Blog Archives

Medical check-up, Rae Varcoe

Posted on December 1, 2012 by NZ Books

The Good Doctor: What Patients Want Ron Paterson Auckland University Press, $40.00, ISBN 9781869405922 Neither title nor subtitle accurately reflects the thrust of this book. It is less about how we might distinguish the good doctor (and define what…

Tagged with: Auckland University Press, Issue 100, Rae Varcoe, Ron Paterson, Summer 2012
Posted in Health, Non-fiction, Review

Letters – Issue 100

Posted on December 1, 2012 by NZ Books

It’s a polemic Your reviewer Louise O’Brien (NZB, Spring 2012) criticises me for not offering solutions “to the many problems which [The Passionless People Revisited] lays out so emphatically”. Oh dear. It is a polemic, a legitimate form of disputation…

Tagged with: Issue 100, Summer 2012
Posted in Letters

Poem – Tim Upperton

Posted on December 1, 2012 by NZ Books

Sonnet Fuck your simile. Fuck your elegy for. Fuck your homily, your extended metaphor. Fuck your metonymy. Fuck your exquisite language economy. Fuck your metre, your keeping time. Fuck your vers libre. Fuck your rhyme. Fuck your Elizabethan men…

Tagged with: Issue 100, Summer 2012, Tim Upperton
Posted in Poem

Home truths and fantasy worlds, Kathryn Walls

Posted on December 1, 2012 by NZ Books

Kathryn Walls identifies the realism beneath Mahy’s magic. Margaret Mahy has been repeatedly described as “magical” or “marvellous”, her fiction as “fantastic.” These conveniently alliterating adjectives seem apt partly because so much of Mahy’s work is classifiable as fantasy, and…

Tagged with: Issue 100, Kathryn Walls, Margaret Mahy, Summer 2012
Posted in Comment

Editorial – Issue 100

Posted on December 1, 2012 by NZ Books

Whithering or withering? Back in the day, literary couple Iris Murdoch and John Bayley used to speak of “whithering”. They were referring to international festivals at which they were asked to address the question “whither the novel?” At the dawn…

Tagged with: Harry Ricketts, Issue 100, Jane Westaway, Summer 2012
Posted in Editorial

Honey and bitters, Fiona Kidman

Posted on December 1, 2012 by NZ Books

Novelist and poet Fiona Kidman recalls her first published book. When first asked to contribute this essay, my response was to beg another later book. My first novel, perhaps? On reflection, I saw this for the cowardice it was. The…

Tagged with: Fiona Kidman, Issue 100, Summer 2012
Posted in Byline

Obituary — Margaret Mahy

Posted on December 1, 2012 by NZ Books

Margaret Mahy 1936-2012 The three most intelligent people I’ve known: Margaret Mahy, Ted Rye, Maurice Duggan, all storytellers, all dead. In them, the torrents of intellect and imagination came together like the staff of Hermes with its twining snakes Knowledge…

Tagged with: Issue 100, Jack Lasenby, Margaret Mahy, Summer 2012
Posted in Obituaries

Issue 100 | Summer 2012

Posted on December 1, 2012 by NZ Books

Volume 22 | Number 4 | Issue 100 | Summer 2012 Editorial Letters Guy Somerset: “No need for bookshelves” (comment) Peter Simpson: “Obsolescence is just the beginning” (comment) Harry Ricketts: “At the Frankfurt Bookfair: a triolet” (poem) Jane Westaway:…

Tagged with: Issue 100, Summer 2012
Posted in Contents

Bookshelf

Posted on December 1, 2012 by NZ Books

Non-fiction Children of Rogernomics: A Neoliberal Generation Leaves School, Karen Nairn, Jane Higgins and Judith Sligo, Otago University Press, $45.00, ISBN 9781877578182 A four-year study of 93 young people reaching adulthood in the wake of Rogernomics. What they have to…

Tagged with: Bookshelf, Issue 100, Summer 2012
Posted in Literature, Non-fiction

I will do my best to be helpful, Ann Mallinson

Posted on December 1, 2012 by NZ Books

Ann Mallinson shares a letter she received 20 years ago. Margaret Mahy was, among many other things, an ideas person. She loved discussing ideas, and those of us who were lucky enough to have her accept an invitation to stay…

Tagged with: Ann Mallinson, Issue 100, Margaret Mahy, Summer 2012
Posted in Comment