New poetry from Wellington-born writer Ursula Robinson-Shaw. Everything is nice they have announced the last day mel waters the garden the dirt is hard for summer everybody is hard for summer to drink lavish cocktails to meet-cute on the table of the harsh dissolving seasons to take girls back to our houses in … Read more
Every morning, so far, I’m alive: a memoir is the story of how Wendy Parkins unravelled and put herself back together, sort of. A professor of Victorian literature, Wendy Parkins whips us from Dunedin to Dover to Matakana, through three breakdowns, some extremely sub-par therapy, and a strange experience at an Auckland retreat. Tying the whole … Read more
Marion McLeod reviews Late in the Day, a “smooth and sinuous and subtle” new novel by Tessa Hadley We begin with a death, a very good place to start. Where better to assemble and introduce family and friends? What more useful springboard for exploring their relationships? Tessa Hadley does all this superbly, with economy, elegance … Read more
Poet Steven Toussaint on the explosive, triumphant wizardry that is happening here and now. This much is obvious: something electrifying is taking place in New Zealand poetry. I became a permanent resident of this country four years ago, and at that time I privately considered verse here to have grown a little stale. While stand-out … Read more
The only published and available best-selling 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 Machines Like Me by Ian McEwan (Penguin Random House, $37) McEwan is rightfully getting a lot of flak for suggesting his … Read more
A new poem sequence by Wellington poet Jackson Nieuwland. They told me to be myself, so I entered the hive. Bees the size of my head descended upon me. They covered every inch of my body like a chrysalis. I continued walking forward, through a blur of buzz and fuzz. At the center of … Read more
Verse by Wellington writer Bill Manhire. My World War I Poem Inside each trench, the sound of prayer. Inside each prayer, the sound of digging. From Some Things to Place in a Coffin, by Bill Manhire (Victoria University Press, $30), available at Unity Books. Feature image courtesy of Auckland War … Read more
The author of Fifty Shades of Grey is back, with more unintentionally hilarious catchphrases and “linguistically bankrupt fondling of a clitoris”. The Mister opens with an extremely important piece of translation – the difference between the word “daily” in US vernacular (a newspaper published every day but Sunday) and UK parlance (a woman who is employed to … Read more
The first recipient of the Spinoff Review of Books Writer-in-Residence Award, held in association with the Rise Pop-up Apartments in Wellington, was poet Aimee-Jane Anderson-O’Connor. How did she get on in ? Here’s her report. I say that Wellington is my favourite city in the world. I say this with a nod of my head, … Read more
The only published and available best-selling 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 Home Fire: A Novel by Kamila Shamsie (Bloomsbury, $22) Do not knock this off at 2am; you’ll be bolt awake the … Read more
New poetry by Piha poet Nikki-Lee Birdsey Objects 6 This time of year I try to think about what is better than beauty. Rose-pink clouds crowd the sky, crowd my page— I think of your face. I can’t fantasise like I did when I was a child, whole worlds snapping into place in an instant … Read more
True crime aficionado Jean Sergent reviews The Five by Hallie Rubenhold. In the annals of Ripperology, there are classics and there are clangers. The latest slew of “Jack the Ripper finally uncovered!” headlines recycle the same faulty DNA studies, but there has never been a definitive answer to the mystery of identity of the Whitechapel … Read more
Lily Woodhouse is a pseudonym for Stephanie Johnson, who has won the Montana Book Award, the Katherine Mansfield Menton Fellowship and the Bruce Mason Playwriting Award; hell, she co-founded the Auckland Writers Festival. But could she get her latest novel published? Yeah, nah. So-called ‘women’s fiction’ is rife with stories of women who left, who … Read more
Brannavan Gnanalingam reviews the long-awaited – and outstanding – novel by Marlon James, who won the Man Booker prize four years ago with A Brief History of Seven Killings. It was some canny marketing to release a book self-described as the “African Game of Thrones” just before the final season on TV of the actual Game of … Read more
