Costello errors Despite its brevity, Ken Ross’s article on Dan Davin’s memoir of Paddy Costello (NZRB Spring 2019) contains a quite remarkable number of factual errors. By my count, there are 18 – there may be others beyond my ken,…
Downsizing We hear about the problems of empty nesters, but seldom the difficulties of the bibliophile facing the downsizing of their book collections and the heartache that can ensue. Jane Westaway’s “Cohabiting Libraries” (NZRB Winter 2019) is an apt, amusing…
Deletions made by Brasch himself I was distressed to see in Douglas Lloyd Jenkins’s review in the latest New Zealand Review of Books Pukapuka Aotearoa (Autumn 2019) the wrongful and offensive suggestion that Charles Brasch’s literary executor had for “homophobic”…
Bouquet On behalf of the Publishers Association of New Zealand (PANZ), may I extend our appreciation to you and your team for your excellent books review coverage in New Zealand Books Pukapuka Aotearoa in 2018. At a time when…
I would like to respond to some of the criticisms of A Field Officer’s Notebook (AFON) made by Tom McLean in his review “Shivers of emotion” (NZB Spring 2018).
Aching absences Dear Editors I do hope readers of Vincent O Sullivan’s expansive and generously minded All This By Chance have a more nuanced appreciation of the novel’s pleasures than Ann Beaglehole’s dull summary, published in your Winter 2018 issue. …
Concerning points We thank New Zealand Books Pukapuka Aotearoa and Airini Beautrais for the largely positive review of Manifesto Aotearoa 101 Political Poems (NZB Summer 2017), but its final points are concerning. Airini Beautrais refers to “cringe-worthy instances of cultural…
Throw off the founders’ shackles As regards your editorial about “our present reviewing wasteland” (NZB, Spring 2017): perhaps the time is ripe for New Zealand Books Pukapuka Aotearoa to take some practical steps to improve matters beyond scolding strictures. The…
“Misleading expectations” Barbara Else’s review (NZB, Spring 2016) of Mary-anne Scott’s young adult novel Coming Home to Roost contains several errors of fact. Else writes, “The blurb states that the novel tackles teen pregnancy from the boy’s point of view.”…
