Blog Archives

Is work what makes us human? Alex Beattie

Posted on August 26, 2019 by NZ Books

How To Be Human In The Digital Economy
Nicholas Agar
MIT Press, $27.00,
ISBN 9780262038744

Take a minute to consider the speed with which technology is changing our everyday lives. The opening hours of local banks have reduced due to most of our neighbours doing their banking online. The pop-phrase “just Google it”, has retired the Oxford English Dictionary to the bookshelf to collect dust. Even self-service kiosks – once a visual oddity in New World supermarkets or McDonalds restaurants – now appear part of the commercial furniture. Such breathless technology-led change begs the existential question: what value will humans have in the future?

Tagged with: Alex Beattie, Issue 127, MIT Press, Nicholas Agar, Spring 2019
Posted in Non-fiction, Psychology, Review, Sociology

Seeing how they run, Geoff Watson

Posted on August 26, 2019 by NZ Books

When Running Made History
Roger Robinson
Canterbury University Press, $25.00,
ISBN 9780815611004

New Zealanders have a longstanding connection with running. Long-distance running was one of the early activities of Māori and, from at least as early as the 1880s, New Zealand athletes were taking part in international competitions. Running has been both an everyday activity and a sport in which New Zealanders have triumphed on the global stage: the achievements of Jack Lovelock, Peter Snell, Murray Halberg, John Walker, Allison Roe, Anne Audain, Lorraine Moller and Lisa Tamati, among others, have been enshrined in national memory. When Running Made History utilises Roger Robinson’s personal memories as a lens to explain how a formerly largely individualistic pursuit became a global phenomenon.

Tagged with: Canterbury University Press, Geoff Watson, Issue 127, Roger Robinson, Spring 2019
Posted in Non-fiction, Review, Sociology, Sport

Speaking frankly, Margaret Sparrow

Posted on August 26, 2019 by NZ Books

My Body, My Business: New Zealand Sex Workers In An Era Of Change
Caren Wilton (Madeleine Slavick photographer)
Otago University Press, $45.00,
ISBN 9781988531328

As I write this review, I hear a news item that Dame Catherine Healy DNZM and Julie Bates AO, a leading Australian sex worker, are presenting a submission on the decriminalisation of prostitution to Members of the South Australian parliament. It demonstrates how far New Zealand has progressed on this issue. Sixteen years ago, in 2003, when the law changed, this scenario would never have been envisaged. In June 2018, both women received Queen’s Birthday Awards from their respective governments. In Healy’s case, she was made a Dame Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit. Bates became an Officer of the Order of Australia. Both awards were richly deserved for many years dedicated to improving the health and safety of sex workers.

Tagged with: Caren Wilton, Issue 127, Madeleine Slavick, Margaret Sparrow, Otago University Press, Spring 2019
Posted in Essays, History, Non-fiction, Review, Sociology

Making conversation, Michele A’Court

Posted on August 26, 2019 by NZ Books

Past Caring? Women, Work And Emotion
Barbara Brookes, Jane McCabe and Angela Wanhalla
Otago University Press, $40.00,
ISBN 9781988531342

Still Counting: Wellbeing, Women’s Work And Policy-making
Marilyn Waring
BWB Texts, $15.00,
ISBN 9781988545530

A few days ago at a book launch (I had written the foreword) a young man who also works in the comedy industry asked what I had been up to so far this year. Not wanting to ruin his party buzz with the real answer, I shrugged a bit and said, “Oh, you know, just the usual bits and pieces.” He smiled sympathetically, muttered something about how nice it must be to take a break – code in our business for, “Shit, sorry you can’t find work” – and wandered off to find someone more full of news to talk to. I slipped off to the bathroom to have a cry before presenting myself once again at the open bar.

