Long-time political insider Tony Simpson has written his 17th book – this time about himself, and the times he lived through. Writing a memoir is almost the only human activity I can think of which is literally and by definition a once in a lifetime experience. Of course you get the occasional smart-arsed maverick. Cyril … Read more
To mark a new edition (new preface and everything!) of the 2014 best-seller The Scene of the Crime by Steve Braunias, we present an extract from the chapter which entwines Rolf Harris and Julian Assange. Unable to think of anywhere I’d rather be during a few days to kill in London, I got the last vacant seat in … Read more
An essay by Paula Morris on teaching creative writing in one of the poorest neighbourhoods in Auckland – Otahuhu. Over the past two years I’ve spent a lot of time in Otahuhu Intermediate School in South Auckland, teaching creative writing as part of a New Zealand Book Council programme. Most of the children there are … Read more
Steve Braunias reports live from the 2017 Ockham New Zealand Book Awards. An elderly man fell over, and a young woman who was unable to get to the bathroom in time had to vomit in her handbag. Business as usual, then, at the Ockham New Zealand book awards held this evening at the Aotea Centre. It … Read more
A memoir by Dame Fiona Kidman on the occasion of a new, posthumous book of poems by her “beautiful friend”, Lauris Edmond. The other day I was talking to a friend at a book launch, and somehow we got into one of those exchanges about who the greatest poets of the twentieth century were. Auden’s name came … Read more
The good and the great of world literature are about to descend as guest speakers at the 2017 Auckland Writers Festival. Will anyone go off the rails? CK Stead (followed by Steve Braunias, in a postscript) recall writers behaving badly onstage. In my experience problems at readings usually involve booze. I remember Jim Baxter being carried to … Read more
A passionate, intense essay by Taupo writer Chris Eyes, in answer to our innocent question: what kind of literary scene is there in the lake city? Images courtesy of Ben Horgan (@aotearoller). Can I be perfectly honest with you? There isn’t a literary scene here. No-one in Taupo, outside of my friends and family, gives … Read more
The latest book by Steve Braunias is based on his Herald series about eating everything on sight on Lincoln Rd. In this excerpt from the prologue, he goes behind the scenes to reveal his desperate campaign to get it published. One day destiny came calling, and I picked up. For years I had been travelling along Lincoln Rd and wondering … Read more
Thalia Kehoe Rowden finds a lot of great reads in the Storylines selection of the best picture books for young kids – but wonders why the hell it is in this day and age that so few authors write about girls, or Māori, or Pasifika. You’re standing in a children’s bookshop, wading through the vast … Read more
Massey University creative writing graduate Sacha Jones was a principal dancer in the Sydney City Ballet – after surviving a teenage diet of cake and laxatives on Saturdays. Her memoir takes a tragi-comic look back at her early dance career. Kelly Barden, a fledgling young dancer, was lithe and lovely and very much built for ballet, … Read more
Zombie fiction! It’s everywhere, some of it’s really good, and all of it feels strangely, terribly relevant to the times we live in. Stacey Campbell walks with the undead. I’ve been reading about zombies. It just kind of happened. As a genre it’s not exactly literary, and yes, The Luminaries is still sitting on my … Read more
An essay by Dr Philip Steer on Lake Tutira in Hawke’s Bay, now an unswimmable toxic dump, but once the idyllic setting for one of the greatest books ever published in New Zealand. Pinea rawatia ki Tutira ra; Ki te ue pata, ki te kai rakau. A ehara e hine i te roto hou; He … Read more
A razor gang at the Auckland Council led to yesterday’s announcement that the city’s libraries are cutting 74 members of staff. Former Auckland librarian Ethan Sills reports. Libraries are magical institutions. It can feel unreal that they still exist, given how fantastical the idea of them seems. Buildings where you can go and borrow books … Read more
Education in New Zealand is obsessed with assessment and ticking the right boxes, and not doing the Wrong Thing. A new book argues in favour of positive disobedience as practised and taught by that apparent figure of authority: the teacher. It’s late at night. Outside you can hear the hum of commuters as they make their … Read more
All week this week we look at the life and writing of Greymouth novelist and poet Peter Hooper (1919-91). Today: a West Coast memoir by Steve Braunias. I was only passing through the West Coast, lived in Greymouth for not much more than a year, packed a picnic lunch and a copy of the newly … Read more
All week this week we revisit the life and writing of Greymouth author Peter Hooper (1919-91). Today: an excerpt from Hooper’s 1990 book Shade of the Mugumo Tree, a tender account of his journey to Kenya to visit Julius Kitivi, whom he sponsored through the Save the Children Fund. The two became close friends during … Read more
All week this week we look at the life and writing of Greymouth writer and conservationist Peter Hooper (1919-91). Today: a memoir by Hooper’s longtime friend and editor Brian Turner, taken from his speech at the launch in the weekend of Pat White’s biography. Peter Hooper is a name that is seldom mentioned when NZ … Read more
All week this week we look at the life and writing of Peter Hooper (1919-91), a Greymouth author who won the national book award in 1986 for a profound, exciting novel set on the West Coast after an apocalypse. He’s now a largely forgotten name in New Zealand letters, but a new biography provides a vivid reminder … Read more
We asked the distinguished Katherine Mansfield scholar Vincent O’Sullivan to comment on the recent attempt by Wellington’s mayor to repatriate the bones of Katherine Mansfield. I once heard of an artist whose partner believed her legal status, even in life, meant “owner under all circumstances.” As a widow, there was even more to own. Not … Read more
Nicky Hager is launching his latest book tonight at Unity Books in Wellington. No one knows what it’s called or what it’s about; join us as our correspondents keep a close eye on the author and the bookshop throughout the day. 7:37am: Nicky Hager is awake, and has walked into his kitchen for breakfast. He toasts a … Read more
He painted his body with blue paint to perform naked with The Plague, wrote “There is no Depression in New Zealand”, and is now a tender memoirist: an excerpt from the new book by the legendary Richard Von Sturmer. My earliest memories of my father have to do with water: My father and I are … Read more
The eternally awesome Karyn Hay delves into the story behind the story of her new novel, The March Of The Foxgloves. I feel I could easily write a book about the writing of this book. Several years of research went into this novel, and because I did it ‘as I went’ it inevitably interrupted the flow … Read more
Bucharest, Sofia, Edinburgh, Mt Roskill….An essay by traveler Garth Cartwright on another exile, Kapka Kassabova, on the occasion of her acclaimed new book. It’s December 1992 and I’ve just got off the bus from Bucharest, Romania, to Sofia, Bulgaria. Bucharest lay in ruins due to the late dictator Ceausescu’s vision of demolishing the historic city centre … Read more
Increasingly people are recognising that climate change is an enormous threat – while at the same time talking about it less, and becoming less likely to let it affect the way they vote or behave. Why is that? And is the only sane response to a suddenly insane world to surrender to the void? Patrick … Read more
Waiheke author Alex Stone on his new collection of stories, and the furious response one of them provoked at a writer’s group. After the usual shuffling of half a dozen bums settling on hard seats, the community hall goes quiet with expectation. A small writers’ group on our island home is ready to hear me read … Read more
An excerpt from The Special Patient, Auckland writer Aimee Inomata’s true story of how her partner was found not guilty of murder by reason of insanity and sentenced to seven years in a mental health unit. What happens, she asks, if your psychosis is substance-induced, a temporary insanity, and you have to live out your … 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
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