Homebush, the homestead in Dean's Bush

Actually, the homestead in Deans' Bush is Riccarton House, the rather confusingly-named Homebush is on another Deans family property near Darfield, very close to the epicentre of the quake.

As far as I know, Riccarton House is OK, although I'm guessing it may have?

Extra interest for me growing up near Masterton, where my oldest sister taught at Lydia's school for a couple of years, and?

As far as I know, Riccarton House is OK, although I'm guessing it may have lost its chimneys.

Yes, Bob and I went to check and it seems to be okay. It does have at least one chimney down (maybe two?) as you?

Ah, Canadians. The New Zealanders of the north

Heh, thank you so much, we are collectively flattered.

Though I feel compelled to admit in general we are a little more wussy and your menfolk are a little more manly than ours.

. . . geneology which too brings out the ferret of the past.

The most startling aspect of which (for me, though with a little reflection it shouldn't have been) was how many of the ancestors were illiterate. Like, signing marriage, baptism, and birth registers with their mark ('X'), which?

all lots believed that words had power.
I do not think they were wrong.

Thanks Islander, much appreciated. I'm reminded of the story of how, when the first newspaper was published in the Bay of Islands, local Maori petitioned for an edition to be produced in the language of the?

(I suppose we would need to know the call numbers of those particular shelves to be able to figure out the true intensity of the blow.)

IIRC those pictures were taken on the third floor, which houses geology, maps, English and other literature, and the records of the New Zealand?

a great blow for Australian mining, people who can find faultlines, and future book reviewers, then. Not quite sure what that would have implied.

In other words, me and my friend Steve?

"I must go down there and arrange them by colour while everyone else is busy,

Oh dear......I remember a flatmate (female) who hung the washing out by colour AND by shape. Lalalalalala.

My grandparents had another Lockwood house put next to theirs without any internal walls to hold all of my Opa's books. Those bits of cardboard and paper and words are sacred in my family.

My husband talked me into buying a Kindle. One of his grounds was that I'll be?

I must go down there and arrange them by colour...

you can arrange your web browsing by colour too...

I won't feel properly at home here until I have a few more over-full bookshelves, and we don't even have half of one full yet.

Although I'm with you on the sentiment, having been in the US (and shipped a lot of books back because I knew someone who had?

It is perfectly possible to be a competent reader and not be comfortable signing your own name . . .

I have a copy of my great (to the power of 3) grandmother's signature as a witness from the 1838 marriage register of one of her many sisters. While it?

My 11 year old keen reader adores Footrot Flats too, though most of his little mates have never heard of the series. Their loss, say I.

My younger brother got a really terrifying amount of his education about the birds and the bees from the dogs and the sheep of?

__Intellect Directory of World Cinema: Australia & New Zealand is still available as a limited FREE download. Take a?

There is something about physical book shelves filled with books – it's like looking at art. It induces a feeling that is quite hard to describe to those who don't get it.
"Why don't you?

Does anyone else compulsively (but discreetly) go to parties check out their host's bookshelves, records and DVD collections? Don't know if I entirely trust people who don't have a book in the house.

Books – All. The. Time. And often from a "I wonder if I can borrow this" perspective.?

Friday being a sharing and caring day, some of you might be interested . . .

Gee thanks Geoff, much appreciated. A very handsomely done PDF it is too.

Don't know if I entirely trust people who don't have a book in the house.

I feel much the same about a house without a TV set!

Still, if the only books were Mein Kampf and gun manuals, I would feel a bit uneasy. :-)

Want to live somewhere? Learn the language as soon as you get there so you'll fit in.

My maternal grandparents, originally Scottish and Irish, having lived in South India and learned passable Hindi, arrived in NZ in 1934 to settle with their young family. They were expecting to learn Maori,?

But it seems that colonial New Zealand was very big on reading

This is definitely what I've gathered as well.

Some colonists were probably sent the latest bestsellers hot off the press by the authors.

And houses without books or pot plants or photos/paintings/wall art of some sort always seem a little, well, barren to me.

Gee thanks Geoff, much appreciated. A very handsomely done PDF it is too.

Agreed. Nice job, Geoff.

Does anyone else compulsively (but discreetly) go to parties check out their host's bookshelves, records and DVD collections?

I find the books that people have on the shelves interesting, but I don't think I'd assume it says that much about who they are. For many years I carried about 6?

I don't think I'd assume it says that much about who they are

Since we converted every CD in the house to incorporeal files and biffed them in the garden shed, people might possibly assume from a brief glance around our house that we don't like music. Which would be?

Does anyone else compulsively (but discreetly) go to parties check out their host's bookshelves, records and DVD collections? Don't know if I entirely trust people who don't have a book in the house.

I totally do this before deciding how much closer I want to get to a person.

And of course the mainstay of every eight or nine year old's library: the graphic novels, especially Calvin & Hobbes, which he has entirely from memory, chapter and verse, like a good evangelist, and reads daily for inspiration and consolation.

I love Calvin and Hobbes. I really chuckled at the idea?

A very handsomely done PDF it is too.

That is one reason I like working with Intellect Books. They provide free access to their publications in this way (the Japan collection may still be available) and have a policy of providing all their publications available without charge to over 20?

I totally do this before deciding how much closer I want to get to a person.

This, this, this. I picked the twelve books I did get to take very, very carefully based not only on what I would re-read but what they would say to fellow bookshelf scanners. Of?

