Blog Archives
Poetic truths, Helen Heath
In a Slant Light: A Poet’s Memoir Cilla McQueen Otago University Press, $35.00, ISBN 9781877578717 When I read Elizabeth Knox’s personal essays The Love School, in 2008, I finally realised that a writer’s past is whatever they say it is.…
Tagged with: Autumn 2017, Cilla McQueen, Helen Heath, Issue 117, Otago University Press
Posted in Memoir, Non-fiction, Review
Posted in Memoir, Non-fiction, Review
Full fathom five, Kevin Ireland
My Father’s Island: A Memoir Adam Dudding Victoria University Press, $35.00 ISBN 9781776560820 When Edmund Gosse pioneered a new category of personal, interrogating biography, with Father and Son (1907), he framed painful questions and set down intimate dilemmas that won…
Tagged with: Adam Dudding, Autumn 2017, Issue 117, Kevin Ireland, Victoria University Press
Posted in Memoir, Non-fiction, Review
Posted in Memoir, Non-fiction, Review
Carnival anarchists, Martin Edmond
Goneville: A Memoir Nick Bollinger Awa Press, $39.00, ISBN 9781927249543 This Explains Everything Richard von Sturmer Atuanui Press, $30.00, ISBN 9780994137609 The authors of these two books have a few things in common: they were both born in late 1950s…
Tagged with: Atuanui Press, Autumn 2017, Awa Press, Issue 117, Martin Edmond, Nick Bollinger, Richard von Sturmer
Posted in Memoir, Non-fiction, Review
Posted in Memoir, Non-fiction, Review
Adding to the New Zealand story, Helene Wong
Red Dust Over Shanghai: A Shanghai–New Zealand Memoir 1937–1954 Tyl von Randow Eunoia Publishing, $38.00, ISBN 9780994104779 Shanghai has always held an allure for me. Stories about what Westerners got up to in the “Paris of the East” in the…
Tagged with: Autumn 2017, Eunoia Publishing, Helene Wong, Issue 117, Tyl von Randow
Posted in Memoir, Non-fiction, Review
Posted in Memoir, Non-fiction, Review
Pretence and defence, Melinda Johnston
Bromhead: Scratching a Living Peter Bromhead Penguin Books, $38.00, ISBN 9780143574200 In the Cartoon Archive at the Alexander Turnbull Library there is a marvellous ink caricature captioned “The loveable fun-loving Monsieur Bromhead”. Drawn in 2001 by caricaturist Dinah Priestley (a…
Tagged with: Issue 116, Melinda Johnston, Penguin Books, Peter Bromhead, Summer 2016
Posted in Memoir, Non-fiction, Review
Posted in Memoir, Non-fiction, Review
Memory, mateship and mortality, David Grant
Going South: A Road Trip Through Life Colin Hogg HarperCollins, $35.00, ISBN 9781775540816 The premise of this book is simple. Well-known journalist and influential rock music critic, Colin Hogg, was in deep discussion last year with mates at a birthday…
Tagged with: Colin Hogg, David Grant, HarperCollins, Issue 115, Spring 2016
Posted in Memoir, Non-fiction, Review
Posted in Memoir, Non-fiction, Review
The archaeologist of memory, Ingrid Horrocks
The Dreaming Land Martin Edmond Bridget Williams Books, $40.00, ISBN 9780908321490 The Dreaming Land is Martin Edmond’s first full-length work of autobiography, but he’s been working in the territory of life writing and memoir for a long time. He is…
Tagged with: Autumn 2016, Bridget Williams Books, Ingrid Horrocks, Issue 113, Martin Edmond
Posted in Memoir, Non-fiction, Review
Posted in Memoir, Non-fiction, Review
Telling our stories to ourselves, Chris Else
Jerome Kaino: My Story Jerome Kaino Penguin, $40.00, ISBN 9780143573562 Wildboy Brando Yelavich Penguin, $35.00, ISBN 9780143573159 The Good Doctor Lance O’Sullivan Penguin, $38.00, ISBN 9780143572510 How Bizarre Simon Grigg Awa Press, $38.00, ISBN 9781927249222 Lydia Bradey: Going Up is…
Tagged with: Autumn 2016, Awa Press, Brando Yelavich, Chris Else, Issue 113, Lance O’Sullivan, Laurence Fearnley, Lydia Bradey, Penguin Books, Simon Grigg
Posted in Autobiography, Biography, Memoir, Non-fiction, Review
Posted in Autobiography, Biography, Memoir, Non-fiction, Review
The Richie McCaw of golf caddies, Spiro Zavos
Out of the Rough Steve Williams with Michael Donaldson Penguin, $40.00, ISBN 9780143573555 Here is Adam Scott, the languid Australian golfer, on the second playoff hole of the 2013 Masters. He has hit his second shot to the green.…
Tagged with: Autumn 2016, Issue 113, Michael Donaldson, Penguin, Spiro Zavos, Steve Williams
Posted in Memoir, Non-fiction, Review
Posted in Memoir, Non-fiction, Review
The thinking man’s cartoonist, Dylan Horrocks
Brockie: A Memoir in Words, Cartoons and Sketches Bob Brockie New Zealand Cartoon Archive/Fraser Books, $39.50 ISBN 9780958232074 David Lange called Brockie “the thinking man’s cartoonist”. Which is pretty nice of Lange, considering that Brockie had drawn him on various…
Tagged with: Dylan Horrocks, Fraser Books, Issue 112, New Zealand Cartoon Archive, Summer 2015
Posted in Art, History, Memoir, Non-fiction, Politics & Law, Review
Posted in Art, History, Memoir, Non-fiction, Politics & Law, Review