Arrowtown book buyer Miranda Spary continues her regular column about her recommendations for a good read, and life as she sees it ...
I'm writing this from Christchurch, where I have been shaken and stretched and stuffed for the weekend.
Shaken because not a day has gone past without at least one earthquake.
I hadn't been here since last March and it is a completely different place these days.
Some of the grand old houses are just slowly slumping back into the ground.
They have been red-stickered and left to their own devices until the demolition teams have time to deal with them.
With the daily shakes, a little bit more wrinkling and crumpling happens and the odd balcony drops off.
Their windows droop at crazy angles and their once-manicured gardens are doing the wild thing.
It's sad to see them going, but there's a whole lot of new things coming.
The pop-up container shopping centre is amazing.
It's worth coming up here to see it colourful and busy and full of lovely shops and it has a great energy.
I was also taken on a guided tour of The Colombo - a once dreary suburban mall in Sydenham that has been given a serious makeover since the earthquake and its very young management team is creating a much more vibrant space with sexy bars and live music.
There's a lot that's positive about the horrible big shake-up Christchurch got, and it's going to be fascinating seeing how the new version evolves.
The people who are staying put and the people who are moving in to this shaky, shaken city are passionate about it and the huge changes are attracting some very creative, clever people.
At a teacher training course I was on once, we were discussing change and people's ability to accept it.
One of the examples they gave for assessing people's reaction to change is when a flight they are on is diverted and they have to spend half a day or so in a different city.
Some people just accept it and wait patiently reading their book, others rant and rave and still others go and ask if they can have vouchers to go into town for a look around.
Change is always stressful and unplanned, unwanted change particularly so, but people who learn to look for the upside definitely get the best out of it.
My real reason for coming to Christchurch was to go to Akaroa for a yoga retreat.
It's been five years since I last visited and the earthquake has done a lot of damage and a lot of good there, as well.
With Lyttelton out of action for the cruise ships, Akaroa is reaping an excellent harvest of tourist dollars instead.
Of course, those resistant to change are grumbling, because (and although!) this town of 500 is getting more than 80 cruise ships visiting this summer and the streets and shops and restaurants are full with thousands of tourists happy to enjoy their pretty town and spend a lot of money.
I was very happy to be one of them.
With two hours of twisting and turning myself into strange shapes each morning and evening, I had the whole day to explore it all.
For such a tiny population, they must have almost as many cafes and restaurants and bars per capita as Queenstown, and we are very well catered for in that respect.
I should have been coming home lighter and tauter than before, but my greedy self got carried away with it all.
I'm returning home to finish Walter Isaacson's book on Apple founder Steve Jobs.
It's SO heavy and SO long.
He was the king of making things tiny and perfect with nothing surplus.
Mmmm, this book is NOT a Steve Jobs product.
It's fascinating in bits but could have done with a lot of pruning.
I'm a great lover of maverick youngsters - the ones who don't fit the mould, but this hugely bestselling book praises them so highly, I am nervous there will be a new generation of children growing up whose parents think their bad manners and difficult behaviour mean they are going to be the new Steve Jobs.
I hope not - even if you are a genius, there's no need to be bad mannered.
