Blog Archives

What we make of it, Penelope Todd

Posted on December 1, 2012 by NZ Books

E-publisher Penelope Todd foresees a complementary future for print and digital. When an invention appears that radically threatens our comfortable habits and suppositions, our instinct is to clutch at the old and mistrust the new. We like our books: the…

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Home truths and fantasy worlds, Kathryn Walls

Posted on December 1, 2012 by NZ Books

Kathryn Walls identifies the realism beneath Mahy’s magic. Margaret Mahy has been repeatedly described as “magical” or “marvellous”, her fiction as “fantastic.”  These conveniently alliterating adjectives seem apt partly because so much of Mahy’s work is classifiable as fantasy, and…

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I will do my best to be helpful, Ann Mallinson

Posted on December 1, 2012 by NZ Books

Ann Mallinson shares a letter she received 20 years ago. Margaret Mahy was, among many other things, an ideas person. She loved discussing ideas, and those of us who were lucky enough to have her accept an invitation to stay…

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Defuzzification, Helen Sword

Posted on September 1, 2012 by NZ Books

Helen Sword takes a stand against horrible academic prose. When I tell people I have recently published a book called Stylish Academic Writing (Harvard University Press, 2012), they usually crack a smile. Like military and intelligence or jumbo and shrimp,…

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Downloaded, Chris Else

Posted on June 1, 2012 by NZ Books

Chris Else discovers online shopping is no match for the bookshop browse. There are books bought and books borrowed; books stolen and books found; books that are gifts and books that are prizes; books that you read as soon as…

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Bovver boys

Posted on December 1, 2011 by NZ Books

What they wrote A taste of contributor comments over our first 20 years   On New Zealand Books My hope is that New Zealand Books will provide a forum for frank discussion that dares to rise above the suffocating confines…

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A little close reading, Jolisa Gracewood

Posted on December 1, 2011 by NZ Books

Jolisa Gracewood interrogates the reviewer within.   “Why do I write?” the great George Orwell asked himself, and produced a typically brisk, self-lacerating answer with roots deep in his miserable childhood. Apologies to young Eric, but my “Why I review”…

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Temporal blather, Iain Sharp

Posted on December 1, 2011 by NZ Books

Iain Sharp raises an eyebrow at the ghosts of reviewers past. Thanks to the National Library’s splendid Papers Past website, forgotten follies are now at our fingertips. In June and early July 1909, for example, every edition of the Ashburton…

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Bookmaking, Chris Brickell

Posted on December 1, 2011 by NZ Books

Chris Brickell explores the possibilities of “democratic publishing”. In a pair of old buckram photograph albums from the 1880s, men pose proudly, touch gently, frolic indoors and out, and dress up in male and female costume. Their lives depart from…

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“Awesome”. Or not — Paula Morris

Posted on December 1, 2011 by NZ Books

Paula Morris works hard at presenting reviewers with the other cheek.  It’s 10 years since I wrote my first novel, Queen of Beauty, which makes it nine years since the book was published, and I started getting reviews. Only nine…

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