Blog Archives

Across the great divide, Harvey McQueen

Apes Road: Poems Since 1997 Rob Jackaman Hazard Press, $21.95, ISBN 1877270245 Working Voices John O’Connor & Eric Mould Hallard Press, $24.95, ISBN 0864770480 In his essay “The Narrow-Columned Middle Ground”, Australian Les Murray explores a myth: We tend nowadays

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Posted in Literature, Poetry, Review

Lifting the lid of the national box, Stevan Eldred-Grigg

The Penguin History of New Zealand Michael King Penguin, $29.95, ISBN 0143018671 A Short History of New Zealand Gordon McLauchlan Penguin, $29.95, ISBN 0143019082 One day at the start of the 21st century, happening to be staying in a hotel

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Posted in History, Non-fiction, Review

Over there, Tony Simpson

New Zealand and the Second World War  Ian McGibbon Hodder Moa Beckett, $40.00, ISBN 1869589548 A Fair Sort of Battering: New Zealanders remember the Italian Campaign ed Megan Hutching HarperCollins, $40.00, ISBN 1869505050 The Desert Railway  Brendan Judd Penguin, $29.95,

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Posted in History, Non-fiction, Review, War

Poem – Michael Harlow

Question      i. m. robert lax   What would you do If you happened on a woman who whistled all too wildly in her father’s house Met up with a hen who crowed as stridently as a cock, convinced

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Ludwig and God slug it out, Anne French

Nice morning for it, Adam Vincent O’Sullivan Victoria University Press, $24.95, ISBN 0864734735 Vincent O’Sullivan’s poetry falls into three broad periods. The early books are not only forgotten, they are also impossible to find, though I once came across a

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Posted in Literature, Poetry, Review

My ideal reader, Elizabeth Knox

My ideal reader reads constantly, avidly, and personally. My ideal reader adds something to the domestic scene, looks as comfortable as a cat and as fine as a flower arrangement with a book in one hand and a cup of

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Posted in Comment

Mansfield parked, Lloyd Jones

Mansfield: A Novel C K Stead Vintage, $26.95, ISBN 1843431769 The short life of Katherine Mansfield has been well picked over. We have the biographies, the critical studies, her own journals and letters. Hardly a year goes by without the

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Posted in Fiction, Literature, Review

Absolutely positive it’s dead? Tim Hazledine

Muldoon Revisited ed Margaret Clark Dunmore Press, $39.95, ISBN 0864694652 What were you doing the day Robert Muldoon died? I was in Auckland, very recently returned to this country after 20 years overseas. I watched the coverage of the death

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Posted in Biography, Non-fiction, Politics & Law, Review

Changing habits, Margaret Tennant

Mary Potter’s Little Company of Mary – The New Zealand Experience 1914-2002   Ann Trotter Bridget Williams Books/Little Company of Mary, $39.95, ISBN 1877242314 It may be a sign of the times that sisterhood – of the religious community, rather

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Posted in History, Non-fiction, Religion, Review

Behind the grin, Harry Ricketts

Long Journey to the Border: A Life of John Mulgan Vincent O’Sullivan Penguin, $49.95, 014301871X He grins out from the front cover of Vincent O’Sullivan’s engrossing biography Long Journey to the Border: A Life of John Mulgan. It’s that famous

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Posted in Biography, Non-fiction, Review
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