A new poem by Auckland-raised poet Chloe Honum. Elegy with Cannons and Bees It rained all night and still is not over. Nevertheless, the bees drop themselves roughly into autumn. What happened? Why did you have to go? In Albert Park, water arcs continuously from cherubs’ horns. Painted cannons face the city. I … 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 Before the Coffee Gets Cold by Toshikazu Kawaguchi (Picador, $20) “With a sense of perverse futility, Kawaguchi’s characters move through … Read more
The new and spectacular atlas We Are Here is page after page of haunting, hella beautiful visual data, each chapter introduced with an essay. This one, Lost in the Forest, opens the section on people. At some point in the 1990s, one of the creators of this book tried to impress me by talking about … Read more
Twenty years ago Stephen Chbosky had a massive hit with coming-of-age novel The Perks of Being a Wallflower. Now the director/producer/scriptwriter is back with an epic, kid-centric horror. Early on in Stephen Chbosky’s frustrating new horror novel, Imaginary Friend, its seven-year-old protagonist Christopher is sitting down to watch his favourite cartoon, Bad Cat. Christopher is … Read more
A new poem by Auckland poet Lily Holloway. modernity to globalisation when I get there as still life and landscape and also portraiture seeking the cacti in small pots who dot the globe slices of pie offer up the vision after the sermon expressing emotions without coherent narrative support because no artist responded to this … 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 (this week we totted up the data a day early, on Wednesday, to let our books ed. check out for a bit. … Read more
In what’s thought to be the last piece of writing Peter Wells completed before he died, he wonders about his great-grandfather, and the locket he wore all his life. ‘The Story of a Locket’ is published in part here, and features in the extraordinary collection of essays Queer Objects, released this week by Otago University … Read more
On the eve of the announcement of the winner of the 2019 Booker prize, Spinoff books editor Catherine Woulfe outs herself as a giant know-nothing. Booker time. Tomorrow morning I will sit there refreshing Twitter like the drinking bird on The Simpsons. A winner will be announced. And I’ll be gripped by a compulsion to … Read more
Anna Knox, who spent four years living in Saudi Arabia, has been waiting for a book like Celestial Bodies – a story that shakes up entrenched ideas of women in the Middle East. Early on in Jokha Alharthi’s Celestial Bodies, Abdullah, son of Sulayman the Merchant, describes his family home in the village of Al-Wafi with … 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 A Sharp Left Turn by Mike Chunn (Allen & Unwin, $45) “Oh bugger it! I might as well just … Read more
A new poem by Dunedin poet Emma Neale. Mourning headlines Taupo bicycle crash victim died doing what he loved—living Otepoti climbing fall victim died doing what she loved—living British kayak tourist drowning victims died doing what they loved—living African neurologist hiking holiday-maker died doing what she loved—living Syrian child playing chase in the street … Read more
Wellington writer, illustrator and Katherine Mansfield obsessive Sarah Laing has a new book out tomorrow. Here, she tells its origin story. My first baby was really bad at breastfeeding – or else, as my mother and the Plunket nurse insinuated, I had the wrong shaped nipples. He couldn’t get the suction right and it would … Read more
An extract from Benjamin Kingsbury’s The Dark Island, about the history of the leprosy patient colony on Quail Island, in Lyttelton Harbour. Books editor Catherine Woulfe writes: There are certain passages of Benjamin Kingsbury’s new book The Dark Island that make the reader wince and turn away. But then you turn back again, you can’t … Read more
In his latest book, Fentanyl Inc., journalist Ben Westhoff (The Atlantic, Rolling Stone, Playboy, Vice etc) goes deep on the epidemic of ‘legal highs’, including the notorious, deadly fentanyl. There’s an extremely intense bit where he poses as a buyer and infiltrates a Chinese drug lab. It was New Zealander Matt Bowden who invented the … Read more
Forget Cook. The Adventures of Tupaia is much more interested in the famed navigator and priest who shared his formidable indigenous knowledge with Pākehā. The cover tells the story. Stars everywhere. Palm trees in silhouette. And two figures: there’s Tupaia in the foreground, eyes shining, arm raised, pointing the way, generally looking magnificent. And there’s … 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 Talking to Strangers: what we should know about the people we don’t know by Malcolm Gladwell (Allen Lane, $40) Auckland … Read more
A poem by New Zealand-born writer Rachel Sawaya. It’s That Big my butt is gigantic not in the way that clouds are not a giant peach it doesn’t float like a pair of hot air balloons it’s more of a flatbed truck with a load of timber and a loose tarp or rather, … Read more
Catherine Bishop is embarking on the mother of all author tours for her significant new book, Women Mean Business. It’s a colourful history of women in business in 19th century New Zealand and it is busting with yarns and subtle zingers, beautiful old photos and a thoroughly-painted, confronting social context. Bishop writes about dozens of … Read more
Simon Sweetman on a collection of essays by Pulitzer-winning critic Emily Nussbaum, who righteously resurrected Buffy the Vampire Slayer – and, at her best, is unafraid to thoroughly critique herself. What Emily Nussbaum knows is that dressing up to eat a burger and pay double is fine sometimes, if it makes you happy. But what … Read more
Jack Lasenby died on Friday afternoon. Here, collected stories about a great writer, mentor and friend. Jane Arthur, formerly of Gecko Press, co-founder of The Sapling: I met Jack when I helped publish Uncle Trev and the Whistling Bull at Gecko Press. He made a big impression on me. I have never been so delighted … Read more
Uber became one of the biggest companies in the world in a few short years. Duncan Greive reviews Mike Isaac’s extraordinary Super Pumped, which shows the world just what it sacrificed for cheap rides. There are so many stories in Super Pumped, a riveting new account of the rise of Uber, which seem to capture … 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 September 26 2019. AUCKLAND 1 My First … Read more
Otago University professor James Flynn says the ‘banning’ of his book by the publisher that rejected it is an attack on free speech. That’s an obtuse understanding of what free speech really is, writes Danyl Mclauchlan. James Flynn, an emeritus professor at Otago University, is one of New Zealand’s most renowned social scientists. His work … 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 Testaments by Margaret Atwood (Chatto & Windus, $48) “… part of the engine of The Testaments is a challenging … Read more
A new poem by Hera Lindsay Bird. COLORADO SPRINGS 1989 After David Berman whenever I get lonely I go to department stores and wander around looking at all the t-shirts with made-up names and dates on them. some days I think it’s almost sweet this collective longing for an imaginary past if they weren’t so … Read more
Dougal Austin (Kāti Māmoe, Kāi Tahu, Waitaha) is senior curator Matauranga Māori at the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa. Here he writes about his first book, Te Hei Tiki: an enduring treasure in a cultural continuum, which has just been published by Te Papa Press. I probably first encountered pounamu when crawling around … Read more
Joan Fleming on Wild Honey: Reading New Zealand Women’s Poetry, the humming, house-like opus by poet and champion of poets, Paula Green. When Miranda July came to Melbourne in 2016, she did something that I have found difficult to forget. She told us that she was going to stage a conversation between ‘all the men … Read more
New Zealand painter-poet Gregory O’Brien has just published a new collection of essays and art; pitched as a “field notebook … my whale survey”, Always Song in the Water drifts from his own front lawn in Hataitai, up to Northland and way, way across the Pacific. It’s the sort of book that slows you down, … 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 Testaments by Margaret Atwood (Chatto & Windus, $48) Obvs. (Read our review by Pip Adam here) 2 Three … Read more