Blog Archives

Carnival anarchists, Martin Edmond

Goneville: A Memoir Nick Bollinger Awa Press, $39.00, ISBN 9781927249543 This Explains Everything Richard von Sturmer Atuanui Press, $30.00, ISBN 9780994137609 The authors of these two books have a few things in common: they were both born in late 1950s

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Posted in Memoir, Non-fiction, Review

Adding to the New Zealand story, Helene Wong

Red Dust Over Shanghai: A Shanghai–New Zealand Memoir 1937–1954 Tyl von Randow Eunoia Publishing, $38.00, ISBN 9780994104779 Shanghai has always held an allure for me. Stories about what Westerners got up to in the “Paris of the East” in the

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Posted in Memoir, Non-fiction, Review

War games, Ron Palenski

War Blacks: The Extraordinary Story of New Zealand’s World War 1 All Blacks Matt Elliott HarperCollins, $45.00, ISBN 9781775540366 Tom Ellison has a lot to answer for. One of the early All Blacks of erudition and original thought, he wrote a

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Posted in History, Non-fiction, Review, Sport

Scaring them silly, Linda Burgess

Gladys Goes to War Glyn Harper (Jenny Cooper illus) Puffin, $20.00, ISBN 9780143507208 Speed King David Hill (Phoebe Morris illus) Puffin, $25.00, ISBN 9780143507222 My Grandpa is a Dinosaur Richard Fairgray and Terry Jones Puffin, $20.00, ISBN 9780143507192 Did You

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Posted in Children, Literature, Review

Creating taonga, Trevor Agnew

Maui and other Māori Legends: 8 Classic Tales of Aotearoa Peter Gossage Puffin $40.00, ISBN 9780143309291 What a delight! Maui and other Māori Legends contains eight complete picture books in one handsome hardback, complete with embossed cover, glossary and bookmark

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Posted in Children, Literature, Māori

Obituary — Mike Doyle

“A nice guy” C K Stead recalls the poet and critic Mike Doyle (1928-2016) Late in December, I received a phone call to say my former colleague, and friend of many years, Mike Doyle had died at home in Canada.

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Obituary — Sir James McNeish

“Half a stranger at home” Professor Paul Morris reflects on the work of Sir James McNeish (1931–2016) As a writer and a man, Jim McNeish was drawn to human life beyond the physical and social borders of the settled middle

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Poem – Mike Doyle

Written on the Soul H.M.D. 1928-1958 A July winter among the drab Scots stone, rain squalls, southerly buster; icy nodes scour my face. But you feel nothing. I look down at your stillness, your last smile, but your eyes are

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Posted in Poem
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