Whitcoulls Recommends: The Stars are A Million Glittering Worlds and Polkinghorne

The Stars are A Million Glittering Worlds by Gina Butson. This is the first novel from a New Zealand writer, about a young woman who leaves home after a tragedy and travels the world for a year, running away from the hurt and running towards something she’s not quite sure of. Her travels take her to Asia, then Central America where, in Guatemala, she befriends two people who have significant impacts on her life, each in a different way; and though she often thinks about going home she only makes it as far as Tasmania, with so much in her life that’s hard to face up to.

Polkinghorne by Steve Braunias. From one of our finest writers this is the definitive book on the trial of the century – Philip Polkinghorne, being accused of the murder of his wife Pauline. Much has already been written about it – and of course there’s the TV documentary which many people may have seen- but for anyone who has the slightest bit of interest in the case, this book is a must read. It’s thorough, insightful, critical and compassionate, and the last chapter in particular is extraordinary. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:06):
You're listening to the Sunday Session podcast with Francesca Rudkin
from News Talks edb.

Speaker 2 (00:13):
Joe McKenzie, good morning.

Speaker 3 (00:15):
Hello.

Speaker 2 (00:16):
Tell me about this new book from Gina Butson. Yeah,
Gina is a local writer. I'm not sure where she lives,
but she did her ma and creative writing in Wellington
and her new book is called The Stars Are a
Million Glittering Worlds, which is a lovely title, and it's
the story of a young woman named Thea who at
the beginning of the book is trying to get to

(00:37):
grips with a tragedy in her life, which eventually sends
her out into the world, running away from it, but
running towards what. She's not quite sure, so she buys
herself in around the World ticket and she goes to
Asia and then to Central America and ends up in Guatemala,
where she meets a couple of other young travelers and
the three of them develop a very close friendship. They're

(00:58):
all outsiders in a small community. But then she decides
to move on. She's got her eyes homeward. There's a
lot of themes about home in this book, the importance
of a home, of being away from it, wanting to
get back, but she moves on. She's still traveling when
tragedy strikes again and everything is just too hard to confront.
So on her way home, she decides to call into

(01:21):
Tasmania to catch up with one of the people with
whom she had this close friendship in Guatemala, and as
I say, she's got her eyes on New Zealand, but
she never quite makes it back. It's a book about
being responsible when things go bad and finding how hard
things are when you're out in the world on your
own and you don't really have a place to be

(01:42):
that feels like the right place for you. I imagine
Geena's done a lot of traveling.

Speaker 3 (01:47):
I imagine so and in fact genuine yes, And in
the acknowledgments at the end of the book she does
reference some people that she knew when she traveled.

Speaker 2 (01:56):
Ah, there we go, right. You're also going to talk
about Steve Braunis's new book, Polkinghorn, And of course Steve
Bornis was on the show last weekend. He is so
good at writing true crime.

Speaker 3 (02:07):
Yeah. I think I've said this before, but I think
that Steve is one of our finest writers. He is
quite extraordinary he's always eloquent, he's incredibly compassionate, and he's
very human in the work that he writes. Of course,
people will know that he covered the Philip Pulkinghorn trial
for the New Zealand Herald, and like a lot of

(02:27):
other people, I read every single thing he wrote on it.
So when this book was announced, I thought, maybe this
is just going to be a rehash of those Herold columns,
But actually it isn't. There's a lot more color and insight.
For example, there's a chapter on a lunch that he
had with Madison Ashton when she came to Auckland after

(02:47):
the trial, and of course lots of us wanted to
know why she didn't appear as a witness in the
trial and what she had to say. Well, she says
quite a lot to Steve during this lunch, So there's
lots of additional stuff in there that you probably won't
have read anywhere else. And I will say that if
you have even the faintest glimmer of interest in this
case and that trial, which I know thousands of us did,

(03:09):
then you have to get hold of this book and
read the last chapter.

Speaker 2 (03:12):
You were quite shocked by parts of this book I
fear to say it, but you don't. You know, you've
read a few books. Jan takes a bit to shock you,
but you were quite taken back with some of the
revelations in this This is the conversation. Yes I was, Yeah,
I was, okay. So that is Steve Raunius's Polkinghorn and
the first book we spoke about with the stars are

(03:32):
A Million Glittering Worlds by Gina Buttson. We'll talk next week.

Speaker 3 (03:36):
See you then.

Speaker 1 (03:37):
For more from the Sunday session with Francesca Rudkin, listen
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