Don't know if I entirely trust people who don't have a book in the house.

Amen. They are of another planet. Sometimes I look around these families and wonder what the hell the kids do at night or in the weekends. Usually the house does not look lived in either.?

Kinda makes sense though I'm not sure anything on my book shelf balances my remixed CD of Kylie

Someone revoke this man's kiwi passport.

I never bloody get past chapter three of any Dickens

Danielle: Seeing you have such impeccable taste in music, you should persist with CD. Have a go at The Pickwick Papers for a barrel of laughs. Dickens and Greene are the writers I turn to, when I yearn to spurn?

Someone revoke this man's kiwi passport.

I bought it for the remix of Can't Get You Out of My Head with Blue Monday – well cool (unless you're a die-hard Joy Division fan in which case... I'll get my hat).

Don't know if I entirely trust people who don't have a book in the house....

...but you can't really ask to browse their Kindle
or scan their iPad or hard drives...
...perhaps these devices should have a holographic projector that throws up a mock book case...

I have what is probably termed an 'aspirational bookshelf'. It's a bit misleading to people if they want to hold a book-specific conversation, but it does show what many of my interests?

What do you think?" he demanded impetuously.
"About what?"
He waved his hand toward the book-shelves.
"About that. As a matter of fact you needn't bother to ascertain. I ascertained. They're real."
"The books?"
He nodded.
"Absolutely real--have pages and everything. I thought they'd be a nice durable cardboard. Matter?

Thanks for the free book link, Geoff – it's a real treat.

And The Room.?

my remixed CD of Kylie

I once heard an interview with Nick Cave in which he said his bestselling album ever was Murder Ballads, not what you'd expect, but of course it's because of his duet with Kylie Minogue on Where the Wild Roses Grow. Cave says he's sure every?

Lucy – I really need to know what those twelve books are now.

Lois McMaster Bujold (Cordelia's Honor), Jacqueline Carey (Kushiel's Dart), Lindsey Davis (The Silver Pigs), Georgette Heyer (The Grand Sophy), Guy Gavriel Kay (Tigana), Margaret Mahy (A Door In The Air), Robin McKinley (The Blue Sword), Terry Pratchett?

Jacqueline Carey (Kushiel's Dart)

Dear Lucy,

I love you very much.

Any locals asked you about the cookbook yet?

We haven't actually had any locals over yet due to a sad lack of things for them to sit on. However, we're getting a couch today, so that should change shortly.

Dear Lucy,
I love you very much.

Thought you might like?

As for reading in colonial New Zealand, it was a hugely important aspect?

Lucy – I don't know that Margaret Mahy book you mentioned – would it be way beyond the ken of an 11 year old? We are always on the lookout for the next read ..

Lucy – I don't know that Margaret Mahy book you mentioned – would it be way beyond the ken of an 11 year old? We are always on the lookout for the next read ..

Ooooh, it'd be just perfect! It's a book of short stories – fairytales, really -?

Tigana was the first book my partner lent me and The Blue Sword is one I read as a young teen and has stuck?

Well, exactly; you get them out from the library so you can find out if you want to buy them.

And after reading them, the answer is almost always "no". Either I read it, so that's done, or I didn't want to read it, so that's done, or I didn't?

So basically I pretty much only buy books that can't be got from the library.

But *everything* can be got from the library, thanks to the wondrousness of interlibrary loan!

I must say I don't really buy books anymore either, mainly because we don't have room for ANYTHING in this?

the almost complete run of Landfalls in one of the bedrooms over the beds (that I should earthquake-proof somehow)

What a way to go, under the weight of nationalist academic literature..

This local body election a few off us have got together to campaign to keep these local branches, precious civic spaces, which always seem to be under threat these days

Heh. That's great to see!!!!! I am "famous" in Pinehaven for being one of the front-people (frontspeople?? frontmen??) when the?

This month?s fave How It Works feature: how to mod that Nerf gun that your mother can?t quite believe she bought for you at Wal-Mart.

You bought the gatling gun, didn't you? :)

Reassure yourself with the thought that your lad will be learning quite a lot of practical electronics?

how many of the ancestors were illiterate. Like, signing marriage, baptism, and birth registers with their mark ('X'), which was then annotated and endorsed by some official or church functionary

Two of My great (x4) grandfathers witnessed land transactions in the Hokianga in the 1830s and both had?

(I'm bad and came back from an 8 day trip in?

I never bloody get past chapter three of any Dickens

I couldn't either, until travelling in Germany.

Classics were the easiest and most affordable thing to buy, and because I wasn't saturated in English, I had room to take in Dickens. I had no papers, newspapers, TV, or work. If?

Classics were the easiest and most affordable thing to buy, and because I wasn't saturated in English, I had room to take in Dickens. I had no papers, newspapers, TV, or work. If you work with words all day then Dickens is a bit much at night.

It's important to?

Ah, you're one of those funny people who doesn't re-read books

I have gone that way recently. But even if I turn back, I'm thinking nowadays that they're still better off down at the library between my readings.

Definitely the library has helped with a few decisions on what books?

(Damn.)

The main reason I read it was because one of my favourite SF authors, Connie Willis, recommended?

I'm not sure I approve of this conversation taking place while I'm away. In fact, I'm pretty sure I don't. For shame, y'all!

(Damn.)

Yes, you know I'm not in the room, and you have this wonderful conversation. Not the done thing.