‘I could’ve drawn a big penis on it, you know, but that’s really unoriginal.’ If you were charging through the mean streets of Newmarket last week, to the mall or to work or the train, you might have noticed a couple of A4 posters at eyeball level on the traffic light poles at the corner … Read more
Sascha* Stronach’s new book The Dawnhounds is about queer folk who refuse to ‘die pretty’. Here, he heralds a queer revolution in science fiction and fantasy. It’s an archetype we’re all familiar with: the tragic and noble LGBTQIA character who shows up to support the hero, and then dies beautifully while the straight folks run … Read more
The only published and available best-selling indie book chart in New Zealand is the top 10 sales list recorded every week at Unity Books’ stores in High St, Auckland, and Willis St, Wellington. AUCKLAND 1 #NoFly by Shaun Hendy (Bridget Williams Books, $15) “I was flying as if I didn’t believe in climate change. Even … Read more
A new poem by Belfast-based poet J. Taylor Bell. the other day i witnessed a man seize with epilepsy in the produce section then the bottom fell out of the plastic bag on the long diaspora between self-checkout and the deserts of the kitchen counter i felt like napoleon the morning after waterloo surveying the … Read more
Marion McLeod revels in the return of Olive Kitteridge, the compassionate curmudgeon who won Elizabeth Strout a Pulitzer Prize. It’s the year of the sequel: My Big Fat Greek Wedding 3, Toy Story 4, Rambo 5 … Do movies ever make it to double figures? Books and miniseries certainly do. Genre fiction spawns sequels: much-loved … Read more
Shilo Kino, a Māori writer who wove her own ties with China, rejoices at the release of Rose Lu’s debut, All Who Live on Islands. I first met Rose Lu when she stood up to introduce herself at an Asia Leadership Network meeting earlier this year. We were all newbies, a group of under-30s chosen … Read more
Books editor Catherine Woulfe follows Wellington author Lawrence Patchett into his extraordinary story of heat and humanity and history repeating. The Burning River begins like the best kind of yarn. “Someone had been there. Someone strange. In the centre of his camp, a new circle of sooted rocks. A campfire, with the bones of a … Read more
Green MP and former refugee Golriz Ghahraman was there last night when the former Manus Island detainee and acclaimed writer arrived in New Zealand. Last night, quietly and without fanfare a small group made up of human rights activists, literary folk, and just two journalists, came together at Auckland Airport to welcome Behrouz Boochani to … Read more
A new poem by writer and performer Freya Daly Sadgrove. TURDUCKEN I blow my body around like the huge clump of brown hair that I once saw blowing up Cuba Street I follow its movements with interest I put a video of it on the internet my favourite … Read more
The only published and available best-selling indie book chart in New Zealand is the top 10 sales list recorded every week at Unity Books’ stores in High St, Auckland, and Willis St, Wellington. AUCKLAND 1 Olive, Again by Elizabeth Strout (Viking Penguin $35) “Olive struggles to figure herself out, and has an urgent need for … Read more
Dr Susan Wardell, a His Dark Materials fan who grew up to be a social anthropologist, reviews the much-anticipated sort-of sequel, The Secret Commonwealth. Is the world fundamentally dead, or alive? Philip Pullman asks in this new book, a thinly-veiled philosophical interrogation of “progressive thinking”. The book is rich in both human and political intrigue, … Read more
Acclaimed New Zealand-born poet Amy Brown on how the first months of motherhood blasted her writing life – and, eventually, inspired her radically honest new verse journal. The night after birth, when the milk came in, a midwife gave me her pen. I was supposed to use it to write the times of feeds, their … Read more
Karl Popper, 20th century philosopher, was a defender of free speech and a believer in the vulnerability of democracy. Dr James Kierstead and Dr Michael Johnston from Victoria University of Wellington discuss Popper’s politics and the relevance of them today. In March 1938, a little-known Viennese philosopher called Karl Raimund Popper arrived in Christchurch to … Read more
Becky Manawatu’s first novel is published by Mākaro Press and it’s a blinder. Dedicated to her cousin Glen Bo Duggan, who was 10 when he was killed by his mother’s boyfriend, it’s a story about kids and gangs and curdled masculinity. About serendipity, and taniwha, and resilience. It begins with Taukiri dropping his little brother … Read more
