The Mermaid Chronicles, by Megan Dunn, Rumbles, by Elsa Richardson and Ngā Hapa Reo by Hona Black and Te Aorangi Murphy-Fell. Photo / Supplied
The Mermaid Chronicles, by Megan Dunn, Rumbles, by Elsa Richardson and Ngā Hapa Reo by Hona Black and Te Aorangi Murphy-Fell. Photo / Supplied
The Mermaid Chronicles
By Megan Dunn
“I’d never imagined myself as a mother. A mermaid: hell yes.” The Mermaid Chronicles (Penguin), arts writer Megan Dunn’s third book after Tinderbox and Things I Learnt At Art School, is a “midlife mer-moir”. It concerns many things mermaid and quite a lot ofthings midlife – becoming a mother at 40 and her roles as partner and daughter. The writing is a mix of the poignant and droll – in a fertility exam her fibroids remind her of gallery furniture – as we follow Dunn’s water-spirit journey, including her obsession with Daryl Hannah and the movie Splash, Skyping and meeting mermaid experts and entertainers, the specifics of making tails and so on.
The Mermaid Chronicles by Megan Dunn. Photo / Supplied
Rumbles
By Elsa Richardson
Rumbles, by Elsa Richardson (Wellcome Collection) is a “curious history of the gut” in a couple of senses. Richardson, a British academic, is endlessly inquisitive about the many aspects of our digestive system, from physiological to philosophical to linguistic: we have gut feelings, have guts, bust a gut. There’s some sense to this: the enteric nervous system, a neuronal network in our gastrointestinal system, is like a second brain, autonomously directing our digestion. Like its subject, the book takes many interesting twists and turns, but is well worth the trip.
Rumbles by Elsa Richardson. Photo / Supplied
Ngā Hapa Reo
By Hona Black and Te Aorangi Murphy-Fell
You’ll probably be some way along your Māori language journey before you need Ngā Hapa Reo (Oratia), out on Monday, September 2. The bilingual guide aims to help learners with common errors, such as the difference between hinga or taka for something falling. Some of these have snuck in via the influence of English, which has different idiomatic and structural rules. Are these so entrenched, ask authors Hona Black and Te Aorangi Murphy-Fell, that it’s too late? It’s up to speakers, they say, and worth the discussion.
Ngā Hapa Reo by Hona Black and Te Aorangi Murphy-Fell. Photo / Supplied
