Blog Archives
Letter from Auckland, Iain Sharp
Earlier this year I was asked to write a short profile of Maurice Gee for Pacific Way, the Air New Zealand in-flight magazine. This involved a long-distance call from the Pacific Way office in Auckland to Gee’s home in Wellington…
Poem — Anne French
The poetry reading at the end of the world It is a very big anthology. Everyone in the world who ever wrote a poem is in it. I am, as it happens, represented by something I’d rather forget (that’s…
Green thoughts, Judith Dale
The Garden as a Room: Decorating and Furnishing the New Zealand Garden Robin Shafer, Random House, $39.95 The Dry Garden: Gardening with drought-tolerant plants Jane Taylor, Godwit, $59.95 Delights of Floral Languages, Delights of Lavender, Delights of Little Flowers, Delights…
Tagged with: Godwit, Issue 9, Jane Taylor, Judith Dale, Olive Dunn, Random House, Robin Shafer, Winter 1993
Posted in Natural History, Non-fiction, Review
Posted in Natural History, Non-fiction, Review
The loneliness of the short distance columnist, A K Grant
5 Days in Las Vegas Raybon Kan, Daphne Brasell Associates Press, $29.95 I must confess to a personal grievance in relation to this book, a collection of pieces, mostly from the Dominion or the Listener, by the gifted young…
Tagged with: A K Grant, Daphne Brasell Associates Press, Issue 9, Raybon Kan, Winter 1993
Posted in Essays, Non-fiction, Review
Posted in Essays, Non-fiction, Review
Poem — Alex Scobie
Grandfather Gentle keeper of bees, with walrus Moustache stained by pipe smoke; Falkirk miner, half-blind, Burrowing and blasting shafts Through the Carboniferous Age, Illuminating with his Davy lamp Friezes of centipedes and ferns, Dead a million years ago,…
Fish and Slips, R M McDowall
The Rock Pool Fishes of New Zealand: Te ika aaria o Aotearoa Chris Paulin and Clive Roberts, Museum of New Zealand, Te Papa Tongarewa, $49.95 This is a beautiful book. For decades, people interested in rock pool fauna and flora…
Tagged with: Chris Paulin, Clive Roberts, Issue 9, Museum of New Zealand, R M McDowell, Te Papa Tongarewa, Winter 1993
Posted in Natural History, Non-fiction, Review
Posted in Natural History, Non-fiction, Review
Narrow focus, Brian Easton
Corporatisation and privatisation: New Zealand Ian Duncan and Alan Bollard, Oxford University Press, $29.95 The preface of this book states ‘the work is based originally on an unpublished study of thirteen state enterprises, commissioned by the New Zealand Treasury…
Tagged with: Alan Bollard, Brian Easton, Ian Duncan, Issue 9, Oxford University Press, Winter 1993
Posted in Non-fiction, Politics & Law, Review
Posted in Non-fiction, Politics & Law, Review
Poem — Vincent O’Sullivan
In time of thanks and praise My friend Judith’s house is so instructively wired that when she lights her 19th century ornamental lamp for one of her elegant, thoughtful dinners, the flame hisses when a man says so much…
Snow White revisited, Malcolm MacLean
Handy Hints for Wicked Stepmothers: New Zealand Step-Parenting in the ’90s Nicola Lynch-Reeves, GP Books, price not given Pamela Trowel, a thirty-something slave of New York has just acquired, quite unintentionally, a child. Abdhul – maybe six, maybe nine, maybe…
Tagged with: GP Books, Issue 9, Malcolm MacLean, Nicola Lynch-Reeves, Winter 1993
Posted in Non-fiction, Review, Sociology
Posted in Non-fiction, Review, Sociology
Electoral debate, Jonathan Boston
Taking it to the People? The New Zealand Electoral Referendum Debate, Alan McRobie (ed), Hazard Press, $29.95 This book is about the continuing debate over electoral reform in New Zealand. It brings together a wide array of material (all of…
Tagged with: Alan McRobie, Hazard Press, Issue 9, Jonathan Boston, Winter 1993
Posted in Non-fiction, Politics & Law, Review, Sociology
Posted in Non-fiction, Politics & Law, Review, Sociology