The government has just done away with one of the worst planning regulations in New Zealand. Why did National’s presumably free market-loving urban development spokesperson come out in favour of more council red tape? National has billed itself as the party of the free market and limited government. That’s reflected in its language on town … Read more
Steve Braunias runs deep surveillance on the judges of the 2017 Ockham New Zealand Book Awards. Here come de judge! A dozen of them, as the 2017 Ockham New Zealand Book Awards today announces the “12 eminent academics, writers, journalists, librarians, curators, commentators and booksellers” who will judge next year’s awards. Writers who are eligible … Read more
Forget Craig Marriner! We have a new strangest-ever winner of a New Zealand book award. Woah! The award for best dressed female went to Stella Chrysostomou, manager of Page and Blackmore bookstore in Nelson, and the best dressed male prize went to poet Chris Tse, who wore like these feathery swan things on his shoulders, sort of like … Read more
An excerpt (lightly edited – the least it needed! So many semi-colons!) from the masterful biography Maurice Gee: Life and Work, by Rachel Barrowman (Victoria University Press). In this early chapter, she writes of Gee as a young, unhappy misfit in Wellington, putting up with James K Baxter and enjoying his time as a hospital … Read more