Craig Marriner was a nobody who won the 2002 book of the year award with his first novel Stonedogs, a raw, rough, street-wise tale of bogan life. His second novel sank without trace – and so did Marriner, who disappeared. He returns after a long absence with an evocation of life and literature in his … Read more
Mary Macpherson talks to a brilliant Texan photographer who makes portraits of men and the land in the disappearing American West. In the bulging shelves of our photobook collection, there’s a select area reserved for the most significant and deeply loved works. One of these books is a tall slim volume with a metal spine … Read more
For 20 years, the second Māori King, Tāwhiao, governed Rohe Pōtae (the King Country) as an independent state. Tāwhiao also sailed to London in an attempt to see the Queen; the mission is described in this extract from a new study of that 20-year reign. Going to London to see the Queen was a rare … Read more
New verse by Kaipara writer Sam Hunt. My eldest brother the Atheist died Waitangi Day. No word from him no sign in vision or dream. He’s gone and gone for good like he said he would. My other brother, Jonathan, may he finds what he lives for a Catholic hereafter … Read more
This week’s best-selling books at Unity Books in Wellington and Auckland. WELLINGTON UNITY 1 12 Rules for Life by Jordan B Peterson (Allen Lane, $40) Danyl Mclauchlan explains Peterson’s theory of everything, in a review at the Spinoff Review of Books: “Life is an endless series of ruthless dominance contests in which the strong triumph and obtain … Read more
Legendary playwright Roger Hall pays tribute to the great satirist John Clarke, whose posthumous book Tinkering has been a runaway best-seller this summer. When my 1998 memoir Bums on Seats was due to published, I had the nerve to ask John Clarke if he would write an introduction. He did so, offering a lengthy, elaborate … Read more
The third instalment of Peter Wells’ diary of life with cancer, republished from his private Facebook with permission. Read part one here and part two here. January 16, 3:27am I set off on my pilgrimage to the oncology clinic in the spirit of my first day at school, with associated nerves and too much baggage … Read more
Spinoff literary editor Steve Braunias surveys the current state of payments for book reviewing in New Zealand. As literary editor of the Spinoff Review of Books, I think about important new books, and about brilliant, thoughtful reviewers, but mostly I think about money. The budget is tight. I crouch over the pennies like a miser, … Read more
A dramatic excerpt from a new memoir by Dave Greenberg from the Westpac rescue helicopter service. Includes kicker. I was off flying duty but at work catching up on paperwork when around lunchtime the helicopter was called out for an urgent transfer of a patient. About 35 minutes later, ambulance control called asking if our backup … Read more
New verse by Australian writer Eloise Grills. Independent woman I am an independent woman I pay for all my groceries Even for the nuts which I could Theoretically put through as Less expensive nuts At the self-checkout I pay the prescribed price I do not Need a man It’s easy like when … Read more
The week’s best-selling titles at Unity Books in Auckland and Wellington. AUCKLAND UNITY 1 Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House by Michael Wolff (Little Brown, $38) “Here it is, the encyclopedia of Trump the Idiot all in one compendium”: Forbes. 2 Altered Carbon by Richard Morgan (Hachette, $22) Sci-fi. 400 years from now mankind … Read more
Two refugees are shut in a small cage and fed through a hole in the wires: Stephanie Johnson reviews The Cage, the claustrophobic, dystopian novel by Lloyd Jones. The back cover blurb for The Cage describes the contents as “a profound and unsettling fable”. It’s a little-known fact that very often writers themselves pen these descriptions … Read more
Dunedin journalist Helen Speirs investigates a controversy swirling around Robbie Burns. Robert “Robbie” Burns, Scotland’s national poet, feted worldwide, author of “Auld Lang Syne”, commemorated in Dunedin with a handsome statue overlooking the Octagon, one of the immortals of literature – and, now, accused as a “sex pest”, a rapist, “Weinsteinian”. Scottish poet Liz Lochhead has unleashed a storm … Read more
Today is Valentine’s Day but for two very rich authors, every day is a day for romance. Nicholas Sparks and Danielle Steel go head-to-head in a battle for the trashy romance crown. Ten year old me browsed the books tables at the school fair. At 3pm, stalls were winding down and the tired volunteer mums … Read more
