Joan's Picks: One of Those Mothers and Did I Ever Tell You This?

The Sunday Session with Francesca Rudkin

One of Those Mothers by Megan Nicol Reed, New Zealand author. She’s a great observer of middle class life and this is set in a suburb called Point Heed, where everyone knows everyone else and they all live nice middle class lives with, every so often, a hint of hypocrisy. When a man amongst them is convicted of the possession and distribution of child pornography and granted name suppression, they all start to suspect one another and things get very tense. Throw into that mix the three families who have for years holidayed together, but during the last summer things went badly wrong between them and now there’s a huge rift in friendships, and in the community. This is a book for fans of Liane Moriarty and Jodi Picoult - a really well drawn group of regular people with a moral crisis at the core.

Did I Ever Tell you This? By Sam Neill. Sam was diagnosed with an aggressive form of blood cancer and realised he might be running out of time so decided to get his memoir down while he still could - and it gave him something to do during the treatments. It’s the story of the son of an English Army Major who grew up in Dunedin (though was sent away to boarding school at 8 years old) and has spent much of his life working around the world in over 150 movies. There’s a lot of name dropping, famous friends, reflections on some of the films and a real sense of disbelief that he’s had the life he’s had - and it’s warm and funny and very entertaining, with some terrific anecdotes. He’s in remission now but will need to have chemo once a month for the rest of his life. It’s an interesting read.

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