The New Zealand Wars Trilogy: The House of Strife, Monday’s Warriors, Season of the Jew Maurice Shadbolt David Ling, $99.99, ISBN 0908990995 On August 8 this year, a ceremony was held at Parliament to unveil a plaque to Lieutenant Colonel…
Lily’s Cupola Bronwyn Tate University of Otago Press, $29.95, ISBN 1877276596 Bloom Kelly Ana Morey Penguin, $27.95, ISBN 0143018922 Joybird Rosemary Wildblood David Ling, $29.95, ISBN 0998990901 The three-generation novel has always been popular with women writers. Besides Lily’s Cupola, Bloom…
Te Ara Ki Te Tiriti: The Path to the Treaty of Waitangi Paul Moon David Ling, $29.95, ISBN 0908990839 The Treaty of Waitangi often appears to have sprung forth, fully formed, from William Hobson’s pen on 6 February 1840. Many…
Rudi Gopas: A Biography Chris Ronayne David Ling, $49.95, ISBN 0908990820 I was at first reluctant to review this biography of the artist Rudi Gopas. For two crucial formative years, Rudi was my painting teacher, and I am briefly quoted…
Replacement Girl Ann Beaglehole Tandem Press, $27.95, ISBN 1877178985 On a Distant Island Denis Baker David Ling, $24.95, ISBN 0908990790 Replacement Girl, Ann Beaglehole’s first novel, is a story about memory, and what is not remembered; about belonging and not…
Dove on the Waters Maurice Shadbolt David Ling Publishing, $39.95, ISBN 0 908990 40 5 In 1959, having just left a provincial home town and moved to the astonishingly big city of Auckland, I was busy trying out various ways…
Best Friends Elspeth Sandys, David Ling Publishing, $19.95 Dunedin Shena Mackay, Penguin, $19.95 Both of these books deal with distance – within relationships and across time and space – and with dislocation, of various and at times particularly Antipodean kinds. Many…
Last Summer Gaelyn Gordon, David Ling Publishing, $24.95 Gaelyn Gordon writes well enough, and this, her third book for adults (she has previously written for children), is a ripping yarn. The simple quality of her writing is perhaps intended as…
One of Ben’s Maurice Shadbolt, David Ling Publishing, $44.95 Halfway Round the Harbour Keith Sinclair, Penguin, $29.95 This here biography and ‘reminiscence’ business … is a bit too near the ‘Higher Cannibalism’ to please me. Ancestor-worship is all right…