Wednesday's walk in: Whitcoulls

The news of Borders demise over the last few weeks has hit little old New Zealand hard. The country’s number one bookshop, Whitcoulls, is part of the Borders family and as such is suffering the same fate.

There isn’t anything special about Whitcoulls... apart from the fact that it’s always been there. Much like a trusted old friend, Whitcoulls can be counted on to stock all the bestsellers, the classics, the must-reads, and the old favourites. It has travel books, children’s books, short stories and poetry. Its magazine stands are always overflowing, its range of birthday, thank you and wedding anniversary cards will always ensure you find the right message, its the place you go to buy next year’s diary, wrapping paper for the birthday party you’re running late too, and a DVD to add to your favourites collection.

But the best part about Whitcoulls is that it has its own reading challenge. Every few years it comes out with the Whitcoulls top 100 – the top 100 books to be read by everyone, as voted by Whitcoulls customers themselves. From The Time Traveller’s Wife to The Life of Pi, Harry Potter to Jamie Oliver’s cookbooks, the top 100 includes must-reads by Jodi Picoult and Marian Keyes, Dan Brown and Bryce Courtenay as well as those old faithfuls Clan of the Cave Bear, Gone with the Wind, and The PoisonWood Bible.

If you’re looking for inspiration check out Whitcoulls Top 100. There’s also a top 50 for kids as well.

The chain’s catch phrase is “A little bit wonderful every day”. As cheesy as it may sound, I hope somebody comes to the rescue of New Zealand’s Whitcoulls stores, because books do make life that little bit wonderful.

Book #4: Cleo

A little bit about me – I’m not really an animal person. We’ve always had a cat growing up as children, and we even gave Mum & Dad a cat for their 25^th wedding anniversary, but cats, dogs, parrots, hamsters, rats, guinea pigs, budgies or finches – take ‘em or leave ‘em as far as I’m concerned.

Husband would go one step further and say “Animals are for eating”. Now that may not necessarily go down well in all camps, but then he did grow up on a farm in NZ – enough said?

Books about animals? Well, I prefer books about people – we have enough characters among the human race to write about without adding in furry, four-legged characters, but then I’m always open for something new. And something new arrived in my Christmas stocking, late last year. It was called Cleo – a 291 page international bestseller by newspaper columnist, Helen Brown.

On the front cover, Cleo is described by ‘Good Housekeeping’ as “Possibly the next Marley & Me” Given that I am probably the only person (bar husband) who didn’t go through a box of tissues while watching this film, was Cleo - a story about how a small black cat helped heal a family – really going to be a book for me?

Well, it was. Set in the wonderful city of Wellington, Cleo was real. I could imagine the wind howling against the windows, the steep streets walked along, a little black cat waiting patiently in the bedroom window waiting for her owners to return – and all the while, healing a family that had been ripped apart by death, grief, blame and loss.

There was no doubt about it, Cleo had character, and she was certainly the central character in this delightful yet tragic, charming yet sad book, dedicated to those who say they aren’t cat people but know deep down they are.