The use of the word “outlier” has been condemned, and continued use will result in stiff penalties. When did the word “outlier” become a thing, and why? It’s such a lame word. But it’s enjoying a tremendous vogue, and it must be stopped. It’s one of those words that make writers look smart. It looks … Read more
A reissue of an earlier piece in honour and remembrance of Nigel Cox, who passed away ten years ago today. Alongside David Slack, who always has a cackle on his lips, I appeared as guest speaker at a session on satirical writing at the Auckland Writers and Readers Festival in May, and it’s possible that I came across … Read more
Steve Braunias interviews the amazing Wellington poet Hera Lindsay Bird, author of the smash hit poem ‘Keats Is Dead So Fuck Me From Behind’. This week Hera Lindsay launches her first collection of poetry titled Hera Lindsay Bird. It includes her breathtaking poem posted yesterday at the Spinoff, ‘Keats Is Dead So Fuck Me From Behind‘, … Read more
Steve Braunias talks with the greatest salesman in the history of New Zealand publishing – Paul Greenberg, a small, unassuming gentleman who lives in Palmerston North, and was honoured with a lifetime achievement award in the weekend. Everyone in New Zealand books knows Paul Greenberg – he’s a living legend, the last of the mohicans. … Read more
God almighty! It’s the return of the Spinoff live email interview, and the special guest is CK Stead, on the occasion of his new book of reviews and literary criticism. Christian Karlson Stead turns 84 years old this year, and he’s probably fitter than you – the dude routinely swims out to a distant yellow … Read more
As winner of the 2015 Nigel Cox Award, Steve Braunias was awarded $1000 worth of books at Unity. He’s finally spent the last dollar, and reports on his shopping spree. The thing about winning the Nigel Cox Prize is that it comes as a total surprise to the chosen authors, and I hate surprises. The … Read more
An excerpt from the latest London Review of Books. Spinoff Review of Books literary editor Steve Braunias writes: Andrew O’Hagan! Novelist, essayist, very smart person who wears a suit and tie even when he’s writing at home – every inch an aesthete, all that, but he’s also an awesome reporter and his latest get in the … Read more
Forget Craig Marriner! We have a new strangest-ever winner of a New Zealand book award. Woah! The award for best dressed female went to Stella Chrysostomou, manager of Page and Blackmore bookstore in Nelson, and the best dressed male prize went to poet Chris Tse, who wore like these feathery swan things on his shoulders, sort of like … Read more
A horse walks into a bar, and the bartender says, “No, the book awards are next door.” Mein gott! The book awards are on tonight, in a matter of hours, any minute! There will be so many intellectuals as well as publishers. And the thing that will be occupying the thoughts and anxieties of just … Read more
All week this week we focus on books and authors nominated for next Tuesday’s Ockham national book awards. Today: a goddamned epic interview (6000 words!) with fiction finalist Patrick Evans, conducted by Spinoff Review of Books literary editor Steve Braunias. The live email interview is seldom practised but will revolutionise journalism as we know it, … Read more
All week this week we feature books and authors who are nominated for next week’s Ockham national book awards. Today: Steve Braunias gazes upon the wonders of one of the four finalists for best book of illustrated non-fiction. Here is one of the reasons New Zealand Photography Collected (Te Papa Press) by Athol McCredie is … Read more
Steve Braunias watches a deeply morbid episode of meandering ’70s action-adventure Kung Fu. Warning: content may be disturbing. Every second Wednesday my daughter and three of her pals come over to the house after school before their dance lesson, and they always ask for macaroni and Kung Fu. I tape it from the Jones Channel and one … Read more
Steve Braunias recommends the best of the 2016 Pulitzers. The 2016 Pulitzer Prizes – recognising the best journalism in America, and nominating some of the best books in the the world – were announced earlier today. You ought to have a read of some of these things. They are, as judges didn’t say, fucking fantastic. … Read more
As a kind of prequel to Tim Murphy’s excellent court transcript story on the Spinoff yesterday, Steve Braunias exhumes a previously unpublished 2011 column on his own c***-related tribulations. It was originally written for Metro magazine, but editor Simon Wilson refused to publish it. Last Christmas [2010] I landed myself in another fine mess when I pressed SEND. Claire … Read more
