The best-selling books at the two best bookstores in the Commonwealth. WELLINGTON UNITY 1 Ministry Of Utmost Happiness by Arundhati Roy (Hamish Hamilton, $38) We look forward to the forthcoming review by Marion McLeod. 2 Good Night Stories for Rebel Girls by Elena Favilli & Francesca Cavallo (Particular Books, $40) Portraits of 100 inspirational women … Read more
All this week the Spinoff Review of Books is devoted to a candid, sometimes shocking new memoir by ex-Green MP Holly Walker about her experience as a working mother in parliament. Today: an excerpt. One Friday morning, about three months after my return to work, I held a drop-in clinic for constituents in Petone. Parliament … Read more
The best-selling books at the two best bookstores in Christendom. AUCKLAND UNITY 1 The Man Who Ate Lincoln Road by Steve Braunias (Luncheon Sausage Books, $25) The author wishes to thank the hordes who bought a lot of copies of his book about food, shops, death and West Auckland life at his talk in the … Read more
New verse by Wellington writer James Brown. Flying Fuck We spend too much time doing things for people who don’t give a flying fuck about us. What is a flying fuck anyway? Is that line earning its place? It could probably be cut. James Brown, 2017 The Spinoff Review of Books … Read more
A new memoir by the great American writer Richard Ford leads Sir Bob Harvey to look back on his friendship with Warwick Roger, the founding editor of Metro magazine, and their shared love of Ford’s books. How does friendship happen? What glue does it take? Does it always finish in death as all stories do, … Read more
There are some lovely lucid moments in Fiona Kidman’s latest novel, says Charlotte Graham, and it’s a reminder that “you’re reading a boss”. If only the book was longer. Dame Fiona Kidman told an interviewer recently that she thought barreling through seven decades of New Zealand history with “a story integrated” was “an interesting exercise … Read more
This excerpt from former editor-in-chief of New Zealand Herald Gavin Ellis’s new BWB Text, Complacent Nation, has been modified for exclusive republication with The Spinoff. In November 2015 an acknowledged academic authority on gang culture revealed – with the backing of his Vice-Chancellor – that he had been deemed by the New Zealand Police to be … 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
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: June 17 UNITY BOOKS WELLINGTON 1. In Love with These Times: The Flying Nun Story (HarperCollins, $37) by Roger Shepherd You’ve bought the book (or should), now read … Read more
Guy Somerset reviews Goodnight and Good Riddance: How 35 Years of John Peel Helped Shape Modern Britain by David Cavanagh When I was a boy, culture was delivered on a Thursday by Mr Pavitt. Or was it Pavett? Perhaps even Pavit or Pavet? If you had a name like Pavitt/Pavett/Pavit/Pavet, you’d be used to people … Read more
Charlotte Grimshaw reviews Some Rain Must Fall: My Struggle, Volume 5 by Karl Ove Knausgaard There was no plot, I wanted to entwine the internal with the external, the neural pathways in the brain with the fishing smacks in the harbour… – Karl Ove Knausgaard If you’ve ploughed through Volumes One to Four of Karl Ove … Read more
Steve Braunias has an amazing idea that just might revolutionise sales of New Zealand books. William Gibson – “author of Neuromancer, etc”, as he languidly describes himself on his Twitter account – added to his collection of over 60,000 tweets yesterday when he wrote Funny! But hang on. Wait. That’s actually genius. The … Read more