Blog Archives

Choosing decency, Peter McPhee

The Last of the Human Freedoms: The French Civilians Who Chose to Help Kiwis during the Second World War Keren M Chiaroni HarperCollins, $39.99, ISBN 9781869508739   In September 1942 Raymond Glensor’s Wellington bomber was shot down near the small

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Posted in History, Non-fiction, Review

Putting yourself on the line, Christine Johnson

The Commonplace Book: A Writer’s Journey Through Quotations Elizabeth Smither Auckland University Press, $34.99, ISBN 9781869404765 How the Land Lies: Of Longing and Belonging Pat White Victoria University Press, $35.00, ISBN 9780864736383 “[A] memoir is how one remembers one’s own

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Posted in Memoir, Non-fiction, Review

Good manners, really, Paula Browning

Paula Browning looks at the state of copyright in this country and where it might be headed. Have you ever noticed how people’s reactions to different forms of intellectual property vary? If Fisher & Paykel takes action to enforce one

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Posted in Comment, ebooks

Behaving curiously, Hamish Clayton

Sydney Bridge Upside Down David Ballantyne Text Publishing, $32.00, ISBN 9781921520020   It’s hard to think of a more spectacular re-emergence in local literature than that, last year, of David Ballantyne’s 1968 masterpiece Sydney Bridge Upside Down. Ballantyne has been

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Posted in Fiction, Literature, Review

Open secrets, Heather Roberts

The Larnachs Owen Marshall Random House, $39.99, ISBN 978869794972   Meet the Larnachs: Owen Marshall’s choice of title is revealing in its use of the definite article and the plural. Generally, those who know the name Larnach know only one

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Posted in Fiction, Literature, Review

If music be … Elspeth Sandys

The Conductor Sarah Quigley Vintage, $39.99, ISBN 9781869795061   Any author setting out to write a novel with a man or woman of acknowledged genius at its centre is setting herself a Herculean task. When the genius is also a

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Posted in Fiction, Literature, Review

End times, Susan Pearce

Their Faces Were Shining Tim Wilson Victoria University Press, $30.00, ISBN 9780864736291 August Bernard Beckett Text Publishing, $30.00, ISBN 9781921758041   These days, Second Coming websites glean enough donations to post video ads on music sites, so even if you

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Posted in Fiction, Literature, Review

Thoughtful thrills, Jill Holt

Fierce September Fleur Beale Random House, $19.99, ISBN 9781869793289 Guardian of the Dead  Karen Healey Allen & Unwin, $19.99, ISBN 9781741758801 Resurrection  Mandy Hager Random House, $19.99, ISBN 9781869795221   When do young people have the chance to engage in

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Posted in Literature, Review, Young adults

Coming here, Tony Simpson

No Simple Passage  Jenny Robin Jones Random House, $45.00, ISBN 9781869795108   We are all increasingly fascinated by our origins. And as recollection turns into memory and then into family anecdote, we go looking for these origins in documentation. This,

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Posted in History, Non-fiction, Review

Poem – John Ridland

Elegy in a New Zealand Country Churchyard (After not Gray but Catullus) Off the West Coast Road a third of the way from Darfield, brother-in-law, they scattered your scanty ashes, and though Beauty is not the be-all and end-all of

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Posted in Poem
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