Book of the Week: Jane Westaway reviews Colin Hogg’s portrait of poet Sam Hunt. Personal disclosure first. Sam Hunt and I crossed paths back in the 1970s and early 80s, in his Bottle Creek/Battle Hill/Death’s Corner days. His Minstrel-the-dog and first-son days. And at what he would probably dislike being dubbed his peak-celebrity days. He was … Read more
An excerpt from Colin Hogg’s sweet, elegiac book Going South, about going on a roadtrip with his friend, the journalist Gordon (“Gordie”) McBride. The two first met at the Southland Times in Invercargill. Hogg takes up the story in chapter one… Shortly after turning 21, I packed all my records in my car and moved … Read more
Wild Roads: A New Zealand Journey by Bruce Ansley We live in a mad landscape linked to each other by mad roads. Ask any tourist upside-down in a drainage ditch. For us, though, those roads are simply local wonders, and that’s just what Bruce Ansley suggests pretty much all the way through his excellent new … Read more
The Outsider: My Life in Intrigue, by Frederick Forsyth Frederick Forsyth, alliterative rather than literary genius, father of the jet-age airport novel, has influenced a couple of generations of dreamers. One who immediately springs to mind is former ACT MP David Garrett, who was so intrigued by Forsyth’s description of identity theft in The Day … Read more