Blog Archives

Committed and convicted, Anne Else

To Cry Inside: Love, Death and Prison Lesley Martin Penguin, $29.95, ISBN 0143020382 “You are best to read To Die Like a Dog first”, writes Lesley Martin, introducing To Cry Inside. So I did. Written as a film script, the

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Posted in Autobiography, Non-fiction, Review

Ripping yarns, Stevan Eldred-Grigg

Fatal Frontiers: A New History of New Zealand in the Decade Before the Treaty Paul Moon Penguin Books, $39.95, ISBN 0143020595 “New Zealand was undergoing an identity crisis in the 1830s,” writes Paul Moon on the first page of his

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Posted in History, Māori, Non-fiction, Review

Lives of nouns and adjectives, Gordon McLauchlan

A Fish in the Swim of the World  Ben Brown Longacre, $34.99, ISBN 1877361410 Family Silver  Richard Shallcrass Victoria University Press, $29.95, ISBN 0864735332 Something for the Birds  Jacqueline Fahey Auckland University Press, $39.99, ISBN 186940355X Terra Incognito  Douglas Wright

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Posted in Memoir, Non-fiction, Review

Cautionary tale, Linda Clark; Party-going, Raymond Miller

The Hollow Men: A Study in the Politics of Deception Nicky Hager Craig Potton Publishing, $34.99, ISBN 187733362X According to the rhetoric, the author of The Hollow Men is one of two things. Either he is an outstanding investigative journalist

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Posted in Non-fiction, Politics & Law, Review

An eye on Cambodia, Margot Schwass

A Certain Grace Anthony Maturin Anthony Maturin, $70.00, ISBN 109995082705, Instead of teaching in a dirt-floored classroom or hacking through the jungle, today’s VSA volunteer is just as likely to be an office-bound small-business advisor or a human resources trainer

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Posted in Non-fiction, Photography, Review

The Jones effect, Patrick Evans

Mister Pip Lloyd Jones Penguin, $35.00, ISBN 9780143020899 Lloyd Jones is the man who wrote a book about a child molester, and no one noticed – what better proof do we need that journalists don’t really read fiction? And yet

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Posted in Fiction, Literature, Review

Wild threads of imagination, Joan de Hamel

The Unquiet Carolyn McCurdie Longacre, $16.95, ISBN 1877361402 Aim High  David Hill Mallinson Rendel, $17.00, ISBN 0958262624 Frog Whistle Mine  Des Hunt HarperCollins, $16.99, ISBN 1869505956 Lizzie, Love  Brenda Delamain Longacre, $16.99, ISBN 1877361399 Shooting the Moon  V M Jones

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

Letters – Issue 77

Striking back Your reviewer of Revolution: The 1913 Great Strike in New Zealand, edited by Melanie Nolan (NZB, December 2006), rightly stresses agency among workers, as I have frequently done. But this does not alter the fact that the state

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Posted in Letters

Alice-in-Wonderland worlds, David Clark

The Elegant Universe of Albert Einstein: The Collected Lectures of the Royal Society of New Zealand E=mc2 Series Broadcast on National Radio Awa Press, $24.99, ISBN 0958262926 Are Angels OK? The Parallel Universes of New Zealand Writers and Scientists Paul

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Posted in Non-fiction, Review, Science

Editorial – Issue 77

A modest makeover With this, its 77th issue, New Zealand Books reverts to a quarterly, and one with a new look: notably, a striking front cover, a fresh typeface and an elegant new page design. It is, of course, common

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Posted in Editorial
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