Blog Archives

Illustrating the gaps between words, Raymond Huber

Rats!  Gavin Bishop Random House, $30.00, ISBN 978869419028 Tahi: One Lucky Kiwi Melanie Drewery, illustrations Ali Teo and John O’Reilly Random House, $30.00, ISBN 9781869419301 To the Harbour  Stanley Palmer Lopdell House Gallery, $35.00,  ISBN 9780958228442 Snake and Lizard  Joy

See more ›

Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Children, Fiction, Literature, Review

Becoming someone else, Diane Hebley

Tomorrow All Will Be Beautiful Brigid Lowry Allen and Unwin, $19.99, ISBN 9781741751604 The Transformation of Minna Hargreaves Fleur Beale Random House, $19.99, ISBN 9781869418366 Duet David Hill Mallinson Rendel, $17.00,  ISBN 9781877423062 Full marks to the three well-established authors

See more ›

Tagged with: , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Fiction, Literature, Review, Young adults

Best of both worlds, Chris Else

The Six Pack Two  New Zealand Book Month with Whitireia Publishing, $6.00, ISBN  9781877192326 For Everyone Concerned  Damien Wilkins  Victoria University Press, $30.00,  ISBN 9780864735591 Coming Up Roses  Sarah Laing  Vintage, $27.99, ISBN 9781869419202  Luminous  Alice Tawhai  Huia Press, $35.00,

See more ›

Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Fiction, Literature, Review, Short stories

Ghost in the machine, John McCrystal

John McCrystal explores the practice and ethics of ghost-writing.  Everyone has a book inside them, as the saying goes. But not everyone can bring their inner book into the world without intervention. And as with childbirth, varying degrees of intervention

See more ›

Tagged with: , ,
Posted in Comment

One-book wonder, Harry Ricketts

Collected Poems Charles Spear (Peter Simpson ed) Holloway Press, $200.00, ISBN 0958231370 Laclos (Les Liaisons Dangereuses), Emily Bronte (Wuthering Heights), Anna Sewell (Black Beauty), Harper Lee (To Kill a Mockingbird): there’s an undeniable fascination about one-book wonders. Those were novelists,

See more ›

Tagged with: , , , , ,
Posted in Literature, Poetry, Review

No tame dusky maiden, Peter Calder

Makereti: Taking Maori to the World  Paul Diamond  Random House, $44.99, ISBN 9781869419004 In 1911, the year of George V’s coronation, a “Festival of Empire” was staged at London’s Crystal Palace exhibition centre. A forerunner of the great mid-century expos

See more ›

Tagged with: , , , ,
Posted in Biography, Non-fiction, Review

Handbook for the global Christian, Nicholas Birns

The Lloyd Geering Reader: Prophet of Modernity  Paul Morris and Mike Grimshaw (eds) Victoria University Press, $39.99, ISBN 9780864735478  Lloyd Geering is the most famous New Zealand Christian thinker worldwide, though Christopher Marshall is gaining ground with his recent work

See more ›

Tagged with: , , , , ,
Posted in Essays, Non-fiction, Religion, Review

Differently wired, Harvey Molloy and Latika Vasil

A Perfect World: A Father’s Quest to Unriddle the Mysteries of Autism David Cohen Random House, $34.95, ISBN 9781869418151 As New Zealanders, we like to pride ourselves that we live in a caring egalitarian society with decent, though imperfect, health

See more ›

Tagged with: , , , , ,
Posted in Health, Non-fiction, Review

Digging deep, Ann Beaglehole

Castles of Gold: A History of New Zealand’s West Coast Irish Lyndon Fraser Otago University Press, $39.95,  ISBN 9781877372445 Mine Alone: The Story of an Immigrant Mining Engineer from Staffordshire R D Mercer Butterfly Creek Press, $39.95,  ISBN 9780473120115 Stories

See more ›

Tagged with: , , , , , ,
Posted in History, Non-fiction, Review

The rain on her face, John B Turner

Monsoon Brian Brake David Bateman, $59.99, ISBN 13978186953608 For those familiar with Brian Brake’s “Monsoon” essay from Life and other magazines in the early 1960s, or those who more recently enjoyed the large-print exhibition at the Museum of New Zealand

See more ›

Tagged with: , , , ,
Posted in Non-fiction, Photography, Review
Search the archive
Search by category