Blog Archives
The high ground, Simon Upton
Whose High Country? A History of the South Island High Country of New Zealand Roberta McIntyre Penguin Books, $45.00, ISBN 97801430084125 At the risk of irretrievably mixing one’s metaphors, it is dairy farmers who are today on the sheep’s back.…
Tagged with: Autumn 2009, Issue 85, Penguin Books, Roberta McIntyre, Simon Upton
Posted in History, Non-fiction, Review
Posted in History, Non-fiction, Review
Time out, Mark Houlahan
Chinese Opera Ian Wedde Victoria University Press, $30.00, ISBN 9780864735850 When a story by Ian Wedde called “Chinese Opera” was published in Sport 2, readers were informed that he expected to “finish Chinese Opera, his fourth novel, in 1989.” Nineteen…
Tagged with: Autumn 2009, Ian Wedde, Issue 85, Mark Houlahan, Victoria University Press
Posted in Fiction, Literature, Review
Posted in Fiction, Literature, Review
Troubled missionary, Paul Moon
God’s Messenger: J F Riemenschneider and Racial Conflict in 19th Century New Zealand Peter Oettli Huia, $55.00, ISBN 9781869693201 The lives of missionaries in 19th century New Zealand have tended to end up being documented in two forms. The first…
Tagged with: Autumn 2009, Huia, Issue 85, Paul Moon, Peter Oettli
Posted in History, Non-fiction, Religion, Review
Posted in History, Non-fiction, Religion, Review
Sheering off, Michael Hulse
The Love School: Personal Essays Elizabeth Knox Victoria University Press, $33.00, ISBN 9780864735928 Paremata, the childhood novella which followed her debut novel After Z-Hour, was my own first encounter with Elizabeth Knox’s writing. The copy she gave me is inscribed…
Tagged with: Autumn 2009, Elizabeth Knox, Issue 85, Michael Hulse, Victoria University Press
Posted in Essays, Literature, Non-fiction, Review
Posted in Essays, Literature, Non-fiction, Review
Ex cathedra, Paul Morris
A Word in Season: Reflections on Spirituality, Faith and Ethics Richard Randerson Matai House, $19.50, ISBN 9780473136543 The Anglican Church in New Zealand, like the other major denominations, is split between its liberals and conservatives. This division is over how…
Tagged with: Autumn 2009, Issue 85, Matai House, Paul Morris, Richard Randerson
Posted in Non-fiction, Religion, Review
Posted in Non-fiction, Religion, Review
Walking with McCahon, Martin Edmond
In this extract from Dark Night, Martin Edmond retraces the steps of Colin McCahon, who, on April 11 1984, went missing in Sydney’s Royal Botanical Gardens and was not found again for 36 hours. I actually made the walk from…
The embodiment of dreams, Brendan O’Brien
The Printing of a Masterpiece Alan Loney Black Pepper, $AUD25.95, ISBN 9781876044589 With so much reading now done on the computer screen, Alan Loney’s new publication arrives to remind us of some of the other qualities we encounter when we…
Tagged with: Alan Loney, Autumn 2009, Black Pepper, Brendan O’Brien, Issue 85
Posted in Art, Non-fiction
Posted in Art, Non-fiction
Shooting the south, Stella Ramage
White Silence: Grahame Sydney’s Antarctica Grahame Sydney Viking, $115.00, ISBN 9780670072538 How does the sustained gaze of the landscape painter, obsessively re-imagining the sun-scorched expanses of Central Otago in a million meticulous brushstrokes, adjust to the mechanical snap of a…
Tagged with: Autumn 2009, Grahame Sydney, Issue 85, Stella Ramage, Viking
Posted in Non-fiction, Photography, Review
Posted in Non-fiction, Photography, Review
The decent society, John Pagani
The Bolger Years 1990-1997 Margaret Clark (ed) Dunmore Publishing, $37.95, ISBN 9781877399336 I have to confess to having taunted Margaret Clark in the past for her incuriosity. A few years ago she demanded in a newspaper answers and explanations from…
Tagged with: Autumn 2009, Dunmore Publishing, Issue 85, John Pagani, Margaret Clark
Posted in History, Non-fiction, Politics & Law, Review
Posted in History, Non-fiction, Politics & Law, Review
Poem – Peter Bland
The Gift You love the new land truly you love it you pile up year upon year until belonging happens and before you know it the old land drifts into myth which you visit disguised as a child the…