Old Bucky & Me: Dispatches from the Christchurch Earthquake 2nd Edition
Author(s): Jane Bowron (author)|Pauline O'Regan (Foreword) (Author)
Publisher: Awa Press
Publication Date: 1 Feb. 2012
Edition: 2nd
Language: English
Print length: 272 pages
ISBN-10: 1877551406
ISBN-13: 9781877551406
Book Description
On February 22, 2011, journalist Jane Bowron had been living in her hometown of Christchurch, New Zealand, when the city was struck by a magnitude 6.3 earthquake, only five months after a 7.1 earthquake. While the first quake had caused damage but no fatalities, the second became the ultimate horror story: entire suburbs were decimated, houses collapsed, hillsides fell away, and people were killed or trapped in rubble and raging fires. As the historic city lay in ruins, Bowron managed to find a phone, call her newspaper, and deliver a moving human account of the scene around her. For the next three months, she continued to send regular dispatches of everyday life being lived in the most extraordinary of circumstances as citizens struggled to cope with grief, loss, and the new reality. Brilliantly written and suffused with unexpected humor, this account provides a rare look into life after devastation.
Editorial Reviews
Review
“An entertaining read with wry observational humor and insight of what it was like to be in Christchurch during this time.” —Tomorrow’s Schools Today
“Bowron has given us an intelligent, articulate and moving record of one of the major events in our history.” –Paul Little,
North and South
“Bowron hits just the right note, with wry observational humor and insight. She doesn’t big-note emotionally but the pain, bewilderment, and determination to keep on going are all there.” –Peter Wells, author,
Lucky Bastard
“Obligatory reading . . . Bowron was uniquely placed, not simply because she was living in the central city, but also because she had just the journalistic eye you wanted at such a time: game (setting forth on her bicycle), wry, witty, and wonderfully observant, immune to bullshit and platitudes, conveying the fullest sense of life . . . Columnist of the year at next year’s media awards? [Bowron] better be.” –Guy Somerset,
Listener
“Quite simply, it is a remarkable contemporary record of a major event in this country’s history.” –Abbie Jury,
Waikato Times
About the Author
Jane Bowron is a freelance journalist based in Christchurch, New Zealand. A TV columnist for the Dominion Post and a columnist for the Press, she has been a TV reviewer for the Evening Post, the Sunday Star-Times, and National Radio’s Nine to Noon. She is the author of the poetry collection Scenes Away from the Crime.
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