Bligh: William Bligh in the South Seas Anne Salmond Viking, $65.00, ISBN 9780670075560 One of the prefaces in the late Greg Dening’s Mr Bligh’s Bad Language: Passion, Power and Theatre on the Bounty (1992) is written at the “bicentenary…
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Blog Archives
Bad luck, bad language, bad management, Bronwyn Dalley
Tagged with: Anne Salmond, Autumn 2012, Bronwyn Dalley, Issue 97, Viking, William Bligh
Posted in Biography, History, Non-fiction, Review
Posted in Biography, History, Non-fiction, Review
Careful sympathy, Roger Robinson
Katherine Mansfield: The Story-teller Kathleen Jones Viking, $65.00, ISBN 9780670074358 Let’s hear Katherine Mansfield speak first: The cleanliness of Switzerland! Darling, it is frightening. The chastity of my lily-white bed! The waxy-fine floors! The huge bouquet of white lilac,…
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Tagged with: Issue 92, Katherine Mansfield, Kathleen Jones, Roger Robinson, Summer 2010, Viking
Posted in Biography, Literature, Non-fiction, Review
Posted in Biography, Literature, Non-fiction, Review
Innocence, disruption, death, Tom Brooking
Aphrodite’s Island: The European Discovery of Tahiti Anne Salmond Viking, $65.00, ISBN 9780670073962 The publication of a new book by Anne Salmond is always an occasion worth celebrating and savouring. Aphrodite’s Island, about the European discovery of, and encounter with,…
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Tagged with: Anne Salmond, Issue 88, Summer 2009, Tom Brooking, Viking
Posted in History, Non-fiction, Review
Posted in History, Non-fiction, Review
Home and away, Nicholas Reid
Dead People’s Music Sarah Laing Vintage, $29.99, ISBN 9781869791087 Footnotes to Sex Mia Farlane Viking, $37.00, ISBN 9780670917938 Mother’s Day Laurence Fearnley Penguin, $28.00, ISBN 9780143011255 I am male, middle-aged, heterosexual and monogamous. The first two terms make me different…
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Tagged with: Issue 87, Laurence Fearnley, Mia Farlane, Nicholas Reid, Penguin, Sarah Laing, Spring 2009, Viking, Vintage
Posted in Fiction, Literature, Review
Posted in Fiction, Literature, Review
Felling a forest giant, Janet Hunt
Kauri Keith Stewart Viking, $60.00, ISBN 9780670045525 Keith Stewart’s Kauri is the latest in a succession of publications about this iconic tree, following books by esteemed natural history writers A H Reed, J G Erne Adams, Gordon Ell and others…
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Tagged with: Autumn 2009, Issue 85, Janet Hunt, Keith Stewart, Viking
Posted in Natural History, Non-fiction, Review
Posted in Natural History, Non-fiction, Review
Shooting the south, Stella Ramage
White Silence: Grahame Sydney’s Antarctica Grahame Sydney Viking, $115.00, ISBN 9780670072538 How does the sustained gaze of the landscape painter, obsessively re-imagining the sun-scorched expanses of Central Otago in a million meticulous brushstrokes, adjust to the mechanical snap of a…
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Tagged with: Autumn 2009, Grahame Sydney, Issue 85, Stella Ramage, Viking
Posted in Non-fiction, Photography, Review
Posted in Non-fiction, Photography, Review
Jib-booms and bobstays, Anne French
Southern Breeze: a history of yachting in New Zealand Harold Kidd, Robin Elliott, and David Pardon Viking, $74.95, ISBN 0 670 88650 5 Salt beneath the skin: Seafaring Kiwis tell their stories ed Tessa Duder HarperCollins, $29.95, ISBN 1 86950…
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Tagged with: Anne French, David Pardon, Harold Kidd, HarperCollins, Issue 44, Robin Elliott, Tessa Duder, Viking
Posted in Essays, Non-fiction, Review
Posted in Essays, Non-fiction, Review
“Better to tell it all”, Vincent O’Sullivan
Wrestling with the Angel: a life of Janet Frame Michael King Viking, $49.95, ISBN 0 670 89371 4 Penguin Books knew they were onto what commerce knows as “a good thing” when they took on the publication they now advertise…
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Tagged with: Autumn 1999, Issue 45, Janet Frame, Michael King, Viking, Vincent O’Sullivan
Posted in Biography, Non-fiction, Review
Posted in Biography, Non-fiction, Review
Where history is made, Bernard Kernot
Between Worlds: Early Exchanges Between Maori and Europeans 1773-1815 Anne Salmond Viking $69.95 ISBN 0 67087787 5 The publication in 1991 of Salmond’s Two Worlds: First Meetings Between Maori and Europeans, 1642-1772 marked a major re-interpretation of first contacts between…
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Tagged with: Anne Salmond, Bernard Kernot, Issue 35, Viking
Posted in History, Māori, Non-fiction, Review
Posted in History, Māori, Non-fiction, Review