Blog Archives

Issue 53 | June 2002

  Volume 12 | Number 2 | Issue 53 | June 2002 Anne French: Lauris Edmond, An Autobiography; Selected Poems 1975-2000 Editorial Peter Wells: Dennis McEldowney, The World Regained; Vanya Lowry, From the Wisteria Bush Louise White: “Rituals” (poem) Nicholas

See more ›

Tagged with: ,
Posted in Contents

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

See more ›

Tagged with: , , , ,
Posted in Comment

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

See more ›

Tagged with: , , , , ,
Posted in Non-fiction, Politics & Law, Review

Variations on the familiar, Lawrence Jones

Ellie and the Shadow Man  Maurice Gee Penguin Books, $34.95, ISBN 0141004177 Responses to Maurice Gee’s Ellie and the Shadow Man, his fourteenth adult novel and his twenty-sixth book, will probably vary between the extremes marked by two of my

See more ›

Tagged with: , , , , ,
Posted in Fiction, Literature, Review

Odds on, Joseph Romanos

Two Over Three on Goodtime Sugar: The New Zealand TAB turns 50 David Grant Victoria University Press, $49.95, ISBN 0864734018 David Grant’s history of the Totalisator Agency Board should come with a warning: it is not to be approached by the

See more ›

Tagged with: , , , , ,
Posted in History, Non-fiction, Review, Sociology

Editorial – Issue 49

Two cheers for biography Biography doesn’t always get a good press. It has been Said to have “added a new terror to death”, while Oscar Wilde remarked that “[e]very great man nowadays has his disciples, and it is always Judas

See more ›

Tagged with: , , , ,
Posted in Editorial

Antipodean apparatchik, Barry Gustafson

Tomorrow Comes the Song: A Life of Peter Fraser Michael Bassett and Michael King Penguin Books, $49.95, ISBN 0140297936 The late Professor John Roberts once told me a story about his father “Big Jim” Roberts, nicknamed “the uncrowned King of

See more ›

Tagged with: , , , , , , ,
Posted in Biography, Non-fiction, Review

More epic than lyric, Mary Macpherson

Earth Colours: Selected Poems L E Scott HeadworX, $24.95, ISBN 0473068036 Declamatory and full of urgent desire to thrust the reader into different realities, L E Scott’s poems stride across big subjects. Earth Colours reflects 30 years of Scott’s poems

See more ›

Tagged with: , , , , ,
Posted in Literature, Poetry, Review

Werewolf beneath the tweed, Barbara Else

Time for a Killing  Shonagh Koea Vintage, $24.95, ISBN 1869414659 Over the last few years, I’ve declined invitations to review New Zealand books for two reasons. First, the local world of writing and publishing is very small. If you don’t

See more ›

Tagged with: , , , , ,
Posted in Fiction, Literature, Review

More than a decent splash, Diana Bridge

Carnival of New Zealand Creatures Lauris Edmond Pemmican Press, $14.95, ISBN 0473073188 I’ll Tell You This Much Vincent O’Sullivan Pemmican Press, $14.95, ISBN 047306345X Avalanche  Vivienne Plumb Pemmican Press, $14.95, ISBN 0473067056 Plunge Harry Ricketts Pemmican Press, $14.95, ISBN 0473076306

See more ›

Tagged with: , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Literature, Poetry, Review
Search the archive
Search by category