Steve Braunias shares a divan with British writer Andrew O’Hagan at the Wellington writers festival. London novelist and essayist Andrew O’Hagan was in Wellington last week as a guest at the New Zealand Writers Week, and people constantly mistook him for another guy. “Look,” said the Oscar-nominated screenwriter Anthony McCarten, as O’Hagan walked into the … Read more
The 31 best children’s books in New Zealand as selected by Storylines: you read it here first. The clock has struck 12.01pm, the exact minute that the embargo on the Storylines Children’s Literature Trust annual selection of the best children’s books in New Zealand can be lifted – and here’s your old pals from the … Read more
The shortlist for the New Zealand Ockham Book Awards: you read it here first. The clock has struck 12.01am, the exact minute that the embargo on the shortlist of the national book awards can be lifted – and here’s your old pals from the Spinoff, at the ready, first with the news. The winner of best … Read more
Steve Braunias has an amazing idea that just might revolutionise sales of New Zealand books. William Gibson – “author of Neuromancer, etc”, as he languidly describes himself on his Twitter account – added to his collection of over 60,000 tweets yesterday when he wrote Funny! But hang on. Wait. That’s actually genius. The … Read more
We conclude our week-long coverage of the Angus Gillies trilogy Ngati Dread in unhappy circumstances. Here endeth the Spinoff Review of Books’ week-long coverage of the Ngati Dread books about the Rasta uprising in Ruatoria in the late 1980s, and it endeth badly, kind of bitterly. Thus the headline, taken from an angry email. Don’t you … Read more
The live email interview is a form which no one seems to practice but will almost certainly revolutionise journalism, possibly. It has the zip and tension of meeting in the flesh, and writing questions and answers adds a kind of literary dimension. This interview with Angus Gillies took place last night (Monday). Gillies is a TV3 … Read more
Steve Braunias watches the historic moment that Zayn Malik triumphed over his old 1D posse for the number one spot in The Edge TV’s essential Fat 40 countdown. What to make of Zayn’s comeback at the expense of One Direction? The pop charts on our last two remaining music channels all told the same amazing story. … Read more
From his best-selling book The Scene of the Crime, Steve Braunias imagines the innocent explanation for Mark Lundy on the night his wife and daughter were murdered. Everything in the following version of events of an unsolved family tragedy — well, apart some of the dialogue, travelogue, and various assorted details pertaining to sleep — … Read more
The death of blockbuster novelist Jackie Collins reminds Steve Braunias of the awkward time he visited her at her home in Beverly Hills. Jackie Collins was one of the worst writers of the 20th century, every sentence a cliché, every book a dull thud, but she sold somewhere around 140 million copies of her godawful … Read more
Has Paul McCartney ever said anything interesting? Sometimes? Now and then? A couple of times? Once? No. Rock’s most distinguished bore has always chuntered on, yapping and jawing, blathering and babbling, the words pouring out of him like water through a seive. Nothing ever holds. It’s a kind of disease, a neurological disorder. He needs … Read more
Steve Braunias’s 2015: Lundy, The Block, a bluff at Hammer Hardware, Simon Collins and Jared Savage, ‘the trick is to survive’, his new book The Scene of the Crime, Kafka and Updike, ‘the moist March air’. I started the year writing daily despatches from the Mark Lundy double-murder trial in Wellington, and ended the year writing daily reviews of … Read more
‘Good Night to Good Morning’ is a three part series farewelling the iconic TVNZ variety show. In part one, Steve Braunias recalls a recent appearance on a show that once gave him cakes and grapes, and always gave New Zealand reliably good viewing. This is the way Good Morning ends: not with a green room, but a vast, deserted … Read more
Steve Braunias holds court on the judges of the 2016 Ockham New Zealand Book Awards. Let us now judge the judges. The first-ever longlist of the national book awards was announced this week, in anticipation of the 2016 Ockham New Zealand Book Awards. The news was greeted with various assorted huzzahs and the gnashing of … Read more
Steve Braunias interviews the amazing AA Gill. AA Gill phoned from Australia to talk about his new memoir, Pour Me, which has many familiar qualities of his writing – it’s a wonder to behold, it’s luminous with bright and glowing prose, it’s got a lot of similes in it. It’s also hectoring, monotonal, rambling, seemingly unedited and often unforgivably … Read more
So after I spent the first $35 (on a collection of essays by the late New Zealand writer Nigel Cox) of my $1000 prize as winner of the 2015 Unity Books Award – it entitles winners to a thousand bucks’ worth of books at the High St store in Auckland – I returned to the … Read more