Blog Archives
Speaking for Themselves: Ex-pats Have Their Say Jan Morgan Cape Catley, $29.99, ISBN 9781877340123 Visitors to New Zealand are asked, not long after arrival, a little question that comes up again and again – “So, what do you think of…
Balance before vitriol I was sorry to read Graeme Hunt’s letter (NZB Winter 2008) in which he takes offence at Trevor Richards’ admirable review of Spies and Revolutionaries (NZB Autumn 2008). Hunt demands novel admissions from his reviewer – first,…
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Issue 83,
Spring 2008
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Letters
The Plumb Trilogy Maurice Gee Penguin Books, $40.00, ISBN 9780143007562 Towards the end of Sole Survivor, the final instalment of Maurice Gee’s The Plumb Trilogy, journalist Ray Sole reflects on both the desire and difficulty of writing the story of…
Roosters I Have Known Steve Braunias Awa Press, $30.00, ISBN 9780958275057 When my kids were small, we kept a bantam rooster called Mr Wingspan. The name was meant to be ironic, but what Mr Wingspan lacked in stature he more…
Katherine Mansfield’s Short Stories Vintage, $35.00, ISBN 9781869419837 The death of an author might seem to close the book, establishing a final and complete version of the work. In the case of Katherine Mansfield this has been spectacularly not the…
Hares and tortoises Readers, reviewers and authors may have noticed (and perhaps even grumbled) that NZB reviews tend to run rather later in the life of a book than those broadcast, or appearing elsewhere. Newspapers, magazines and radio usually feature…
No Left Turn: The Distortion of New Zealand’s History by Greed, Bigotry and Right Wing Politics Chris Trotter Random House, $36.99, ISBN 9781869418090 This book is a riposte, a counterpunch in a sparring match between spokesmen for two ideologies. It’s…
Volume 18 | Number 3 | Issue 83 | Spring 2008 Editorial: “Hares and Tortoises” Jane Westaway: Steve Braunias, Roosters I Have Known Letters Tony Simpson: “Out of the Secret Annex” (Byline) Michael Nicolaidi: The Theatre Royal: An Illustrated…
Up the river David Geary comes to grips with Mark Twain in Maoriland. I have two wives. They met on a Canadian canoe trip down the W(h)anganui River in 2002. It was not a good scene. A Canadian canoe is…
Richard King (1948-2008) The New Zealand book world lost one of its most able and respected publishers with the sudden and premature death earlier this year of Richard King, managing editor of Canterbury University Press. Over the past decade CUP…