Blog Archives

The play’s the thing, Laurie Atkinson

Two Plays  Dave Armstrong Playmarket, $23.07, ISBN 9780908607358 Two Plays David Geary Playmarket, $23.07, ISBN 9780908607372 Two Plays Sarah Delahunty Playmarket, $23.07, ISBN 9780908607365 An English blogger wrote recently about the prospect of attending theatrical performances at the Edinburgh Festival:

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Posted in Literature, Plays, Review

Nothing to do with fair play, Don Aimer

Somebody Stole My Game Chris Laidlaw HodderMoa, $39.99, ISBN 9781869711924 The Awa Book of New Zealand Sports Writing Harry Ricketts (ed) Awa Press, $40.00, ISBN 9780958291620 These two books complement each other, and their paths criss-cross. In Somebody Stole My

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Posted in Non-fiction, Review, Sport

Through the unknown, remembered gate, Murray Bramwell

South-West of Eden: A Memoir 1932-1956 C K Stead Auckland University Press, $45.00, ISBN 9781869404543 It was T S Eliot in “East Coker” who wrote: “In my beginning is my end.” In a quite different, earlier poem, he produced the

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Posted in Memoir, Non-fiction, Review

A reasonable idea at the time, Barbara Murison

Telling Tales: A Life in Writing William Taylor HarperCollins, $39.99, ISBN 1869508378 According to his siblings William Taylor was called after his father’s dog. And here, among an endearing collection of sepia, black and white, and coloured photos in his

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Posted in Autobiography, Non-fiction, Review

Remapping New Zealand, Hamish Clayton

Hicksville: A Comic Book Dylan Horrocks Victoria University Press, $38.00, ISBN 9780864736246 The current republication of Dylan Horrocks’ brilliant graphic novel, Hicksville, is long overdue; however, the relative obscurity to which it has been consigned over the last 10 years

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Posted in Fiction, Graphic novel, Literature, Review

Always a price to pay, Elspeth Sandys

Living as a Moon Owen Marshall Vintage, $34.99, ISBN 9781869792510 Opening Owen Marshall’s latest collection of short stories, beginning, somewhat apprehensively, to read, I wondered if the faint niggle I always feel when I read Marshall’s work would stay with

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Posted in Fiction, Literature, Review

Under certain conditions, David Hill

Hunting Blind Paddy Richardson Penguin Books, $28.00, ISBN 9780143203643 The First Touch of Light Ruth Pettis Penguin Books, $28.00, ISBN 9780143011200 Terry Sturm’s magisterial section on the novel in The Oxford History of New Zealand Literature in English is much

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Posted in Fiction, Literature, Review

Tea and sympathy, Paula Morris

Lola Elizabeth Smither Penguin Books, $30.00, ISBN 9780143203650 Elizabeth Smither’s last novel was called Different Kinds of Pleasure, and its title offers a clue to the approach she takes in her fiction, and also to what she expects of her

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Posted in Fiction, Literature, Review

Mist and myth, Julia Millen

Best of Both Worlds: The Story of Elsdon Best and Tutakangahau Jeffrey Paparoa Holman Penguin Books, $40.00, ISBN 9780143008422 Until the early 1960s the source for almost everything we learned at school and read in The School Journal about the

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Posted in Biography, Non-fiction, Review

A long and winding road, John Raeburn

Cockney Kid: The Making of an Unconventional Psychologist Tony Taylor Silver Owl Press, $44.95, ISBN 0986451916 I approached this memoir with some trepidation. Its sheer scale made it a daunting read – 437 pages, and weighing in at around a

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Posted in Autobiography, Non-fiction, Review
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