Blog Archives
How to Sail a Boat Matt Vance Awa Press, $26.00, ISBN 9781877551857 “We were about five hundred miles off the coast of California … .” That’s how Mid’s best stories start. I haven’t seen him for years now, but I…
Marine maintenance CRC for the seized zip on my sailing bag. Dry Glide for the spinnaker snatch block. Rescue tape for the roller round the baby stay. Dry Glide for the frozen hank on the No 1. Jif for…
Blue Water: Salt-encrusted Stories of a Life at Sea Lindsay Wright HarperCollins, $35.00, ISBN 9781869509002 “ ‘Let’s sail to the Arctic next spring,’ I suggested to Sarah … She gave me a long, cool look … ‘Okay, if you…
On the way for Geoff Park On the way to Mein Street, everyone seems unnaturally well and strong. That elegant girl, swinging her bag as she crosses the road in front of me; that lean school-boy, slouching by the…
Geoff Park (1946-2009) I heard about Geoff Park long before I actually met him. David Young and Peter Horsley had told me about him, so I already knew about his energy and passion for plants and landscape, and the unusual…
Wild Anne French Auckland University Press, $31.95, ISBN 186940310X Travel and other compulsions Heather McPherson Earl of Seacliff Art Workshop, $18.00, ISBN 1869420349 Catullus for Children Anna Jackson Auckland University Press, $21.95, ISBN 1869403088 Bluff’s main street was recently relieved…
Nice morning for it, Adam Vincent O’Sullivan Victoria University Press, $24.95, ISBN 0864734735 Vincent O’Sullivan’s poetry falls into three broad periods. The early books are not only forgotten, they are also impossible to find, though I once came across a…
Tracing the Arc John Saker Four Winds Press, $14.95, ISBN 0958237557 On Make-up and Makeover Paula Boock Four Winds Press, $14.95, ISBN 0958237549 Notes of a Bag Lady Margaret Mahy Four Winds Press, $14.95, ISBN 0958237522 Until recently, the essay…
Shapes on the Wind David Lewis HarperCollins, $29.95, ISBN 073226801X In 1934, when I was seventeen, I celebrated my last days at boarding school by building a canoe/kayak and informing the headmaster that I was going home in it…
An Autobiography Lauris Edmond Bridget Williams Books, $49.95, ISBN 18772421225 Lauris Edmond: Selected Poems 1975-2000 ed K O Arvidson Bridget Williams Books, $39.95, ISBN 1877242152 There’s only one issue to be resolved with autobiography, and that is the Truth Problem.…