Blog Archives

The thinking person’s romance, Dennis McEldowney

The Beetle in the Box: a love story Chris Else Vintage, $24.95, ISBN 1869414527 Anyone who has sat on the selection panel for a writer’s fellowship knows that the worst thing applicants can do is include a bald précis of…
Tagged with: , , , ,
Posted in Fiction, Literature, Review

Surf’s up … and down, Glenn Wood

Gone Surfing: The Golden Years of Surfing in New Zealand, 1950-1970 Luke Williamson Penguin, $34.95, ISBN 0140298908 Over the past few years I’ve spent a considerable amount of surfing time sitting on various beaches, board beside me, wondering why I’d…
Tagged with: , , , ,
Posted in History, Non-fiction, Sport

The traffic in perceptions, Janet Hughes

Talking Pictures: Selected Poems Riemke Ensing HeadworX, $26.95, ISBN 0473068044 The cover of Riemke Ensing’s latest collection sends mixed typographic signals. You read Selected Poems first, at the top; but it’s in italic, and grey, so it defers to the…
Tagged with: , , , ,
Posted in Literature, Poetry, Review

Letters – Issue 48

Trade and politics I have a number of comments on Terence O’Brien’s review, in your March issue, of New Zealand in World Affairs, Volume III, 1972-1990, which I edited. The first is about New Zealand’s long and successful rearguard action…
Tagged with: ,
Posted in Letters

Poem – John Ridland

Spring, 1940 (Christchurch)   This morning Mary Ursula Bethell saw “Suddenly a weeping willow green, Beside the mechanic street.” Meantime Frank Thomas, Gear-changing effortlessly his fine machine, Motored over the “grey, stone-heavy bridge” To his garage – his garage –…
Tagged with: , ,
Posted in Poem

Issue 48 | June 2001

  Volume 11 | Number 2 | Issue 48 | June 2001  Mary Varnham: Gavin McLean, Wellington – The First Years of European Settlement 1840-1850; Winsome Shepherd, Wellington’s Heritage – plants, gardens, and landscape; Julia Millen, Kirkcaldie & Stains –…
Tagged with: ,
Posted in Contents

“No place for the flamboyant”, Stevan Eldred-Grigg

Southern Capital Christchurch: Towards a City Biography 1850-2000 ed John Cookson & Graeme Dunstall Canterbury University Press, $39.95, ISBN 0908812876 Christchurch Changing Geoffrey Rice Canterbury University Press, $29.95, ISBN 0908812531 Christchurch is my home city. My heart and my brain…
Tagged with: , , , , , ,
Posted in History, Non-fiction, Review

Story time, Ian Richards

City of Reeds  Tina Shaw Penguin Books, $24.95, ISBN 014029791X City of Reeds, Tina Shaw’s third novel, is a large and accomplished work. It’s an example of a relatively new departure in New Zealand fiction: the story-telling novel. This sort…
Tagged with: , , , ,
Posted in Fiction, Literature, Review

Not plain sailing, Anne French

Shapes on the Wind David Lewis HarperCollins, $29.95, ISBN 073226801X   In 1934, when I was seventeen, I celebrated my last days at boarding school by building a canoe/kayak and informing the headmaster that I was going home in it…
Tagged with: , , , ,
Posted in Autobiography, Non-fiction, Review

Springing a trap for islands, Phil Barton

Captain Cook’s World: Maps of the Life and Voyages of James Cook RN  John Robson Random House, $59.95, ISBN 1869414098 The publisher’s blurb states that the book under review  “is an atlas, chronology and biography of the life and voyages”…
Tagged with: , , , , , ,
Posted in Art, Biography, History, Non-fiction, Pacific, Review
Search the archive
Generic selectors
Exact matches only
Search in title
Search in content
Post Type Selectors
Filter by Categories
Architecture
Art
Autobiography
Awards
Biography
Byline
Children
Comment
Contents
ebooks
Economics
Editorial
Education
Essays
Extract
Fiction
Gender
Graphic novel
Health
History
Imprints
Language
Lecture
Letters
Letters
Literature
Māori
Media
Memoir
Music
Natural History
Non-fiction
Obituaries
Opinion
Pacific
Photography
Plays
Poem
Poetry
Politics & Law
Psychology
Religion
Review
Science
Short stories
Sociology
Sport
War
YA Reviewers
Young adults
Recent issues: subscriber-only access

    Subscribe to NZ Books to access the issues above

    Search by category