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 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…
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…
Free speech (at a price), Lynley Hood
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…
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