Arrowtown book buyer Miranda Spary continues her regular column about her recommendations for a good read and life as she sees it . . .
It's been hard to sleep in this week with the sounds of loud sex every morning. Spring certainly is busy if you are a bird, and there seems to be an awful lot of birds this year.
Glad I am not a "Mrs Bird" - that head-pecking business, especially in the duck family, looks singularly unromantic. And painful.
No wonder they are all making such a lot of noise. That's enough about sex for this week.
Annoyingly Thin (and annoyingly generous) sister took me to Sydney for a birthday treat last week.
As I am known for being pretty highbrow, she took me to a particularly intellectual show called Avenue Q.
It's the story of what happened to the Sesame St and Muppets gang once they grew up and are forced to confront the hard issues of real life, such as their sexuality, unemployment, racism and relationship problems.
Miss Piggy is now a stripper called "Lucy B. Slut", and the Bert character sings a song called I have a girlfriend, she lives in Canada when trying to prove his heterosexuality.
We laughed until we cried, and I can only tell you that if you were a Muppets fan, you will love this.
Sydney was fantastic, but home is better, and it was lovely being greeted at Queenstown customs and immigration with a first-hand update on how the trivia quiz ended.
My sister says she never gets that sort of welcome at Heathrow.
Father's Day is this Sunday. I love my Dad, despite his many failings. One of the biggest is his lack of cooking skills.
I am considering sending him to the dads' cooking class with the fab cook from the Rees next Saturday, where dads are taught to make a three-course meal. You can email qthannas@xtra.co.nz for more info on the course.
I have inherited all my cooking talents from Dad, which is pretty disappointing. In fact, I was also recently told that I not only cooked like, but looked like him.
I was devastated - I think I have told you before that the last thing a nearly 50-year-old woman having anxious moments about getting old needs is to be told is she looks like a 77-year-old man.
I've got terrific news for everyone who loved The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and The Girl Who Played with Fire.
Book three - The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest is out on October 1.
It is currently at the movies and you may well have read some of the stories about the problems the actors (Jamie Foxx and Robert Downey jun) faced during the filming.
Steve is a journalist with the LA Times who came across Nathaniel Ayers playing his violin on Skid Row.
He was playing well, probably too well for a homeless nutter.
The next time Steve saw him, he discovered that Nathaniel had been a student at the Juilliard Music Academy.
Steve got hooked on helping this brilliant musician, whose life should have been a lot more blissful than it was.
All his talent couldn't make up for the schizophrenia which wrecked everything.
Steve found that mental health problems aren't just tough on the person who has them, but on everyone who loves them and wants to help.
Nathaniel is very weird but very wise. You can't help but like him, even though it must have been infuriating for Steve having to deal with the completely different way Nathaniel had of seeing the world.
I can't wait to see the movie, as the life Nathaniel leads on the streets is one I hope I only ever see on the big screen, and never have to experience for myself.
I am sorry I haven't replied to anyone lately, but life is calming down a little so I will be better organised soon.
Apparently, this column is online each Friday if you are trying to read it when you aren't in Queenstown - the Queenstown Times is only distributed in the Wakatipu Basin.
You just go to www.odt.co.nz and click on the Queenstown Lakes link, key terms "Miranda" and "good read". Do keep emailing me - I love hearing all your suggestions.