Sam Brooks, noted critic of the Queer Eye juggernaut, reviews Over the Top, a memoir by the show’s most flamboyant star Jonathan Van Ness. The phrase “like Maya Angelou taught me” shows up two pages in. It doesn’t quite set the tone so much as prepares you for what’s to come. This is what we’re … Read more
Last week The Spinoff released its first ever book. The cover is a crowd of mostly familiar faces, inked by illustrator Toby Morris. See how many you can identify, then read Toby explain who these people are, why they’re there and which was the biggest bitch to draw. How do you sum up a book … Read more
The only published and available best-selling indie book chart in New Zealand is the top 10 sales list recorded every week at Unity Books’ stores in High St, Auckland, and Willis St, Wellington. AUCKLAND 1 The Body: A Guide for Occupants by Bill Bryson (Doubleday, $55) Bryson, eh? Just casually walloping both Booker winners a … Read more
A new poem by Dunedin-born poet Holly Fletcher. I’ve buried 13 grandmothers and 21 mothers Am I occupied? Last Wednesday there was this huge train full of people running. How they navigated was beyond me. There are so many make-believe sweets that I am making sick in the air at the thought of … Read more
New book Protest Tautohetohe: Objects of Resistance, Persistence and Defiance explores our history of protest through objects symbolising the power and lasting legacy of activism in New Zealand. From Hone Heke cutting down the flagpole to the 1981 Springbok tour protests, New Zealand has always been a country of activists. Movements led by Māori, by … Read more
Data scientist Aaron Schiff pays tribute to the gorgeous new atlas which is also about poetry and climate change and privilege. We’ve also run an extract, here. What Chris McDowall and Tim Denee have made is a smashed-it-out-of-the-park heroically monumental work of data visualisation art. We Are Here deserves to become a much-loved dog-eared reference, … Read more
Today The Spinoff Book launches itself keenly into the world, replete with many of the best reads from five years of The Spinoff, plus a host of freshly written material and lashings of new illustrations by Toby Morris. Here’s a taste of the new stuff: an essay by the inimitable Madeleine Chapman on her time … Read more
A bumper crop of the best of our first five years on Planet Earth, plus a slew of new stuff, The Spinoff Book is out today. Here’s what you’ll find in it, and how to get a copy. In a bold pivot to print, The Spinoff today publishes an actual book. You can pick it … Read more
Uther Dean responds to the essay we published last week, in which Sandra Simpson expressed her frustration at people who misunderstood and disrespected haiku. When I was writing haiku there were two kinds of people who liked to tell me I wasn’t writing haiku. The first were early millennial or late Gen X white men … Read more
What’s the best way to get adults reading? Get them reading when they’re children – and there’s no better place to start than the Unity Children’s Bestseller Chart. These lists of the bestselling children’s books at Unity Wellington and Little Unity in Auckland cover the four weeks to October 31 2019. AUCKLAND 1 Mophead: How … Read more
Growing up, illustrator Toby Morris rarely saw the New Zealand he knew in comics – until he discovered Terry Teo. The school library. Hampton Hill Primary. Tawa. 1990. I’m curled up in a corner on the carpet so the teacher can’t see what I’m reading and I’m having a moment. It’s a comic that looks … Read more
The only published and available best-selling indie book chart in New Zealand is the top 10 sales list recorded every week at Unity Books’ stores in High St, Auckland, and Willis St, Wellington. AUCKLAND 1 Mophead: How Your Difference Makes a Difference by Selina Tusitala Marsh (Auckland University Press, $25) “I think an excellent and … Read more
A new poem by Wellington poet Jenny Bornholdt. Duck Three Ways Let’s put our mother’s favourite cat socks on and move to Canada. * Let’s eat duck three ways. The first the way my flatmate hit one in his car. After bundling the body into the boot, he drove home, traumatised, to tell … Read more
Sandra Simpson, champion of haiku, writes to those who misunderstand – and disrespect – the form that defines her writing life. (This weekend, a response from Uther Dean). On March 15 this year The Spinoff published in its coveted Friday Poem spot 11 “haiku” by Uther Dean. The quote marks are intentional. Brace for a … Read more
Linda Jane Keegan is an environmental educator slash nature nerd – this year she heroed salps, kelp and mangroves in her excellent children’s book, Things in the Sea are Touching Me! Here, she explains what makes a functional field guide, and shares her favourites on our native flora and fauna. Every hike or wander in … Read more