The Curative Charlotte Randall Penguin, $24.95, ISBN 0140297537 This is an amazing and amazingly good novel. The second novel is supposed to be the hardest but any reader coming to this one “blind” would judge it to be the work…
The Cassino Legacy Michael Wall Penguin, $19.95, ISBN 0140288368 Cardinal Sins Michael Wall HarperCollins, $19.95, ISBN 1869503619 Michael Wall wants to see his name on the airport bookshelves of the world. He is making serious and professional efforts to write,…
The Book of Fame Lloyd Jones Penguin, $29.95, ISBN 0140296948 New Zealanders love sport. The truth of this frequently-heard comment is daily demonstrated by the amount of space our newspapers allocate to sporting activities. Success on the cricket pitch, putting…
The Anti-Economist Papers Paul Bieleski Tandem, $24.95, ISBN 187717856X Here’s a nice rural scene: a passing motorist bets a mustering farmer one sheep that he can guess the exact number of sheep in his flock. When the motorist gets the…
Hello to Berlin, Cilla McQueen
New Zealand writers abroad A German visitor to the Berlin Colloquium held in Wellington in August mentioned that she felt so “far away” that the New Zealand television news seemed to have little relevance. Far away from where? I wondered,…
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