Blog Archives

Digging through the permafrost, Stephen Levine

Season of Discontent: By-elections and the Bolger Government Raymond Miller and Helena Catt, Dunmore Publishing, 1993, $29.95 The “season of discontent” to which this book refers began within weeks of National’s victory in October 1990. When the Bolger Government found

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Posted in Non-fiction, Politics & Law, Review

A frightening, different creativity, Anne French

The Inward Sun: Celebrating the Life and Work of Janet Frame Elizabeth Alley (ed), Daphne Brasell Associates Press, $34.95 Perhaps the worst fate a writer can suffer is to have their life talked about while their work is ignored. If

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Posted in Biography, Literature, Non-fiction, Review

Poem — Julie Leibrich

The Jug   Almost an indecent act. Indelicate at least. Yet as I wash away three hundred years of grime I speed through light years of combustion. Past the wars, the Regency and all the Georges strung in line to

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Posted in Poem

Here and now, Tom Beard

Scenes from a Small City Lauris Edmond, Daphne Brassell Associates, $24.95   Lauris Edmond’s poems have always conveyed a strong sense of time and place, so it is no surprise that in a volume based around life in Wellington the

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Posted in Literature, Poetry, Review

Making women’s past accessible, Barbara Brookes

Standing in the Sunshine: A history of New Zealand Women Since They Won the Vote Sandra Coney, Penguin Books, $59.95 Women’s history, once a marginal pursuit and still not entirely integrated into the academy, is popular. Each year, and particularly

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

A quite atypical farm, Tom Brooking

Imperial Patriot: Charles Alma Baker and the History of Limestone Downs Barrie Macdonald, Bridget Williams Books, $59.95 One of the strangest features of New Zealand’s written history is that the rural sector has been relatively neglected. Even though farming, apart

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Posted in History, Non-fiction, Review

Removing the adult voice, Kathryn Walls

Baker’s Dozen Tom Bradley, HarperCollins, $12.95 Saved by Ryan Kane Pauline Cartwright, Ashton Scholastic, $7.95 The Secret of Boomer Lake Ken Catran, HarperCollins, $10.95 The Breakdown Day Dorothy Butler, Ashton Scholastic, $12.95 Tom Bradley’s Baker’s Dozen is a collection of

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Posted in Children, Fiction, Literature, Review, Young adults

Composed of small moments, Rod McGregor

The Miserables Damien Wilkins, Victoria University Press, 1993, $24.95 This, Damien Wilkins’s first novel, seems a natural extension of his earlier stories and poems. It is a bildungsroman of a very modernistic sort, tightly written, concise in scope but large

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Posted in Fiction, Literature, Review

The same old plot, Colleen Reilly

Like You, Really Kate Flannery, Penguin Books, $24.95 The Wife Who Spoke Japanese in Her Sleep Vivienne Plumb, Otago University Press, $24.95 Best Friends Elspeth Sandys, David Ling, $19.95 All the Tenderness Left in the World Stephanie Johnson, Otago University

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Posted in Fiction, Literature, Review

Rich and disturbing detail, Lydia Wevers

The Sky People and Other Stories Patricia Grace, Penguin Books, $24.95 The Ace of Diamonds Gang and Other Stories Owen Marshall, John McIndoe, $19.95 The Foreign Woman Fiona Kidman, Vintage, $19.95 All the Tenderness Left in the World Stephanie Johnson,

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Posted in Fiction, Literature, Review, Short stories
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