The Athenaeum Blog

Iona’s book launch went off without a hitch.  She had a good crowd and sold a lot of books which was great to see. I have included a number of photo’s I took on the night.

It is always slightly anxiety provoking holding an event.  After the initial excitement of coming up with what you think is a good idea, you start to harbour doubts as the nominated date comes closer and all the ways that things could go wrong begin to haunt you.  So I am delighted and slightly smug… Read More

Sadly ill health forced Vincent O’Sullivan to pull out and we missed his personal insights but Phillippa Duffy from the UBS stepped up and shared the story of how she came to Dan Davin.  Her passion for Davin’s writing got us off to an electrifying start. Fiona Farrell shared the story of how as a… Read More

Jennifer Lane’s first novel All Our Secrets has won the 2018 Ngaio Marsh Crime Awards.  It is sitting on our shelves just waiting for you to take it out.

When we decided to do weekly lunchtime readings I thought how it would happen was that people would come, listen to the reading and then leave but something interesting has started to happen. During the reading everyone (including the reader) goes into a type of revelry and then when the reading is over we all… Read More

We have been busy removing shelves and putting them against the walls to open the space up.  It is looking fantastic (if I do say so myself) even though we are still part way through replacing the books.  This is all part of a grand scheme – more of which later…

You may have noticed that the website is looking very different. We have updated it for a more elegant (we think) look. Let us know what you think.

The first books for 2018 are Chappy by Patricia Grace, The Bone People by Keri Hulme and Drawn Out by Tom Scott. The first ABC meeting for 2018 will be on March the 8th – so see you there.

The event In Conversation with Fiona Farrell was a great success and for those of you who missed out click on the You Tube NZ link. https://youtu.be/oTVDMYBfMOs

As part of the Dunedin Writers & Readers Festival the Athenaeum hosted readings by two finalists in 2017 Ockham New Zealand Book Awards.  Barbara Brookes who actually won the Illustrated Non-Fiction category with A History of New Zealand Women and Emma Neale who missed out in the fiction category for Bill Bird.  Emma who is… Read More