The great Australian writer Tim Winton talks to Linda Herrick. Australian writer Tim Winton has dedicated his new book of essays The Boy Behind the Curtain to his mum and dad, now in their 80s. His subjects include surfing, asylum seekers, and other issues in the wider world, but a stand-out essay in the collection is … Read more
Margo White reviews the greatest novel ever written from the point of view of an opinionated and somewhat pompous foetus – Nutshell, by Ian McEwan. We might as well start with the novel’s memorable opening sentence: “So here I am, upside down in a woman.” Ian McEwan has said the sentence came to him when … 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
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
Stephen Daisley will speak in Christchurch and Dunedin this weekend about his novel Coming Rain, which won the 2016 Ockham New Zealand Book Awards book of the year. But is it actually any good? Owen Marshall slips on his gown and his powdered wig, and passes judgment. The strongest and best expressed relationships in Stephen Daisley’s award-winning … Read more
Craig Sisterson interviews exciting new crime writer Ray Berard, a hot favourite to win one or even two Ngaio Marsh Awards in Christchurch this weekend. The giant driver of the battered Bluebird didn’t need to screech the tyres or slam the door to announce his presence as he parked on Pukuatua Street in Rotorua. Unfolding himself from … Read more
New verse by Wellington writer Jenny Bornholdt Time We woke to spring nuzzling at the window. Winter’s passed, like last night’s hail in the gin. Frozen puddle in the freezer a reminder; like our son’s placenta, still there after eleven years— us frozen by indecision, which tree and where? Sons grown to men. One … Read more
Steve Braunias leads a special Spinoff investigation into fresh claims that 1971 was the greatest year in music ever. David Hepworth makes the fairly audacious but sustained and kind of also really persuasive argument in his new book 1971: Never A Dull Moment that 1971 was the greatest year in the history of popular music. … Read more
Saradha Koirala reviews two teen novels which both deal with girls who have “survived something horrific at the hands of a male classmate”. I will talk literature with anyone who’ll listen. Most recently the ones listening have been clinical psychologists. And yes, I’m sure it’s all very Freudian that my mum and my partner share … Read more
Nick Bollinger reviews What Happened Miss Simone?, the biography of black American singer and activist, Nina Simone. If music is some kind of social barometer, then America is brewing a civil war. It would be hard to find a significant hip-hop or R&B record in the past year that hasn’t raised its voice in anger … Read more
An excerpt taken from the introduction to Dad Goes to the Movies (1941), a World War II diary edited and published by Auckland writer Jaq Tweedie, the daughter of serviceman Les Tweedie. Everything has a beginning and an end, and when I was young I was mostly interested in how things started. I knew my … 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: AUGUST 12 WELLINGTON STORE 1 Harry Potter and the Cursed Child Parts I and II (Little Brown, $50) by J K Rowling, Jack Thorne and John … Read more
Tim Upperton reviews a new collection of essays by Wellington writer Ashleigh Young. Some essayists shine a torch in the darkness, and propose a way forward. Another kind of essayist – the Ashleigh Young kind – whispers, “We are lost, we are lost. Let’s try this way,” and, taking us by the hand, leads us deeper … Read more
A tribute to the great illustrator Peter Gossage by whanau member and author Paula Morris. Peter Gossage died last weekend. He was not quite 70 years old, but he’d been ill for a long time. I last saw him in late May, at my cousin Tilly’s tangi up at Omaha marae; he was frail, wrapped in … Read more
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
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
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
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
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 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 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
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
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