Blog Archives

Less English than the English, Tony Simpson

Settlers: New Zealand Immigrants From England, Ireland and Scotland 1800 to 1945  Jock Phillips and Terry Hearn  Auckland University Press, $39.99,  ISBN 9781869404017  Over the next few years, our official historians have announced, they will concentrate attention on our immigrant

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Posted in History, Non-fiction, Review

Obituary — Dianne Ruth Pettis

Dianne Ruth Pettis  (1955-2008) Dianne Ruth Pettis was a fiction writer and poet, who published under the name Ruth Pettis. She was born in Waipawa in Hawke’s Bay and worked as a journalist, a script writer for the Natural History

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Posted in Obituaries

Strictly for the birds, Steve Braunias

Charles Fleming’s Cape Expedition Diary: Auckland Islands, 1942-43 Mary McEwen McEwen Associates, $40.00,  ISBN  0473113848 Strange to think that the welcome swallow – a common sight everywhere in the North Island, and absent only in Fiordland and parts of Southland

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Posted in History, Natural History, Non-fiction, Review

Editorial – Issue 84

Going online Now in its 18th year, New Zealand Books is coming of age. Starting with this issue, you’ll be able to read us online as well as in print. Thanks to the foresight of our publisher Peppercorn Press and

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Posted in Editorial

They fuck you up, Andrew Fieldsend

The Ship of Dreams: Masculinity in Contemporary Pakeha and Maori Fiction of Aotearoa/New Zealand Alistair Fox Otago University Press, $45.00,  ISBN 9781877372544 In this academic but engaging study of masculinity in contemporary New Zealand fiction, Alistair Fox of the University

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Posted in Gender, Language, Literature, Non-fiction, Review, Sociology

Issue 84 | Summer 2008

  Volume 18 | Number 4 | Issue 84 | Summer 2008 Harry Ricketts and Jane Westaway; “Going online” (Editorial) Obituary: Dianne Ruth Pettis (1955-2008) Martin Edmond: Brian Turner, Into the Wider World: A Back Country Miscellany Sue McCauley: Duncan

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Posted in Contents

Poem – Jan FitzGerald

Mike   The photo in the lounge told the story. A handsome man sitting on a haybale in a barn flanked by his wife, four children and six border collies  their ruffs ribboned with medals.   Other dogs he had

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Posted in Poem

Not just good friends, Bill Hastings

Mates and Lovers: A History of Gay New Zealand Chris Brickell  Godwit, $49.99, ISBN 9781869621346 This review comes to you from the backwoods of Ontario. It is a crisp autumn evening. I write this in front of a fire in

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Posted in Gender, History, Non-fiction, Review, Sociology

Meeting the ancestors, Peter Wells

A new history of homosexuality prompts Peter Wells to look back on his early life as a gay New Zealander.   It’s probably a reflection on the heft of a book that it makes you question your own sense of

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Posted in Comment

The Bassett version, Harvey McQueen

Working With David Michael Bassett Hachette Livre, $59.99, ISBN 9781869710941  Working With David is a dogmatic and humourless book about a man who, even in adversity, revelled in laughter. Beginning with clear praise – “at the peak of his career

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