Blog Archives

Something highly individualistic to say, Tony Bellette

By the Waters of Babylon: the Art of A Lois White Nicola Green David Bateman, in association with the Auckland City Art Gallery, $39.95 No Road to Follow: Autobiography of a New Zealand Artist Eric Lee‑Johnson Godwit Press, $49.95 WA

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Posted in Art, Non-fiction

The panic of O, Jane Stafford

The Switch Murray Edmond Auckland University Press, $19.95 Dia Michelle Leggott Auckland University Press, $19.95 I teach a second-year university course in modern poetry where one of the chief requirements of the lecturers is to prevent panic. It’s alright, we

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Posted in Literature, Poetry, Review

Finding the inside story, Tessa Barringer

Pieces of Music Michael Jackson Vintage NZ $19.95 Olivia Lester Earnshaw Hazard Press $24.95 Sandspit Crossing Noel Virtue Random House NZ, $24.95 Michael Jackson is an internationally renowned anthropologist, Noel Virtue once worked as a zookeeper in Wales, and Lester

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Posted in Fiction, Literature, Review

Chinese takeaways, Anne French

Maidenhome Ding Xiaoqi Otago University Press, $24.95 The Chinese Interpreter James Norcliffe Hazard Press, $24.95 Burning Boats: seventeen New Zealand short stories Owen Marshall (ed) Longman Paul, $19.95 We’ve all become experts on China in the past year or two,

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Posted in Literature, Poetry, Review

Getting it practically all wrong, Sally Logan

The New Zealand Marketing Book Guenther Mueller‑Heumann and Michael Duffy Dunmore Press, $84.95 New Zealand’s future prosperity will be based, in large part, on its ability to market itself, its expertise, its products and its services to a sceptical world.

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Posted in Non-fiction

A state of acceptance? Bill Sewell

A Blue Monkey for the Tomb Hubert Witheford Faber & Faber £5.99 (approx NZ$15) Hubert Witheford presents a problem to literary historians. In some respects, he fits the profile of a New Zealand poet of his generation (he was born

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Posted in Literature, Poetry, Review

Greater than the parts, Janet Wilson

Mr Fish and other stories Elizabeth Smither Macindoe, $24.95 Elizabeth Smither’s second collection of short fiction gathered from stories published in recent years, displays at first sight the unfussed, unfazable and whimsical qualities for which her poetry has often been

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Posted in Fiction, Literature, Review

Most significant work in NZ realism, Lawrence Jones

Crime Story Maurice Gee Penguin, $29.95 The Fat Man Maurice Gee Viking, $15.95 In 1977, writing a letter to the Listener, Maurice Shadbolt commented that although he was “far more interested as a writer, in nineteenth century New Zealand”, he

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Posted in Fiction, Literature, Review

History, challenge and succession, Chris Prentice

Bulibasha, King of the Gypsies Witi Ihimaera Penguin, $29.95 Witi Ihimaera’s writing has always been concerned in some way with the problem of history, this concern reaching its most urgent and dramatic consideration in the 1986 novel, The Matriarch. With

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Posted in Fiction, Literature, Review

A seed for the future, Miriama Evans

Ngaa Mahi Whakaari a Titokowaru Ruka Broughton Victoria University Press, $24.95   E kore au e ngaro: te kakano i ruia mai i Rangiaatea (“I shall not be destroyed, for I am the seed sown from Rangiaatea.”) The ancient and

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Posted in History, Māori, Non-fiction, Review
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