A Spinoff special: we list the best 100 works of non-fiction ever published in New Zealand. Because the Guardian is running its list of the 100 greatest non-fiction books next week, the Spinoff thought we’d get in first – and present the 100 greatest works of New Zealand non-fiction right now, right here, spread over … Read more
From his best-selling book The Scene of the Crime, Steve Braunias imagines the innocent explanation for Mark Lundy on the night his wife and daughter were murdered. Everything in the following version of events of an unsolved family tragedy — well, apart some of the dialogue, travelogue, and various assorted details pertaining to sleep — … Read more
Many readers have imaginary relationships with their favourite authors, but few manage to turn fantasy into reality. Madeleine Chapman – who starts as a Spinoff intern in February – tells how she tried to bridge the gap between fandom and friendship with The Luminaries author Eleanor Catton. This post first appeared on Madeleine Chapman’s blog … Read more
Charlotte Grimshaw examines anonymous literary sensation Elena Ferrante, and the place of the ‘self’ in written work. I,I,I… Some time after the Christchurch earthquake, I visited the city. I hadn’t been there since before the disaster, and I was shocked by the devastation in the centre, and in particular by the number of multi-storey buildings that … Read more
Steve Braunias’s 2015: Lundy, The Block, a bluff at Hammer Hardware, Simon Collins and Jared Savage, ‘the trick is to survive’, his new book The Scene of the Crime, Kafka and Updike, ‘the moist March air’. I started the year writing daily despatches from the Mark Lundy double-murder trial in Wellington, and ended the year writing daily reviews of … Read more
Bill Manhire’s 2015: a sandwich in Norwich, Utopia, ‘festivals of ideas’, poems in an eggbox, no sleep till Gore, The Stories of Bill Manhire, ‘a fine, chubby baby’. I spent the early months of the year as the UNESCO Visiting Professor of Creative Writing at the University of East Anglia , sandwiched between Margaret Atwood and Ian Rankin. The … Read more
Auckland writer Stacy Gregg’s 2015: St Petersburg, Moscow, being Eloise, research, ‘beets and pickles and perfect dark yellow quails eggs’, horse breeds, that sonofabitch Sergei. Everyone says St Petersburg is wonderful but I took an instant dislike to the place. It was like all the people and the colour had been vacuumed out and only … Read more
Wellington writer Anna Smaill’s 2015: Edinburgh, Hong Kong, good luck, tea and Hobnobs, ‘a steadying ale’, Amazon ratings, ‘the psychological hangover of writing my first novel’, book number two. 2015 has been a lucky year. I published my first novel, and had the good fortune to travel to London to meet the people who were instrumental … Read more
Queenstown writer Jane Bloomfield’s 2015: her junior fiction novel Lily Max, swimming in Lake Wakatipu, watching Mad Max in Broome, doubt, anxiety, visiting her dad in his resthome, skiing, a reprint, the sage advice of publisher Steve Braunias. The summer of 2015 lay before me. We’re a family of five, but three members departed for American … Read more
Max Porter’s 2015: a new baby, political angst, ‘tips on not being an asshole’, his novel Grief Is The Thing With Feathers, ninjas, Paris, ‘the smell of books’. I’m so tired right now that I hardly know my arse from my elbow, but here are some things I remember happening this year, in no particular order, … Read more
Spinoff legend Alex Casey’s 2015 as a first-time author: Jamie Curry, Jamie’s World, Napier, Sydney, ‘proper famous’, bacon and eggs and revenge. The first time I encountered Jamie Curry she was in a short Facebook clip, you know the kind that start out kind of normal and then you suddenly see a dog walking past … Read more
Brian Turner’s 2015: life and bicycles in Oturehua, ‘lucky still to be alive’, his new book Boundaries: People and Places of Central Otago, a visit to London, Anton Oliver’s birthday party, ‘the neo-liberal pandemic’, Richie McCaw. A couple of days ago I met a bloke at the café by the Hayes Engineering Works about a kilometre … Read more
Auckland writer Charlotte Grimshaw’s 2015: Tokyo, Tel Aviv, her novel Starlight Peninsula, ‘solemn and conscientious reviews’ for the Listener, ‘internal chaos’. In a narrow street of tiny houses, in a district near the Yanaka Cemetery where the last Shogun is buried, a row of shoes was laid out along the pavement. Policemen stationed beside their bikes wielded … Read more
Guardian journalist Nick Davies’s 2015: a massacre in a platinum mine in South Africa, questions in a mud hut, ‘strange experiences’, identity theft kind of thing, ‘so help me God’, six continents, tears, human goodness. There was one single day in March which pulled together the big theme of my whole year. I was in … Read more
