These Two Hands: A Memoir Renée Mākaro Press, $38.00, ISBN 9780994137845 These Two Hands is the memoir of a woman’s life which is simultaneously ordinary and extraordinary. Born in Napier in 1929, Renée has lived through tumultuous times, both in…
Stitch: Contemporary New Zealand Textile Artists Ann Packer Random House, $59.99, ISBN 1869417887 I know Ann Packer’s work from her articles in newspapers and magazines, and never go anywhere without her little gem, Crafty Girls’ Road Trip. So it was…
A Short History of Paradise Norman Bilbrough Penguin, $28.00, ISBN 0143020358 Kissing Shadows Renée Huia, $34.99, ISBN 1869692039 How often can one say of local fiction, and mean it, that it’s an absolute delight to read? Known as a writer…
Thrift to Fantasy: Home Textile Crafts of the 1930s-1950s Rosemary McLeod HarperCollins, $59.95, ISBN 1869505093 Rosemary McLeod is an intelligent, witty and acerbic columnist who does us the favour of saying the things we’d like to say out loud, if…
The Skeleton Woman: A Romance Renée Huia Publishers, $29.95, ISBN 1877283169 In a review of this, Renée’s fifth novel, the New Zealand Listener used the gratuitous headline “The one about the lesbian and the baby”. Shame on them. What it…
America on Five Bullets a Day Raybon Kan Hodder Moa Beckett, $29.95, ISBN 1 86958 656 5 Just Walking the Dogs Joe Bennett Hazard Press, $16.95, ISBN 1 877161 49 7 Yin and Tonic Renée Random House, $29.95, ISBN 1…
In Touch Janette Sinclair Secker and Warburg, $24.95, ISBN 790004011 Does This Make Sense to You? Renée Penguin, $24.95, ISBN 0 14024946X Rain Kirsty Gunn Faber and Faber, $22.95, ISBN 0 571173004 The Strange Letter Z Debra Daley Penguin, $24.95,…
Daisy and Lily Renée, Penguin, $24.95 The blurb on the back of Renée’s new novel, Daisy and Lily, announces that ‘Renée has created a world which is part biography, part elegy, part robust stand-up comedy, all leavened with lively good sense.’…