Latest fromBook Reviews
Book Review: Lots Of Candles, Plenty Of Cake
An older woman's wisdom is an asset we can all bank, writes Nicky Pellegrino.
Book Review: House Of Earth
Woodrow Wilson (Woody) Guthrie wrote many of his most enduring folk songs after trekking through America's dust-bowl during the years of the Depression and dispossession.
Book Review: Five Days
It was only in retrospect that I truly got the point of Douglas Kennedy’s latest novel.
Book Review: Lost, Stolen Or Shredded
The universal appeal of the "What If" speculation underpins this fascinating collection of artistic losses ranging from historic thefts to works that never actually realised.
Time-travelling kill spree
Stephen Jewell meets the award-winning South African author of a thrilling tale of murder ... and baseball.
Book Review: Blood & Beauty
Sarah Dunant's trio of novels set in Renaissance Italy cemented her reputation as one of the great writers of historical fiction.
Book Review: Belomor
Most of Nicolas Rothwell's books and journalism offer lyrical, subjective evocations of northern Australia and its indigenous people.
Book Review: Who We Were
The first book by Australian author Lucy Neave, Who We Were is a very restrained sort of thriller.
Book Review: Levels Of Life
Some natures are drawn to hazard: to explore the familiar from a vertiginously different perspective.
Book Review: Golden Boy
Abigail Tarttelin has written a dramatic and emotionally authentic story. An unusual sexual secret gives this novel raw power, writes Nicky Pellegrino.
Listen to the silence
New Zealand’s Poet Laureate, Ian Wedde, has written two of my all-time favourite poetry collections: The Commonplace Odes and Three Regrets And A Hymn To Beauty.
Book Review: Two Girls In A Boat
Wellingtonian Emma Martin won the Commonwealth Short Story Prize with the title story of this first collection.
Book Review: Americanah
One of the more startling observations in a book filled with acute and startling observations is that Africans only really come to consider they are “black” when they go to the United States.
Book Review: Maya's Notebook
Nicky Pellegrino delves into a harrowing tale of survival that's also a story about love.
Book Review: The Writing Class
People write - or want to write - for many reasons. For some, it is a compulsion, an itch that must be scratched. For others, it has more to do with the narcissistic conviction that the world wants to know what they're thinking and feeling.
Book Review: She Rises
For those readers eagerly anticipating the next effort from Sarah Waters, the queen of historical revisionism, look no further than Kate Worsley's debut novel.
Book Review: Secret Life Of James Cook
A few years ago I visited the charming English port town of Whitby and was intrigued to discover its crucial role in the lives of two very different men whose names continue to echo down the centuries: Count Dracula and Captain James Cook.
Book Review: In The Memorial Room
A previously unpublished novel by Janet Frame, In the Memorial Room was written in 1974 and comes out of her experience as a Katherine Mansfield Fellow in Menton, France.
Book Review: Ashenden
“Houses have their own ways of dying,” wrote E.M. Forster, “some with a tragic roar, some quietly.” Ashenden Park, the honey-stoned Palladian villa at the heart of Elizabeth Wilhide’s debut novel.
Book Review: The Golem And The Djinni
Nicky Pellegrino praises the author's skilful blend of human characters with the folklore of two cultures.
Books: Apocalypse now
Stephen Jewell talks to American writer Hugh Howey about why his post-apocalyptic tale is more grounded than its contemporaries.
Book Review: Fixed in memory
As the number of living New Zealanders who have actually fought in a war declines, attendance at Anzac Day ceremonies continues to rise and ever more books about military history are published. Jim Eagles looks at the latest offerings.
Book Review: Heartbreak Hotel
Oldies reveal a rich, ripe vein of charm for Nicky Pellegrino.