Richard Wolfe and Stephen Barnett: Kiwiana! The Sequel

By MARGIE THOMSON

The authors made history in 1989 with New Zealand! New Zealand! In Praise of Kiwiana, their attempt to capture and to record popular culture before it disappeared in the backwash from the tide of an increasingly global culture. Since then, the word "kiwiana" has become utterly entrenched and full of accepted meaning.

This latest book, the sequel to that earlier work, sets out to "document aspects of the popular culture, and endeavours to explain what it says about New Zealanders at large." A difficult project, and one probably more often undertaken within dry academic essays, which this definitely is not.

The style is unfailingly relaxed and conversational; the layout is attractive and contains many illustrations.

Nevertheless, one can't shake the feeling that this is an odd book, neither quite one thing (weighty and theoretical) nor the other (meaningless drivel).

Perhaps that makes it "just right," although I suspect it will be the kind of book one buys for other people, rather than to read oneself.

Penguin

$49.95