Best and Bravest: Kiwis Awarded the Victoria Cross Glyn Harper and Colin Richardson HarperCollins, $17.99, ISBN 1869505239 Soldier in the Yellow Socks: Charles Upham, Our Finest Fighting Soldier Janice Marriott HarperCollins, $19.99, ISBN 1869505697 War Zones Helen Beaglehole Steele Roberts,…
Sexuality Down Under: Social and Historical Perspectives Allison Kirkman and Pat Moloney (eds) Otago University Press, $39.95, ISBN 1877372102 Books of essays presenting breadth without sacrificing depth are rare, and their editors must be prepared for bracing confrontations with…
Guthrie Wilson: Soldier, Writer, Educator Julia Millen First Edition, $34.95, ISBN 1877391638 A stroll past the literature shelves of the “reference-only” section of a public library is a sobering experience for a writer, for there engraved on the spines of…
He Pitopito Korero no te Perehi Maori: Readings from the Maori-language Press Jenifer Curnow, Ngapare Hopa and Jane McRae (eds) Auckland University Press, $39.99, ISBN 1869403592 Colonial Discourses: Niupepa Maori 1855-1863 Lachy Paterson Otago University Press, $39.95, ISBN 1877372269 Friends,…
Whim Wham’s New Zealand: The Best of Whim Wham 1937-1988 Terry Sturm (ed) Vintage, $34.99, ISBN 1869417577 It is by now no secret that Allen Curnow, a man with few rivals for the title of “New Zealand’s Greatest Poet”,…
I Am Always With You Philip Temple Random, $34.99, ISBN 1869417739 The Viewing Platform Ian Wedde Penguin, $29.95, ISBN 9780143020929 Local writers Stevan Eldred-Grigg (Kaput!) and Tina Shaw (The Black Madonna) have found imaginative inspiration in wartime Berlin, and now…
Bright Star: Beatrice Hill Tinsley Astronomer Christine Cole Catley Cape Catley, $49.99, ISBN 1877340014 I can offer the usual apologia for astronomy. There’s its significance as a global employer (NASA alone pays 20,000 salaries). Its contributions to other sciences, such…
Casual labour, Paula Morris
Paula Morris spurns “fulltime-writer” status Next time you wander into a bookshop and start rowsing, turn directly to the author’s brief biography – possibly on the back cover, or a few pages into the book. If the novel in question…
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