Blog Archives

Nothing to do with fair play, Don Aimer

Somebody Stole My Game Chris Laidlaw HodderMoa, $39.99, ISBN 9781869711924 The Awa Book of New Zealand Sports Writing Harry Ricketts (ed) Awa Press, $40.00, ISBN 9780958291620 These two books complement each other, and their paths criss-cross. In Somebody Stole My…
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Posted in Non-fiction, Review, Sport

Finding touch, Chris Laidlaw

Tall Tales (Some True): Memoirs of an Unlikely Writer Greg McGee Penguin Books, $37.00, ISBN 9780143009139 McGee describes himself as an unlikely writer. This rather begs the question: what makes for a likely writer? Someone who has been brought up…
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Posted in Media, Non-fiction, Review

Strikes against the head, Chris Laidlaw

Tackling Rugby Myths: Rugby and New Zealand Society 1854-2004 ed Greg Ryan University of Otago Press, $39.95, ISBN 1877276979 It was Voltaire, who, not without a dash of cynicism, declared that all history is but myth that time has rendered…
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Posted in History, Non-fiction, Review, Sport

“Who’s this Pinetree?” Chris Laidlaw

The Judas Game: The Betrayal of New Zealand rugby Joseph Romanos Darius Press, $29.95, ISBN 0958240906 Meads Brian Turner Hodder Moa Beckett $49.95, ISBN 1869589173 A little anecdote buried in Joseph Romanos’ latest book The Judas Game: The Betrayal of…
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Posted in Non-fiction, Review, Sport

An eye on the ball, Graham Mourie

Rights of Passage: Beyond the New Zealand Identity Crisis Chris Laidlaw Hodder Moa  Beckett, $29.95, ISBN 1 86958 723 5 Chris Laidlaw was a quality All Black in the late 1960s, who achieved prominence by firing a Parthian shot at…
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Posted in Economics, Non-fiction, Review

For love and money, Chris Laidlaw

Sport If sport is indeed the opium of the masses then New Zealand has been on an awfully long trip. For more than a century sport has filled the Kiwi consciousness almost to bursting point, giving pride, pleasure and pain…
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Posted in Comment, Essays, Sport

Passion and precision, Chris Laidlaw

A Lucky Man Keith Quinn Shoal Bay Press, $44.95, ISBN 0908704917 It is one of life’s idiosyncrasies that the nicer a guy is, the more some people will feel compelled to hate him. Keith Quinn, the doyen of television sports…
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Posted in Autobiography, Non-fiction, Review

A fly on the All Black wall, Chris Laidlaw

Inside the All Blacks Robin McConnell HarperCollins, $39.95 ISBN 1 86950 274 4 One of the hardest things to do in any book about the sociology of sport is to draw the line between breathless spectatorship and real analysis. Robin…
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Posted in Non-fiction, Review, Sociology, Sport
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