Pavlova Paradise Revisited Austin Mitchell Penguin, $27.95, ISBN 0143018264 For those old enough to remember it, The Half-Gallon Quarter-Acre Pavlova Paradise was a funny, disrespectful but good-natured account of what it felt like to be a clever, progressive Left Brit…
Love This Life: Lyrics 1978-2001 Neil Finn Allen & Unwin, $35.00, ISBN 1865085081 Lyrics without melody Mahinarangi Tocker Street Women Press, $19.95, ISBN 0473074427 I have always been a passionate pop fan, but never a great lover of the printed…
Ko Tahu, Ko Au: Kai Tahu Tribal Identity Hana O’Regan Horomaka Publishing, $29.95, ISBN 0473079518 In their long journeys into time, the cultures of Polynesia were refined, renewed and developed in their contents and characters not by conscious effort but…
Life (and death) in a Small City Garden Philippa Swan Godwit, $24.95, ISBN 1869620798 In the vast and varied field of literature, gardens and writing are a classic pairing. Well-told stories of personal experience are few and far between, grist to…
Joyita: Solving the Mystery David G Wright Auckland University Press, $29.95, ISBN 1869402707 It was a recurring image in New Zealand and Pacific newspapers and magazines 40 to 50 years ago: the waterlogged hull of the old Islands trader Joyita,…
Lady Travellers: The Tourists of Early New Zealand Bee Dawson Penguin Books, $39.95, ISBN 0141004150 Lady Travellers is a successor to Bee Dawson’s Lady Painters, which appeared in 1999, and makes me wonder if there’s a series planned – Lady…
In Endless Fear: a true story Colin Crump Penguin, $34.99, ISBN 014301823X The Crump legend again. This time, a bit of a yarn from Barry’s younger brother Colin, about growing up with the father from hell. Wally Crump should never…
Going Public: the Changing Face of New Zealand History ed Bronwyn Dalley and Jock Phillips Auckland University Press, $39.95, ISBN 186940226X If I were an insecure sort of chap, I might be worried about what I actually do for a…
Doing Our Bit: New Zealand Women Tell Their Stories of World War Two ed Jim Sullivan HarperCollins, $34.95, ISBN 186950416X High Flyers: Celebrating the Extraordinary Women of the RNZAF 1977-2002 Bee Dawson Penguin, $34.95, ISBN 0143018221 Being in the military…
Adam Parore: The Wicked Keeper Angus Gillies Penguin, $34.95, ISBN 014301837X A friend and I used to have a favourite game. The game had several different permutations, but in its simplest form it involved imagining writers as cricketers and selecting…