Blog Archives
Public chatter, Nelson Wattie
Words Chosen Carefully: New Zealand Writers in Discussion Siobhan Harvey (ed) Cape Catley, $44.99, ISBN 9781877340307 Fifteen New Zealand writers interviewed by 15 more: 30 of them talking enthusiastically about their craft and themselves. In her introduction the…
Posted in Literature, Non-fiction, Review
Obituary — Alistair Te Ariki Campbell
Earshot rules, Nelson Wattie
Languages of New Zealand ed Allan Bell, Ray Harlow and Donna Starks Victoria University Press, $49.95, ISBN 0864734905 When I returned to New Zealand in 1989 after a quarter-century in Europe, I was naturally curious about how European languages fared…
Posted in Language, Non-fiction, Review
In the beginning was the word, Nelson Wattie
The New Zealand Oxford Dictionary ed Tony Deverson and Graeme Kennedy Oxford University Press, $130, ISBN 0195584511 Lexicographers are celebrating the 250th anniversary of the publication, on 15 April 1755, of Samuel Johnson’s dictionary, the book that made their profession…
Posted in Language, Non-fiction, Review
What minds make, Nelson Wattie
Beyond Wittgenstein’s Poker: New Light on Popper and Wittgenstein Peter Munz Ashgate Publishing Limited, $62.00, ISBN 0754640159 Working at the interface between literature and science, Gillian Beer recently asked in The Guardian: “How do you have new ideas? Language is…
Posted in Imprints, Review
Lucky dip, Nelson Wattie
After Bathing at Baxter’s: Essays and Notebooks Gregory O’Brien Victoria University Press, $39.95, ISBN 0864734182 Structurally, as the subtitle suggests, this is a mixed bag, but on most pages most readers will find a sentence or two, a paragraph, an…
Posted in Essays, Non-fiction, Review
The freedom within, Nelson Wattie
Skylark Lounge Nigel Cox Victoria University Press, $29.95, ISBN 0864733925 In Nigel Cox’s second novel, Dirty Work, Nif, a woman rebelling against the controlling hand of Hendy, the master of her world, has a message tattooed on her back –…
Posted in Fiction, Literature, Review
Bovver boys
What they wrote A taste of contributor comments over our first 20 years On New Zealand Books My hope is that New Zealand Books will provide a forum for frank discussion that dares to rise above the suffocating confines…
Posted in Comment