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  Yesterday I discovered my perfect entree into NZ Lit. It is a wonderfully edited tome of fifty-two top Kiwi authors, novelists to be precise, who are reputedly the best read NZ has produced in the last two hundred years. Of course Kevin Ireland, the editor, covers his tracks by explaining several notable omissions, but the final result, to put it in today's much maligned English, is awesome. 

New Zealand seems to punch far above its weight in the writing scene, and I suppose the recent Booker Prize winner exemplifies this. This great book, in large format, called simply 'The New Zealand Collection', cover printed in New York Times font, also boasts an excellent print of a famous Kiwi artist to accompany each novel. The editor, or his protege, gives a short précis of each book, just to tempt the reader to read further, as he has done to me. So I will now begin my quest to find them all, at least, one exemplar of each. I have already started with the gay Maori writer Witi Ihimaera, and with Katherine Mansfield, I will have only fifty to go. 

Am writing this in the city library, in below photos, and I am taking out with me today, 'Something Childish, and other stories', by iconic female writer Mansfield, and 'Nights in the Garden of Spain', a rapturously entitled novel by Ihimaera.

 I won't be in bed early tonight, that's for sure. My future reading in Wellington is assured for the next twelve months.