Blog Archives
Plucking a victim from the wreckage, Tony Collins
The Black Robin: Saving the World’s Most Endangered Bird David Butler and Don Merton, Oxford University Press, $49.95 The story of the black robin’s rescue from the brink of extinction has been told more than once in recent years by…
Tagged with: David Butler, Don Merton, Issue 7, Oxford University Press, Summer 1992, Tony Collins
Posted in Natural History, Non-fiction, Review
Posted in Natural History, Non-fiction, Review
Minnie Mouse plays Anna Karenina, Iain Sharp
Staying Home and Being Rotten Shonagh Koea, Vintage, $19.95 Unlawful Entry Marilyn Duckworth, Vintage, $19.95 It’s always presumptuous to thrust two authors under a single umbrella. At least in the present instance one can point, by way of excuse, to…
Tagged with: Iain Sharp, Issue 7, Marilyn Duckworth, Shonagh Koea, Summer 1992, Vintage
Posted in Fiction, Literature, Review
Posted in Fiction, Literature, Review
How misleading it all is, K R Howe
The Happy Isles of Oceania: Paddling the Pacific Paul Theroux, Hamish Hamilton, $34.95 The barrage of criticism that greeted this book in New Zealand needs to be ignored. The exception taken to Paul Theroux’s acerbic comments about New Zealanders and…
Tagged with: Hamish Hamilton, Issue 7, K R Howe, Paul Theroux, Summer 1992
Posted in Non-fiction, Pacific, Review
Posted in Non-fiction, Pacific, Review
The self-loathing of a Stead novel, Damien Wilkins
The End of the Century at the End of the World C K Stead, Harvill/ HarperCollins, $39.95 C K Stead has always suffered from a surfeit of lucidity. This may seem like a wrong-headed thing to say. Surely those values…
Tagged with: C K Stead, Damien Wilkins, HarperCollins, Harvill, Issue 7, Summer 1992
Posted in Fiction, Literature, Review
Posted in Fiction, Literature, Review
True to principle, David Young
Peace People Elsie Locke, Hazard Press, $34.95 At the age of 80, Elsie Locke can look back on a life as a sometime communist (till 1956), environmentalist, peace campaigner, feminist and writer, and, contemplating a world so different from the…
Tagged with: David Young, Elsie Locke, Hazard Press, Issue 7, Summer 1992
Posted in History, Non-fiction, Review, Sociology, War
Posted in History, Non-fiction, Review, Sociology, War
Finding a solid footing here, Bernadette Hall
The Skinny Louie Book Fiona Farrell, Penguin, $24.95 Female morality is described by Marilyn French as being a web of relations, not a hierarchy of rules. It takes its strength from recognising connections and taking responsibility for them. It is…
Tagged with: Bernadette Hall, Fiona Farrell, Issue 7, Penguin, Summer 1992
Posted in Fiction, Literature, Review
Posted in Fiction, Literature, Review
Yes, but who let it become so? Colin James
New Zealand’s Constitution in Crisis: Reforming Our Political System Geoffrey Palmer, John McIndoe, $34.95 Electoral Behaviour In New Zealand Martin Holland (ed), Oxford University Press, $29.95 New Zealand Politics in Perspective (3rd Edition) Hyam Gold (ed), Longman Paul, $49.95 Sir…
Tagged with: Colin James, Geoffrey Palmer, Hyam Gold, Issue 7, John McIndoe, Longman Paul, Martin Holland, Oxford University Press, Summer 1992
Posted in Non-fiction, Politics & Law, Review
Posted in Non-fiction, Politics & Law, Review
Jane Austen’s unlikely sister, Elizabeth Caffin
Cousins Patricia Grace, Penguin, $24.95 We now have the good fortune in New Zealand that a number of fiction writers can be relied on to produce a good book time after time – Jane Frame, Owen Marshall, Maurice Gee, and…
Tagged with: Elizabeth Caffin, Issue 7, Patricia Grace, Penguin, Summer 1992
Posted in Fiction, Literature, Review
Posted in Fiction, Literature, Review
Pragmatists with principles, Shelagh Duckham Cox
Undeveloping Nation: New Zealand’s Twenty Year Fall Towards the Third World David McLoughlin, Penguin, $24.95 The Decent Society: Essays In Response to National’s Economic and Social Policies Jonathan Boston and Paul Dalziel (eds) Oxford University Press, $29.95 Controlling Interests: Business,…
Tagged with: Auckland University Press, David McLoughlin, Graham Oddie, Issue 7, John Decks, Nick Perry, Oxford University Press, Penguin, Roy Perrett, Shelagh Duckham Cox, Summer 1992
Posted in History, Non-fiction, Politics & Law, Review, Sociology
Posted in History, Non-fiction, Politics & Law, Review, Sociology
Be a festival, Keri Hulme
The Shark that Ate the Sun (Ko a Mago ne Kal a fa) John Puhiatau Pule, Penguin Books, $24.95 Can you adequately review a 294-page book – which is rich, allusive, poetic, partly epistolary, partly story‑chants from last century, partly…
Tagged with: Issue 7, John Puhiatau Pule, Keri Hulme, Penguin Books, Summer 1992
Posted in Fiction, Literature, Review
Posted in Fiction, Literature, Review