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Ryan Bridge: Books I've been reading lately · Early Edition with Ryan Bridge

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Look, I don't mind confessing to you this morning, dear listener,
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: that I don't read many books. I do listen to
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: audio books. I do read on holiday. But who has
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: the time to actually sit down and get stuck in
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: properly to an entire book these days? People don't have
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: time to watch full movies anymore, do they? They're all
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: three hours long. And you've got to pick up your
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: phone every five seconds. You've got to get to your
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: average one billion phone pickups per hour, don't you? So
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: there's not a lot of time. But I did happen
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: to stumble across one of the best reads and one
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: of the best books, in my opinion, in New Zealand.
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: Best reads I've had in a while. Best read I've
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: had in a few years, actually, in Barry Crump's A
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: Good Keen Man. It's unpretentious. It's funny. It's outrageous. And
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: it paints a picture of New Zealand and New Zealanders
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: that I think most of us can relate to and
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: most of us aspire to. We generally get along with
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: each other in New Zealand. We generally call a spade
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: a spade. We like to joke around. We like to
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: take the piss. We like to take the mickey. We
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: don't like people who bullshit or cheat. We like a
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: fair fight. We love the bush. We love the beach.
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: We love the beautiful place that we get to call
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: home every day. I've now finished two other Crump books,
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: getting through an audio version of some short stories as well,
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: and I'm just loving it. What an adventure. If you
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: haven't read or listened to them, you should. In fact,
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: they should be compulsory reading for anyone wanting to become
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: a New Zealander, I reckon. I'm aware it's an election
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: period that we're in right now. There's a lot of
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: fighting going on, let's be honest. There's a lot of
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: whinging going on. But really, if you take a step back,
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: if you look at the people around you, look at
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: your neighbours, look at your mates, look at your country...
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: We're not doing too bad, are we? We've got a
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: lot to be grateful for and Crumpy was every day.
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: For more from Early Edition with Ryan Bridge, listen live
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: to Newstalk ZB from 5am weekdays or follow the podcast
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: on iHeartRadio.