Steve Braunias asks: is there a book to be written about the 2017 election campaign? As an author, publisher, and relentless self-publicist, I’m always on high-alert for whatever ideas that enter the dark, hollow chamber of my head and might form the basis for my next book. I’m committed to a couple of book projects … Read more
Max Harris reports on the mood of the country during his nationwide book tour of his best-seller The New Zealand Project – and sees the start of ‘a new movement’. In the lead-up to the election, there’s been a lot of talk of a shift in the political mood – and a generational change in … Read more
Steve Braunias reports from the 2017 Going West festival – held for the first time, and forever, he hopes, in Henderson. There were writers of distinction all over the place at the 2017 Going West literary festival held in the weekend but the star of the show was Henderson. The annual event has been staged in Titirangi for … Read more
‘The book is the catalyst, the key.’ An essay by Scarlett Cayford about the secret society of book clubs. When I moved to London, I joined a book club. It was an easy decision to make – I wanted to meet new people, I’m terrible at most team sports, and I have a lot of … Read more
Who wrote the novel about a vain, womanising, and corrupt New Zealand political party leader? Who wrote The Spin? In 1996, now-extinct publishers Hodder Moa Beckett copied the idea of Primary Colors, a steamy, silly, best-selling novel of American political life by Anonymous, and rushed out The Spin, a steamy, silly, okay-selling novel of New … Read more
All week this week the Spinoff Review of Books devotes itself to poetry in the build-up to Phantom Billstickers National Poetry Day on Friday. Today: Kirsten Warner explores why it is that New Zealand poetry has such a friend in Phantom. The first time I saw one of Phantom Billstickers’ poster poems I couldn’t believe … Read more
All week this week the Spinoff Review of Books devotes itself to poetry in the build-up to Phantom Billstickers National Poetry Day on Friday. Today: Louise Wallace, co-editor of an online journal which publishes poetry and stories by New Zealand writers under 25, reaches out to high school students. I really didn’t like poetry when I … Read more
All week this week the Spinoff Review of Books is devoted to poetry in the build-up to the Phantom Billstickers National Poetry Day on Friday. Yesterday we ran an essay by Helen Hogan, editor of 1970s anthologies of poetry by New Zealand college students; today, an essay by distinguished poet Andrew Johnston, who Hogan published when he … Read more
All week this week the Spinoff Review of Books devotes itself to poetry in the build-up to Phantom Billstickers National Poetry Day on Friday. Today: an essay by the remarkable Helen Hogan, who brought poetry to a generation of young New Zealanders. In 1971, I edited an anthology of New Zealand poetry for secondary school … Read more
An essay by Carl Shuker in response to the shoddy response of most reviewers to the new novel by Wellington writer Pip Adam. Why, he simmers, are so many New Zealand critics so lazy, so patronising, so cheerfully ignorant, and just plain wrong? The finest piece of writing in New Zealand fiction this century happened and you … Read more
Auckland writer Dean Parker backgrounds the making of his novel – a kind of sequel to a classic of New Zealand fiction, Man Alone. I started writing my novel Johnson in 2008. Originally it carried the more effusive title, Hooray, Fuck. I know the year when I started it because of the date on an early file … Read more
An essay by Welsh writer Rhydian Thomas on getting the bash, again and again, since moving to New Zealand. The moral of the story: fuck Hamilton. The truck pulls over at the end of the Tauranga harbour bridge and the driver’s out before any of us can say a word, engine still running. He makes … Read more
All week this week the Spinoff Review of Books examines a new book devoted to investigative journalism in New Zealand. Today: an excerpt from the book, in which James Hollings backgrounds an investigation by Herald legend Matt Nippert. Late in 2016, then-Prime Minister John Key was in Peru for a summit of world leaders. At … Read more
The results of a new poll show that the cover of the Cazador cookbook is not “shit”. The people have spoken. A new cookbook, slandered as “shit” by Spinoff books editor Steve Braunias, has been declared in an important new opinion poll to be “good”. The Spinoff ran a story of two halves on Tuesday. … Read more
