Getting There: An Autobiography Barbara Anderson Victoria University Press, $50.00, ISBN 9780864735904 Each weekday morning Barbara Anderson sets off for the office. Her routine is ritualised. She buys lunch, drinks a cup of coffee while she casts an eye over…
Collected Stories Barbara Anderson Victoria University Press, $29.95, ISBN 0864734980 In the “Author’s Note” prefacing her The Peacocks and Other Stories, Barbara Anderson said that she found “writing short stories requires a completely different technique from writing novels”, and that…
Change of heart Barbara Anderson Victoria University Press, $27.95, ISBN 0864734662 yet another ghastly christmas Shonagh Koea Vintage, $26.95, ISBN 186941568X These new novels by Barbara Anderson and Shonagh Koea sit comfortably together, like well-chosen china teacups. Their worlds have…
The Swing Around Barbara Anderson Victoria University Press, $29.95, ISBN 0864734220 There’s a certain anxiety that accompanies writing this review. Embarrassingly, it’s to do with a fear of mixing metaphors (as opposed to, say, starting a sentence with an adverb.)…
Long Hot Summer Barbara Anderson Victoria University Press, $29.95, ISBN 0 86473 371 2 I thought as I was reading this book that for me the most important thing in fiction is character. If a novelist gets the characters right,…
The Peacocks Barbara Anderson Victoria University Press $29.95 ISBN 0 86473 333 X An early graduate of Bill Manhire’s writing course, Barbara Anderson has risen in New Zealand literature in a fashion that has been as meteoric as it is…
Proud Garments Barbara Anderson Victoria University Press, $24.95, ISBN 0 86473 316 X Proud Garments is a perfect novel for the end of a century, an elegy for an age, not going out with the atomic bang we might once…
River Lines Elspeth Sandys Hodder Moa Beckett, $29.95, ISBN 3 4059998 7 Leather Wings Marilyn Duckworth Random House Vintage, $24.95, ISBN 1 86941 261 3 Zoology Sheridan Keith Penguin, $24.95, ISBN 0 14025281 9 The House Guest Barbara Anderson Victoria…
Lives on Fire Rosie Scott, Sceptre New Zealand, $19.95 All the Nice Girls Barbara Anderson, Victoria University Press, $24.95 It had to happen, I guess. It seems just yesterday that we were standing in bookshops, spellbound at the sight of…
Always something to behave about, Damien Wilkins
Damien Wilkins pays tribute to Barbara Anderson (1926-2013). With her cultured Anglo voice (boarding school in New Zealand and years as a naval wife in England), her title (she was Lady Anderson following Neil’s knighthood), her height, elegance, beads,…
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