An independent, sensuous life unfolds in hundreds of brightly-lit scenes. I first heard of Ian Wedde in the 1960s, through his poetry. It was a jolt. Wasn’t verse supposed to be runic and remote? This guy was chatting to you! OK, chatting in a voice that was colloquial yet innovative; expansive and technically virtuosic, but … Read more
Review copies of Tina Shaw’s pandemic novel Ephemera landed in letterboxes just as the country went into lockdown. Here, she reflects on this strange new reality. These new times have the uncanny feeling of fiction – of science fiction, or post-apocalyptic fiction. In other words, the unreal has become real. I keep thinking of Station … Read more
Eamonn Marra’s debut novel makes a study of the mundane: sanding a fence, heating baked beans, three pizzas for $29.99 delivered. Alie Benge reckons it belongs somewhere between Sally Rooney and Elena Ferrante. It was about page three of 2000ft Above Worry Level. A feeling burst inside me: the joy of recognising something so beautiful … Read more
Writing about depression is panning out brilliantly for Eamonn Marra – his debut novel, 2000ft Above Worry Level, hit Unity’s top 10 list last week well before today’s official launch. Here, he explains why despite his success, he’s deciding to move on. I wasn’t always a writer. Unlike a lot of my writer friends, I … Read more
At 5am this morning, like a dawn chorus, the embargo lifted on the Ockham New Zealand Book Awards longlist. Here are the 40 books that made it, followed by some frank thoughts from our books editor, Catherine Woulfe. ACORN FOUNDATION FICTION PRIZE The Absolute Book by Elizabeth Knox (Victoria University Press) Lonely Asian Woman by … Read more
Presenting: the third installment in our best-of-the-year series, put together by the Spinoff and various benevolent elves. This time it’s fiction. These are the books that moved us, that we walk around with in our heads, and that we are giving for Christmas, smug with the certainty that they’re absolutely kick-ass. See also: The 10 … Read more
Chloe Blades reviews Kate Weinberg’s first novel, which is selling like mad and earning the London writer comparisons to Agatha Christie and Donna Tartt. It was always going to be unfair on whichever book I read after Lisa Taddeo’s Three Women; that divisive, genre-defying masterpiece on the manipulation of female desire. Yet The Truants, also … Read more
Eileen Merriman has whipped out three fine novels for young adults since debuting in 2017. Moonlight Sonata is her first crack at writing for adults. In this first chapter Merriman sets up a beatific family holiday – New Year’s, the beach, deckchairs and drinks – and injects a dose of abject wrongness. They see the … Read more
Marian Keyes is a stone-cold legend: terrifically funny and emotionally intelligent, and never afraid of the dark. She deserves all the prizes. In lieu of that, here’s a heartfelt piece by Scarlett Cayford, who grew up steeped in Keyes’ stories and sensibilities. My first encounter with Marian Keyes was in a bedroom in Devonport in … Read more
City of Girls is not a cautionary tale, but rather a celebration of what happens when women cease to be cautious, writes Scarlett Cayford. I’ve loved Liz Gilbert for a while now. It wasn’t Eat, Pray, Love that won me over, though I have read it a multitude of times as it was one of … Read more
Tom Augustine on the mythic satire of William Melvin Kelley’s A Different Drummer, written nearly 60 years ago and still too relevant. The haunting and oblique A Different Drummer, a classic of the civil rights era by unsung satirical mastermind William Melvin Kelley, takes its prophetic title from, and begins with, a quote from Henry … Read more
Murdoch Stephens from the anarchist publishing firm Lawrence & Gibson,on working with Brannavan Gnanalingam, a finalist in tonight’s Ockham New Zealand national book awards. Some of our authors come to us with a title that encapsulates the concept of their book and which we’re instantly sure of: Milk Island was an example of a title arriving … Read more
Okay so of course that one by George Saunders that won the Booker is among the best 20 novels of 2017 – but what were the others? Funny you should ask! The Power by Naomi Alderman (Penguin, $26) The novel for our times. It’s a sci-fi feminist allegory of a society in which women are in charge, … Read more