Blog Archives

Jim Collinge: View from the front window

Education is Change: Twenty Viewpoints Harvey McQueen (ed.) Bridget Williams Books, $34.95 Over the past few months large numbers of Swedish bureaucrats, politicians and educators have been visiting us to observe our education system as it works through the massive…
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Posted in Education, Non-fiction, Review

John Henderson: An optimistic view

Politics in New Zealand Richard Mulgan Auckland University Press, 1994, $34.95 The mid‑1990s is proving to be an exciting time for students of New Zealand politics. The change to the mixed‑member proportional (MMP) electoral system has in effect turned New…
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Posted in Non-fiction, Politics & Law, Review

Ian Duncan: Politics, the Budget and a business

Out of the Woods Reg Birchfield and lan Grant GP Publications, $34.95 The subject of restructuring and sale of state trading enterprises in New Zealand has attracted a number of writers from a variety of professional backgrounds. It is not…
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Posted in Non-fiction, Politics & Law, Review

Tom Brooking: A finely textured study

New Zealand’s Burning: The Settlers’ World In The Mid 1880s Rollo Arnold Victoria University Press, 1994, $34.95 Ask around the New Zealand historical profession who are the proven historians’ historians, that is, those whose research is consistently dependable and whose…
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Posted in History, Non-fiction, Review

J M Thomson: A most unlikely spy

Intersecting Lines: the Memoirs of Ian Milner Vincent O’Sullivan (ed) Victoria University Press, $29.95 When Joseph McCarthy emerged from what had hitherto been the sane and liberal State of Wisconsin the 1950s assumed the lurid appellation of his name. Junior…
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Posted in Memoir, Non-fiction, Politics & Law, Review

Lauris Edmond: (Not) getting to know them

Christina Stead: A Biography Hazel Rowley Heinemann Australia, $A49.95 Riffs Dennis Lee Brick Books, Box 38 Station B, London Ontario Canada N6A 4V3 The only way for an Australian writer to make an impression in New Zealand is to come…
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Posted in Fiction, Literature, Poetry

Barbara Murison: Somewhere to begin

Flash Ashley and Woody and Friend John Parker HarperCollins,  each $9.95 Fuss the Farm Dog and David and the Monster Gaelyn Gordon HarperCollins, each $9.95 Series of books for beginning and reluctant readers have been around for the past 40…
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Posted in Children, Literature, Review

Iain Sharp: Beyond the pale

State Ward Alan Duff Random House, $17.95 I realise that almost everyone is bone-weary by now of the wrangling over the Faber Book of Contemporary South Pacific Stories and its shameful “Note on Absences”. All the same, I cannot resist…
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Posted in Fiction, Literature, Review

Janet Wilson: Distinctive depictions of childhood

Pomare Elizabeth Knox Victoria University Press, 1994, $19.95 What is it about Elizabeth Knox’s writing that divides readers into devotees or detractors, into those who do and those who don’t enjoy her work? Her first novel, After Z‑Hour (1987), which…
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Posted in Fiction, Literature

Denis Welch: Dreary duty and repulsive habit

Tart and Juicy: Food Stories from Australian and New Zealand Writers Michael Gifkins (ed) Vintage, $24.95 When some people write about food, they do it so mouth‑wateringly that you have to raid the pantry immediately. With one or two exceptions,…
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Posted in Literature, Review, Short stories
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