrilling ride. Classic Rankin.

3.5/5 Stars – A dashing debut by Rankin’s new hero.  Click here to listen to the Easy Mix Audio review.

Listen to Stephanie Jones’ radio review of A Faint Cold Fear by Karin Slaughter on Easy Mix.

Click cover to see full size image

Four of New Zealand’s top chefs and food writers are being brought together by Paper Plus for a VIP evening of entertainment and foodie banter. The canapé-and-bubbles-fuelled evening will be hosted by food-lover and Paper Plus books spokesperson Kerre Woodham, with the panelists discussing everything food-related about their latest books and favourite recipes.

In the lead up to Christmas, this grand foodie gathering will offer a bounty of inspiration for entertaining at home with family, friends and loved ones over the festive season.

Well known family cook Allyson Gofton, beloved by New Zealanders as the former host of TV One’s popular Food in a Minute, will be discussing her book Cook, which features her favourite recipes for entertaining at home.

Wellington’s own Martin Bosley, Listener food columnist and owner-chef of restaurant Martin Bosley’s at the Port Nicholson Yacht Club (2007 winner of Cuisine Restaurant of the Year) will be talking about his book Martin Bosley Cooks. The recipes are designed “for the home chef who doesn’t have hours to spend on making a splash at dinner parties or even a work night. I want others to enjoy that feeling of comfort and generosity that comes from preparing good food for others.”

Alongside Allyson and Martin will be Sophie Gray, made famous by her Destitute Gourmet philosophy of serving up tasty, fashionable and healthy home-cooked meals on a modest budget. The 10th anniversary edition of the Destitute Gourmet cookbook, Stunning Food from Small Change (centred around family, friends and good food) has just been published, and at the VIP event Sophie will share how she encourages home cooks to innovate and improvise, and shop smart – what you really need in your pantry, and what you can easily do without.

And the fourth guest, cookbook author and long-time Cuisine food editor Lauraine Jacobs, will be discussing the new book she has edited, A Treasury of New Zealand Baking, to which Allyson and Martin, along with more of the country’s top cooks and food writers, have contributed recipes. The book is being released to coincide with Breast Cancer Action Month, with all royalties going to the Breast Cancer Foundation of New Zealand.

“As we are coming into the Christmas holiday season, with its many opportunities to be with family and friends and enjoy delicious, seasonal homemade food, we thought it was timely to bring these great cooks and food writers together for an entertaining evening of canapés, bubbly and food talk,” Paper Plus Group Marketing Manager Lyle Hastings says.

“They all have great recipes and recommendations for fun, food-filled gatherings with loved ones. Kerre is vocal about her love of good food, so she will bring out the best in our guests.”

Details:
Date: 27 November 2009
PAPER PLUS BOOKS & BUBBLES FAB FOODIES
Date: Friday 27 November, 2009
Time: 6pm arrival for 6.30pm start. Approximate duration: 3 hours.

This is the final metropolitan Paper Plus Books & Bubbles event for the year, and will be hosted in the food capital, Wellington, with a great line-up of authors talking about their latest books and their love of all things food. The speakers are Allyson Gofton, former Food in a Minute host and author of Cook, Wellington’s own Martin Bosley, renowned chef and author of Martin Bosley Cooks, Destitute Gourmet Sophie Gray, whose latest book is Stunning Food from Small Change, and Cuisine food editor Lauraine Jacobs, who is releasing A Treasury of New Zealand Baking. Food-lover and Paper Plus books spokesperson Kerre Woodham will keep the audience entertained and the conversation flowing, and guests will enjoy a complimentary glass of Morton Estate bubbles on arrival with sumptuous canapés from Regal Salmon, with the chance to win a fabulous $500 hamper from L’Oréal Paris. Each guest will also get a goody bag to take home. A fabulous foodie night out not to be missed!

