Nearly three years ago, I went to the funeral of Hugh Llewellyn Price who died after many months of living with cancer. And “living with” is the operative phrase here, as even during his last years, he was still having…
The Quiet Earth Craig Harrison Text, $16.00, ISBN 9781922147059 Over the last few years Melbourne-based Text Publishing has done a good job of bringing back to mainstream attention some of the “lost marvels of our literature”, republishing books that count…
Self-portrait Marti Friedlander with Hugo Manson Auckland University Press, $60.00, ISBN 9781869407841 One day we will all be just a photograph, Marti Friedlander tells us in the closing pages of this entertaining and readable memoir. Coming as it does from…
The Lie That Settles Peter Farrell Ocean Books, $35.00, ISBN 978192721708 The Lost Pilot Jeffrey Paparoa Holman Penguin, $40.00, ISBN 9781742539201 A History of Silence Lloyd Jones Penguin, $38.00, ISBN 9780143569473 “The cradle rocks above an abyss,” writes Nabokov in…
How to Hear Classical Music Davinia Caddy Awa Press, $26.00, ISBN 9781877551000 At the end of June this year in Wellington, Michael Houstoun presented the centrepiece of his Beethoven Recycled series of piano recitals, in which he was playing the…
Celanie: Poems and Drawings after Paul Celan Jack Ross (poems), Emma Smith (drawings) Pania Press, $30.00, ISBN 9780473224844 Among the measures of esteem for the poetry of Paul Celan (1920-1970), the number, calibre and dedication of his translators are probably…
The Writing Class Stephanie Johnson Random House, $38.00, ISBN 9781775532590 The Last Days of the National Costume Anne Kennedy Allen and Unwin, $37.00, ISBN 9781743313862 Two writers of a similar age and stage in the development of their writing careers,…
Pentimento Rosemary Wildblood Wily Publications, $30.00, ISBN 9781927167090 The Fall of Light Sarah Laing Vintage, $38.00, ISBN 9781775533030 Settling into a novel can be a lot like going away on holiday with people you don’t know, or settling into a…
White-collar Radical: Dan Long and the Rise of White-collar Unions Mark Derby Craig Potton, $40.00, ISBN 9781877517174 Dan Long was an esteemed public servant and political and union activist from the late 1950s until his premature death…