New verse by Australian writer Catherine Vidler. the ghost held special significance for the ghost at St. Bathans the ghost held me down the ghost held me in position the ghost held up a glowing torch the ghost held its ground the ghost held a darker picture the ghost held … Read more
Holly Walker reviews The Natural Way of Things, the award-winning novel by Australian writer Charlotte Wood There’s something inevitable, natural even, about the way victims of sexual abuse can end up being blamed for what’s happened to them. Sometimes it’s so overt and egregious that we’ll all be outraged – like the Canadian judge who … Read more
The use of the word “outlier” has been condemned, and continued use will result in stiff penalties. When did the word “outlier” become a thing, and why? It’s such a lame word. But it’s enjoying a tremendous vogue, and it must be stopped. It’s one of those words that make writers look smart. It looks … Read more
Sarah Forster interviews the awesome Kate De Goldi, a finalist at next week’s childrens book awards, when she goes head to head with veteran author David Hill, horsist writer Stacy Gregg, and Luncheon Sausage Books star Jane Bloomfield. Kate De Goldi is one of New Zealand’s finest writers. She has won the overall Children’s Book of … Read more
Harry Potter tragic obsessive fan Charlotte Graham reviews Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. [SPOILERS] everywhere. You’ve been warned. Harry Potter hasn’t slept much for 20 years and it has made him sort of a dickhead. Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, a delicious hot mess of time travel and popular fanfiction tropes from the … Read more
Nine years after the latest instalment in the Harry Potter series, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child has just had its embargo lifted and The Spinoff’s Madeleine Chapman has her hands on a copy. (Spoilers ████████████ aka redacted for readers’ safety). I remember when Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows came out. I was in year nine and it was … Read more
Peter Simpson writes exclusively for the Spinoff about his new, much talked-about book on the all-painting, all-chattering intelligentsia of Christchurch in the 1930s. In 1938 the musician Fred Page returned to Christchurch from studying at the Royal College of Music in London. On his first day back he ran into his friend the poet Allen … Read more
Enter the draw and win some very cool literary things! Ten years ago today one of New Zealand’s most elegant and brilliant men of letters, novelist and essayist Nigel Cox, died. He was 55. He was special. He wrote very cool books, none cooler than his remarkable novel Tarzan Presley, in 2004, an antic and … Read more
A reissue of an earlier piece in honour and remembrance of Nigel Cox, who passed away ten years ago today. Alongside David Slack, who always has a cackle on his lips, I appeared as guest speaker at a session on satirical writing at the Auckland Writers and Readers Festival in May, and it’s possible that I came across … Read more
Peter Wells expands on his recent, pathetically small Listener review of What Belongs to You by Garth Greenwell to say exactly why he thinks it’s a masterpiece. Once upon a time, and comparatively recently, gay fiction provided a window not only into how gay men lived, but also a portal into the eroticism and interior of our … Read more
The world is a fucked-up place with terrorists controlling the narrative (and the images), and distracted, anxious, over-fed America slouching towards a Trump apocalypse. Don DeLillo anticipated the way things have turned out; to mark the publication of his latest book, the Spinoff Review of Books devotes the entire week to the work of maybe the world’s … Read more
The world is a fucked-up place with terrorists controlling the narrative (and the images), and distracted, anxious, over-fed America slouching towards a Trump apocalypse. Don DeLillo anticipated the way things have turned out; to mark the publication of his latest book, the Spinoff Review of Books devotes the entire week to the work of maybe the world’s … Read more
A translation of good old Catallus (c84-54BC) by Claudia Jardine. Introductory remarks by Claudia Jardine: A lot of New Zealand writers have had a go at Catullus [in Anna Jackson’s I, Clodia and Other Portraits, quite literally]. He holds a special place in the heart for most Latin students, being the usual introduction to Latin love … 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 15 UNITY WELLINGTON 1. Hera Lindsay Bird (Victoria University Press, $25) by Hera Lindsay Bird Her, here. 2. Salt River Songs (Potton & Burton, $25) by … Read more
