Kirsty Gunn, Martin Edmond and The Piketty Phenomenon

Announcing BWB Texts Events with Kirsty Gunn, Martin Edmond and The Piketty Phenomenon Bridget

Williams Books is delighted to announce nationwide events for the BWB Texts programme in October – please join us!

Monday 6 October, Auckland
Starting in Auckland on Monday 6 October, award-winning authors Kirsty Gunn and Martin Edmond will join publisher Tom Rennie to discuss their BWB Texts at the Auckland Central City Library from 5.30pm. Kirsty Gunn’s Thorndon: Wellington and Home, My Katherine Mansfield Project was published by BWB Texts in March. Martin Edmond’s Barefoot Years will be published in conjunction with these events.

Wednesday 8 October, Wellington
At lunchtime on Wednesday 8 October, Kirsty Gunn will lead a walking tour of Thorndon – on the ground and the book itself! – in partnership with the Randell Cottage Writers Trust and the Katherine Mansfield Birthplace. The focus on Thorndon and Mansfield continues in the evening of Wednesday 8 October when Kirsty Gunn joins Charles Ferrall and Anna Jackson in discussion at the Adam Art Gallery, Victoria University of Wellington.

Thursday 9 October, Wellington
Unity Books Wellington hosts Kirsty Gunn and Martin Edmond, in conversation with Tom Rennie, on the evening of Thursday 9 October to discuss Thorndon, Barefoot Years and BWB Texts. Friday 10 – Sunday 12 October, Wanaka and Queenstown From 10 to 12 October, Kirsty Gunn will attend the Aspiring Conversations festival in Queenstown and Wanaka, with two sessions discussing Thorndon. Monday 13 October, Dunedin For her final New Zealand event on this tour, Kirsty Gunn joins Vincent O’Sullivan in conversation at the Dunedin Public Library.

Thursday 23 October, Wellington
Bernard Hickey will chair an evening panel at the Royal Society in Wellington on Thursday 23 October to discuss Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the Twenty-First Century and its relevance for New Zealand. Panelists will include contributors to The Piketty Phenomenon: New Zealand Perspectives – another BWB Text launching in October.

All of the BWB events are free and open to the public. We will announce more details for each event in the coming weeks on our website http://www.bwb.co.nz/events and Facebook https://www.facebook.com/BWBTexts) at any time for more information. BWB would like to warmly acknowledge the role of the Aspiring Conversations festival in bringing Kirsty Gunn to New Zealand, and the support of Unity Books, VicBooks, UBS Otago, Auckland City Libraries and Dunedin Public Libraries, the Randell Cottage Writers Trust and the Katherine Mansfield Birthplace for these events.

What are BWB Texts?
BWB Texts from Bridget Williams Books are short books on big subjects by great New Zealand writers. Commissioned as short digital-first works, BWB Texts unlock diverse stories, insights and analysis from the best of our past, present and future New Zealand writing.

Thorndon: Wellington and Home, My Katherine Mansfield Project, Kirsty Gunn In this exquisitely written ‘notebook’, Kirsty Gunn explores the meaning of home. Returning to the city of her birth after an absence of thirty years, Gunn’s exploration quickly takes on new forms, developing into a Katherine Mansfield Project. Zig-zagging across Thorndon streets, Wellington hills and New Zealand childhoods, Gunn’s project charts a terrain of emotional attachment and the source of potent imaginative forces. A wonderfully connective work from the winner of the 2013 New Zealand Post Book of the Year.

Published March 2014 http://www.bwb.co.nz/books/thorndon Barefoot Years, Martin Edmond Award-winning author Martin Edmond’s Barefoot Years is a memoir in which the author attempts to re-inhabit the lost domain of childhood. It is evocative and poignant, detailed yet fragmentary, full of half-forgotten things: what may be recovered also reveals that which is gone forever. These remembered beginnings, both familiar and strange, take us back to when a world was being made. This BWB Text forms the first part of a full memoir by Martin Edmond to be published by Bridget Williams Books in 2015.

Publishing October 2014, http://www.bwb.co.nz/books/barefoot-years The Piketty Phenomenon: New Zealand Perspectives Few books have had the global impact of Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the Twenty-First Century. An overnight bestseller, Piketty’s assessment that inherited wealth will always grow faster, on average, than earned wealth has energised debate. Collected in this BWB Text are responses to this phenomenon from a diverse range of New Zealand economists and commentators: Geoff Bertram, Simon Chapple, Donal Curtin, Brian Easton, Max Harris, Tim Hazledine, Bernard Hickey, Prue Hyman, Hautahi Kingi, Gareth Morgan, Matt Nolan, Max Rashbrooke, Susan St John, Robert Wade and Cathy Wylie.

Publishing October 2014, www.bwb.co.nz/books/the-piketty-phenomenon

ENDS

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