Volume 12 | Number 1 | Issue 52 | March 2002 Michael Laws: Brian Edwards, Helen: Portrait of a Prime Minister Editorial Shelagh Duckham Cox: Kirsty Gunn, Featherstone Simone Drichel: Alan Duff, Szabad Diana Bridge: “The route” (poem) Kim…
Paradise Reforged: A History of the New Zealanders. From the 1880s to the Year 2000 James Belich Allen Lane/ Penguin, $59.95, ISBN 0713991720 One person’s “History of the New Zealanders” over a period of 120 years can never be complete,…
Nga Pepeha a nga Tipuna: The Sayings of the Ancestors ed Hirini Moko Mead and Neil Grove Victoria University Press, $59.95, ISBN 0864733992 Maori sayings are “ready bits of loftiness and sonority”, to use George Steiner’s apt characterisation of formulaic expression.…
Lesbian Studies in Aotearoa/New Zealand ed Alison Laurie Harrington Park Press, $79.95, ISBN 1560232528 Academic publications are often daunting to lay readers obscure, dense, and obfuscatory. But Lesbian Studies in Aotearoa/New Zealand, a paperback for general readers (co-published simultaneously as…
In the Lifetime of a Goat: Writings 1984 – 2000 Marilyn Waring Bridget Williams Books, $34.95, ISBN 1877242098 Journalism is an ephemeral business. “Today’s news, tomorrow’s fish and chips wrapping” – the saying may be out of date but the…
I was no soldier: An artist’s war diary Ted Lewis Steele Roberts, $39.95, ISBN 1877228494 I was no soldier tells the story of an art teacher’s experiences of World War 2. Ted Lewis volunteered in January 1941 for the medical…
Helen: Portrait of a Prime Minister Brian Edwards Exisle Publishing, $44.95, ISBN 0908988206 Biography is a fraught art. If the subject is dead, then the Author is reliant upon a myriad of sources, often contradictory, to capture the essence of…
Tread Softly For You Tread On My Life: New & Collected Writings Michael King Cape Catley, $34.95, ISBN 0908561881 “This is the sort of letter that doesn’t look well in a Biography,” Rupert Brooke wrote Eddie Marsh in September 1913. Brooke…
He Tipua: The Life and Times of Sir Apirana Ngata Ranginui Walker Viking, $69.95, ISBN 0670911887 In the Foreword, Sir Henare Ngata, son of Sir Apirana, on Behalf of the Ngata family and the Ngati Porou people, thanks Dr Ranginui…