Tagged with: Angela Wanhalla, Barbara Brookes, BWB Texts, Issue 127, Jane McCabe, Marilyn Waring, Otago University Press, Spring 2019
Posted in Essays, Gender, Non-fiction, Review, Sociology

Doors and mirrors, Alex Mitcalfe Wilson

Posted on August 26, 2019 by NZ Books

The Chosen One
Joy H Davidson
DHD Publishing, $27.00,
ISBN 9780473448301

Harsu and the Werestoat
Barbara Else
Gecko Press, $35.00,
ISBN 9781776572199

The World of Greek Mythology
Ben Spies
Spies Publishing, $20.00,
ISBN 9780473455866

Fantasy has always mattered to me. I first sensed this around the same time I realised I was completely ill-adapted to my 1990s New Zealand childhood. I was a fat kid, a nervous perfectionist who was frightened of rugby and wanted to wear dresses. Most days, it felt like the sky was going to fall on my head. Luckily, I knew a few adults who were sensitive enough to notice my constant unease, and thoughtful enough to feed me stories. Those books were a magic door at the back of my wardrobe, the escape-hatch every lonely kid needs.

Tagged with: Alex Mitcalfe Wilson, Barbara Else, Ben Spies, DHD Publishing, Gecko Press, Issue 127, Joy H Davidson, Spies Publishing, Spring 2019
Posted in Children, Fiction, History, Literature, Non-fiction, Review

On not relying on truthiness, Brian Easton

Posted on August 26, 2019 by NZ Books

A Conversation With My Country
Alan Duff
Penguin Random House, $39.00,
ISBN 9780143773269

In 1990, a comet brightened the New Zealand literary scene and society with the publication of Alan Duff’s Once Were Warriors, for it involved both an extraordinary literary style and a powerful story.

Tagged with: Alan Duff, Brian Easton, Issue 127, Penguin Random House, Spring 2019
Posted in Māori, Non-fiction, Review, Sociology

Well packaged history, Anna Mackenzie

Posted on August 26, 2019 by NZ Books

Amundsen’s Way: The Race To The South Pole
Joanna Grochowicz
Allen and Unwin, $19.00,
ISBN 9781760637668

The Telegram
Philippa Werry
Pipi Press, $23.00,
ISBN 9780473462826

Amundsen’s Way delivers exactly what it promises on the cover: the story of Norwegian Roald Amundsen’s expedition to the South Pole, and the manner in which it was shaped by his single-minded determination to lead the first polar exploration team to reach it.

Tagged with: Allen and Unwin, Anna Mackenzie, Issue 127, Joanna Grochowicz, Philippa Werry, Pipi Press, Spring 2019
Posted in Children, History, Non-fiction

Believing you are a star, Nick Bollinger

Posted on August 26, 2019 by NZ Books

Dead People I Have Known
Shayne Carter
Victoria University Press, $40.00,
ISBN 9781776562213

Rock odysseys can start in obscure places. Shayne Carter’s began in Brockville, a state-housing suburb of Dunedin, a city at the southern end of a country that to most of the world is little known, even more so in the 1970s when Carter was starting out. But whereas rock heroes normally wind up somewhere very different from where they began, Carter returned to Dunedin to write this memoir and, throughout the book, Dunedin never feels all that far away, even after its protagonist has been swept up into the mythical world of rock stardom. There is a late passage in which he finds himself again “stranded in Dunedin, where I signed up to the dole only weeks after being driven in a limousine to the Conan O’Brien show in Manhattan.”

Tagged with: Issue 127, Nick Bollinger, Shayne Carter, Spring 2019, Victoria University Press
Posted in Autobiography, Music, Non-fiction, Review

Issue 127 | Spring 2019

Posted on August 26, 2019 by NZ Books

Volume 29 | Number 3 | Issue 127 | Spring 2019 Letters Gyles Beckford: Stephen Davis, Truthteller Bill Hastings: Sarah Gaitanos, Shirley Smith: An Examined Life Ian F Grant: Jared Davidson, Dead Letters: Censorship And Subversion In New Zealand 1914–1920…

Tagged with: Issue 127, Spring 2019
Posted in Contents

Issue 126 | Winter 2019

Posted on May 26, 2019 by NZ Books

Volume 29 | Number 2 | Issue 126 | Winter 2019 Stephanie Johnson: Carl Shuker, A Mistake John McCrystal: Owen Marshall, Pearly Gates: A Novel Victor Rodger: John Broughton, Oscar Kightley and Erolia Ifopo, Gary Henderson, and Carl Nixon,…

Tagged with: Issue 126, Winter 2019
Posted in Contents