Books with Joan MacKenzie: Better the Blood & Under a Big Sky

Whitcoulls Joan MacKenzie joined The Sunday Session with Francesca Rudkin to discuss this week's recommended books. LISTEN ABOVE   Better the Blood by Michael Bennett. Kiwi writer, he was involved in the Teina Pora case and wrote an excellent book about that. This one is fiction – a thriller set in Auckland based on the concept of Utu. A Maori Chief was murdered by six British soldiers in early colonial times, and a descendant of the Chief decides to avenge their deaths many years later – by going after a descendant of each of those six soldiers. The lead character in the book is Hana, a Maori cop who at the start of her career was involved in a Bastion Point type standoff, where she was sent to drag protestors from the site of disputed land and has been haunted ever since by what she had to do that day – and of course it turns out that the modern killings are connected.. This is a really skillfully put together thriller with huge local resonance.  Under a Big Sky by Tim Saunders . A Manawatu farmer with the soul of a poet – this is a superb story of life on the land, under the big sky, the importance and value of every living thing - except wasps – having endless respect for the land and what it gives to us and the animals farmed on it, and the need to respect heritage and what came before and what will come after. You certainly don’t have to be interested in the rural life to want to read it – it’s beautifully observed writing about valuing the land we walk on, the air we breathe, and our interconnectedness. I wish I could write like him! See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.