Uncle Trev Jack Lasenby, Cape Catley, Whatamongo Bay, 1991, $14.95 Jack Lasenby has for some time now been delighting young New Zealanders (and those adults fortunate to have come across them) with his stories about Uncle Trev. Based firmly in…
Barbed Wire and Mirrors: Essays on New Zealand prose Lawrence Jones, Second edition, University of Otago Press (distrib John McIndoe Ltd, Dunedin), 1991, $39.95 Lawrence Jones has been writing about New Zealand fiction for at least twenty-five years now, and…
The Great New Zealand Fossil Book: Pictures of Ancient Life in an Evolving Land Ron Brazier, Ian Keyes and Graeme Stevens, DSIR Geology and Geophysics, Wellington, 1990, $49.95 On Shaky Ground: a Geological Guide to the Wellington Metropolitan Region Graeme…
Sidewinder Alistair Campbell, Reed Books, Auckland, 1991, $24.95 Readers first meet Sidewinder about half way through Alistair Campbell’s 1989 novel The Frigate Bird. The novel’s narrator — a Cook Islands-born writer prone to rather extreme flights of fancy — is living in…
Springs in My Heels: Stories About Women and Change Alison Gray, Bridget Williams Books, Wellington, 1991, $27.95 Ladies a Plate: Change and Continuity in the Lives of New Zealand Women Julie Park (ed), Auckland University Press, Auckland, 1991, $29.95 Both…
The Word Burners Beryl Fletcher, Daphne Brasell Associates, Wellington, 1991, $19.95 Finding Out Elspeth Sandys, Vintage New Zealand, Auckland, 1991, $24.95 The night-witch is invoked early in The Word Burners. The main character, Julia, tells her children of a lonely witch who lived…
Working Girls Jan Jordan, Penguin, Auckland, 1991, $29.95 In 1987 when the Prostitutes Collective was established largely in response to the AIDS pandemic, it was necessary to turn to overseas experience for guidance. It was all very interesting reading about…
Leading Lights: Lighthouses of New Zealand Anna Gibbons, photographs by Grant Sheehan, Hazard Press, Christchurch, 1991, $44.95 Just after Easter 1990, the keepers were withdrawn from The Brothers Lighthouse in Cook Strait, the last New Zealand light to be de-manned and…
Parker and Hulme: A Lesbian View Julie Glamuzina and Alison J Laurie, New Womens Press, Auckland, 1991, $24.95 Does anyone in New Zealand at the time not remember Parker and Hulme, the two Christchurch girls who murdered the mother of…
New Zealand Architecture from Polynesian Beginnings to 1990 Peter Shaw, photographs by Robin Morrison, Hodder & Stoughton, Auckland, 1991, $59.95 ‘New Zealand’s European-derived architectural history may be short but it should be accorded the same respect we now give as a…