Blog Archives
The one that got away, Russell Haley
Royce, Royce, the People’s Choice Peter Hawes Random House, $26.95, ISBN 1869414985 Peter Hawes’s new novel is a big, jocular and elaborate fishing yarn. The tale-telling is strenuously masculine, prodding, very physical. As you read, you feel as though you’re…
Tagged with: Issue 56, Peter Hawes, Random House, Russell Haley, Summer 2001
Posted in Fiction, Literature, Review
Posted in Fiction, Literature, Review
Awestruck at Otira, Neville Bennett
At Home on the Road Jill Malcolm New Holland, $24.95, ISBN 1877246658 Southern Journeys: South Island People and Places Roy Sinclair Random House, $34.95, ISBN 186941439X There is a kea in my garden. When I hang out the washing, a…
Tagged with: Issue 56, Jill Malcolm, Neville Bennett, New Holland, Random House, Roy Sinclair, Summer 2001
Posted in Memoir, Non-fiction, Review
Posted in Memoir, Non-fiction, Review
Love and other cheeses, Susan Budd
Blessed Are Sarah-Kate Lynch Black Swan, $26.95, ISBN 1869414977 Aromantic comedy with the WOW factor, Blessed Are makes you laugh, makes you cry and tells you everything you ever wanted to know, and more, about cheese-making. Coolarney House, where Joseph…
Tagged with: Black Swan, Issue 56, Sarah-Kate Lynch, Summer 2001, Susan Budd
Posted in Fiction, Literature, Review
Posted in Fiction, Literature, Review
Paradise preserved? Simon Upton
Pavlova Paradise Revisited Austin Mitchell Penguin, $27.95, ISBN 0143018264 For those old enough to remember it, The Half-Gallon Quarter-Acre Pavlova Paradise was a funny, disrespectful but good-natured account of what it felt like to be a clever, progressive Left Brit…
Tagged with: Austin Mitchell, Issue 56, Penguin, Summer 2001
Posted in Non-fiction, Review, Sociology
Posted in Non-fiction, Review, Sociology
Art of survival, Ross Calman
Carved Histories: Rotorua Ngati Tarawhai Woodcarving Roger Neich Auckland University Press, $89.95, ISBN 186940257X It would not be a gross overstatement to say that we have got Ngati Tarawhai, a tribe originally from Lake Okataina (east of Rotorua), to thank…
Tagged with: Auckland University Press, Issue 56, Roger Neich, Ross Calman, Summer 2001
Posted in Art, History, Māori, Non-fiction, Review
Posted in Art, History, Māori, Non-fiction, Review
Make-believe, John McCrystal
Paradise Tina Shaw Penguin, $27.95, ISBN 0143018272 Notions of paradise – nirvana, Shangri-la – are universal to human societies, because they are, of course, simply expressions of that most basic of human faculties, hope. Just as we live our lives…
Tagged with: Issue 56, John McCrystal, Penguin, Summer 2001, Tina Shaw
Posted in Fiction, Literature, Review
Posted in Fiction, Literature, Review
Poem — Vincent O’Sullivan
The Retired Bruiser dreaming La Belle Dame at the least Whenever he saw “I could be happy here” appear across a bedroom wall like words blazoned on a banner by a man in glinting metal, on a horse too…
Fruit ‘n nut, Emma Neale
Only One Angel Jan Kemp University of Otago Press, $24.95, ISBN 1877276170 Snowing Down South Janet Charman Auckland University Press, $21.95, ISBN 1869402685 After publishing a poem in a church magazine, and receiving messages from people all over the country…
Tagged with: Auckland University Press, Emma Neale, Issue 56, Jan Kemp, Janet Charman, Otago University Press, Summer 2001
Posted in Literature, Poetry, Review
Posted in Literature, Poetry, Review
Poem — Robert Sullivan
South Point, Hawai‘i On the Big Island, where the ocean voyaging waka left for Tahiti, perhaps Aotearoa, we watched the mooring stones: smoothed by water, smoothed by hands, carved out to moor the waka. We felt the spirits soar…
Rhythm and voice, R Carl Shuker interviews Damien Wilkins
Posted in Comment