Geoff Dyer loves Annie Dillard so that should be a recommendation but actually isn’t she just kind of like totally weird? Rebecca Priestley reviews the US personal essayist. What does it feel like to be alive? What would you do if you had fifteen minutes to live before the bomb went off? Quick: What would … Read more
An excerpt from the latest London Review of Books. Spinoff Review of Books literary editor Steve Braunias writes: Andrew O’Hagan! Novelist, essayist, very smart person who wears a suit and tie even when he’s writing at home – every inch an aesthete, all that, but he’s also an awesome reporter and his latest get in the … Read more
New verse from Geraldine writer John Keast. High Tea A high ceiling in spring, white with a filigree border and genteel conversation floats over earl grey and the waitress’s apron rises and falls with her light step; tea and cakes, spilling cream, a man with a silly hat and ill-fitting hand-knit jersey trying to impress … Read more
Crime reporter Kelly Dennett is the winner of the inaugural Surrey Hotel Steve Braunias Memorial Writers Residency in Association with The Spinoff Award. There are two runners-up, both who have also won residencies at the Surrey Hotel in Auckland – in second place, Antony Millen of Taumaranui, who writes novels for young adults, with third place … Read more
A weekly feature at the Spinoff Review of Books: The best-selling books at the Wellington and Auckland stores of Unity Books. THE BEST–SELLER CHART FOR THE WEEK JUST ENDED: June 17 UNITY BOOKS WELLINGTON 1. In Love with These Times: The Flying Nun Story (HarperCollins, $37) by Roger Shepherd You’ve bought the book (or should), now read … Read more
In which Wellington writer Danyl McLauchlan approaches his latest novel Mysterious Mysteries of the Aro Valley from five directions. He took the photos, too. Thing one: Tone I was about halfway through writing this book when a friend asked me what it was about. I thought for a while, then answered, “Sorry, but I can’t really put it into words.” He … Read more
The winners of our “exciting” new writers residency award will be announced live on air this Friday by Jesse Mulligan. Famous broadcaster Jesse Mulligan will announce the winners of the inaugural Surrey Hotel Steve Braunias Memorial Writers Residency in Association with The Spinoff Award on his Radio New Zealand show on Friday . The new … Read more
Peter Wells reviews Katherine Mansfield’s The Urewera Notebook, edited by Anna Plumridge. The Napier-Taupo road has the high status of being one of those roads on which you lose cellphone coverage. This means you leave behind the 21st Century. You plunge into the uncertainties of real time, presented naked of technology to the landscape. And the landscape itself … Read more
An essay by Gary Steel on the hits and myths of Flying Nun, as chronicled by the record company’s founder Roger Shepherd in his new best-selling memoir. Flying Nun. Was there ever a record label that was more famous than any of its acts? It’s the home of the “Dunedin sound”, The Clean, The Chills, … Read more
In which we name the ten finalists of our amazing new writers residency award – and also announce a second and third-place prize of free accommodation with pizza. Ten finalists have been chosen in the inaugural Surrey Hotel Steve Braunias Memorial Writers Residency in Association with The Spinoff Award. Applications for the new and extremely groovesome … Read more
A weekly feature at the Spinoff Review of Books: The best-selling books at the Wellington and Auckland stores of Unity Books. THE BEST–SELLER CHART FOR THE WEEK JUST ENDED: June 10 UNITY BOOKS WELLINGTON 1. In Love with These Times: The Flying Nun Story (HarperCollins, $37) by Roger Shepherd Number one with a bullet! The eagerly anticipated … Read more
New verse by Nelson writer Sarah Wilson. Dear Dominique “I was having sex with my girlfriend when she started her period. I dumped that bitch immediately.” – tweet Dear nameless dummy on Twitter: You’re the reason my daughter cried funeral tears when she started her period. The sudden grief all young girls feel after the … Read more
Marion McLeod reviews In Gratitude by Jenny Diski, which she began writing when she was diagnosed with terminal cancer. Her given name was Jennifer Simmonds, which always makes me laugh. A name from Tunbridge Wells or Teddington. That’s what her mother wanted – a nice, well-behaved, middle-class daughter. The daughter didn’t oblige, though she did … Read more
The embargo for the shortlist of the New Zealand Book Awards for Children was lifted at 5am – and this story went live at 5.01am. Sarah Forster reveals the shortlisted authors and books, and makes her picks for who will win at the awards ceremony on August 8. Those who write children’s books do it, most … Read more
