Blog Archives
Overcoming entomo‑ignorance, Dale Williams
A Houseful of Strangers Patrick Dale, Collins, $19.95 (139 pp) Insects’ lib – the author attempts to defend the smaller occupants of our home environment against what Ruud Kleinpaste calls ‘entomo‑ignorance’. Subtitled ‘Living with the common creatures of the New…
Tagged with: Auckland University Press, Bridget Williams Books, Collins, Dale Williams, Diggeress Te Kanawa, I A Hood, Issue 7, Olive Dunn, Patrick Dale, Random Century, Summer 1992
Posted in Māori, Natural History, Non-fiction, Review
Posted in Māori, Natural History, Non-fiction, Review
Cryptic crosswords and intellectual judo, Chris Else
Black Rainbow Albert Wendt, Penguin, $29.95 Octavio’s Last Invention Michael Morrissey, Brick Row, $27.95 The world of Black Rainbow is a futuristic parody based on New Zealand Pakeha values, a world without crime, poverty or unemployment founded on a comfortable,…
Tagged with: Albert Wendt, Brick Row Publishing, Chris Else, Issue 7, Michael Morrissey, Penguin, Summer 1992
Posted in Fiction, Literature, Review
Posted in Fiction, Literature, Review
Unique, fascinating and vulnerable, Alan Mark
Natural History of New Zealand Nic Bishop, Hodder & Stoughton, $59.95 Yet another natural history of New Zealand, I hear you say, but this one is sufficiently different, attractive and up-to-date to appeal to the wide audience that is known…
Tagged with: Alan Mark, Hodder & Stoughton, Issue 7, Nic Bishop, Summer 1992
Posted in Natural History, Non-fiction, Review
Posted in Natural History, Non-fiction, Review
Heed the tale, not the teller, Ruth Brown
One Night Out Stealing Alan Duff, Tandem Press, $24.95 Affluence, it seems, is vindicated. Whereas Once Were Warriors exposed the anguish of the dispossessed, One Night Out Stealing is more concerned with reassurances for the well-to-do that their good fortune…
Tagged with: Alan Duff, Issue 7, Ruth Brown, Summer 1992, Tandem Press
Posted in Fiction, Literature, Review
Posted in Fiction, Literature, Review
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