Blog Archives

Opening the fifth dimension, Lydia Wevers

Science Fiction: A Review Of Speculative Fiction: Special Double Issue Featuring Phillip Mann
(Vol 19, Nos 1-2)
Van Ikin (ed)
$AUD30.00
ISSN 03146677

A special double issue of a well-regarded journal, plus full-page authorial cover photo, is a handsome tribute to the work of any writer. Science Fiction has been running since 1977 and has featured the work of many Australian science fiction writers, but never before (as far as I know) a New Zealander. Phillip Mann’s New Zealandness is, however, a frequent topic of discussion.

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Posted in Fiction, Literature, Review

“The messy abundance”, Lydia Wevers

Entanglements of Empire: Missionaries, Māori, and the Question of the Body   Tony Ballantyne Auckland University Press, $40.00, ISBN 9781869408268 Tony Ballantyne is famous throughout the world of imperial and colonial history for his invention of the very useful term

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Posted in History, Māori, Non-fiction, Review

Reading the past, Anna Rogers

Reading on the Farm: Victorian Fiction and the Colonial World Lydia Wevers Victoria University Press, $40.00, ISBN 9780864736352   The big sheep and cattle stations of 19th-century New Zealand and books were tough, physical, practical places, where men (and a

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Posted in History, Literature, Non-fiction, Review

Placing Davin, Lydia Wevers

The Gorse Blooms Pale: Dan Davin’s Southland Stories Janet Wilson (ed) Otago University Press, $49.95,  ISBN 9781877372421 Dan Davin published his last short story, “Gardens of Exile”, in the New Zealand Listener in 1989. In it, the four boys of

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Posted in Fiction, Literature, Review, Short stories

In defence of theory, Barry Emslie

On Display: New Essays in Cultural Studies ed Anna Smith & Lydia Wevers Victoria University Press, $39.95, ISBN 0864734549 Collections of essays by different authors are rarely more than the sum of their parts, although it is invariably the case

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Posted in Non-fiction, Review, Sociology

Life in detail, Lydia Wevers

Letters from the Bay of Islands: The Story of Marianne Williams ed Caroline Fitzgerald Penguin, $39.95, ISBN 0143019295 It is always the detail of the past that brings it most sharply to mind. William Colenso’s observation in the 1880s that

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Posted in History, Letters, Non-fiction, Review

Choosing a chocolate, Sue McCauley

On Reading Lydia Wevers Four Winds Press, $14.95, ISBN 0958251401 How to Live Elsewhere Harry Ricketts Four Winds Press, $14.95, ISBN 095825141X Jumping Ship Glenn Colquhoun Four Winds Press, $14.95, ISBN 0956251428 For years I’ve been confused over the definition

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Posted in Essays, Non-fiction, Review

A demon for work, Lydia Wevers

An Unsettled Spirit: The Life & Frontier Fiction of Edith Lyttleton (G B Lancaster)  Terry Sturm Auckland University Press, $44.95, ISBN 1869402944   I first came across G B Lancaster in the reading room of the Mitchell Library in Sydney.

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Posted in Biography, Non-fiction, Review

The odd couple, Eric Richards

States of Mind: Australia and New Zealand 1901-2001 ed Arthur Grimes, Lydia Wevers, and Ginny Sullivan Institute of Policy Studies, Victoria University of Wellington, $39.00, ISBN 0908935644 There is something peculiar about two affluent and well-established small countries sitting together

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