What’s the best way to get adults reading? Get them reading when they’re children – and there’s no better place to start than the Unity Children’s Bestseller Chart. AUCKLAND 1 Skunk & Badger by Amy Timberlake & Jon Klassen (Allen & Unwin, $26, 4+) “One of the best books I’ve read all year … absolutely … Read more
Poet Hera Lindsay Bird celebrates the work of New Zealand artist Hannah Salmon, aka Daily Secretion, who creates portraits of angry ‘alpha men’. First published on 10 July, 2019. Like most teenage punishers who took art history in high school, I spent years resentfully analysing the composition of Colin McCahon paintings and various other New … Read more
A new poem by Hera Lindsay Bird. COLORADO SPRINGS 1989 After David Berman whenever I get lonely I go to department stores and wander around looking at all the t-shirts with made-up names and dates on them. some days I think it’s almost sweet this collective longing for an imaginary past if they weren’t so … Read more
‘Like Escher, if he was more into dicks than staircases.’ Poet Hera Lindsay Bird celebrates the work of New Zealand artist Hannah Salmon, aka Daily Secretion, who creates portraits of angry ‘alpha men’. Like most teenage punishers who took art history in high school, I spent years resentfully analysing the composition of Colin McCahon paintings … Read more
Poet Steven Toussaint on the explosive, triumphant wizardry that is happening here and now. This much is obvious: something electrifying is taking place in New Zealand poetry. I became a permanent resident of this country four years ago, and at that time I privately considered verse here to have grown a little stale. While stand-out … Read more
The poet Hera Lindsay Bird interviews the brilliant American writer Mark Leidner, and does her best to explain why he’s her favourite writer of all time. Some time last year I wrote to Steve B and asked if he was interested in publishing an interview I was planning to do with Mark Leidner. He wrote … Read more
New love poetry by Wellington writer Hera Lindsay Bird. I want to get high my whole life with you i feel it in my leather hotpant pockets i feel it in my anime wind blowing through an alpine tennis resort overcome with wildflowers i feel it in my ironic valley girl hairflip I feel it … Read more
Neil Young, our man in London, reports on Hera Lindsay Bird’s appearance last week at the coolest bookstore belonging to the coolest literary magazine in the English-speaking world. A bowl of cold spaghetti hoops was on the kitchen table. Meghan Markle was on the TV with the sound off. In three days’ time I was … Read more
Poet Hera Lindsay Bird talks to Megan Dunn, author of a brilliantly funny new memoir about working at a failed bookstore while experiencing a failed marriage and making a failed attempt to write a novel. I first met Megan Dunn the year after I had graduated from a writing programme and had to emerge back into reality … Read more
Hera Lindsay Bird talks with George Saunders, author of Lincoln in the Bardo, the stand-out novel of 2017. This story was first published on 8 May 2017. I first started reading George Saunders because someone told me to. I don’t always read what other people tell me to read, because there are only so many unhappy … 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
New verse inasmuch it’s previously unpublished, but really it’s old verse cos it was written ages ago, by Wellington writer Hera Lindsay Bird. Bruce Willis You Are The Ghost It’s not that your wife doesn’t love you. It’s because you died and now you are a ghost and she can’t hear you talking to her. That time … Read more
Victoria University Press is nominated for just about everything at tonight’s Ockham New Zealand Book Awards. How come? Is it a good thing? Or is it a depressing commentary on the sorry little state of New Zealand literature? VUP publisher Fergus Barrowman steps up for the revolutionary live email interview. And the winner is Fergus Barrowman. The … Read more
Who are the most powerful figures in the new generation of New Zealand literature? The most innovative, the most awarded, the most industrious? A panel of young experts exchanged their views over Snapchat and things like that until they agreed on the top 10. Originally posted October 31, 2016 1 Hera Lindsay Bird But not … Read more
The weekly best-seller chart at Unity stores in Wellington and Auckland, for the week just ended: October 28 WELLINGTON STORE 1 Murdoch: The Political Cartoons of Sharon Murdoch (Potton & Burton, $40) by Sharon Murdoch The smash-hit cartoon book by the 2016 Canon Media Awards cartoonist of the year who was born in Invercargill, worked … Read more
The best-seller chart at Unity Books for the week just ended: September 30 AUCKLAND STORE 1 The Pigeon Tunnel: Stories from My Life (Viking, $38) by John le Carré By all means take note of a curious tale in the Guardian by Le Carre’s biographer, who was greatly puzzled at his subject bringing out a … Read more
A weekly feature at the Spinoff Review of Books: The best-selling books at the Wellington and Auckland stores of Unity Books. THE BEST–SELLER CHART FOR THE WEEK JUST ENDED: July 22 AUCKLAND STORE 1 Hera Lindsay Bird (Victoria University Press, $25) by Hera Lindsay Bird Number one in Auckland, number one in Wellington! “I love attention,” … Read more
Steve Braunias interviews the amazing Wellington poet Hera Lindsay Bird, author of the smash hit poem ‘Keats Is Dead So Fuck Me From Behind’. This week Hera Lindsay launches her first collection of poetry titled Hera Lindsay Bird. It includes her breathtaking poem posted yesterday at the Spinoff, ‘Keats Is Dead So Fuck Me From Behind‘, … Read more
New verse by Wellington writer Hera Lindsay Bird. Keats Is Dead So Fuck Me From Behind Keats is dead so fuck me from behind Slowly and with carnal purpose Some black midwinter afternoon While all the children are walking home from school Peel my stockings down with your teeth Coleridge is dead and Auden … Read more
A weekly feature at the Spinoff Review of Books: The best-selling books at the Wellington and Auckland stores of Unity Books. THE BEST–SELLER CHART FOR THE WEEK JUST ENDED: July 8 AUCKLAND UNITY 1 In Love with These Times: My Life with Flying Nun Records (HarperCollins, $37) by Roger Shepherd Number one for the fifth week … Read more
New verse by Bill Nelson of Wellington. Someone needs to take control You should be planting autumn crops! The calendar says every morning from under its flimsy door magnets. Seed your onions! Mound your potatoes! In the real world, wild and disowned, heirloom tomatoes infiltrate silver beet. A patch of rocket, perhaps self-seeded, elbows a … Read more
The Ex-Girlfriends Are Back From the Wilderness The ex-girlfriends are back… emerging once again from the tree shadows… into the primordial burlesque of autumn with their low-cut… reminiscences… and soft, double ironies… trembling once again into their opulent… seasonal migration patterns a corsage of wilting apologies tethered to the bust… The ex-girlfriends are back…with their … Read more