Josh Hetherington takes a trip to the dark, battered heart of Appalachia in the pages of the international best-seller – and number one at the Unity Books chart – which offers “a unique and valuable insight into Trump’s America”. Hillbilly Elegy by JD Vance is a raw and visceral account of the life of a … Read more
Auckland writer Elspeth Sandys has published a new novel, and one of the themes is obsessive love. Please, we asked her, tell us the real-life story behind that… Being asked to write about one of your own novels is rather like being asked to take your clothes off in public. Because you know what you’re … Read more
Yet another Spinoff Review of Books exclusive as we break the 6:00am embargo by 60 seconds and present, as of 5:59am, the shortlist of the 2017 Ockham New Zealand Book Awards featuring Ashleigh Young. Ashleigh Young and some other writers have made it onto the shortlist of the 2017 Ockham New Zealand Book Awards. Young, 33, the … Read more
New verse by New Zealand-Tongan poet Simone Kaho. Pretty Some people say You’re too pretty to be Tongan which is funny because it’s usually Tongans who say it. It is a short-cut to make a big distance between us and casually call me Pālagi at the same time. I can hardly … Read more
The week’s best-sellers at the two best stores in the Western world. AUCKLAND STORE 1 Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis (HarperCollins, $35) by JD Vance We will almost certainly run a review by former bFM deity Joshua Hetherington next week. 2 Lincoln in the Bardo (Bloomsbury, $33) by George Saunders The year’s … Read more
Steve Braunias conducts the live email interview – the revolutionary journalistic practise trailblazed by the Spinoff Review of Books – with author and academic Scott Hamilton to conclude our week-long series on Hamilton’s terrific new book The Stolen Island. Scott Hamilton is a literary outsider, a maverick, a public intellectual without much of a public … Read more
In which the Spinoff Review of Books reveals the New Zealand writer who has won a Major International Prize. It’s Ashleigh Young, but you might have guessed that because her name is in the headline. Wellington writer Ashleigh Young has won $US165,000 in a major US literary prize. The author of two critically acclaimed books – Magnificent … Read more
All week this week the Spinoff Review of Books looks at Scott Hamilton’s brilliant new book, The Stolen Island, his investigation into the people-snatching raid on the Tongan island of ‘Ata. Today: Leilani Tamu writes, “When the slavers came, they took more than our men. They raped our women. Beat our children. Pissed on our ancestors. … Read more
All week this week the Spinoff Review of Books looks at Scott Hamilton’s brilliant new book, The Stolen Island, his investigation into the people-snatching raid on the Tongan island of ‘Ata. Today: Michael Field reviews a masterclass in combining Pacific history with story-telling. Back in 1981, a reformed and repentant British colonial administrator, Henry Maude, had … Read more
All week this week the Spinoff Review of Books looks at Scott Hamilton’s brilliant new book, The Stolen Island, his investigation into the people-snatching raid on the Tongan island of ‘Ata. In this excerpt, he writes about visiting ‘Eua, the island where the survivors of the 1863 raid were re-settled; their descendants live in the … Read more
New verse by London writer Fleur Adcock. Blue stars To qualify as a New Zealander I’d have to turn against the agapanthus. This wasn’t mentioned at the passport office, but my New Zealand nationality is a part-time thing – a bit of nostalgia. Genuine applicants don’t need to be told. They … Read more
This week’s best-sellers at the two best bookstores in the Western world. WELLINGTON UNITY 1 Norse Mythology (Bloomsbury, $30) by Neil Gaiman Kvasir, the god of knowledge and diplomacy, was killed by two dwarves. 2 Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family & Culture in Crisis (HarperCollins, $35) by J D Vance Any minute … Read more
Somewhere in Auckland there’s an Irish recluse who wrote a novel, kept it in a drawer for 12 years, and only reluctantly showed it to Brett Cross from Auckland publisher Titus Books. Butades by TP Sweeney is about to be given worldwide distribution. I first heard about Butades through my wife, who worked with the wife of the … Read more
Win free things! In this case, books! No cost! Minimal effort! Huge rewards for your intellectual and emotional well-being! The Spinoff Review of Books in association with our favourite arts and culture quango, the New Zealand Book Council and their Aotearoa Summer Reads campaign, wishes to give away two prize packs of 10 extremely good … Read more
