Bernard Carpinter catches the fictional crime wave. Have you ever met a serial killer? No? Strange – judging by the content of our bookstores, you’d think there’d be one in every street. The serial killer is the bogeyman of contemporary…
I See Red: The Shocking Story of a Battle against the Warehouse Judith Bell aka Stephen Tindall – the woman Awa Press, $29.99, ISBN 0958250979 I do think it’s a mistake to put the word “shocking” on any book. I’ll…
E Mervyn Taylor: Artist, Craftsman Bryan James Steele Roberts, $59.99, ISBN 1877338559 Trevor Moffitt: A Biography Chris Ronayne David Ling, $49.99, ISBN 1877378100 Joanna Margaret Paul: Drawing Jill Trevelyan and Sarah Treadwell Auckland University Press and Mahara Gallery, $49.99, ISBN…
Over the Mountains of the Sea: Life on Migrant Ships, 1870-1885 David Hastings Auckland University Press, $49.95, ISBN 1869403754 When I was an undergraduate, one of the perennial questions examiners asked in the first-year course in 19th century New Zealand…
Landscape Paintings of New Zealand: A Journey from North to South Christopher Johnstone Godwit, $69.99, ISBN 186921247 Christopher Johnstone begins his survey of New Zealand landscape paintings in the 1860s, the period when an exhibiting culture emerged to support amateurs,…
How to Catch a Cricket Match Harry Ricketts Awa Press, $24.99, ISBN 9780958662903 Harry Ricketts’ game plan is simple. He and a Victoria University colleague, Tony (like a character in a Russian novel he has no surname but a defining…
Against the Odds: Matt Te Pou and Maori Rugby Matt Te Pou and Matt McIlraith Huia, $40.00, ISBN 1869692519 In the early winter of 1952 a frisson spread around the campus of St Patrick’s College, Silverstream: a brilliant young Maori…
From the Writer’s Notebook: Around New Zealand with 80 Authors Lydia Monin Reed, $29.99, ISBN 0790011085 George Bernard Shaw was not a man you would have wanted to be stuck in a lift with. If you were ever in any…
The Cowboy Dog Nigel Cox Victoria University Press, $29.95, ISBN 0864735448 The Fainter Damien Wilkins Victoria University Press, $29.95, ISBN 0864735308 In a way the titles say it all. It’s as if, in naming these novels (Cox’s sixth, Wilkins’ fifth),…