The only published and available best-selling 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 Necessary Secrets by Greg McGee (Upstart Press, $38) Stand by for a Spinoff review. 2 Auckland Architecture: A Walking Guide by … Read more
New poetry by author Erik Kennedy. Out on the Pleasure Pier Out on the pleasure pier on that benign afternoon, the air heavy with the blossom of vinegar and old tyres, you asked what was the closest I had come to death. I thought of when I had applied the bolt-cutters to that … Read more
“The obliteration of self. The prioritising of others. The yearning for escape”: Holly Walker on a motherhood memoir that rings in the bones. Before the current bumper crop of radically honest books about motherhood, there was Marie Darrieussecq. Eighteen years ago in Paris, she sat at her desk, notebook open, her baby resting face down … Read more
Ashleigh Young reviews More of Us, a collection of poetry written by migrants and refugees. We greet with deep pleasure and confidence, eyes greeting all over the body, shaking the hand with a hug. That’s the first stanza of ‘Greeting’ by Samson Sahele, the first poem in More of Us, a collection of poems written … Read more
Kiwi author Garth Cartwright is on the shortlist for the UK’s prestigious Penderyn Prize – the Booker of music books – and the winner is announced any minute now*. His subject? A history of the British record shop. I’m often asked, “What inspires you to write books?” I wish I could answer, “Money.” I’d like … Read more
The only published and available best-selling 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 Troll Hunting: Inside the World of Online Hate and its Human Fallout by Ginger Gorman (Hardie Grant Books, $33) The clue … Read more
New poetry by Wellington writer Carolyn DeCarlo. The Ultimate Freedom of Space and Time Sometimes when masturbating I think about my friends’ perfect bodies having sex with angels. Or, angelic sex with each other. Or, dirty sex where my friends are covered in mud and having sex with earthworms. Having sex in pools of blood … Read more
Extract: In a new book about censored letters in New Zealand, the author tells the strange story of a German woman who dressed as a man and may have established a “lesbian network”. Letter from Katherine Early to Hjelmar Dannevill, November 1915 I don’t know whether it will be possible to see you again, I … Read more
Welcome back to Papercuts, our monthly books podcast hosted by Louisa Kasza, Jenna Todd and Kiran Dass. In this episode we have a special guest! Anne O’Brien, director of the Auckland Writers Festival Waituhi O Tāmaki joins us to discuss what punters can expect at New Zealand’s largest annual festival of ideas and literature. We … Read more
The generosity of the Frank Sargeson Trust was my stepping stone into literary life, writes Catherine Chidgey, the driving force – and judge – of a rich new short story prize that bears the writer’s name. I wrote one of my earliest short stories when I held the Sargeson Fellowship in Auckland. It was 1998, … Read more
The only published and available best-selling 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 Normal People by Sally Rooney (Faber & Faber, $33) After vying for pole position on our top 10 for a few … Read more
New verse from Syrian-New Zealand poet and high schooler Mohamed Al Mansour. In Lebanon I had a big football team, twenty-three players and two captains. My two best friends in the team were Ali Ahmad and Mohamed. Ali Ahmad is fast and Mohamed is tall. We played in the same place every time. The ground … Read more
Foxton author Anne Hunt backgrounds the legal challenges she faced when she published her book about a woman who accused her therapist of rape. Content warning: suicidal ideation and rape My 2003 book Broken Silence was published too long ago to capture a readership mesmerised by the complexities of the #MeToo movement. It documented the … Read more
Everyone heads to the internet to dispel loneliness and boredom. Sharon Lam headed there in search of lonely Asian women, and found them everywhere she looked. Recently I’ve found myself feeling a little less lonely, despite moving to a city where I have one friend, as compared to Wellington, where I had like three. Yes, … Read more
The Monday Excerpt: Joanne Drayton’s biography of Hudson and Halls has been shortlisted for the 2019 Ockham New Zealand national book awards. In this extract, Drayton recounts their life in 1960s Parnell, Auckland. When Peter Hudson had first arrived back in New Zealand he stayed in David’s flat in St Stephens Avenue. Then they bought … Read more