Amanda Robinson meets five Auckland writers who are stunningly good at a much-derided art form – spoken word poetry. Perhaps the most cringeworthy phrase in all the arts, the one that makes everyone recoil, including most poets, is “spoken word poetry”. But when it’s good, when a poem reading ends and you realise you’ve been … Read more
The high priest of New Zealand non-fiction, Martin Edmond, reveals the curious genesis of his latest book. One day in the summer of 2013 I received a letter from James McNeish. He said he had a proposition to put to me – but that I would have to go to Wellington to find out what … Read more
The week’s best-selling books at the Unity stores in Auckland and Wellington. AUCKLAND UNITY 1 Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House by Michael Wolff (Little Brown, $38) The Wolff who cried, “Oh boy!” 2 The Secret Life of Cows by Rosamund Young (Faber, $23) “The author has deep faith in cows having individual personalities … Read more
New verse by Dunedin writer Michael Hall. After… The organs begin shutting down is there a panic in the body’s house – a few resigned to stay like, in war, before the rat-a-tat advancement merely miles away of the grey enemy a hasty packing someone saying leave the piano, leave it another sits, … Read more
‘The world is divided into two principles: order and chaos. Order is male and chaos is female.’ Danyl Mclauchlan investigates the strange philosophy of number one best-selling author and thinker Jordan B Peterson, author of 12 Rules for Life. Professor Jordan B Peterson is having a moment. I’d never heard of him – such is the … Read more
Author Paula Morris, who hosts Nigella Lawson live onstage at the Aotea Centre tonight, shares her own cooking journey. When I moved to England in 1985, to study at the University of York, I couldn’t cook. Not a single thing. I hadn’t learned much at home because my mother disliked cooking and couldn’t stand anyone … Read more
Rachel Stewart reviews the bovine love letter, The Secret Life of Cows. Even though I’m likely New Zealand’s harshest critic of modern dairy farming, I’ve always enjoyed the company of cows. I’ve worked with them for years. And played with them. And frolicked in the grass with them. And slept with them. As a kid … Read more
An excerpt from Tinderbox, the new memoir by Wellington writer Megan Dunn. One night shift at Borders Islington the alarm on the ground floor went off just after 8pm and a bum stumbled out of the fire doors in a brown corduroy suit. “What were you doing?” I asked. “That area is for staff only.” … Read more
The best-selling books of the week at Unity Books in Wellington and Auckland. WELLINGTON UNITY 1 Fire & Fury: Inside the Trump White House by Michael Wolff (Little Brown, $38) All-gorilla TV, all the time, and other revelations. 2 The Cage by Lloyd Jones (Penguin, $38) We look forward to Stephanie Johnson’s forthcoming review. 3 … Read more
New verse by Auckland writer Courtney Sina Meredith. Y S scrubs the pots so give him Y P was there so give him Y X cleared her weekend so give her Y S wants kids so give him Y S stops calling unlikeable women ‘bitches’ so give him Y P sends a text … Read more
Charlotte Grimshaw reviews a new collection of letters by Sylvia Plath – most written to her mother, whom she both loved and loathed. So much has been written about Sylvia Plath that reading her letters involves a continual reference beyond them, to all that’s known about her life. As I grappled with this enormous, hardcover book, … Read more
Philip Matthews on the Alanis Morrissette of literature – yelping, abrasive 90s has-been Martin Amis. The 1990s come flooding back as you read The Rub of Time, a collection of essays, features and reviews by Martin Amis. It’s so 90s it should require a soundtrack by Alanis Morissette or the Cranberries. Was there ever a more 90s … Read more
New verse by Wellington writer Nick Ascroft. This Beaver’s Thirst They flip you up your mom and pop and land you on your little feet. Some things they say can make you stop, but then you think, gee whiz that’s neat. And they were flipped up by their nans and caught with gentle hands … Read more
The best-selling books at Unity Books in Auckland and Wellington. AUCKLAND UNITY 1 Fire and Fury by Michael Wolff (Little Brown, $38) 2 Mythos: A Retelling of the Myths of Ancient Greece by Stephen Fry (Michael Joseph, $37) 3 The Power by Naomi Alderman (Penguin, $26) 4 Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by … Read more
Poet Hera Lindsay Bird talks to Megan Dunn, author of a brilliantly funny new memoir about working at a failed bookstore while experiencing a failed marriage and making a failed attempt to write a novel. I first met Megan Dunn the year after I had graduated from a writing programme and had to emerge back into reality … Read more