Blog Archives

Absolutely fabulous, Thom Conroy

The Absolute Book Elizabeth Knox Victoria University Press, $35.00, ISBN 9781776562305 The Absolute Book by Elizabeth Knox is a Ronsardian ode to worldbuilding. Who creates worlds? What connects them? Who controls them? These questions shape the novel’s plot, subject and…
Tagged with: , , , ,
Posted in Fiction, Literature, Review

The human condition in extremis, Anna Rogers

Wake Elizabeth Knox Victoria University Press, $35.00, ISBN 9780864737700 “We have experiences that push us out of the flow of time. We react as if the worst hasn’t already happened. We are creatures who learn, and something we learn is…
Tagged with: , , , ,
Posted in Fiction, Literature, Review

Wearing their ethics on their sleeves, Jack Ross

Mortal Fire Elizabeth Knox Gecko Press, $30.00, ISBN 9781877579530 Dear Vincent Mandy Hager Random House, $20.00, ISBN 9781775533276 There was a time when I used to wait eagerly for each new YA novel by Margaret Mahy. Starting with The Haunting…
Tagged with: , , , , , ,
Posted in Fiction, Literature, Review, Young adults

Fierce bliss, Jane Stafford

The Angel’s Cut Elizabeth Knox Victoria University Press, $35.00, ISBN 9780864736000 In Elizabeth Knox’s 1998 novel The Vintner’s Luck an old French peasant from 19th century Burgundy who sees the angel Xas is carted off to the asylum; in its…
Tagged with: , , , ,
Posted in Fiction, Literature, 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: , , , ,
Posted in Essays, Literature, Non-fiction, Review

Dreaming on, Tatjana Schaefer

Dreamquake Elizabeth Knox HarperCollins, $27.99, ISBN 0732281946 “The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there”: L P Hartley’s famous opening to The Go-Between has become proverbial, and most media nowadays enjoy the occasional nostalgia-trip into this exotic…
Tagged with: , , , ,
Posted in Fiction, Literature, Review, Young adults

Unearthly mapmaking, Anna Jackson

Dreamhunter  Elizabeth Knox HarperCollins, $24.95, ISBN 0732281938 The Time of the Giants Anne Kennedy Auckland University Press, $27.99, ISBN 1869403428 Maddigan’s Fantasia Margaret Mahy HarperCollins, $24.95, ISBN 1869505611 Maddigan’s Fantasia opens with Garland Maddigan’s note to herself, “Written down things…
Tagged with: , , , , , , ,
Posted in Fiction, Literature, Review, Young adults

My ideal reader, Elizabeth Knox

My ideal reader reads constantly, avidly, and personally. My ideal reader adds something to the domestic scene, looks as comfortable as a cat and as fine as a flower arrangement with a book in one hand and a cup of…
Tagged with: , ,
Posted in Comment

About those vampires, Jane Stafford

Daylight Elizabeth Knox Victoria University Press, $29.95, ISBN 0864734492 Bad O’Phelan is a New Zealand caver traumatised by the memory of Dart Ridge, a Cave Creek disaster, which he survived “taking three backward steps off the viewing platform above the…
Tagged with: , , , ,
Posted in Fiction, Literature, Review

Hard Knox, Robert Onopa

Black Oxen Elizabeth Knox Victoria University Press, $29.95, ISBN 0864734093 From the first paragraph of Elizabeth Knox’s previous novel, Vintner’s Luck, the reader enters as complete and rich an alternative world as exists in contemporary fiction. It is a world…
Tagged with: , , , ,
Posted in Fiction, Literature, Review
Search the archive

More results...

Generic selectors
Exact matches only
Search in title
Search in content
Post Type Selectors
Filter by Categories
Architecture
Art
Autobiography
Awards
Biography
Byline
Children
Comment
Contents
ebooks
Economics
Editorial
Education
Essays
Extract
Fiction
Gender
Graphic novel
Health
History
Imprints
Language
Lecture
Letters
Letters
Literature
Māori
Media
Memoir
Music
Natural History
Non-fiction
Obituaries
Opinion
Pacific
Photography
Plays
Poem
Poetry
Politics & Law
Psychology
Religion
Review
Science
Short stories
Sociology
Sport
War
YA Reviewers
Young adults
Recent issues: subscriber-only access

    Subscribe to NZ Books to access the issues above

    Search by category