Blog Archives
Dream on, Rodney Hamel
Dream Collectors: One Hundred Years of Art in New Zealand Te Papa Press, Exhibition Catalogue $39.95 ISBN 0 90901048 X In their foreword, Cheryll Southeran and Chris Staines explain that the exhibition that originated this catalogue was designed to acknowledge…
Beyond the tapa curtain, David Eggleton
Speaking in Colour Sean Mallon and Pandora Fulimalo Pereira Te Papa Press, $39.95 ISBN 0 90901044 7 The country of the tourist brochures is, as Nadine Gordimer has suggested, always someone else’s country: unreal in its airbrushed perfection; its beckoning…
Tagged with: David Eggleton, Issue 34, Pandora Fulimalo Pereira, Sean Mallon
Posted in Art, Non-fiction, Pacific
Posted in Art, Non-fiction, Pacific
Letter from London, Hamish Tristram
Without any doubt the most intellectually stimulating London event of the moment is Michael Frayn’s new work Copenhagen at the National Theatre. By some perhaps prescient coincidence this play about (in part) the responsibility for the creation of nuclear weapons…
Computer Cartography, Miles Fairburn
New Zealand Historical Atlas: Visualising New Zealand Malcolm McKinnon (ed) David Bateman, $99.00 ISBN 1 86953335 6 The New Zealand Historical Atlas is a large and prestigious publication made up of 100 double pages (“plates”) of illustrative material and text.…
Tagged with: David Bateman, Issue 34, Malcolm McKinnon, Miles Fairburn
Posted in History, Non-fiction, Review
Posted in History, Non-fiction, Review
Poem – Cilla McQueen
Kitchen table Oyster tang, a misty salty morning, sky ridged like the roof of a dragon’s mouth grazing on lilies – I am thinking of far blue islands, crosscurrents deep in the sky, paua under rocks and bronze kelp swirling…
Poem – Tony Beyer
Persimmons I never took to the taste a dry sweetness like that now of memory but the exotic magic of having them swelling to dusky orange on our front lawn their lobes dull lamps among leather leaves their name an…
Exhibiting ourselves, Margaret Clark
Farewell Colonialism: The New Zealand International Exhibition, Christchurch, 1906-07 John Mansfield Thomson (ed) Dunmore Press, $39.95 ISBN 0 86469318 4 This is a gem of a book. It looks and feels beautiful, it tells a fascinating story, and it stimulates…
Tagged with: Dunmore Press, Issue 34, John Mansfield Thomson, Margaret Clark
Posted in History, Māori, Non-fiction, Review
Posted in History, Māori, Non-fiction, Review
Accentuating the positive, Tom Brooking
The Mother of AlI Departments. The History of the Department of Internal Affairs Michael Bassett Auckland University Press, $39.95 ISBN 1 869401751 Safeguarding the Public Health. A History of the New Zealand Department of Health Derek Dow Victoria University Press…
Tagged with: Auckland University Press, Derek Dow, Issue 34, Michael Bassett, Tom Brooking, Victoria University Press
Posted in Health, History, Non-fiction, Review
Posted in Health, History, Non-fiction, Review
Of ice-blinks, blackbirds and ikebana, John Allison
Homelight Nigel Brown, Bill Manhire, Chris Orsman Pemmican Press, $12.00 ISBN 0 47305149 4 13 Ways Harry Ricketts Pemmican Press, $14.95 ISBN 0 47304881 7 Natsukashii Ingrid Horrocks Pemmican Press, $14.95 ISBN 0 47305139 7 Black South Chris Orsman Pemmican…
Tagged with: Bill Manhire, Chris Orsman, Harry Ricketts, Ingrid Horrocks, Issue 34, John Allison, Nigel Brown, Pemmican Press
Posted in Literature, Poetry, Review
Posted in Literature, Poetry, Review
Playing colonists at their own game, Angela Ballard
Agents of Autonomy: Maori Committees in the 19th Century Vincent O’Malley Crown Forest Rental Trust ISBN 0 9583708 0 X Hikurangi to Homburg Helen M Hogan Clerestory Press, $39.95 ISBN 0 9583706 0 5 To review these two books together…
Tagged with: Angela Ballara, Clerestory Pres, Crown Forest Rental Trust, Helen M Hogan, Issue 34, Vincent O’Malley
Posted in History, Māori, Non-fiction, Review
Posted in History, Māori, Non-fiction, Review