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Issue 89 | Autumn 2010

  Volume 20 | Number 1 | Issue 89 | Autumn 2010 Letters Andrew Wood: “Karl Wolfskehl (1869-1948)” (poem) Gregory O’Brien: “Low cloud, field of peonies, Martinborough” Ashleigh Young: Sam Hunt, Backroads: Charting a Poet’s Life Kathryn Walls: Tessa Duder

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Drawing-room stories, Stevan Eldred-Grigg

Old South: Life and Times in the Nineteenth-century Mainland Matthew Wright Penguin Books, $50.00, ISBN 9780143006510 Old South is a work that should be a welcome newcomer to the growing list of leading titles in New Zealand history. The book

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The future world of 1881, John O’Leary

The Great Romance  The Inhabitant; Dominic Alessio (ed) University of Nebraska Press, US$17.95, ISBN 9780803259966 At a time when James Cameron’s film Avatar is breaking box-office records, thanks largely to the hyper-vivid, computer-generated images of the planet Pandora provided by

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Otherwise fine, Simon Upton

Poles Apart: Beyond the Shouting, Who’s Right About Climate Change Gareth Morgan and John McCrystal Random House, $39.99, ISBN 9781869790455 When I learnt that Gareth Morgan was writing a book on climate change I groaned. Out of politeness, it was

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Still sacred lives, Helen Watson White

Red Studio: Forty-five Prints John Z Robinson Longacre Press, $39.99, ISBN 9781877460388 John Z Robinson is an artist in many media, and in two major modes. One is the ebullient use of colour in free-style painting; the other the witty,

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Might and rights, Elspeth Sandys

Field Punishment No 1: Archibald Baxter, Mark Briggs and New Zealand’s Anti-Militarist Tradition David Grant, paintings by Bob Kerr Steele Roberts, $34.99, ISBN 9781877448461 In his introduction to Field Punishment No 1, David Grant expresses his satisfaction that New Zealand

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A figure in motion, Stella Ramage

Art That Moves: The Work of Len Lye Roger Horrocks Auckland University Press, $60.00, ISBN 9781869404222 Last September I visited the blockbuster Salvador Dali exhibition at the National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne. Glamorous and edifying though it was, I

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Life cycles, Murray Bramwell

  Somebody Loves Us All Damien Wilkins Victoria University Press, $38.00, ISBN 9780864736161 The title of Damien Wilkins’ sixth novel, Somebody Loves Us All, comes from a line by the American poet Elizabeth Bishop. The poem is called “Filling Station”

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Letters – Issue 89

Fantasy London flat C K Stead thinks I am having a “fantasy” about a meeting I had with Dr Michael Bassett at Parliament in 1989 (NZB Summer 2009). Perhaps he has confused one meeting I describe with a later one.

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Love and war, Christine Johnston

Ned and Katina: A True Love Story Patricia Grace Penguin Books, $40.00, ISBN 9780143007401 Who could resist a love story set on Crete in 1945? Obviously Patricia Grace couldn’t. The celebrated author was approached by Ned’s and Katina’s family with

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