The Spanish Helmet Greg Scowen Whare Rama Books, $32.99, ISBN 9781463558482 Coast David Carnegie Young Vanguard Press, $38.00, ISBN 9781843866855 No Second Chance Mark Stephenson Steele Roberts, $29.99, ISBN 9781877577345 Zhu Mao Mark Sweet Huia, $30.00, ISBN…
Gravel Roads Peter Butler David Ling, $29.99, ISBN 9781877378461 The Widow’s Daughter Nicholas Edlin Penguin, $40.00, ISBN 9780143204091 Settlers’ Creek Carl Nixon Vintage, $29.99, ISBN 9781869794033 Quinine Kelly Ana Morey Huia, $35.00, ISBN 9781869694319 Peter Butler…
Poles Apart: Beyond the Shouting, Who’s Right About Climate Change Gareth Morgan and John McCrystal Random House, $39.99, ISBN 9781869790455 When I learnt that Gareth Morgan was writing a book on climate change I groaned. Out of politeness, it was…
The Trowenna Sea Witi Ihimaera Penguin Books, $37.00, ISBN 9780143202455 First, let’s deal with the distractions. Unless you were living under a rock in the latter part of 2009, you will be aware that Witi Ihimaera found himself in a…
Mr Allbones’ Ferrets: An Historical Pastoral Satirical Scientifical Romance, with Mustelids Fiona Farrell Vintage, $27.99, ISBN 9781869418649 “What a book a devil’s chaplain might write,” Charles Darwin exclaimed in a letter to eminent botanist J D Hooker, “on the clumsy,…
Guthrie Wilson: Soldier, Writer, Educator Julia Millen First Edition, $34.95, ISBN 1877391638 A stroll past the literature shelves of the “reference-only” section of a public library is a sobering experience for a writer, for there engraved on the spines of…
Paradise Tina Shaw Penguin, $27.95, ISBN 0143018272 Notions of paradise – nirvana, Shangri-la – are universal to human societies, because they are, of course, simply expressions of that most basic of human faculties, hope. Just as we live our lives…
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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