Blog Archives
If you were to place all of the volumes on New Zealand art in one bookcase, you’d be presented with one rather higgledy-piggledy collection. Together they would tell an odd tale of short-lived publishing lines, changing institutional agendas, different and…
Looking for the Phoenix – A Memoir W H Oliver Bridget Williams Books, $39.95, ISBN 1877242985 When W H (Bill) Oliver says that, by and large, New Zealand’s been a “good place” for him, one senses that at times he’s…
The Hopeful Traveller Fiona Farrell Vintage, $26.95, ISBN 1869415175 This island novel starts either in 1851 with a rail journey to the Crystal Palace in London or in 2001 in the immediate aftermath of the terrorist attacks on the two…
Jake’s Long Shadow Alan Duff Vintage, $29.95, ISBN 1869415116 The first impression of Alan Duff’s new novel makes you expect a work of probing substance. Its cover is reminiscent of Heretaunga Pat Baker’s Behind the Tattooed Face. Featuring Brian Brake’s…
The Crisis in New Zealand Schools Martin Hames Education Forum in Association with Dunmore Press, $29.95, ISBN 0864694105 My initial reaction was that The Crisis in New Zealand schools would be redolent with jargon and full of half-truths and misinformation…
from Two tohunga waiata on one crescent “Writing is learning how to die” – Ilse Aichinger Purely accidental the addresses were similar only the street numbers differed and the minds of the men and what they said under the…
The Ballad of Fifty-one Bill Sewell HeadworX, $19.95, ISBN 0473092540 A couple of years ago I wrote a favourable review of Bill Sewell’s long poem Erebus (1999). He rang and thanked me after he read it; part of what he…
Away from Home: The Story of Victoria House Frances Porter Bridget Williams Books, $29.95, ISBN 1877242977 Girls “on the cusp of independence”, as the back cover of this book puts it, are the stuff of many a story. But that…
Tamar Deborah Challinor HarperCollins, $21.95, ISBN 1869504089 The Trespass Barbara Ewing Times Warner, $34.95, ISBN 0316860573 The Stove Rake Denise Keay Flamingo, $24.95, ISBN 1869504062 One of the most disconcerting aspects of the reading experience, encountered frequently at this more…
I used to believe that only pornographers, bigots, blasphemers and show-offs needed to worry about censorship in New Zealand. But, in the course of bringing A City Possessed into the world, I discovered that we all have to worry about…
Free speech (at a price), Lynley Hood
Posted in Comment