Read all about it: All going on a summer holiday

Arrowtown book buyer Miranda Spary continues her regular column about her recommendations for a good read and life as she sees it ...

One of these weeks, nothing is going to happen, and I will be bored batty and scratching my head to find something to write about. But that wasn't this week. This week was my big holiday week.

My darling has gone to Fiji to sort out a batch of the inevitable Fiji problems, so I am having a husband-less week of joy where I get loads of jobs done without that pesky chap's constant interference or suggestions of other better ways of doing things. Real men with serious tool kits and real knowledge about the job turn up and they sort things out - marvellous.

I was planning to be lonely and quiet and reading and gardening but it hasn't turned out that way at all.

The life of a housewife without her husband is one of merrymaking and much mirth.

Especially when the housewife has friends who come to console her during her week of quiet loneliness.

Naughty Sarah-Kate Lynch is performing that sterling duty and to celebrate her fleeting visit, Nicky Martin invited the book club for dinner.

Amazing how when there is a book club get-together that doesn't involve having read a book, everyone is able to turn up.

Mostly our book club discussions are about our Christmas party, with the first six months being taken up with what happened at the last one, and the last six months of the year planning the next one.

This year's is hugely ambitious with a plan to do a bit of the rail trail as well as having dinner. Organising a date that suits everyone is a logistical nightmare.

However, everyone turned up for the earliest Christmas party of 2011.

Evan Cummins and Tom and Margo Pryde had one for our neighbourhood on Saturday, which was still in October.

And what a fabulous time - given that all the guests live in a 1km radius, I was amazed (and a bit embarrassed) how many people I had never met before and I can't wait to meet and greet again.

Apropos of meeting and greeting, a huge sad and sorry farewell to the lovely meet-and-greet ladies at the airport.

Cheryl, Faye and Annette, who have been greeting everyone flying into Queenstown and handing out the Jason's brochures, have been made redundant.

I'm sure everyone will miss being met with their cheery smiles and the "Welcome to Queenstown". It makes you feel so good about arriving, much like being greeted by name by the customs officials as well. Some people I know have had a rather negative experience when dealing with customs officials, and may not be so keen on further contact, but ours are a very friendly bunch.

If you haven't already registered for the New World Wakatipu Trailblazer on November 18, go to www.wakatiputrails.co.nz.

You can cycle or run or walk (or crawl or hop or whatever takes your fancy). If you want to catch up with more than a thousand locals doing the same thing, this is the perfect opportunity. It is so much fun and a brilliant fundraiser for the network of trails that busy, bouncy Kaye Parker is in charge of creating right around the Wakatipu. (I have deleted the "t" that my computer put into "busy" even though it would be equally valid.) Great work, Kaye; the work you do is making our beautiful basin so much easier to get around and enjoy.

Friday sees the opening of FL Bone in the McKenzie and Willis building in Gorge Rd.

They are specialists in cooking and heating appliances and they have very cleverly hired the absolutely splendid and beautiful and talented supreme winner of the Lake Hayes A and P Show baking section to show what these big hot things can really do. Get along and have a look, and more importantly, a taste.

Another super chef has been in town as well.

World famous promoter of New Zealand and all its edible goodness Annabel Langbein was here after hectic globetrotting promoting her newest book, Free Range in the City. It's already No 1 on the New Zealand book sales chart, even though her previous book also is still at No 3 and another Annabel title rounds out the top 10.

She's doing amazing things for our country's image as a provider of clean and green food, and if you know someone who needs "a little inspiration" in the kitchen, you can't do better than give them one of her cooking bibles. Mine are very soiled, which is always a good sign of a much loved cookbook.

I have only read one book this week and already I want to read it again. It's The Bastard of Istanbul, by Turkish author Elif Shafak.

Writing this book nearly got her jailed because the Turkish Government accused her of "insulting Turkishness".

It's a magnificent story with lots of important themes, including the one of ignoring evil in a country's history.

One reviewer said reading the book felt like "holding a sack from which 20 very angry cats are fighting to escape".

And that's exactly how it feels.

There's so much happening on a personal scale as well as in Turkish society.

There are complicated family trees to navigate and difficult names to remember.

The book leaps around the world backwards and forwards in time and it's really tempting to give up reading it, but don't.

Once the two 19-year-old cousins meet, things start to make sense and all of a sudden, you can't stop reading.

All sorts of skeletons are rattling around and the revelations are all shocking and gripping.

You will be infuriated that there is no family tree at the start of the book, but printing this family tree would reveal some very nasty secrets far too soon.

Enormous congratulations to former Cure Kids ambassador Sophie Newbold, who is following in the footsteps of big sisters Frances and Charlotte by scooping three gold medals in the swimming competitions in Invercargill.

Whatever their parents feed them is obviously the stuff of which super athletes are made.

And yarboosucks to Precedence who did not win the Melbourne Cup, even though I had done it the big favour of choosing it.

And thanks to the kind and worried policemen who stopped an overloaded car heading back from Wingatui to Dunedin, and gave my 19-year-old daughter a ride back to her flat, obviously not believing that the older men with her really were her uncles (they were!) and making sure she got home unscathed.