Blog Archives

“Let us go then, you and I”, Elizabeth Caffin

Elizabeth Caffin recalls first looking into T S Eliot’s poems.   Some time in the mid-1950s I gave a morning talk to the third form of a Christchurch secondary school. My subject was the poetry of T S Eliot; I…
Tagged with: , ,
Posted in Imprints

Bring out your dead, Brian Easton

Crisis: One Central Bank Governor and the Global Financial Collapse  Alan Bollard with Sarah Gaitanos Auckland University Press, $29.99, ISBN 9781869404696   I examined carefully the Reserve Bank Bill before Parliament in 1988 to ensure that, come a financial crisis,…
Tagged with: , , , , ,
Posted in Non-fiction, Politics & Law, Review

Invasion of the strange, Joan Rosier-Jones

Villa Pacifica Kapka Kassabova Penguin Books, $39.00, ISBN 9780143205029   All That We Remember Zoë Adams HarperCollins, $29.99, ISBN 9781869508821   The Graphologist’s Apprentice Whiti Hereaka Huia, $35.00, ISBN 97811869694227   Many years ago television director Peter Sharpe asked for…
Tagged with: , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Fiction, Literature, Review

Running from the past, Heather Roberts

The Night Book Charlotte Grimshaw Vintage, $36.99, ISBN 9781869793500   The Night Book began life as a story in Singularity. Here it opens the novel, and then the plot jumps six years. The novel’s central characters are the Lampton family:…
Tagged with: , , , ,
Posted in Fiction, Literature, Review

Between fate and destiny, Isa Moynihan

  Island Penelope Todd Penguin Books, $30.00, ISBN 97801432023810   Islands are a potent source of allegorical story-telling. Think of Lord of the Flies, The Tempest, Robinson Crusoe and, more recently, the television series Lost. Penelope Todd’s Island is set…
Tagged with: , , , ,
Posted in Fiction, Literature, Review

Humble beginnings, Rebecca Priestley

Enterprise and Energy: The Todd Family of New Zealand Ross Galbreath The Todd Corporation Limited, price unavailable, ISBN 9781869341121   As a teenager in the 1980s, I had the occasional embarrassment of being driven to school in an ancient green…
Tagged with: , , , ,
Posted in Biography, Non-fiction, Review

Cheerful, funny and popular, Trevor Richards

Man for All Seasons: The Life and Times of Ken Douglas  David Grant Random House, $45.00, ISBN 9781869793890   In Man for All Seasons: The Life and Times of Ken Douglas we have as the central character a trade unionist…
Tagged with: , , , , ,
Posted in Biography, Non-fiction, Review

Distances, depths and directions, Catherine Vidler

The Moonmen Anna Livesey Victoria University Press, $25.00, ISBN 9780864736260   Tigers at Awhitu Sarah Broom Auckland University Press, $24.99, ISBN 9781869404574   Mapping the Distance Ingrid Horrocks Victoria University Press, $25.0, ISBN 9780864736277   The Moonmen, Tigers at Awhitu…
Tagged with: , , , , , , ,
Posted in Literature, Poetry, Review

Enchanted hunting, Barbara Else

Tussock Elizabeth Pulford Walker Books, $17.99, ISBN 9781921529450   The Ghosts of Iron Bottom Sound Sandy Nelson HarperCollins, $20.50, ISBN 9781869508678   The Sheep on the Fourth Floor Leonie Thorpe HarperCollins, $19.99, ISBN 9781869508159   Shadow of the Boyd Diana…
Tagged with: , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Children, Literature, Review

Collecting and restoring, John Horrocks

Where Your Left Hand Rests Fiona Kidman Godwit, $29.00, ISBN 9781869621773   As Fiona Kidman points out herself, it is half a lifetime ago since her first book of poems, Honey and Bitters, was published in 1975. Her new collection…
Tagged with: , , , ,
Posted in Literature, Poetry, Review
Search the archive

More results...

Generic selectors
Exact matches only
Search in title
Search in content
Post Type Selectors
Filter by Categories
Architecture
Art
Autobiography
Awards
Biography
Byline
Children
Comment
Contents
ebooks
Economics
Editorial
Education
Essays
Extract
Fiction
Gender
Graphic novel
Health
History
Imprints
Language
Lecture
Letters
Letters
Literature
Māori
Media
Memoir
Music
Natural History
Non-fiction
Obituaries
Opinion
Pacific
Photography
Plays
Poem
Poetry
Politics & Law
Psychology
Religion
Review
Science
Short stories
Sociology
Sport
War
YA Reviewers
Young adults
Recent issues: subscriber-only access

    Subscribe to NZ Books to access the issues above

    Search by category