Mt Eden Village Craft Market

 

Had an enjoyable and successful day on Saturday (28 November) at the Mount Eden Village Craft Market. It's good to get face-to-face with real readers who enjoy my books. Only two more Mt Eden markets before Christmas: 5 and 12 December.  

Catching up in London with one of the most important characters in my book 'The Boltons of The Little Boltons'

In 1992 my wife Kath and I spent a little more than six months working as servants in a posh house in South Kensington, London. I was the cook and Kath was the lady's maid.

In a remarkable coincidence the house was in a street called The Little Boltons; it was an amazing experience which I recorded in my book The Boltons of The Little Boltons. 

I have included the book's prologue below but if you have read the book you'll be familiar with the lovely Mariana, the Portuguese house-keeper who became a special friend and adviser. Well, many years have passed and we three are all twenty-three years older. But we have remained friends ever since and during a trip to London this month (November 2015) I was thrilled to catch up with Maria (her real name) again.

Here I am catching up with dear Maria during a trip to London in November 2015

Prologue to The Boltons of The Little Boltons

This is a book of small portraits of some of the many people my wife and I met in the course of a job we shared in a small corner of London for just a few months in nineteen ninety-two. There is no plot. There is nothing in it that is particularly dramatic or exciting. On the contrary it is concerned with the mundane; the daily routine of people who were interesting only because their way of life was strange, unsustainable and all but extinct. I could see that — surely any outsider could — but those concerned, the living subjects of my little portraits, clearly could not. To them everything in their world was perfectly normal. To me living there with them was like being in a dream based not in the present, nor even the past, but in some insubstantial, ethereal other-world that seemed to be fading away even as I lived in it.

Things in this curious other-world appeared perfectly normal. There were always plenty of normal people in busy streets lined with modern cars; red double-decker buses wove patiently through the thick traffic of the narrow Fulham Road and the King’s Road, and black cabs rattled along the side streets taking clever shortcuts to Brompton Road and Cromwell Road. But to me, a visitor from distant and oh-so-different New Zealand, the busy streets felt empty and eerily haunted. Their tall, oversized black-brick houses, looking old, cold and damp, loomed and leaned over their mossy undersized gardens, evoking only the Victorian past. Ordinary, everyday events seemed to move with a purpose now obsolete and meaningless towards a non-existent objective. Some of the little shops looked quaintly old-fashioned and even some of the people in the streets seemed to belong more to another time, another era, like ghosts somewhat bewildered to find themselves disconnected from the place and out of joint with time.

The real names of the people I met are inconsequential and so have not been used; what’s important is that they existed at all and that I chanced to glimpse their ghostly images just as they were fading away. It seemed I was present at — and part of — a sad and somewhat surreal and shabby end of an era, unmarked by history; a metaphor for the demise of what was once the greatest and richest city in the world, the capital of the world’s most powerful empire.

At the New Zealand Independent Book Festival

Spent a great weekend (October 3-4) at the second New Zealand Independent Book Festival on the PublishMe stand with Giles Scott (pictured right), three of my books and some interesting indie neighbours. Excellent to mix again and share ideas with other Indie writers and publishers. I'll be there again next year with my own stand. 

See you at the New Zealand Independent Book Festival, 3-4 October

I'm looking forward to the New Zealand Independent Book Festival this weekend.

I'll be on the PublishMe Stand 38 with PublishMe's Giles Scott.

You'll be able to talk to me about any of my books and all of them will be available for sale at prices especially reduced for the festival.

Festival details:Saturday, 3 October 2015: 12 pm – 4 pm
Sunday, 4 October 2015: 10 am – 4 pm
North Shore Events Centre, Argus Place, Hillcrest, North Shore
FREE ENTRY

http://nzbookfestival.co.nz/

Hope to see you there.  

FREE Kindle download of 'Underneath The Arclight'

As a promotion I have made Underneath The Arclight available again as a FREE download from Kindle here. Feel free to share this offer which will end at 7.00 am on Sunday 20 September (NZT).

Another 5-star review from an Amazon reader. This time for 'My Marian Year'.

Just noticed that an Amazon reader has given a five-star review to My Marian Year. Read it here.

To The White Gate now has THREE five-star reviews on Amazon

Two recent reviews on Amazon have given To The White Gate five stars. A wonderful achievement. That's three five-star reviews for this book. 

The most recent (by 'Shake') on 6 August:

The White Gate, by Robert Philip Bolton, is a gorgeous, saga-like story of one man's grasp on life, growing up and living in Aotearoa (Maori for NEW ZEALAND). Unlike many books about this country which star the country itself, this rich and beautifully told story relies on its finely crafted dialogue and narrative to describe the characters and the locality to such an extent the reader does not want to leave that locality even for 'incidental' happenings such as WW2, so fine is the narrative.

Bolton describes himself as a life long writer. This he ably proves by writing simply and directly, the story of one man growing from childhood to old age, disappointment in love, going to war but having not a clue where or why, just going with the flow; finally, becoming a true fit for his learning, his feelings and his opinions.

But the novel does not meander. With page one the reader is in the safe hands of a master story teller who wastes no words on schmaltz or over-writing emotion. Instead Bolton convinces you of the truth of his writing by making his superbly formed characters achingly real. You want to keep turning the pages of the White Gate not just to see what is next, but because that is what the characters insist that you do. The dialogue and languageing are superb.

This book about Aotearoa, although written with a definite 'national' perspective, exists happily on the international stage of good writing, good characters and superb narrative. An excellent Book Club choice. Strongly recommended.

This one (by 'SusanKL') was posted on 9 June:

Beautifully written, emotionally evocative...lyrical and strong. Felt transported back to the time period; loved getting a taste of life back then, down under. Loved returning to the book every time I put it down; can't recommend it highly enough.

These come after the first (from 'MaxDance') on 6 January: 

This is a great read!

This book takes the form of an elderly man’s recollections, starting with his early teenage years during the 1930s in Auckland, New Zealand.

With a beautiful and expansive public Park, described in exquisite detail, as the anchor or central hub the story gently unfolds through to the turn of the century. There are many observations of the changing nature of life in New Zealand during that period of time and, as an ancient New Zealander myself; I recognised many of them instantly.

Tommy leaves school to work in the Park plant nursery and grows into an intuitive man who is only really content when close to nature in his beloved park. Over the years he befriends a generous mix of flamboyant individuals who mostly have impressive artistic talents. He learns much from them (particularly from one mysterious wee fellow) and the development of knowledge and wisdom that sometimes comes with experience and advancing years is well portrayed.

And the ubiquitous White Gate plays its part with increasing regularity and clarity.Yes, a good well researched book with great attention to detail and many examples of human nature at play in the small group of islands known locally as Aotearoa.

Highly recommended.