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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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,…
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…