Blog Archives

Footmen and gout, Ann Beaglehole

Posted on March 1, 2012 by NZ Books

Hungarian refugee Ann Beaglehole recalls Anne Frank, Lenin, Rupert Bear and Little Lord Fauntleroy. I read The Diary of Anne Frank at the age of 10. In the first entry dated 12 June 1942, Anne wrote: “I hope I shall…

Tagged with: Ann Beaglehole, Autumn 2012, imprints, Issue 97
Posted in Opinion

It’s theatre, really, David Larsen

Posted on June 1, 2006 by NZ Books

I’ve lost track of how often my ass has fallen asleep from boredom at literary festivals. I’ve lost track of how often I was supremely disappointed by a writer’s public persona. I used to be as earnest and serious and…

Tagged with: David Larsen, Issue 74, Winter 2006
Posted in Opinion

Word-drunk in Auckland, Gordon McLauchlan

Posted on March 1, 2006 by NZ Books

Auckland Writers and Readers Festival 2006 The announcement that The Sea had won last year’s Man Booker prize came through while I was reading it, and I have to confess I was perplexed and then annoyed – both by the…

Tagged with: Autumn 2006, Gordon McLauchlan, Issue 73
Posted in Opinion

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

Who are we writing for? Chris Else

Posted on March 1, 2003 by NZ Books

Chris Else examines the literary contradictions between local content and global success I work in the creative writing industry. I teach courses, write assessments and act as a literary mentor. I believe in what I do. My advice has…

Tagged with: Autumn 2003, Chris Else, Issue 61
Posted in Opinion

On the whale’s back, Miro Bilbrough

Posted on March 1, 2003 by NZ Books

Miro Bilbrough on Whale Rider the movie I was unusually wary, seeing Whale Rider for the first time. was in the editing stages of a short feature film, a peculiarly sensitive time to see someone else’s film. Sequestered…

Tagged with: Autumn 2003, Issue 61, Miro Bilbrough
Posted in Opinion

Wine, wisdom and so on: Four founders look back at the beginnings of New Zealand Books

Posted on October 1, 2001 by NZ Books

Retrospective Shelagh Duckham Cox We met first in Lauris Edmond’s house at 22 Grass St in the middle of 1990 and the six of us – Lauris, John Mansfield Thomson, Pat Hawthorne, Vincent O’Sullivan, Martin Bond and Shelagh Duckham…

Tagged with: Issue 50, Martin Bond, October 2001, Pat Hawthorne, Shelagh Duckham Cox, Vincent O’Sullivan
Posted in Opinion

How to lose friends … Linda Burgess

Posted on October 1, 2001 by NZ Books

Reviewing It’s been a good day. I read the last 20 pages, the treat I’d saved myself for the morning, then I got out of bed and wrote the review. Four hundred words in less than half an hour. The…

Tagged with: Issue 50, Linda Burgess, October 2001
Posted in Opinion

“Considerate autocrats”, Bill Sewell and Harry Ricketts

Posted on October 1, 2001 by NZ Books

Editing Writers can get paranoid about editors. We know; we’re writers ourselves. Like many others, we’ve imagined editors to whom we’ve submitted work flicking through it in a spirit somewhere between malice and mischief. A number of masochistic scenarios spring…

Tagged with: Bill Sewell, Harry Ricketts, Issue 50, October 2001
Posted in Opinion

Keyboard practice, C K Stead

Posted on August 1, 2001 by NZ Books

C K Stead takes a new look at Janet Frame’s The Pocket Mirror. Janet Frame’s The Pocket Mirror (published by Braziller in New York in 1967 and here by Pegasus in 1968) has the appearance, not of a nervous first…

Tagged with: August 2001, Autumn 2001, C K Stead, Issue 49, Janet Frame
Posted in Opinion