Sarah Forster chooses the year’s best books for kids. PICTURE BOOKS Yak and Gnu by Juliette MacIver and Sarah Davis Juliette MacIver and her flawless rhyming verse have become one of the perennials of the NZ book world. Her latest picture book is her twelfth in five years, and is illustrated by the equally flawless … Read more
‘Good Night to Good Morning’ is a three part series farewelling the iconic TVNZ variety show. In part one, Steve Braunias recalls a recent appearance on a show that once gave him cakes and grapes, and always gave New Zealand reliably good viewing. This is the way Good Morning ends: not with a green room, but a vast, deserted … Read more
From an essay first published at the website of Luncheon Sausage Books, Queenstown author Jane Bloomfield explains how attending writing courses held by Kate di Goldi, Fiona Kidman, Steve Braunias and others helped her to write her first book for kids aged 8-12, Lily Max. All illustrations by Guy Fisher from the book. I’ve met so many amazing … Read more
Steve Braunias holds court on the judges of the 2016 Ockham New Zealand Book Awards. Let us now judge the judges. The first-ever longlist of the national book awards was announced this week, in anticipation of the 2016 Ockham New Zealand Book Awards. The news was greeted with various assorted huzzahs and the gnashing of … Read more
Quietly, almost by stealth, Elsbeth Hardie’s family memoir The Girl Who Stole Stockings made its way to the best-seller charts this year and may well be one of the best books of New Zealand non-fiction published in 2015. It’s a brilliantly researched history of the life – and minor crime, which had far-reaching consequences – of … Read more
Ali Ikram’s picaresque account of his assignment to interview Keri Hulme. Volume two of Tell You What, the new compendium of New Zealand non-fiction writing selected by Susanna Andrew and Jolisa Gracewood, and published by Auckland University Press, features the usual suspects – Naomi Arnold, Ashleigh Young, Steve Braunias, and other assorted experienced litterateurs. There’s … Read more
So after I spent the first $35 (on a collection of essays by the late New Zealand writer Nigel Cox) of my $1000 prize as winner of the 2015 Unity Books Award – it entitles winners to a thousand bucks’ worth of books at the High St store in Auckland – I returned to the … Read more
Charlotte Grimshaw examines anonymous literary sensation Elena Ferrante, and the place of the ‘self’ in written work. I,I,I… Some time after the Christchurch earthquake, I visited the city. I hadn’t been there since before the disaster, and I was shocked by the devastation in the centre, and in particular by the number of multi-storey buildings that … Read more
For some reason children’s authors often seem to get treated a little like small children themselves. Even so, I did a double-take when I read the invitation instructions for the Book Awards after-party at Government House: “You are invited for post-award drinks in the house at 6.36pm. Departure time will be at 7.10pm.” “It’s not … Read more
Bernard Beckett was on the judging panel that awarded the 2013 NZ Post children’s book award to Into the River – the Ted Dawe’ novel which was banned this week by weird Christian sect, the Film and Literature Board of Review. UPDATE: Into the River is no longer banned or even classified at all. This … Read more
For a couple of years in the 1980s I had a wonderful part-time job – I taught two 7th form English classes at a Catholic High School and was paid an extra four hours a week to be teacher librarian. I went to the bookshop with someone else’s wallet. I bought The World According to … Read more
An essay by Patrick Evans to mark his new novel The Back of His Head, which imagines that “a complete and utter prick” has won the Nobel Prize for Literature. ‘No entry to all vehicles, writer at work’ – the sign in the Jerusalem street the writer known to the West as SY Agnon lived … Read more
Deborah Coddington’s fetching memoir The Good Life on Te Muna Road (Penguin Random House, $40) tells of her adventures and experiences in the Wairarapa. These days, she makes wine with her husband Colin Carruthers QC; back in the day, she threw parties for Sam Hunt, Tim Shadbolt, Dun Mihaka and others at Waiura, the large … Read more
How many bottles of red wine does it take to get over an armed robbery? I’ll let you know when I’ve finished drinking them. On a September morning six years ago, I was at work in my antique shop on Dominion Road when a well-spoken young man entered the store, lifted the corner of his … Read more
London writer Max Porter – best known in New Zealand as the editor of Eleanor Catton’s The Luminaries – has published his first novel. He writes exclusively for The Spinoff Review of Books. Grief is the Thing with Feathers is the story of a man whose wife dies. He is left to care for their … Read more