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Sex-free romance and YA cred, Paula Morris

Posted on December 5, 2014 by NZ Books

Bugs
Whiti Hereaka
Huia, $25.00,
ISBN 9781775501336

When We Wake
Karen Healey
Allen & Unwin, $22.00,
ISBN 9781742378084

Awakening
Natalie King
Penguin, $20.00,
ISBN 9780143570790

Bugs, the eponymous protagonist of Whiti Hereaka’s first YA novel, is unimpressed with much of what her generation is expected to read. Her English teacher insists they discuss that infamous “human/werewolf/vampire love triangle … because the characters are our age, they’re going through what we’re going through, we can relate. Like half of us could relate to a white chick with a thing for dogs and dead dudes.”

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Posted in Fiction, Literature, Review, Young adults

Just perk up your ears, Barbara Else

Posted on December 5, 2014 by NZ Books

The Life and Art of Lynley Dodd
Finlay Macdonald
Penguin, $50.00,
ISBN 9780143567967

A tousle on spindly legs has conquered the world. How did it happen? Finlay Macdonald’s biography of Lynley Dodd describes her journey from childhood in the Kaingaroa Forest in the middle of the North Island to her creation of the tousle, Hairy Maclary (from Donaldson’s dairy, as if you needed to be reminded) and on to the sale of many millions of picture books.

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Posted in Biography, Non-fiction, Review

Worlds old and new, Nicholas Reid

Posted on December 5, 2014 by NZ Books

Purgatory
Rosetta Allan
Penguin, $30.00
ISBN 9780143571025

James Cook’s New World
Graeme Lay
Fourth Estate, $37.00
ISBN 9781775540410

There’s one current phenomenon in New Zealand literature that I’m watching with great interest. It’s the fact that, with a few honourable exceptions (Hamish Clayton’s Wulf, Owen Marshall’s The Larnachs, and the historical reconstructions of Peter Wells), all the best New Zealand historical novels are now being written by women – Paula Morris’s Rangatira, Charlotte Randall’s Hokitika Town and The Bright Side of My Condition, Sarah Quigley’s The Conductor, Eleanor Catton’s The Luminaries and (with minor misgivings) Tina Makereti’s Where the Rēkohu Bone Sings.

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Posted in Fiction, Literature, Review

Larger than life, Simon Upton

Posted on December 5, 2014 by NZ Books

Richard Seddon: King of God’s Own – The Life and Times of New Zealand’s Longest-serving Prime Minister
Tom Brooking
Penguin, $65.00
ISBN 9780143569671

I grew up in a very complacent country which didn’t really take its history seriously. New Zealand was the way it was (and it was the best of all worlds) and momentous history happened abroad. I recall the librarian at my secondary school pronouncing with lapidary finality that “New Zealand history is all out of date current affairs”. In the 1960s and 1970s, the evolution of the Cold War was much more exciting and, for the purposes of history teaching, the first two decades of the 20th century were devoted to the causes of WWI. New Zealand was a footnote.

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Posted in Biography, Non-fiction, Review

The ties that bind, Jane Westaway

Posted on December 5, 2013 by NZ Books

The Lie That Settles Peter Farrell Ocean Books, $35.00, ISBN 978192721708 The Lost Pilot Jeffrey Paparoa Holman Penguin, $40.00, ISBN 9781742539201 A History of Silence Lloyd Jones Penguin, $38.00, ISBN 9780143569473 “The cradle rocks above an abyss,” writes Nabokov in…

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Posted in Memoir, Non-fiction, Review

The resilience of children, Ann Beaglehole

Posted on December 5, 2013 by NZ Books

Frederick’s Coat Alan Duff Vintage, $38.00, ISBN 9781869415662 Bangs Stevan Eldred-Grigg Penguin, $30.00, ISBN 9780143568063 Waiting for Elizabeth Joan Rosier-Jones Tangerine Publications, $30.00, ISBN 9780987664617 Alan Duff is one of our most esteemed writers. His best-known novel Once Were Warriors…

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Posted in Fiction, Literature, Review

A rowdy lot, Julia Millen

Posted on March 1, 2013 by NZ Books

Convicts: New Zealand’s Hidden Criminal Past Matthew Wright Penguin, $40.00, ISBN 9780143567646 We New Zealanders have always been complacent, even smug, about our nation’s origins. Unlike our nearest, much bigger, neighbour, New Zealand was never a penal colony, having been…

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

Fresh frames, Lawrence Jones

Posted on September 1, 2012 by NZ Books

Gorse is Not People: New and Uncollected Stories Janet Frame Penguin, $40.00, ISBN 9780143567707   The title story of this posthumous collection touches a memory almost 30 years old: in 1984 reading An Angel at My Table, the second volume…

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Posted in Autobiography, Literature, Non-fiction, Review, Short stories

What’s been lost, Louise O’Brien

Posted on September 1, 2012 by NZ Books

The Silence Beyond: Selected Writings Michael King (introduction by Rachael King) Penguin, $42.00, ISBN 9780143565567   The Passionless People Revisited Gordon McLauchlan David Bateman, $30.00, ISBN 9781869537906   The Silence Beyond is a new and posthumous selection of rare and…

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Posted in History, Non-fiction, Review

Ongoing investigations, Bernard Carpinter

Posted on June 1, 2012 by NZ Books

Death on Demand Paul Thomas Hodder Moa, $36.99, ISBN 9781869712334   Traces of Red Paddy Richardson Penguin, $30.00, ISBN 9780143565765   Bound Vanda Symon Penguin, $30.00, ISBN 9780143565277   Ihaka is back – and about time, too. It’s around 15…

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Posted in Fiction, Literature
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