Read NZ

St Catherines College (Kilbirnie)

View schoolsView schools

Top 10 team members

  1. 1

    kate

    4,781 pts
    View this team member
  2. 2

    MaggieT

    4,908 pts
    View this team member
  3. 3

    gerripdai

    2,954 pts
    View this team member
  4. 4

    AndreaL

    2,334 pts
    View this team member
  5. 5

    Maximan

    1,612 pts
    View this team member
  6. 6

    Takahe

    786 pts
    View this team member
  7. 7

    GaggyP

    1,104 pts
    View this team member
  8. 8

    Bryony

    645 pts
    View this team member

MaggieT

4,908 pts
(3,786 pages read)

  • Lolita

    By Vladimir Nabokov
    2 stars

    I read this book for the first time when I was 18. All I remember from that reading was that I loved all the lush language, and I was super impressed that a nonnative English speaker could write in English so well. My now-18-year-old daughter is aiming to read all the classic novels that she's always heard referenced in movies and in the news. She wanted to read this one with me. Not a great choice! This book totally gives me the creeps now. Perhaps it's because I've gotten older and more judgy, or perhaps it's because of the particular era I've lived through in the last 20-30 years (an era riddled with entitled (often armed) white men responding to women with violence). Whatever the reason, I can barely stomach this book now. Do we really need to hear about yet another dissatisfied, entitled, older man's sexually predatory and violent thoughts and actions toward young girls??

  • In Our Own Backyard

    By Anne Kayes
    4 stars

    I've been looking for a novel to teach alongside the new(ish) Kiwi film Uproar, and this one fits the bill. This is a YA novel about the recent NZ Covid lockdowns as well as the 1981 Springbok rugby tour. The novel was a page turner. It interleaves scenes from life in NZ during lockdown with a moving coming-of-age story from the NZ protest era of the 1980s. It's a vivid, well-told story. One thing that I found to be less-than-great about the book, though, is that it can seem a bit didactic at times. I like that this is a YA book that grapples with big ideas, but there were some parts where I wished the lessons of the book were conveyed more subtly -- with more nuance, less overtly.

  • I Am, I Am, I Am

    By Maggie O'Farrell
    4 stars

    This book is a memoir told via a series of vignettes that describe the author's brushes with death. I've read two of O'Farrell's historical novels, and I was eager to read this memoir, about which I'd heard good things. As with her novels, this memoir's language is sharp and lovely. This book was a pleasure to read, particularly the chapters about her own childhood and her daughter's childhood. My only gripe is that many of the beautifully recounted stories seem to end abruptly. I wish O'Farrell had offered more commentary to wrap things up -- some comments about how we live our lives without thinking about our deaths, and what this might tell us about how to live or how to die. Or something like that ... just some gesture toward a larger meaning that might link all of these amazing stories.

  • The How and the Why

    By Cynthia Hand
    4 stars

    This was my daughter's favourite book two summers ago, and she wanted me to read it. It's a lovely YA novel about an adopted 18-year-old girl and her path to learn about her birth mother. The story is compelling, the characters are great, and the writing is polished. The ending is very pat, though -- sort of like how in Shakespeare or Jane Austen suddenly it turns out that everyone knows each other and is connected in surprising and kind of implausible ways. It feels a little contrived, but then again, who can say no to a sweet, happy, heartwarming story these days?

  • The Perks of Being a Wallflower

    By Stephen Chbosky
    3 stars

    My daughter wanted me to read this book as it was her favourite when she was in Year 12 (two years ago). She loves everything about the book -- the characters, the way music and books are used throughout the story, the meaningful and provocative ideas. I like the book. It drew me in emotionally, and I wanted to keep reading. I'm not sure it's a great book, though. There are some big questions left hanging -- the biggest one for me being who are these letters all being written to? The entire frame of the book is kind of rickety since we don't come to understand who Charlie is writing to. Also, the big reveal at the end seems to get wrapped up too neatly and quickly. Overall, it's a poignant coming-of-age story, albeit with some holes.

  • A Confederacy of Dunces

    By John Kennedy Toole
    2 stars

    I've been meaning to read this book for decades. Sadly, it was a bit of a let down. It feels a bit one-trick-pony-ish. The humour is repetitive, and the characters, while interesting, are very one-note. The book does get better toward the end when things come to a head and all the threads get woven together. But it's very much of its era, so things having to do with race, gender, and body image that may have sounded OK in the 1960s sound very off now.

  • This Is How You Lose the Time War

    By Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone
    3 stars

    An epistolary sci-fi novel that is beautifully written, this book was gorgeous, but it did not capture my full attention. The prose is rich and resonant, and the premise is interesting, but it all felt a bit precious and cold, and I ended up not caring very much about the two main characters. It's a very quick read, though, so I wasn't too resentful. :)

  • The Luminaries

    By Eleanor Catton
    4 stars

    This is another book that I've owned for years and had not read until now. I read Catton's Birnam Wood earlier this year, and then The Rehearsal after that, both of which I loved, and I was keen to read the rest of Catton's oeuvre, so I finally tackled this doorstop of a book. The ensemble cast of characters is sometimes hard to keep track of, but the plot is riveting, and it's great to read this detailed, suspenseful take on 1860s gold-rush NZ.

  • The Great White Bard

    By Farah Karim-Cooper
    4 stars

    Karim-Cooper dives into how and why Shakespeare's works can be experienced through the lens of race. The scholarship is not terribly new, but the author brings these ideas into the mainstream, which is great. I plan to use many of these concepts as I teach next year and beyond.

  • Perfume

    By Patrick Süskind
    5 stars

    I've owned this book since it came out in English in 1987, and it took me this long to finally read it. My 18-year-old daughter wanted to read it as well, so we read it at the same time and discussed it. It's an amazing book -- gorgeous prose, fascinating characters, deep and disturbing ideas.

  • Sea of Tranquility

    By Emily St John Mandel
    3 stars

    Station 11 was great. This one, though, feels like she's just phoning it in. The premise was not particularly original, plus it was full of holes. There were lovely lines about the passage of time and how we mourn people and places, but overall the book felt thin.

Add pages read