You’re born either a cheery soul or a gloomy one, reckons Linda Burgess – but what happens when gene pools from opposite ends of the spectrum collide? In our shoeboxes of photos that we have to sort out before we die or get demented – because who IS that kid on the plane, or that … Read more
What did we check out during the hellfire year of 2020, and what does it say about us? Tara Ward asks nine libraries around the country. Covid-19 marked a new chapter for New Zealand libraries. As the physical buildings closed during the first lockdown, libraries around the country saw a dramatic increase in online memberships … Read more
The Man Booker prize-winning novel makes its way to our screens courtesy of BBC and TVNZ, but does it make the transition unscathed? Linda Burgess reviews. Oh god, wild seas. A sailing ship – ah, so it’s the olden days – all creaking wood tossed on those heaving seas, the moon a ghostly galleon, with … Read more
A new essay by Linda Burgess, author of the collection Somebody’s Wife and a stack of other sublime writing which you can read here. The handbag My mother often said that when Labour was in power there was never anything in the shops. Which goes part way to explaining why, whatever your Dad did for … 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
Summer journeys: In the first of a special summer travel series, Linda Burgess looks back on the not-so-glamorous New Zealand holidays of her youth. The Spinoff Summer Journey series is entirely funded by The Spinoff Members. For more about becoming a member and supporting The Spinoff’s journalism, click here. American girls, in their early teens, … Read more
The only published and available best-selling indie book chart in New Zealand is the top 10 sales list recorded every week at Unity Books’ stores in High St, Auckland, and Willis St, Wellington. AUCKLAND 1 The Testaments by Margaret Atwood (Chatto & Windus, $48) Obvs. (Read our review by Pip Adam here) 2 Three … Read more
Loved Linda Burgess’s essays for The Spinoff? Now she’s written a whole book of ’em. And it is, predictably, terrific. With love, Linda Burgess writes simply in her dedication. With love, and god there is so much of it here, in these essays, this “memoir of sorts”, you’ll get to the end and feel like … Read more
Linda Burgess on the biggest-selling, most-loved book of summer: Becoming, the memoir by Michelle Obama. Celebrity memoirs are usually written by someone else. I’m fairly sure this isn’t the case with Becoming. There’s a lengthy list of people to thank in the book’s acknowledgements (“Many of my former staff helped confirm critical details and time … Read more
We asked former All Black great Bob Burgess to review a new book on his team-mate Keith Murdoch. But then we changed our mind, and asked his wife Linda Burgess to write whatever she wanted about rugby. This was originally published 8 August 2018. A rugby game lasts a whole day. Your father wears a … Read more
All week this week we count down the five best books of 2018. Number four: Linda Burgess reviews the Ottolenghi cookbook Simple. Why the hell do people buy recipe books? Someone should do their PhD on the number of people who buy one, use it three times, then go back to the usual 10 things … Read more
New Zealand literature! What is it, who reads it, and why does it exist? Some or none or all of these questions are about to be answered in the third annual Spinoff Review of Books literary awards. Some say 2018 will go down in history as the year between 2017 and 2019, but it’s too early … Read more
Content note: this essay may be distressing for some readers. Years later I read that fighting with your partner while pregnant can cause the foetus life-threatening stress. I remember Fiji, where Robert doesn’t notice that he’s used a $US100 note to buy something. American notes all look the same and he thinks it’s a single … Read more
We asked former All Black great Bob Burgess to review a new book on his team-mate Keith Murdoch. But then we changed our mind, and asked his wife Linda Burgess to write whatever she wanted about rugby. A rugby game lasts a whole day. Your father wears a gaberdine raincoat and takes the family to … Read more
Linda Burgess celebrates a collection of reviews and essays by the great New Yorker writer Lorrie Moore. Someone has decided that Lorrie Moore’s writing is so good, and so lasting in its impact, that it’s worth gathering up 30 years’ worth of her pieces in The New Yorker, The New York Review of Books, The … Read more
Wellington author Linda Burgess gaily set out to write a book about churches with her husband, former All Black Bob Burgess. Would their marriage survive? ‘Oh how lovely,’ people said. Even people who knew us. ‘How lovely, to do a book together.’ We’ve done it twice now. In 2007 Random House published my book on … Read more