In which Dan Kelly – our man in New York – heads into Soho to see the world’s greatest writer speak at a bar. Meeting your heroes can be risky: expectation loves disappointment. But like everyone before me, I didn’t care. This was Karl Ove Knausgaard, Norwegian literary sensation and author of the critically acclaimed … Read more
New verse by Auckland poet Tusiata Avia. Feagaiga/ Covenant I tell my brother about the boy at school I make him tickle my back and every time he stops I tell him about the boy at school who can do it The Best In … Read more
A weekly feature at the Spinoff Review of Books: the best-selling books at the Auckland and Wellington stores of Unity Books. THE BEST–SELLER CHART FOR THE WEEK JUST ENDED: June 3 UNITY BOOKS AUCKLAND 1. A Little Life (Picador, $25) by Hanya Yanagihara Still at number one in its umpteenth week! It’s big, it’s harrowing, it’s good. … Read more
Wyoming Paul reviews The Vegetarian, the slim, erotic novel which has become the literary sensation of 2016 after it won this year’s Man Booker international prize for fiction. After a violent and disturbing nightmare, an ordinary Korean woman decides to stop eating meat. She empties the kitchen of fish, eggs, pork, and for the first … Read more
Sue Orr admires the latest work of the master: Owen Marshall’s new novel, Love As a Stranger. I’ve always been wary of thrillers. I don’t like the way they so brashly presume they’re going to thrill me. That gets my goat, as my mum would say. Their ardent determination to surprise feels fated to self-sabotage. … Read more
Philip Matthews reviews Movie Journal: The Rise of the New American Cinema, 1959-1971 by Jonas Mekas Here is an eyewitness account of something almost happening. The year is 1965. “Nothing much really happens in the film, if we want action. Miss Sedgwick goes about her make-up business, she listens to rock ‘n’ roll music; she … Read more
In this excerpt from Migrant Journeys: New Zealand taxi drivers tell their stories, Cambodian taxi driver Vanna Seng tells his story – how he came to New Zealand as a refugee when he was 15, after growing up in the terror of the Khmer Rouge. I was seven or eight years old [when Pol Plot … Read more
New verse by Wellington writer (and winner of the 2016 Ockham New Zealand national book award for best first book of poetry) Chris Tse. Chris Tse and His Imaginary Band We were brighter when the world didn’t know about us or our rock n’ roll dreams. Now we dress in black, but we’re not … Read more
A weekly feature at the Spinoff Review of Books: the best-selling books at the Auckland and Wellington stores of Unity Books. THE BEST–SELLER CHART FOR THE WEEK JUST ENDED: May 27 UNITY BOOKS AUCKLAND 1. A Little Life ($25) by Hanya Yanagihara The novel you have to read, apparently; it’s been the number one best-seller … Read more
Finlay Macdonald reviews The Killing of Osama bin Laden by Seymour Hersh About the worst thing anyone will say of Seymour Hersh’s journalism is that he’s only “one of America’s greatest investigative reporters”. But that’s the New York Times for you, always hedging. Others don’t hold back so much: “The most feared investigative reporter in … Read more
The Surrey Hotel and The Spinoff join forces to establish a new writer in residence award. Enter now! Auckland’s Surrey Hotel – named the Best Hotel in Auckland in the New Zealand Herald – is pleased to support a new writers residency award in association with The Spinoff. The winner of the Surrey Hotel Steve … Read more
Kiran Dass shares tea, biscuits and literary talk with Hanya Yanagihara. Shortlisted for the Man Booker prize for her incendiary novel A Little Life, Hanya Yanagihara appeared at the Auckland Writers Festival last week. While she was here, I sat down with her at the Langham Hotel, and we were served lemon and ginger iced tea and … Read more
An essay by Paula Morris on the bad vibes and bitching which immediately greeted her launch last week of the Academy of New Zealand Literature. Last week a lot of people squashed into the Gus Fisher Gallery on Shortland Street in Auckland to hear about the launch of the Academy of New Zealand Literature. Many … Read more
The Spinoff got given $20,000 by Creative New Zealand. Whee! Creative New Zealand announced the recipients of its latest arts grant funding last Thursday. All up, 84 grants totaling $1,811,509 were shelled out. The full list is online; here’s an edited version, because it’s the Monday Extract. The happy pigs with their snout in the … Read more
New verse by Catherine Vidler, inspired by dear old Saucepan, a character from the Enid Blyton series The Faraway Tree. Saucepan To any of us he is still Old Saucepan. Dear everybody, he is still. He could stay because he says yesterday. Can he put things right? Will you come? … Read more