Blog Archives

Niche poets, Pat White

Islands of Intimacy, Love Poems 1970-2000 Denys Trussell Addenda, $22.95, ISBN 0958218617 The Albatross is Dead: Sixty Sonnets Peter Dane Hudson Cresset, $22.95, ISBN 0959789456 Dark Out of Darkness  Guyon Neutze Steele Roberts, $24.95, ISBN 1877228109 b.1943 G J Melling

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Posted in Literature, Poetry, Review

Passionate Victorians, Edmund Bohan

Tom’s Letters. The Private World of Thomas King, Victorian Gentleman Margot Fry Victoria University Press, $39.95, ISBN 0864733917 One of many challenges facing the biographer of 19th Century New Zealanders can be the lack of intimate letters or diaries. The vagaries

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Posted in History, Letters, Non-fiction, Review

Desperate Dan, W H Oliver

Intimate Stranger: reminiscences of Dan Davin ed Janet Wilson Steele Roberts, $29.95, ISBN 1877228249 Before I start on the book, I will allow myself a grumble about the cover. This shows in the foreground a highlighted profile of Dan, characteristically

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Posted in Biography, Non-fiction, Review

A gift worth unwrapping, John Dickson

The Falling: A Memoir Alan Loney Auckland University Press, $29.95, ISBN 1869402502 The simplest way to begin unwrapping the gift of this book is to start with the title: The Falling: A Memoir.  Notice the first word, the definite article:

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Posted in Autobiography, Non-fiction, Review

Independence and after, Colin James

“Nothing is more important to a country,” one-time Australian Treasurer and Prime Minister Paul Keating told the Knowledge Wave conference in August, “than the way it thinks about itself.” Right now, this country, barely a nation, thinks it is small, far-away

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Posted in Comment

More show than substance, Jenny Pattrick

The Arts & Crafts Movement in New Zealand 1870-1940 Ann Calhoun Auckland University Press, $89.95, ISBN 1869402294 This is a large and handsome art book. Its hardcover, square format, copious illustrations and intelligent design suggest an honoured place on the

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Posted in Art, History, Non-fiction, Review

Better than cure, Robert Beaglehole

Health and Public Policy in New Zealand  ed Peter Davis and Toni Ashton Oxford University Press, $55.00, ISBN 0195584171 This thoughtful and stimulating book, edited by two of New Zealand’s foremost scholars of health policy, deserves a wide audience both

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Posted in Health, Non-fiction, Politics & Law, Review

Babes and Biggles, Louise Wrightson

Spectacular Babies ed Bill Manhire HarperCollins, $24.95, ISBN 1869503775 Boys’ Own Stories: Short Stories by New Zealand Men ed Graeme Lay Tandem Press, $24.95, ISBN 1877178691 Five years ago, I remember jumping up and down in frustration in front of

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Posted in Fiction, Literature, Review, Short stories

Poems in the classroom, Jo Kahl

Essential New Zealand Poems ed Lauris Edmond and Bill Sewell Godwit, $29.95, ISBN 1869620879 Why is it that fictional teachers are always teachers of English? How many times do you see on television or at the movies teachers attempting to

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Posted in Literature, Poetry, Review

Poem – Janet Charman

snowing down south   warm breath breathed out of our bodies into the overnight air and condensed to an ice crust on the glass with a sodden mitten tip push plates of glitter lace across the surface to make an

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Posted in Poem
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