Blog Archives

Editorial – Issue 125

What’s in a name? We are delighted to announce that Peppercorn Press has decided that this journal will henceforth be known as New Zealand Review of Books Pukapuka Aotearoa. The new name better reflects what we’ve always striven to do,

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Editorial – Issue 121

Readership survey results We have been asking ourselves some questions lately, about how we can change and improve to meet the changing expectations of our readers. The answer to questions relating to format and appearance were obvious – the journal

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Editorial – Issue 119

As you can see, Issue 119 of New Zealand Books Pukapuka Aotearoa comes to you in an exciting, new version, slightly smaller in size, but with eight more pages, and in colour throughout. We hope you like the results as much as we do.

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Editorial – Issue 117

Reeling them in It’s been a year since Peppercorn Press and New Zealand Books Pukapuka Aotearoa launched Hooked on NZ Books, www.hookedonbooks.org.nz, a website designed to encourage, nurture and publish young reviewers reading New Zealand books. During our first year, Hooked on NZ Books has supported

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Editorial – Issue 115

Taking it personally Recent conversations about the state of reviewing in New Zealand have been dominated by demands, sometimes pleas, that reviewers be brave and honest. Of course. We, too, at New Zealand Books Pukapuka Aotearoa look for bravery and

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Editorial – Issue 113

A new generation of reviewers These are interesting, transformative times for reviewing, and for the notion of the expert or informed opinion more generally. The democratisation of social media allows anyone and everyone to express and disseminate their opinion. On

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Editorial – Issue 110

Obligatory piety

We don’t know whether, like us, others are feeling a certain uneasiness at the direction the WWI/Anzac centenary commemorations (often celebrations) are taking. That the platoons of books regularly pouring off the presses, here and overseas, that the many WWI websites and other online aids are potentially making readers better informed about what actually happened is good. That many, as a result, have been led to explore their genealogy or whakapapa is valuable. It is worthwhile to learn under what circumstances at Gallipoli or Passchendaele, in Egypt or elsewhere your great grandfather, your great great uncle or your distant cousin died or was wounded. It is rewarding to read their letters or diaries, if these survive. It is important to reaffirm that history did not begin with your own birth, that it’s not all just “back in the day”, some timeless zone called Who Cares? A country without a sense of history, a country without cultural memory, is a country with Alzheimer’s.

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Editorial – Issue 105

Something old, something new Between us, we have noticed – with a progression of interest, appetite, and increasing alarm, rather swiftly replaced by boredom – a growing body of new novels that look very much like the old. Sequels, prequels,

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Editorial – Issue 103

Opening up the archive We’re starting to feel a little sheepish about the milestones we keep reaching. This is our third and fourth in less than three years. Still, here we go: with this – our 103rd issue – we’re

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Editorial – Issue 100

Whithering or withering? Back in the day, literary couple Iris Murdoch and John Bayley used to speak of “whithering”. They were referring to international festivals at which they were asked to address the question “whither the novel?” At the dawn

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