Blog Archives

Christmas list

Posted on September 1, 2005 by NZ Books

New Zealand Books reviewers choose which book they’d most like to see in their Christmas stocking and why. Owen Marshall: The Journals of John Cheever, unfortunately out of print; a wonderfully candid and elegant insight into the life of…

Tagged with: Issue 71, Issue 72, Spring 2005
Posted in Imprints, Opinion

Swamp thing, Elizabeth Smither

Posted on June 1, 2005 by NZ Books

Elizabeth Smither seeks out A Girl of the Limberlost. I can still remember my fear of the swamp. Was it because of The Hound of the Baskervilles? But A Girl of the Limberlost held a deeper kind of fear when…

Tagged with: Elizabeth Smither, Issue 70, Winter 2005
Posted in Imprints

Escape from Warsaw, John McIntyre

Posted on September 1, 2004 by NZ Books

Waimea College Library, Richmond, 1965. I was no great visitor to libraries prior to this, an era when children’s literature was more worthy than enticing, but it was to become my sanctuary for my first unconfident year of secondary school…

Tagged with: Issue 67, John McIntyre, Spring 2004
Posted in Imprints

What minds make, Nelson Wattie

Posted on September 1, 2004 by NZ Books

Beyond Wittgenstein’s Poker: New Light on Popper and Wittgenstein Peter Munz Ashgate Publishing Limited, $62.00, ISBN 0754640159 Working at the interface between literature and science, Gillian Beer recently asked in The Guardian: “How do you have new ideas? Language is…

Tagged with: Ashgate Publishing Limited, Issue 67, Nelson Wattie, Peter Munz, Spring 2004
Posted in Imprints, Review

NZ Post Book Awards

Posted on June 1, 2003 by NZ Books

The shortlist for the 2004 New Zealand Post Book Awards was announced in early February. Finalists are: Junior fiction – The Serpents Of Arakesh: Book One – The Karazan Quartet by V M Jones; My Story: Journey To Tangiwai –…

Tagged with: Issue 62, Winter 2003
Posted in Imprints

Girl behind the good keen man, Jane Tolerton

Posted on June 1, 2003 by NZ Books

When did I first see the cover of Jean Watson’s Stand in he Rain – that strong, elegant black cover with a woman looking as if she has been doing exactly that? And the photograph of the author on the back…

Tagged with: Issue 62, Jane Tolerton, Winter 2003
Posted in Imprints

Famous last words, Bill Manhire

Posted on December 1, 2001 by NZ Books

They knew how to die in the old Icelandic sagas. In Grettir’s Saga a man called Atli Asmundarson gets a spear through the stomach. He looks down in surprise, and then – in the middle of a 10th-century wilderness…

Tagged with: Bill Manhire, Issue 56, Summer 2001
Posted in Imprints

Perils and blessings, Charlotte Yates

Posted on December 1, 2001 by NZ Books

“Imprints” I have three Joni Mitchell albums in my collection – The Hissing of Summer Lawns, Blue and Heijira. They have acted as both a personal and a professional musical resource. They’ve become albums I return to, not exclusively but…

Tagged with: Charlotte Yates, December 2001, Issue 51
Posted in Imprints

Nose in a book, Patricia Grace

Posted on October 1, 2001 by NZ Books

Recently, when I called in to see my brother, we looked through a box of books and other items that were all in some way associated with our father. My father grew up in a small community where I often…

Tagged with: Issue 50, October 2001, Patricia Grace
Posted in Imprints

A fierce inwardness, Peter Wells

Posted on September 1, 2001 by NZ Books

I got on the bus the other day, and there was only one seat left. I sat down beside a young woman. She had a book open on her lap, and she was leaning her head against a rain-teared window.…

Tagged with: Issue 55, Peter Wells, Spring 2001
Posted in Imprints