Dr Paula Morris reveals the seething family dynamics and political turmoil that went on behind the scenes of the books loved by millions. Southern Missouri, 1928. On a green ridge outside the sleepy town of Mansfield, an elderly farming couple lived in a white wooden house, its soaring stone chimney built entirely from the rocks on … Read more
Te Papa curators talk about the artworks in the national collection that make them swoon. Curators! What do they do all day? No one knows. Certainly much of it is spent in soul-destroying forensic analysis of catalogue numbers; many turn to drink. But sometimes, in quiet, precious moments, they get to do what they got into the curating racket … Read more
New verse by Kaipara poet Sam Hunt. Reminding me I call my mother thirteen years dead the phone says there’s nobody home. The phone is right. My mother hung it up thirteen years ago, then died… But none of that stuff stops our night time chats, my mother telling … Read more
The best-selling books at the two best book stores since Neanderthals became extinct and homo sapiens continued to assert themselves as the dominant species of modern humans. AUCKLAND UNITY 1 Lazy Girl’s Guide to Living a Beautiful Life by Matilda Rice (Allen & Unwin, $40) Matilda! 2 Solar Bones by Mike McCormack (Canongate, $23) Highly-praised … Read more
One of the stand-out chapters in Chris Bourke’s new best-selling history of New Zealand music in World War One is about the contribution and legacy of Māori music. He expands on the subject for the Spinoff. Māori popular music is the most crucial gap in the expanding bookshelf of New Zealand music histories. When researching Blue Smoke, my … Read more
An international survey shows book sections publish many more male critics than female – and that they review many more books written by men than women. Spinoff books editor Steve Braunias (a man) looks at the state of play in New Zealand. A landmark survey has revealed that more women than men review books at … Read more
Paranormal and fantasy author Steff Green asks: why the hell is it that characters with disabilities either have to be super heroes, or super villains? Can’t they just be characters with disabilities? Blinded by a mysterious illness at the age of 25, James Holman set out on foot to circumnavigate the globe. Armed with only … Read more
Michael Bennett won the 2017 Ngaio Marsh crime writing award for best book of non-fiction on Saturday night for his book In Dark Places, a study of the wrongful, shameful conviction of Teina Pora for the 1992 murder of Susan Burdett. The excerpt is from the opening chapter. Content warning: This chilling excerpt describes the … Read more
New verse by Wellington writer James Brown End For five fucking years and fuck knows how many fucks he was fucking my friend and she was fucking my husband. Angry? Do I sound angry? These things happen. That’s what he said. Marriage is a journey and sometimes you reach the end. … Read more
The best-selling books at the two best bookstores on shore. WELLINGTON UNITY 1 Leaders Like You: New Zealand Leaders Share Stories of Courage by Nick Sceats & Andrea Thompson (Catapult Publishing, $40) Inspirational ra-ra PR. 2 La Belle Sauvage: The Book of Dust by Philip Pullman (David Fickling Books, $35) Pullman! The master returns with … Read more
Lara Strongman declares that Fiona Farrell’s novel about post-quake Christchurch is a work of art. When everything collapses, some people behave with dignity and kindness, while others steal the gates. Fiona Farrell has an elderly Italian woman say this, or at least think it to herself, one night in bed in a sleepout crammed with … Read more
An essay about race, immigration, and KFC by Sri Lankan-born, Hutt Valley-raised novelist Brannavan Gnanalingam. On our way to New Zealand in 1986, we stopped at Singapore Airport. In this of all places, my dad bumped into his brother, whom he hadn’t seen for years. We were going to a new life in New Zealand. … Read more
A memoir of the end of a marriage by playwright Renée. At the age of 50, Otaki author Renée started to write the plays that made her one of New Zealand’s most acclaimed writers. Her focus was on creating work that put women centre stage. Now, at 88, she has written a memoir; it tells … Read more
New verse by Jilly O’Brien. Deirdre Barlow Deirdre do the neck thing Deirdre do the neck thing Deidre do that thing with your neck The worried neck and specs thing Oh Ken a lady gave birth in an ambulance because she left it too late watching you leave Ken in 1983 … Read more
The best-selling books at the best two bookstores beneath the Sun. AUCKLAND UNITY 1 Goodbye Māoriland: Songs & Sounds of NZ’s Great War by Chris Bourke (Auckland University Press, $60) Fabulous new social and cultural history by the author of Blue Smoke. “An impeccably researched account of the influence of music in World War One – … Read more
