Blog Archives

Rethinking the past, Melissa Laing

Re-inventing New Zealand: Essays on the Arts and the Media  Roger Horrocks Atuanui Press, $45.00, ISBN 9780992245382 As I opened a blank document to begin this review, a tweet popped up in my feed from Morgan Godfery: “Sure,” Godfery writes

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Posted in Art, Essays, Media, Non-fiction, Review

Poetry and the poem, Michael Hulse

Selected Poems  Jenny Bornholdt Victoria University Press, $40.00, ISBN 9781776560660 If I begin by saying that Jenny Bornholdt gives the impression of being a very modest person, it’s not because this review is to be an assessment of her character,

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Posted in Literature, Poetry, Review

Undesirables and worthies, John O’Leary

The Girl Who Stole Stockings: The True Story of Susannah Noon and the Women of the Convict Ship Friends Elsbeth Hardie Australian Teachers of Media, $40.00, ISBN 9781876467241 May Your Shadow Never Grow Less: The Life and Times of Henry

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Posted in Biography, History, Non-fiction, Review

Letters of aroha and respect, Olivia Bennett

The Art of Walking Upright Glenn Colquhoun Steele Roberts, $25.00, ISBN 1877228206 “The art of walking upright here is the art of using both feet”. For many New Zealanders, the very essence of being Kiwi is being part of a

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Posted in Literature, Poetry, Review, YA Reviewers

A late flowering, Peter Russell

Karl Wolfskehl: Three Worlds / Drei Welten: Selected Poems: German and English Friedrich Voit (ed), Andrew Paul Wood (trans) Cold Hub Press, $45.00, ISBN 9780473358679 This book is a triumph: a triumph of the translator’s art, and a triumph in

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Posted in Literature, Poetry, Review

Gold-panning history, Paul Moon

Rushing for Gold: Life and Commerce on the Goldfields of New Zealand and Australia Lloyd Carpenter and Lyndon Fraser (eds) Otago University Press, $45.00 ISBN 9781877578540 Since 1887, when Vincent Pyke’s History of the Early Gold Discoveries in Otago was

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Posted in History, Non-fiction, Review

Music boxes and willows, Edmund Bohan

The Song Journey T E Scott Scott Publishing, $37.00, ISBN 9780473328863 Napoleon’s Willow Joan Norlev Taylor RSVP Publishing, $30.00, ISBN 9780987658784 One of the attractions of historical fiction is its infinite variety. For far too long in New Zealand’s curious

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Posted in Fiction, Literature, Review

Shining a transformative light, Sarah Quigley

Extraordinary Anywhere: Essays on Place from Aotearoa New Zealand Ingrid Horrocks and Cherie Lacey (eds) Victoria University Press, $40.00, ISBN 9781776560707 At a time when much of Europe is preoccupied with redefining – and defending – boundaries, New Zealand is

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Posted in Essays, Non-fiction, Review

Walking in more than one world, Paula Morris

Being Chinese Helene Wong Bridget Williams Books, $40.00, ISBN 9780947492380 Going Places: Migration, Economics and the Future of New Zealand Julie Fry and Hayden Glass BWB Texts, $15.00, ISBN 9780947492694 The First Migration: Maori Origins 3000 BC – AD 1450 Atholl Anderson

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Posted in History, Non-fiction, Review, Sociology

Something that rises, Ingrid Horrocks

Can You Tolerate This?: Personal Essays Ashleigh Young Victoria University Press, $30.00, ISBN 9781776560769 The title of Wellington poet, blogger, and editor Ashleigh Young’s new collection is a challenge issued in somewhat the same spirit as the title of Hera

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Posted in Essays, Non-fiction, Review
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