Blog Archives

Editorial – Issue 105

Something old, something new Between us, we have noticed – with a progression of interest, appetite, and increasing alarm, rather swiftly replaced by boredom – a growing body of new novels that look very much like the old. Sequels, prequels,

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Editorial – Issue 103

Opening up the archive We’re starting to feel a little sheepish about the milestones we keep reaching. This is our third and fourth in less than three years. Still, here we go: with this – our 103rd issue – we’re

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Still flying, Harry Ricketts

Glass Wings Fleur Adcock Victoria University Press, $28.00, ISBN 9780864738875 Glass Wings is Fleur Adcock’s 13th collection. For close on 50 years, her poems have been praised for their sharp wit, classical clarity and conversational ease. Those qualities are again

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Posted in Literature, Poetry, Review

Walking upon ashes, Harry Ricketts

The Search for Anne Perry Joanne Drayton HarperCollins, $45.00, ISBN 9781869508883 So Brilliantly Clever: Parker, Hulme and the Murder that Shocked the World Peter Graham Awa Press, $42.00, ISBN 9781877651123 On 22 June 1954, in Victoria Park, Christchurch, 16-year-old Pauline

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Posted in Biography, History, Non-fiction, Review

Poem – Harry Ricketts

At the Frankfurt Book Fair: a triolet   We do our best to do our stuff, our quardle oodle ardle wardle doodle. A Lion in the Meadow meets Alan Duff: We do our best to do our stuff. The things

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Editorial – Issue 100

Whithering or withering? Back in the day, literary couple Iris Murdoch and John Bayley used to speak of “whithering”. They were referring to international festivals at which they were asked to address the question “whither the novel?” At the dawn

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Travels and clippings, Nadine France

Graft Helen Heath Victoria University Press, $28.00, ISBN 9780864737762   Beauties of the Octagonal Pool Gregory O’Brien Auckland University Press, $28.00, ISBN 9781869405793   Just Then Harry Ricketts Victoria University Press, $25.00, ISBN 9780864738226   To graft is “to fix

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Posted in Literature, Poetry, Review

Truth eating, Harry Ricketts

Inside Outside Brian Turner Victoria University Press, $30.00, ISBN 9780864736536   Coming Ashore Peter Bland Steele Roberts, $19.99, ISBN 9781877577499   Fly Boy Jeffrey Paparoa Holman Steele Roberts, $19.99, ISBN 97818544125   “I seek to honour/the truculent/genesis of living,” states

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Posted in Literature, Poetry, Review

Editorial – Issue 98

Two issues beyond the 20th anniversary edition of New Zealand Books and two before our 100th  issue, we’ve reached another milestone. The determined enthusiasts who founded the journal might well have predicted the first two, and will certainly have hoped

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Don’t we live in America? Rose Lovell-Smith

A Made-Up Place: New Zealand in Young Adult Fiction Anna Jackson, Geoff Miles, Harry Ricketts, Tatjana Schaefer and Kathryn Walls Victoria University Press, $40.00, ISBN 9780864736970   Chapter four of this collection of essays by five authors is called “Utopia”.

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Posted in Essays, Literature, Non-fiction, Review, Young adults
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