Late last year we asked Anthony Byrt to review a collection of essays by the great John Berger. The author died in January; the review is now a kind of tribute to a writer who was a massive influence on Geoff Dyer, Olivia Laing, and others. When John Berger died in January at age 90, … Read more
An extract from Playing for Both Sides, a kind of memoir by Auckland novelist Stephanie Johnson on her love-hate relationship with Australia. In the summer of 2011-12, I lived for a brief period in the hinterlands of Byron Bay. One afternoon I heard on local radio a report about a riot that had taken place … Read more
The weekly best-seller chart at the Unity Books stores in Auckland and Wellington. AUCKLAND STORE 1 This Building Likes Me: The Work of John Wardle Architects (Thames & Hudson, $150) by John Wardle Architects & Justine Clark Architects! Ugh. 2 Swing Time (Hamish Hamilton, $37) by Zadie Smith “It covers racism, sexism, inequality, class divides, … Read more
New verse by Wellington poet Tim Grgec. Fergusson Park, Matua Her feet make soft, temporary marks in the sand like yours used to. The woman in front of me. The wind blowing against her brightly coloured hat. Fishermen launch gently from the boat ramp. She looks towards the identical lines of … Read more
David Eggleton surveys the life and times of the one and only Allen Ginsberg – the manic and delirious poet who dedicated himself to “writing down newspaper headlines from Mars”. Allen Ginsberg was born in 1926, the same year as James K Baxter, and just as Baxter rapidly became New Zealand’s best-known and most prolific … Read more
Elizabeth Heritage drags her feet through Zadie Smith’s latest novel, with its constant moralising about racism, sexism, class divides, feminism, religious fundamentalism, poverty etc etc etc. A cartoon in The Guardian last year suggested promotional stickers to put on novels. One of them read “By the author of a much better, more famous novel” and another “A bit like … Read more
Louise O’Brien walks through the gloom of Ali Smith’s latest novel, set in a racist, malicious, post-Brexit England. Ali Smith’s latest novel is a beautifully written and rather glum vision of the state of the world today. The first in a planned seasonal quartet of novels, Autumn was published unusually quickly after the events it … Read more
A new book, published today, gives an inside account of the professional arrogance and denial of the tragic “unfortunate experiment” scandal at National Women’s Hospital in Auckland. Our excerpt is from the book’s foreword by Neville Hacker, a past president of the International Gynecologic Cancer Society. Thirty years after the Cartwright Inquiry endorsed the reality of the “unfortunate experiment”, … Read more
The weekly Unity Books best-seller chart at their stores in Wellington and Auckland. WELLINGTON STORE 1 Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family & Culture in Crisis (HarperCollins, $35) by JD Vance Number two over at Amazon, behind Orwell’s 1984; Vance’s book about America’s so-called “rust belt” has set the US on fire, and is seen … Read more
New verse by Wellington poet Mary Macpherson Palaces When it became warmer, we mooned over lost flowers Iit again amongst hunks of grass. We found marbles behind the dresser and remembered palaces in distant swirls of colour. Shops meant something too. We love the fierce desire for the things … Read more
A new edition of George Orwell’s 1984 appears just as a new ruler of doublespeak and fake news casts his shadow over the world. Philip Matthews re-examines the novel that serves as a prophecy. Winston Smith works in a fake news factory. If you had read that sentence a year ago, you might have had … Read more
We give reviews and literary things like that a rest today and play a meme instead. Norman Ohler’s new book Blitzed: Drugs in Nazi Germany, an investigation into widespread drug abuse in Hitler’s Third Reich, has been an international best-seller – including New Zealand, where the book shot to the number one spot on the … Read more
Charlotte Grimshaw reviews a new study which claims methamphetamine abuse in the Nazi regime. In the 90s, when the Berlin Wall had just come down, German novelist Norman Ohler began experimenting with ecstasy and LSD. After learning that drugs were widespread in the Nazi era, he got the idea to write a novel on … Read more
The weekly Unity Books best-seller chart at their stores in Auckland and Wellington. AUCKLAND STORE 1 Swing Time (Hamish Hamilton, $37) by Zadie Smith Interesting! So in the first chart since Xmas, the best best-seller at Unity Auckland is the latest novel by English writer Zadie Smith; it must be word of mouth, because the reviews have … Read more
New verse by Kaipara poet Sam Hunt. So I don’t rightly know it’s even you – but being on the edge of what was like a lake I know which could only be seen when there was no sun, no moon, and that water so deep you’d know (if … Read more