A special investigation headed by Steve Braunias asks: Has much happened this year in New Zealand writing? Nothing much has happened this year in New Zealand writing. It’s been pretty quiet. No new sensation, like Hera Lindsay Bird in 2016; a lot of stuff from Victoria University Press, some of it readable; trash from the … Read more
Paula Morris responds to the ‘glorious, painful, sharp and funny’ anthology of Māori writing, Black Marks on a White Page. Nobody likes a Māori writer. First of all, nobody knows who we are. Nobody knows the names of any writers, apart from the ones with movies [see: Frame, Ihimaera, Duff, Wendt]. This is really our … Read more
Whangarei writer Michael Botur describes how the shit jobs he’s had have provided valuable material for his new collection of short stories, Lowlife. It was hard moving to Northland in 2015 and finding income and inspiration in its very small economy. I laboured on the catamaran of a rich lawyer with obvious plastic surgery. He … Read more
Herald police reporter Anna Leask takes a look inside women’s prisons, in this powerful excerpt from her new book Behind Bars. When they locked her up for the first time her baby girl wasn’t even two months old. The day she went to court for sentencing she couldn’t bear to bring her daughter with her. … Read more
In the second of our occasional series of reports of literary activity in provincial towns, Taumarunui writer Antony Millen – a runner-up in last year’s Surrey Hotel writers residency award – describes what goes on in the King Country. It’s nearly 3am, sometime in December of 2012, and I’ve just completed the draft of my first novel … Read more
An essay by Thom Shackleford on the relationship between the lost, desolate characters in the latest book by Japanese superstar writer Haruki Murakami, and the ghostliness of Japan. The densely inhabited cities of Japan are miracles of metropolitan safety and goodwill, populated almost exclusively by people who are polite and friendly to the point of excess. … Read more
An extract from the extraordinary Woman in the Wilderness, a memoir by Miriam Lancewood about her decision to leave civilisation to live – and hunt – in the New Zealand bush. We lit a fire, toasted some bread on hot coals and, after two cups of tea, I stood up and took my bow. “I … Read more
A personal essay by Kaipara novelist Kelly Ana Morey. ‘I can’t be the ‘Māori’ writer people want me to be,’ she writes, ‘all I can be is myself.’ Two weeks ago I buried my father. He had a good innings and largely got to die in the privacy and comfort of his own home due to … Read more
Apirana Taylor backgrounds his new novel set in “the criminal underbelly of New Zealand’s underworld”. I sat down one morning to write a sentence which culminated in a 245-page novel several years later. A little bird sang, “This story is true. Write it.” And so I wrote Five Strings, a love story about two alcoholic drug … Read more
‘Now I’m old and introspective and critical,’ writes Scarlett Cayford, ‘let me tell you why the young adult fiction penned by New Zealand women in the 90s is some of the best in the world.’ When I think back to the first books I read, my first thought falls to Sweet Valley High, and my … Read more
A personal essay – and travelogue – by the Auckland poet and rapper about the strange making of his debut novel, Iceland. “But why did you come here?” he asked. I could tell he was a fisherman by his worn rain jacket and scarred hands. We were standing at the edge of the ocean in … Read more
All this week the Spinoff Review of Books looks at the new memoir by former Green MP Holly Walker. Today: we asked author Tessa Duder to respond to the chapter which credits her classic YA novel Alex as a formative influence. During the winter of 1986, I wrote the first book of the Alex quartet. … Read more
All this week the Spinoff Review of Books is devoted to a candid, sometimes shocking new memoir by ex-Green MP Holly Walker about her experience as a working mother in parliament. Today: an excerpt. One Friday morning, about three months after my return to work, I held a drop-in clinic for constituents in Petone. Parliament … Read more
A new memoir by the great American writer Richard Ford leads Sir Bob Harvey to look back on his friendship with Warwick Roger, the founding editor of Metro magazine, and their shared love of Ford’s books. How does friendship happen? What glue does it take? Does it always finish in death as all stories do, … Read more
Adult literature in New Zealand gets most of the press, but kids’ books is a fresh and exciting field, writes Sarah Forster, co-creator of the brilliant website The Sapling. Have you heard of Ruth Paul? How about Bob Darroch? Or Phillip Webb? Jenny Cooper? Fleur Beale? Des Hunt? I’ll help you: each of these author has written … Read more