Blog Archives

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

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

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

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Posted in Poem

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

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Posted in Fiction, Literature, Review

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

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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

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Posted in Letters

“Life in one’s mouth”, Peter Bland

Louis Johnson: Selected Poems ed Terry Sturm Victoria University Press, $29.95, ISBN 086473350X There’s a short poem by Louis Johnson which I’ve always admired. It’s called “Intemperance” and it tells us a lot in a very short space, both about

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Posted in Literature, Poetry, Review

Talking Toss Woollaston, Gregory O’Brien

Toss Woollaston in conversation with Gregory O’Brien I visited Toss Woollaston at Upper Moutere in September 1994 and over two days recorded two-and-a-half hours of conversation with him. During my stay, the talk ranged widely, with Toss speaking at some

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Posted in Comment

The Truth Problem, Anne French

An Autobiography Lauris Edmond Bridget Williams Books, $49.95, ISBN 18772421225 Lauris Edmond: Selected Poems 1975-2000 ed K O Arvidson Bridget Williams Books, $39.95, ISBN 1877242152 There’s only one issue to be resolved with autobiography, and that is the Truth Problem.

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Posted in Autobiography, Literature, Non-fiction, Poetry, Review

Poem – Louise White

Rituals   Sprung from the trunk of a treefern, a backbone curves against the sky. It was the same then, early morning under manuka, the slab secured between branches, a smoke-house dangling on rope. The knife paused in my father’s

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Posted in Poem
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