Blog Archives
Volume 29 | Number 2 | Issue 126 | Winter 2019 Stephanie Johnson: Carl Shuker, A Mistake John McCrystal: Owen Marshall, Pearly Gates: A Novel Victor Rodger: John Broughton, Oscar Kightley and Erolia Ifopo, Gary Henderson, and Carl Nixon,…
The Friday Poem: 100 New Zealand Poems Steve Braunias (ed) David Bateman, $25.00, ISBN 9780473450281 Short Poems of New Zealand Jenny Bornholdt (ed) Victoria University Press, $35.00, ISBN 9781776562022 Two new poetry anthologies: one featuring beautifully composed small poems selected…
Under Glass Gregory Kan Auckland University Press, $25.00, ISBN 9781869408916 It’s common to talk about the “emotional landscape” of a book. Gregory Kan’s second poetry collection Under Glass transforms that figure of speech into something more – yet not entirely…
Government for the Public Good: The Surprising Science of Large-scale Collective Action Max Rashbrooke Bridget Williams Books, $50.00, ISBN 9781988545080 This is an optimistic book that aims to re-set the narrative on collective action and, in particular, how we discuss…
New Zealand and the Sea: Historical Perspectives Frances Steel (ed) Bridget Williams Books, $60.00, ISBN 9780947518707 Ocean: Tales of Voyaging and Encounter that Defined New Zealand Sarah Ell Penguin Random House, $70.00, ISBN 9780143772675 Most histories of nations tend to…
Now When it Rains – A Writer’s Memoir Jeffrey Paparoa Holman Steele Roberts, $35.00, ISBN 9780947493776 A boy needs a father, but things can go badly wrong if the father is not good at fathering. This seems to be one…
Kaitiaki o te Pō: Essays John-Paul Powley Seraph Press, $35.00, ISBN 9780994134592 I am in two minds about John-Paul Powley’s Kaitiaki o te Pō – this is a good essay collection, even really good. But goodness is also Powley’s Achilles…
Lasting Impressions: The Story of New Zealand’s Newspapers, 1840–1920 Ian F Grant Fraser Books, in association with the Alexander Turnbull Library, $69.50, ISBN 9780994136046 At a time when journalism is in crisis, with collapsing revenues and governments and elites indifferent…
Obituary Peter Wells (1950-2019) Siobhan Harvey Into the apparent silence of diverse voices in Aotearoa New Zealand literature, award-winning novelist, essayist, historian, anthologist, filmmaker and playwright, Peter Wells spoke. His was an articulation which, in life, was strong, uncompromising, inquisitive,…
Whatever it Takes: Pacific Films and John O’Shea 1948-2000 John Reid Victoria University Press, $60.00, ISBN 9781776562114 Many years ago, I was invited by the New Zealand Film Archive to try to order the mass of material in its John…