Blog Archives

Home and away, Nicholas Reid

Dead People’s Music Sarah Laing Vintage, $29.99, ISBN 9781869791087 Footnotes to Sex Mia Farlane Viking, $37.00, ISBN 9780670917938 Mother’s Day Laurence Fearnley Penguin, $28.00, ISBN 9780143011255 I am male, middle-aged, heterosexual and monogamous. The first two terms make me different…
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Posted in Fiction, Literature, Review

Poem – Nicholas Reid

Once to the Rocks   “Once to the rocks,” said Bill and took a dive as neat and arc-like as a well-cast line.– He left no ripple. I blundered behind with belly-flop and splashes, awkwardly.   So in his element, smooth…
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Posted in Poem

Into the labyrinth, Nicholas Reid

The Crocus Hour Charlotte Randall  Penguin Books, $28.00, ISBN 9780143008927 Whatever criticism you make of Charlotte Randall’s novels, you cannot say that she has no sense of place. In The Crocus Hour, as in her four earlier novels,  she ventures…
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Posted in Fiction, Literature, Review

New Zealand a Christian country? Paul Morris

Shaping a Colonial Church: Bishop Harper and the Anglican Diocese of Christchurch 1856-1890  Colin Brown, Marie Peters and Jane Teal (eds)  Canterbury University Press, $45.00,  ISBN 1877257443  James Michael Liston: A Life  Nicholas Reid Victoria University Press, $49.95,  ISBN 0864735367 …
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Posted in History, Non-fiction, Religion, Review

Hereafter, Nicholas Reid

The Best New Zealand Fiction Volume 1 ed Fiona Kidman Vintage, $29.95, ISBN 1869416643 The Keys to Hell Jo Randerson, illustrations by Taika Waititi Victoria University Press, $24.95, ISBN 0864734794 First, a simple bibliographical description. Best New  Zealand Fiction Volume…
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Posted in Fiction, Literature, Review, Short stories

Poem – Nicholas Reid

Back Door   High as the handle, a garden viewed square by square Through the stained-glass edging of a grandmother’s door. Yellow. Like a cheap sucked lollipop makes the sunshine rowdy the leaves and grass sickly. Yellow for running butter,…
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Posted in Poem

Obituary — Ronald Holloway

Ronald Holloway (1909-2003)   Ronald Holloway was born in England in 1909, came to New Zealand as a child, and died in an Auckland nursing home on 30 October 2003. There can be few non-writers in New Zealand who had…
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Posted in Obituaries

Remind me where we are now, Nicholas Reid

Secret City Vivienne Plumb Cape Catley, $24.99, ISBN 090856189X Shot Sarah Quigley Virago, $34.95, ISBN 1860499635 What country am I in here? Characters get ideas from watching “5.30 With Jude”, there’s a reference to “old Maori guys”, and one of…
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Posted in Fiction, Literature, Review

Myth-busting, Nicholas Reid

A Sort of Conscience – The Wakefields Philip Temple Auckland University Press, $69.95, ISBN 1869402766 Myth one about the Wakefields (enshrined in colonial textbooks of long ago). The Wakefields were a great founding family of New Zealand, and Edward Gibbon…
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Posted in Biography, Non-fiction, Review

Rescue mission, Nicholas Reid

A Fair and Just Solution – a History of the Integration of Private Schools in New Zealand  Rory Sweetman Dunmore Press, $34.95, ISBN 0864694148 Once upon a time there were, theoretically, two school systems in New Zealand. There were state…
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Posted in Education, Non-fiction, Review
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