Location: Duxton Hotel, 170 Wakefield Street, Wellington
Tickets: $40 each and available from all Wellington Paper Plus stores or online at www.booksandbubbles.co.nz, with proceeds going to Cure Kids.
More about the panelists:

Allyson Gofton has been cooking for New Zealanders for over 20 years. During her varied career she has assisted Graham Kerr both here and abroad, and became the Chief Executive Officer of the New Zealand Nutrition Foundation. She was also Food Editor for Next magazine for many years and appeared nightly on our screens as presenter for Food In a Minute. Allyson has written 19 cookbooks, including the best-selling Bake and After Work Cookbook. Allyson is a working mum with two young children and a very busy husband who love her home cooking and baking.

Martin Bosley is one of New Zealand’s most highly-regarded chefs, and the owner of the Port Nicholson Yacht Club restaurant on the waterfront at Oriental Bay in Wellington. The restaurant won the coveted Cuisine Restaurant of the Year award in 2007. He writes a weekly column in the Listener and another in the Air New Zealand magazine Kia Ora.

Rob Smith, CEO of Paper Plus, addresses the audience at the Paper Plus Business Briefing

Campaign Overview

When it comes to books and stationery, Paper Plus means business. On 19 October, the national retailer made its mark on the New Zealand book and stationery industry by hosting a business briefing luncheon at the Hyatt Regency Hotel, Auckland. 

Paper Plus advised it wanted to ‘take on the competition’ and as the only nationwide, 100% New Zealand-owned book and stationery retailer, we knew the nation would be curious to hear what it had in store for the future.

The strategy of hosting a business briefing would afford Paper Plus the opportunity to announce its $22 million nationwide expansion, and would also serve as a platform to showcase the business vision and community focus. 

It was also the perfect time to launch the new advertising campaign featuring the twins, Molly and Polly. Guests would preview the new campaign that features an evolving story about book and stationery-loving, Kiwi sisters who can’t get enough of Paper Plus!  

We aimed to host an accessible and integrated event in the form of a business briefing that would increase awareness, build credibility and secure positive positioning of Paper Plus within the media.

Results

The Paper Plus Business Briefing achieved excellent results, with a stellar-turn out from media representatives at the Hyatt in Auckland. In addition to print and online media, the coverage achieved included television and radio interviews. 

An interview of Rob Smith, CEO of Paper Plus, was secured for TV3’s ASB Business on the morning of the briefing. In a one-on-one interview with Michael Wilson, Rob discussed the logic behind the expansion and his vision of growth for Paper Plus. 

We also secured an interview on Radio New Zealand’s Morning Report with Michael Paardekooper, Paper Plus Chairman, who spoke about store refits and the positioning of Paper Plus within a competitive market. 

The Manawatu Standard, Nelson Mail, The Press and Otago Daily Times, were among several local community papers to express their support for Paper Plus’ venture.  Featuring articles about their local stores’ successes, long-term investment and shop refurbishments, the local angle was of wide interest and gained excellent coverage.

The business pages were awash with $22 million dollar headlines, from the National Business Review to the NZ Herald and the Dominion Post, along with online posts featured on yahoo!xtra, stuff.co.nz, stoppress.co.nz and btob.co.nz.

Jack gets stuck into a good book. Image courtesy of North Harbour News, By Caralise Moore

The NZ owned book and stationary group were looking for 12 bright bookworms to become the nation’s kids choice reviewers.  Each reviewer would receive a monthly book pack to be read, reviewed and posted online for other children to access and also critique.

Open to three age categories, 7-10, 11-12 and 13-16 years olds, Paper Plus was inundated with over 500 applicants for this very special job!

Results

The Kids’ Choice Reviewers initiative received great nation-wide community coverage with young readers becoming stars overnight.

The Alexander Communications team spread the word about this exciting and engaging campaign to schools, education publications and to local papers.  Some of the coverage received was seen in the Hutt News, Kapiti Observer, The Daily Post, Education Weekly and in the Mt Roskill Intermediate school notice!

We also secured a 90FM radio interview of one of the selected book reviewers; Jordan Willis-Love, a 10 year old student from Waterloo Primary School got her first taste of fame commenting on her experience and interest in reading and reviewing.

Click on www.paperplus.co.nz/kids-club/reviews/ and enter the interactive website where young readers can read our Kids Choice Reviews, discover new books and post their own comments.

Congratulations to our 12 Kids’ Choice Reviewers and to all the young readers around the nation…keep up the good reading!