Blog Archives

Cataloguing the past, Hilary Stace

Te Rau Herenga: A Century of Library Life in New Zealand: The New Zealand Library Association and LIANZA 1910-2010 Julia Millen Library and Information Association of New Zealand Aotearoa, $40.00, ISBN 9780473175795   Librarians have long endured negative stereotypes, but

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Posted in History, Non-fiction, Review

A certain political autism, Simon Upton

Palmer: The Parliamentary Years Raymond Richards Canterbury University Press, $45.00, ISBN 9781877257926   For Geoffrey Palmer, politics was a serious business. It was about legislating for a better society and demanded the serious-minded attention of elected politicians. This sense of

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

Issue 94 | Winter 2011

  Volume 21 | Number 2 | Issue 94 | Winter 2011 Obituary: Judith Binney Janet Hunt: Alison Ballance, Kakapo: Rescued from the Brink of Extinction; Neville Peat, The Tasman: Biography of an Ocean Hugh Roberts: Janet Wilson (ed), Frank

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Posted in Contents

Obituary — Judith Binney

Judith Binney  (1940-2011) Judith Binney dedicated her books to those from whom she herself had learnt: in 1995, Sir Monita Delamere and Sir Keith Sinclair; in 2009, Tuhoe’s great 19th-century leaders, “who chose to walk the long paths to peace”,

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Posted in Obituaries

Feathers and fins, Janet Hunt

Kakapo: Rescued from the Brink of Extinction Alison Ballance Craig Potton Publishing, $49.99, ISBN 9781877517273 The Tasman: Biography of an Ocean Neville Peat Penguin Books, $62.00, ISBN 9780143011385   Time was when “non-fiction” meant staid, largely black-and-white books on a

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Posted in Natural History, Non-fiction, Review

Writing frankly, Hugh Roberts

Frank Sargeson’s Stories Janet Wilson (ed) Cape Catley, $47.99, ISBN 9781877340284   The Dictionary of New Zealand Biography tells us that “Frank Sargeson’s major achievement was to introduce the rhythms and idiom of everyday New Zealand speech to literature”, and

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Posted in Literature, Review, Short stories

Something nobody counted on, Murray Bramwell

Travesty  Mike Johnson (graphic art, Darren Sheehan) Titus Books, $39.00, ISBN 9781877441134   Fosterling Emma Neale Vintage, $29.99, ISBN 9781869794859   Wulf Hamish Clayton Penguin Books, $30.00, ISBN 9780143206491   Like many futuristic nightmares, the naming of the nihilistic Gaia

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Posted in Fiction, Literature, Review

Woven among the lines, Elizabeth Caffin

Mike Doyle: Collected Poems, 1951–2009 Ekstasis Editions, $55.95, ISBN 9781897430637   When I moved to Auckland in 1985, I found the literary world was haunted by ghosts. There was Rex Fairburn and Maurice Duggan and Frank Sargeson and Mike Joseph

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Posted in Literature, Poetry, Review

Poem – Peter Bland

Naked Ladies Pink petal sexily exposed (no leaves to shelter them From the sun) they burst Through graves in abandoned churches Or hug the fence lines of deserted homesteads. You sometimes find them ‒ edgily erotic ‒ In the dark

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Posted in Poem

Letters – Issue 94

Talking heads How refreshing that for Nelson Wattie (NZB Autumn 2011) the time has clearly come to no longer “go with the flow” – in this case, the incessant flow of information from writers talking about (their) writing and thereby

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Posted in Letters
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