An essay by Sam Gaskin – with GIFs! – about his old friend and now superstar author Jenny Zhang. In the summer of 2016 Jenny Zhang and I went to Coney Island for a swim. It was overcast, too windy to even face the ocean, but we stripped down to our swimsuits anyway. She tried … Read more
Danyl McLauchlan reviews the new election memoir by baffled sore loser Hillary Clinton. What did Hillary Clinton do after losing the election to Donald Trump? Pretty much what you’d expect: she cried; she prayed; she read books and poems (inevitably by Maya Angelou); she watched movies with her husband; did yoga with her personal instructor; … Read more
Philip Temple reviews a mammoth volume of journals by Landfall founder Charles Brasch – and recalls a harrowing poetry reading which starred a blind man, a Scotsman, and a drunkard. Charles Brasch is principally remembered for founding Landfall in 1947 and, by editing it for nearly 20 years, his profound influence on the course of … Read more
Wellington activist Valerie Morse was among the Urewera 16 arrested and jailed 10 years ago. We present an excerpt from her prison diary, Can’t Hear Me Scream. As follows, four pages reproduced from a kind of journal written inside Arohata Womens Prison by Valerie Morse — one of the Urewera 16 – “of life in prison, the bureacracy and arbitrary … Read more
New verse by Dunedin writer Emer Lyons. Winter wood. Someone is chopping wood outside my window, or is it loudly inside my head? The slow swish of the axe the sharp splinter scattering little shards – impossible to clean up. I want to burrow beneath the soil, lie under the heavy comfort … Read more
The year’s biggest literary prize – the Man Booker award – is announced on Wednesday morning, October 18 (NZ time). All week this week we review the six shortlisted titles. Today: Louise O’Brien on Ali Smith’s Autumn, and Exit West by Mohsin Hamid. Unsurprisingly, at least two of the books which made it to the Booker … Read more
The best-selling books at the two best bookstores in Aotearoa. WELLINGTON UNITY 1 Driving to Treblinka: A Long Search for a Lost Father by Diana Wichtel (Awa Press, $45) Number one for the second consecutive week; this family memoir is the book to get right now. “Those familiar with Wichtel’s television reviews and features at … Read more
The year’s biggest literary prize, the Man Booker award, is announced on Wednesday morning, October 18 (NZ time). All week this week we review the six shortlisted titles. Today: Linda Burgess reviews Fiona Mozley’s Elmet, and History of Wolves by Emily Fridlund. At 29, Fiona Mozley is the youngest writer on the Man Booker Prize shortlist. … Read more
The year’s biggest literary prize – the Man Booker award – is announced on Wednesday morning, October 18 (NZ time). All week this week we review the six shortlisted titles. Today: Philip Matthews on Paul Auster’s 4 3 2 1, and the favourite to win, Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders. What did Paul Auster … Read more
The best-selling books at the two best bookstores in the North Island. AUCKLAND UNITY 1 Driving to Treblinka: A Long Search for a Lost Father by Diana Wichtel (Awa Press, $45) “I’m privileged to have known Diana for over 15 years as a colleague and a friend. In the early days, she told me a bit … Read more
New verse by Punakaikai writer Trevor Hayes. Cabo de Gata, Almeria There are no humans in this poem. They left before it arrived, leaving only pubic hair and beach paraphernalia. This poem has no humans. Instead it has black sand and conglomerate rock (the logical conclusion of volcanism) and … Read more
Margo White reviews Driving to Treblinka, a Holocaust memoir by the widely adored magazine writer Diana Wichtel. Diana Wichtel remembers being told by her Uncle Sy, some 50 years ago, “never forget you are a Wichtel”. Those familiar with Wichtel’s television reviews and features at the Listener will know her for the quality of her … Read more
Jane Westaway reviews CK Stead’s ‘thoroughly 21st century novel’ about intellectuals in Paris. Much action in the general run of literary fiction seems to be prompted by characters who make an awful mess of things. Consequently, about a third of the way in and if the writing is less than excellent, I find myself wanting … Read more
Gemma Gracewood follows New Zealand essayist and poet Ashleigh Young as she appears at the Brooklyn Book Festival in New York. In February, Ashleigh Young received the phone call of a lifetime telling her she had won a massive cash prize for being a great writer. Now it’s September and she is in America to … Read more