Blog Archives

Moments of brilliance — Mary Varnham

Mary Varnham surveys the reviewing industry from behind the publisher’s desk. Save me, please. A publisher writing an article about book reviewing and reviewers is akin to a chef writing about restaurant critics: may as well stick your head in

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Died in the wool, John Horrocks

Making Sheep Country: Mt Peel Station and the Transformation of the Tussock Lands Robert Peden Auckland University Press, $49.99, ISBN 9781869404857   The early pastoralists of the South Island, with their huge, remote holdings, their substantial homesteads, and their apparent

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Posted in History, Non-fiction, Review

Obituary — Christine Cole Catley

Christine Cole Catley 1922-2011 Dame Christine Cole Catley, who died in August aged 88, was indisputably one of New Zealand publishing’s most widely admired and loved personalities. She came to publishing via editing work with AH & AW Reed, setting

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Posted in Literature, Obituaries

Farmer Bill, Doug Munro

A Great New Zealand Prime Minister? Reappraising William Ferguson Massey James Watson and Lachy Paterson (eds) Otago University Press, $39.99, ISBN 9781877578076   New Zealand political biography is in good shape, largely thanks to Barry Gustafson and Michael Bassett. Between

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Posted in Non-fiction, Politics & Law, Review

Conviction or reflection, Hugh Roberts

The Settler’s Plot: How Stories Take Place in New Zealand  Alex Calder Auckland University Press, $45.99, ISBN 9781869404882   Cosma Shalizi has proposed a useful division of non-fiction works into two categories, “works of reflection” and “works of conviction”: A

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Posted in History, Literature, Non-fiction, Review

Character testing, Damien Wilkins

Novelist Damien Wilkins on the ups and downs of reviewing other writers. The first book review I wrote was for the New Zealand Listener in 1986. It was of Russell Haley’s novel The Settlement. I’d just spent two years in

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Poem – Elspeth Sandys

Picking daisies                 There was a day, early on when we stopped by the roadside to pick daisies we were delighted with this gift of the gods and with ourselves Had my impulsive ‘Look!’

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Home and away, Hannah Smith

A Way of Life Roger Hall Playmarket, $26.50, ISBN 9780908607396   The Unforgiven Harvest/The Lead Wait Jo Randerson Playmarket, $26.50, ISBN 9780908607389   Urban Hymns Miria George Queen Bee Pip Hall Exchange Lauren Jackson Playmarket, $26.50, ISBN 9780908607402   We

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Posted in Literature, Plays, Review

Retro righteous indignation, Paul Morris

Shaping Godzone: Public Issues and Church Voices in New Zealand 1840-2000 Laurie Guy Victoria University Press, $50.00, ISBN 9780864736413   This is a 600-page, somewhat pious, lament for the New Zealand churches. These individual and collective Christian voices once heard

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Posted in History, Non-fiction, Religion, Review

They wrote it

Call me Hairy Past back-page contest entrants showcase their talent.     Wince-making dedication To my late wife without whose unfailing stimulus and example this novel of infidelity and retribution could never have been written. Christine Johnston     Haiku

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