Blog Archives

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

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Posted in Non-fiction, Photography, Review

History in danger, Malcolm McKinnon

The Discovery of Islands: Essays in British History J G A Pocock Cambridge University Press, $60.00 approx,  ISBN 139780521850957 J G A Pocock’s The Discovery of Islands: Essays in British History is a rich and scholarly exploration of a subject

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Posted in History, Non-fiction, Review

Telling responses, Hamish Clayton

Look This Way: New Zealand Writers on New Zealand Artists Sally Blundell (ed) Auckland University Press, $44.99,  ISBN 9781869403713 Art and letters have always had a close working relationship in New Zealand. Our cultural landscape is pock-marked with painter-poets, jacks-of-all-trades

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Posted in Art, Essays, Language, Non-fiction, Review

Why we are here, Bernard Carpinter

Looking for Darwin Lloyd Spencer Davis Longacre Press, $39.99, ISBN 0781877361227 Science has somehow acquired an almost inhuman reputation. Scientists are regarded as dry, dusty specimens, cut off from society and probably working on projects that will cause more harm

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Posted in History, Natural History, Non-fiction, Review

Striving for consensus, Gordon McLauchlan

Kiwi Keith: A Biography of Keith Holyoake  Barry Gustafson  Auckland University Press, $60.00,  ISBN 9781869404000 I first met Keith Holyoake in 1943 in Pahiatua where my father was editor of the North Wairarapa Herald. In those days, even small country

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Posted in Biography, Non-fiction

Framing herself, Kim Worthington

Towards Another Summer Janet Frame Vintage, $30.00, ISBN 1869418689 In the months leading up to last year’s posthumous release of Towards Another Summer, a novel written almost 45 years earlier, we learned only that Janet Frame deemed it “too embarrassingly

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Posted in Fiction, Literature, Review

In the beginning, Peter Russell

Peter Russell looks at his childhood reading through the eyes of Ovid. At the time when the story opens, a little boy named Maui … was playing on the sea-shore. He was so happy, picking up shells and watching the

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Posted in Imprints

The universe and everything, Philip Temple

Waimarino County and Other Excursions Martin Edmond Auckland University Press, $35.00,  ISBN 9781869403911 Phone Home Berlin – Collected Non-fiction Nigel Cox Victoria University Press, $35.00,  ISBN 9780864735676   The revival of the essay in book form continues compensating, to our

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Posted in Essays, Non-fiction, Review

From stage to page, Laurie Atkinson

Three Plays Gary Henderson Playmarket, $24.95, ISBN 9780908607303 Two Plays Toa Fraser  Playmarket, $22.95, ISBN 9780907310 Does anyone read plays any more? Go into any of our major bookshops and you’ll have difficulty finding shelves devoted to “Drama” or “Theatre”.

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Posted in Literature, Plays, Review

Skewed unforgettable normalities, Catharina van Bohemen

At the End of Darwin Road – A Memoir  Fiona Kidman Vintage, $34.99, ISBN 9781869419448 Muck: A Memoir Craig Sherborne Victoria University Press, $30.00,  ISBN 9780864735683 Digging for Spain: A Writer’s Journey Penelope Todd Longacre Press, $29.99, ISBN 9781877361968 “The

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Posted in Memoir, Non-fiction, Review
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