Blog Archives

The human condition in extremis, Anna Rogers

Wake Elizabeth Knox Victoria University Press, $35.00, ISBN 9780864737700 “We have experiences that push us out of the flow of time. We react as if the worst hasn’t already happened. We are creatures who learn, and something we learn is…
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Posted in Fiction, Literature, Review

Knowing their stuff, Anna Rogers

The Phoenix Song John Sinclair Victoria University Press, $38.00, ISBN 9780864738257 The Secret Life of James Cook: A Novel Graeme Lay HarperCollins, $37.00, ISBN 9781775540120 “It takes a great deal of history,” wrote Henry James in 1879, “to produce a…
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Posted in Fiction, Literature, Review

Reading the past, Anna Rogers

Reading on the Farm: Victorian Fiction and the Colonial World Lydia Wevers Victoria University Press, $40.00, ISBN 9780864736352   The big sheep and cattle stations of 19th-century New Zealand and books were tough, physical, practical places, where men (and a…
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Posted in History, Literature, Non-fiction, Review

Where the boys are, Anna Rogers

Native Wit Hamish Keith Random House, $44.99, ISBN 9781869418434 Daddy was a German Spy and Other Scandals: A Memoir Brian Edwards Penguin Books, $40.00, ISBN 9780143009221 Piano Rock: A 1950s Childhood Gavin Bishop Random House, $34.99, ISBN 9781869790103 Google “memoirs…
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Posted in Memoir, Non-fiction, Review

Red pen pedants, Anna Rogers

Book editor Anna Rogers on why even the best authors need saving from themselves.  For most people, a menu is a list of food choices. For an editor, a menu is a test: can the restaurateurs (not the restauranteurs) spell…
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Posted in Comment

Faith and works, Anna Rogers

Shrewd Sanctity: The Story of Kathleen Hall, 1896-1970: Missionary Nurse in China Rae McGregor Polygraphia, $30.00, ISBN 1877332321 In an age of “icons” and “celebrities”, true heroes are hard to find. Kathleen Hall, however, was the real deal. This extraordinary…
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Posted in Biography, Non-fiction, Review

Revisionist urges, Anna Rogers

The Rope of Man Witi Ihimaera Reed, $34.99, ISBN 0790008947 It’s surely a disconcerting and disturbing notion: that a writer’s early books can be rewritten many years later to take account of changes in his life, or in the evolution…
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Posted in Fiction, Literature, Review

Over there, Anna Rogers

Foreign City Charlotte Grimshaw Vintage, $36.95, ISBN 1869417275 Responsibility Nigel Cox Victoria University Press, $29.95, ISBN 0864734964 White Shadows: Memories of Marienbad Philip Temple Vintage, $27.95, ISBN 1869416996 I’m old enough to remember the days when a New Zealand novel…
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Posted in Fiction, Literature, Review

If it’s claggy, it must be Wellington, Kim Griggs

Auckland: The city in literature ed Witi Ihimaera Exisle Publishing, $34.95, ISBN 0908988362 Dunedin: The city in literature  ed Christine Johnston Exisle Publishing, $34.95, ISBN 0908988451 Christchurch: The city in literature ed Anna Rogers Exisle Publishing, $34.95, ISBN 0908988427 Wellington:…
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Posted in Literature, Review

Angels in the meat-grinder, Les Cleveland

While You’re Away: New Zealand Nurses at War 1899-1948 Anna Rogers Auckland University Press, $39.95, ISBN 1869403010 Nursing might be one of the few remaining professions not entirely driven by greed or self-interest. Anna Rogers assembles a chronicle of service…
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Posted in Health, History, Non-fiction, Review, War
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