Doomsday scares take two main forms. There are Christians who think in terms of the last judgement, the rapture and the return of Jesus; and there are secular end-timers who think the world could be hit by a stray meteor, invaded by aliens or zapped by freak radiation. There are fervent believers of both kinds who feel an urgent need to tell the world of their fears in the hope that the doubters will believe and be saved. Shaw recalls those days as some of her darkest. A suicide attempt and a stint in a psychiatric hospital followed.

William Miller’s supporters have left behind detailed accounts of the day of disillusionment when, having sold all their possessions, many of them waited patiently for the lights in the dawn sky heralding the coming of Christ. On 21 May last year the followers of the Californian radio evangelist, Harold Camping, followers waited with similar anticipation. Their social network messages flew around the world as they watched for the second coming of Christ from New Zealand to the USA. Utterly charming and filled with equal measures of heartbreak and humour, Ruth Shaw's memoir will have you booking the first flight to New Zealand to share a cup of tea at her Wee Bookshops. Shaw has been a cook, a nurse, sailor and world traveller, and enduredThis book will definitely make you want to go on a roadie to the bottom of the country to visit her two wee bookshops. I am already trying to work out how to make it happen. After eight months of mostly cheerful thumbs-ups, Evening Book Club has finally tasted the distinct pleasure of the universal, full-throated pan. Kleeman’s sort-of mystery, set in a fire-ravaged Los Angeles where synthetic WAT-R flows from every tap, barely topped 50 out of a 100 in our scores, with many folks happy to go quite a bit lower. This made for a spirited discussion indeed—there’s nothing quite like the glee of sharpening your knives alongside fellow indignant readers. Shaw's writing is pragmatic and restrained; her voice is so strong and assured that when grief appears you gasp at its intrusion and your heart stops a second." --Alexa Dretzke, Readings Hawthorn They gained permission to put the cross in Te Ānau’s cemetery, with a new plaque (“Joshua, 13 hours old, finally at rest”), and planted a red beech beside it. Great Circle , by Maggie Shipstead (2021). Sweeping Booker-shortlisted adventure with another surprise NZ connection.

The Commodore’s final disparaging words were that Shaw would never make anything of herself, and never get a job at sea.Wat is dit een bijzonder, avontuurlijk, liefdevol en verdrietig levensverhaal! Het is net alsof Ruth Shaw al zeker 7 levens heeft geleefd, zoveel heeft ze meegemaakt, en in dit boek vertelt ze over al haar hoogte- en dieptepunten, dingen die ze heeft bereikt en grote verliezen die ze heeft geleden, over liefdes, vluchtpogingen en thuiskomen. Het is een indrukwekkend relaas en ik geloof dat Ruth iemand is naar wie je uren ademloos kunt luisteren, maar ik denk dat de wijze waarop dit boek is geschreven haar verhaal niet volledig recht doet. Her possessions soon followed her home, the tea chests, and Joshua’s cross that she’d wrenched from the cemetery soil. Lance had kept the ring he was meant to wear at their wedding, till it was ripped off by a mooring line while he was working on a coastal trader in Bougainville.