Blog Archives

Bugger the box-office, Laurie Atkinson

The Little Theatre: golden years of the New Zealand stage Glyn Strange Clerestory Press, $45.00, ISBN 0958370699 A Theatre in the House: The Careys’ Globe Rosalie Carey Otago University Press, $34.95, ISBN 1877133663 If British theatre, as Richard Eyre and Nicholas

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Posted in Art, History, Non-fiction, Review

Rough around the edges, Phil Kawana

Camilla Vanilla  Nick Hyde Vintage, $24.95, ISBN 1869414519 The Gospel @ccording to Cole  Rhonda Bartle Cape Catley, $24.95, ISBN 0908561830 A good cover should draw you towards a book, and the covers of both these novels do just that. The

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Posted in Fiction, Literature, Review

Buried stories, Jane Tolerton

The Land Girls: In a man’s world Dianne Bardsley Otago University Press, $39.95, ISBN 1877133949 The Women’s War: New Zealand Women 1939-45 Deborah Montgomerie Auckland University Press, $39.95, ISBN 1869402448 Living in the 20th Century: New Zealand History in Photographs

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Posted in Gender, History, Non-fiction, Review, Sociology, War

Robber barons, worker rebels, Gavin McLean

British Capital, Antipodean Labour: Working the New Zealand Waterfront 1915-1951 Anna Green Otago University Press, $39.95, ISBN 187713399X A few weeks ago, a retired port agency manager asked  me who was “this Anna Green lady” and did I know anything

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Posted in Health, Non-fiction, Politics & Law, Review

Not tolling for me, Heather Murray

The Bells of Saint Babel’s: Poems 1997-2001 Allen Curnow Auckland University Press, $19.95, ISBN 1869402421 They have all gone into the dark: the fellow poets of his youth and middle age, the critics, the early shapers and gatekeepers of New

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Posted in Literature, Poetry, Review

To be a pilgrim, Susan Paris

As Fair as New Zealand to Me: New Zealand Writers in Katherine Mansfield’s Menton Victoria University Press, $24.95, ISBN 0864733984 The French Riviera … not the most obvious place to spend time concentrating on your writing. But because of Mansfield’s brief

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Posted in Essays, Literature, 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 technical

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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

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Posted in Biography, Non-fiction, Review

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

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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,

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Posted in History, Non-fiction, Review
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