Look This Way: New Zealand Writers on New Zealand Artists Sally Blundell (ed) Auckland University Press, $44.99, ISBN 9781869403713 Art and letters have always had a close working relationship in New Zealand. Our cultural landscape is pock-marked with painter-poets, jacks-of-all-trades…
Three Plays Gary Henderson Playmarket, $24.95, ISBN 9780908607303 Two Plays Toa Fraser Playmarket, $22.95, ISBN 9780907310 Does anyone read plays any more? Go into any of our major bookshops and you’ll have difficulty finding shelves devoted to “Drama” or “Theatre”.…
The Newest Country in the World: A History of New Zealand in the Decade of the Treaty Paul Moon Penguin Books, $39.95, ISBN 978014300670 Paul Moon is one of the most prolific historians currently holding an academic position (Moon is…
Makereti: Taking Maori to the World Paul Diamond Random House, $44.99, ISBN 9781869419004 In 1911, the year of George V’s coronation, a “Festival of Empire” was staged at London’s Crystal Palace exhibition centre. A forerunner of the great mid-century expos…
A Perfect World: A Father’s Quest to Unriddle the Mysteries of Autism David Cohen Random House, $34.95, ISBN 9781869418151 As New Zealanders, we like to pride ourselves that we live in a caring egalitarian society with decent, though imperfect, health…
Monsoon Brian Brake David Bateman, $59.99, ISBN 13978186953608 For those familiar with Brian Brake’s “Monsoon” essay from Life and other magazines in the early 1960s, or those who more recently enjoyed the large-print exhibition at the Museum of New Zealand…
Ghost in the machine, John McCrystal
John McCrystal explores the practice and ethics of ghost-writing. Everyone has a book inside them, as the saying goes. But not everyone can bring their inner book into the world without intervention. And as with childbirth, varying degrees of intervention…
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