Blog Archives

The federation game, Colin James

Waltzing with Matilda: Should New Zealand join Australia? Bob Catley Dark Horse Publishing, $29.95, ISBN 0958214611 A chilling graph presented to Auckland business leaders on 14 May undermines Bob Catley’s thesis. Auckland, the graph showed, lost 3.4% in GDP per…
Tagged with: , , , , ,
Posted in Non-fiction, Politics & Law, Review

Elsie Locke, Hugh Laracy

Elsie Locke (1912-2001) History-writing properly done is a complicated business, calling in varying measures and forms for effort, skill and artistry. It requires diligent research to gather the factual raw material. It requires subtlety to assemble the shards of information…
Tagged with: , , , ,
Posted in Comment

From sclerosis to stagnation, Brian Easton

Remaking New Zealand and Australian Economic Policy: Ideas, Institutions, and Policy Communities Shaun Goldfinch Victoria University Press, $39.95, ISBN 0864733933 Shaun Goldfinch’s Remaking New Zealand and Australian Economic Policy is the latest version of what is becoming the standard account…
Tagged with: , , , , ,
Posted in Politics & Law, Review

Letters – Issue 49

Not letting the facts interfere Stevan Eldred-Grigg’s review of Southern Capital was the most spiteful, vindictive and unprofessional review I have seen for a very long time. We learn that Eldred-Grigg actively dislikes the University of Canterbury’s History Department, and…
Tagged with: , ,
Posted in Letters

Beyond shock, Shelagh Duckham Cox

Room  Laurence Fearnley Victoria University Press, $24.95, ISBN 0864733909 Dr Amelia Walsh is an abortionist and the room of the title is her consulting room. A succession of women sit in her patient’s chair and respond in various ways to…
Tagged with: , , , , ,
Posted in Fiction, Literature, Review

Poem – Peter Bland

A meeting in Barcelona For Louis Johnson (1924 – 1988)   I glimpsed your ghost today, disguised as a tourist, visiting Picasso’s favourite brothel. The one where he painted those cubist nudes with their stranglers’ hands and fetishist faces. Ugly…
Tagged with: , , ,
Posted in Poem

A slimming diet, Rose Lovell-Smith

Scarface and the Angel William Taylor Longacre Press, $14.95, ISBN 1877135445 Afterwards  David Hill Mallinson Rendel, $14.95, ISBN 090878354X Twenty-Four Hours Margaret Mahy Collins, $16.95, ISBN 0007113722 Leon Frances Cherry Mallinson Rendel, $14.95, ISBN 0908783582 Here’s a batch of four…
Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Fiction, Literature, Review, Young adults

Way down South, Peter Beck

A Wise Adventure: New Zealand and Antarctica 1920-1960  Malcolm Templeton Victoria University Press, with the New Zealand Institute of International Affairs, Wellington, $39.95, ISBN 0864734034 Antarctica is often presented as “a pole apart” because of its peripheral location, geographical isolation,…
Tagged with: , , , , , ,
Posted in History, Non-fiction, Review

Tolling on, James Brown

The Bells of Saint Babel’s: Poems 1997-2001 Allen Curnow Auckland University Press, $19.95, ISBN 1869402421 There is much to admire in Curnow’s first completely new book since The Loop in Lone Kauri Road (1986). To the fore is his great…
Tagged with: , , , , ,
Posted in Literature, Poetry, Review

Fragile as corrugated iron, Kim Hill

Angel of the Anzacs: The Life of Nola Luxford Carol van Grondelle Victoria University Press, $39.95, ISBN 0864733976 Nola Luxford left New Zealand in 1919, at the age of 23, for Hollywood. She never quite made the Big Time in…
Tagged with: , , , , ,
Posted in Biography, Non-fiction, Review
Search the archive

More results...

Generic selectors
Exact matches only
Search in title
Search in content
Post Type Selectors
Filter by Categories
Architecture
Art
Autobiography
Awards
Biography
Byline
Children
Comment
Contents
ebooks
Economics
Editorial
Education
Essays
Extract
Fiction
Gender
Graphic novel
Health
History
Imprints
Language
Lecture
Letters
Letters
Literature
Māori
Media
Memoir
Music
Natural History
Non-fiction
Obituaries
Opinion
Pacific
Photography
Plays
Poem
Poetry
Politics & Law
Psychology
Religion
Review
Science
Short stories
Sociology
Sport
War
YA Reviewers
Young adults
Recent issues: subscriber-only access

    Subscribe to NZ Books to access the issues above

    Search by category