Sarah Laing reviews The Girls by American author Emma Cline, hyped as the next big thing in US writing. After I finished reading Emma Cline’s The Girls, I googled her. I have this notion that proper reviewers meditate on a book in a hermetically sealed intellectual space, sipping green tea and arranging river stones as … Read more
Wyoming Paul reviews two new New Zealand novels by women authors. She enjoys one but the other one leaves her cold. Debra Daley’s The Revelations of Carey Ravine and The Quiet Spectacular by Laurence Fearnley are both written by women and celebrate women. In Fearnley’s case, I wanted – but failed – to like a … Read more
New verse by Riwaka writer Talia Marshall. My thoughts on the end of love and caravans this Friday At first love is the caravan and you are inside it playing cards and the gas lamp is burning and everyone inside the caravan is happy and unbearable Then you only go … Read more
Margo White reviews All At Sea by Decca Aitkenhead. It was a cloudless, calm Caribbean morning in Calabash Bay, Jamaica. From the porch of her holiday house, Decca Aitkenhead could see her four-year-old son, Jake, paddling in the shallow water, still in his pyjamas and at the feet of his Dad, Tony. A couple of minutes … Read more
With many mainstream publishers downsizing and disestablishing and generally being kind of dismal places to work, fewer New Zealand books are being published. A solution: self-publishing. Two writers – Sarah Wilson of Nelson, and Auckland novelist Kirsten McKenzie, who released her novel 15 Postcards last year – discuss some of the pros and cons. Sarah … Read more
Steve Braunias talks with the greatest salesman in the history of New Zealand publishing – Paul Greenberg, a small, unassuming gentleman who lives in Palmerston North, and was honoured with a lifetime achievement award in the weekend. Everyone in New Zealand books knows Paul Greenberg – he’s a living legend, the last of the mohicans. … Read more
New verse by Kaipara poet Sam Hunt. My father’s waistcoats My father’s waistcoats never had pockets. It was years later someone explained a good lawyer in court didn’t need notes… I never went with the law like my father would have liked. But I got to swing juries – … Read more
“Lionel Shriver has written a gripping novel about fiscal and monetary policy,” says reviewer Holly Walker, “and the punchline is this: America is fucked. “ In humans, the mandible is the largest and strongest bone in the face. In insects, mandibles are those freaky appendages near the mouth, used to grab food and fend off … Read more
In which Paul Litterick reads our Monday extract, the one by Roger Horrocks about how New Zealanders are anti-intellectual, and says: “Bollocks.” Like many readers of The Spinoff, I was moved by Roger Horrocks’s essay on the plight of the intellectual in New Zealand. Of course, as I am sure you will recognise, it is … Read more
God almighty! It’s the return of the Spinoff live email interview, and the special guest is CK Stead, on the occasion of his new book of reviews and literary criticism. Christian Karlson Stead turns 84 years old this year, and he’s probably fitter than you – the dude routinely swims out to a distant yellow … Read more
New verse by Wellington writer Nick Ascroft. [Editorial note: A panel of experts refute the poem is about dumplings.] Dumplings Throw him out like dough on a flour-dusted table, put your wrists into it, your back – hh – sacrum, hips, get a knee up, weight the thick of your femur from … 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 24 UNITY BOOKS AUCKLAND 1 In Love with These Times: My Life with Flying Nun Records (HarperCollins, $37) by Roger Shepherd Number one for the third week … Read more
Giovanni Tiso on American writer Jhumpa Lahiri’s new book, written in Italian, and put back into English by Elena Ferrante’s translator. What? In “Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote”, Borges tells the story of a man who embarks on a project to rewrite Don Quixote word for word, not merely as a copy, … Read more
An excerpt from the latest London Review of Books. Spinoff Review of Books literary editor Steve Braunias writes: Andrew O’Hagan! Novelist, essayist, very smart person who wears a suit and tie even when he’s writing at home – every inch an aesthete, all that, but he’s also an awesome reporter and his latest get in the … Read more
New verse from Geraldine writer John Keast. High Tea A high ceiling in spring, white with a filigree border and genteel conversation floats over earl grey and the waitress’s apron rises and falls with her light step; tea and cakes, spilling cream, a man with a silly hat and ill-fitting hand-knit jersey trying to impress … Read more