Blog Archives

Poem – Adrienne Jansen

The Sea Horse It was transparently still in the water just the kick of a stone from your foot. You said, “I’ve never seen a sea horse live before.” But it was hardly alive. It was clear glass, bones in…
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Is it worth it?  David Pearson

The Rich. A New Zealand History Stevan Eldred-Grigg Penguin Books, $34.95, ISBN 0 140 25740 3 If the poor are always with us, it logically follows that the rich are their constant counterparts. Relative poverty is a companion to relative…
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Posted in History, Non-fiction, Review

The making of new kinds of history, J G A Pocock

Redemption Songs: a life of Te Kooti Arikirangi Te Turuki Judith Binney Auckland University Press and Bridget Williams Books, $79.95, ISBN 1 86940 131 x This book is a major achievement. Not, perhaps, of the printer’s and bookbinder’s art. It…
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Posted in History, Māori, Non-fiction, Review

Undesigned revolution, David Caygill

Public Management: The New Zealand Model Jonathan Boston, John Martin, June Pallot, Pat Walsh Otago University Press, $49.95, ISBN 0 19 558325 6 Later this year the World Bank is holding a seminar here on “The New Zealand Model”. As…
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Posted in Non-fiction, Politics & Law, Review

Surprising ourselves, Lawrence Jones

Loving Ways  Maurice Gee Penguin, $29.95, ISBN 0 140 25789 6 Little Masters Damien Wilkins VUP, $24.95, ISBN 0 86473 298 8 The reader of Loving Ways will quickly recognise family resemblances to earlier Gee novels. The structure within two…
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Posted in Fiction, Literature, Review

Reliable and comforting benchmark, David Grant

The Game of Our Lives Finlay MacDonald Viking, $39.95, IBSN 0 670 86907 4 For rugby aficionados 1996 has been a remarkable year. In the early part of the season, provincial conglomerates under names more reminiscent of those belonging to…
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Posted in Non-fiction, Review, Sport

Myths of reason and culture, Heather Murray

The Heart’s Wild Surf Stephanie Johnson Vintage/Random House, $24.95, ISBN 1 86941 278 8 A Fancy Man  Sue McCauley Vintage/Random House, $24.95, ISBN 1 86941 283 4 The Wedding at Bueno-Vista  Shonagh Koea Vintage/Random House, $24.95, ISBN 1 86941 282…
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Posted in Fiction, Literature, Review

Spying and all that, Neville Bennett

Seeing Red — undercover in 1950s New Zealand George Fraser Dunmore Press, $24.95, ISBN 0864692552 From 1953 to 1956 the Canadian authorities posted E H Norman as their high commissioner in Wellington. They were “hiding” him in an unimportant post…
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Posted in History, Non-fiction, Review

Value for money, John Henderson

Secret Power: New Zealand’s Role in the International Spy Network Nicky Hager Craig Potton Publishing, $34.95, ISBN 0 908802 35 8 In his sympathetic foreword to this provocative book, former Labour Prime Minister David Lange predicts that it will produce…
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Posted in Non-fiction, Politics & Law, Review

Poem – K O Arvidson

Hello Allen Against the bright beaches lamenting the best minds of my generation destroyed, Ginsberg lugubrious and fat among decaying frangipani hogged the scene, paying the perfect tribute of imitation, out of his own head. A paradox, that hoon’s fancy…
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