We spent a lovely sunny Good Friday out and about: walking at Beningbrough Hall and Topcliffe, lunching in Boroughbridge, touring six of North Yorkshire's red telephone boxes that have been turned into community libraries/book exchanges, and visiting family ....

I found this book on the well-stocked shelves in Tollerton! One of the reasons I chose it from the many books on offer is that I try to read two or three nonfictions a month so am always on the look out for interesting possibilities, which this seems to be! Plus, the box was so full I didn't like to leave one without taking one away in exchange! Well of course I had to, obviously!

Amazon Editorial Review: "When Polly Evans read a survey claiming that the last bastion of masculinity, the real Kiwi bloke, was about to breathe his last, she was seized by a sense of foreboding. Abandoning the London winter she took off on a motorbike for the windswept beaches and golden plains of New Zealand, hoping to root out some examples of this endangered species for posterity. But her challenges didn't stop at the men. Just weeks after passing her test, Polly rode from Auckland's glitzy Viaduct Basin to the vineyards of Hawkes Bay and on to the Southern Alps. She found wild kiwis in the dead of night, kayaked among dolphins at dawn, and spent an evening on a remote hillside with a sheep-shearing gang. As she travelled, Polly reflected on the Maori warriors who carved their enemies' bones into cutlery, the pioneer family who lived in a tree, and the flamboyant gold miners who lit their pipes with five-pound notes, and wondered how their descendents have become pathologically obsessed with helpfulness and Coronation Street. The author of the highly acclaimed It's Not About the Tapas reaches some unexpected conclusions about the new New Zealand man - and finds that evolution has taken some unlikely twists."

I haven't been to New Zealand - but from everything I've read and everything I've heard from people who have been I understand it to be a beautiful country, with some stunning scenery, well worth a visit ....
A travelogue would therefore seem like a good idea - but this isn't it! I'm sure New Zealand would be a wonderful place to travel - but Ms Evans wouldn't be my choice of travelling companion! I didn't like her writing style and found some of her comments and attitudes inexplicable!
I had no sympathy with her starting point, her supposed reason for the journey (and presumably her excuse for an advance from her publishers!) that she was looking for the disappearing Real Kiwi Bloke .....
It might be to someone's taste - but not mine!
Disappointing!

This will be made available at the Bank Holiday Monday Tea Dance for country dancers from across the area. If it's not claimed by one of them, then it'll be left on the fundraising shelves in the entrance hall.

Well over a million people around the world give their books a unique BookCrossing IDentity number (BCID) before sending them out to find new readers. Since the start of the scheme in April 2001 more than eleven million such books have been put into circulation. This is one of them!

Our hope is that we can track the progress of our books once they've left our hands - and that's possible if finders like you visit the website, key in the BCID and leave a comment, however long or short. It's fun, it doesn't have to cost anything, although the site always appreciates donations towards running costs, and you can remain anonymous if you wish. You don't have to join but if you do you'll be able to number and track your own books!