Helen Watson White A Strange Beautiful Excitement: Katherine Mansfield’s Wellington 1888–1903 by Redmer Yska (Otago University Press, 2017), 271 pp., $39.95 In his prologue to A Strange Beautiful Excitement: Katherine Mansfield’s Wellington 1888–1903, Redmer Yska recalls Graham Greene’s idea that childhood is ‘the fiction writer’s credit balance’. In this regard, he says, Mansfield as daughter […]
The Nation-Building Dutch
Redmer Yska Astride a Fierce Wind by Huberta Hellendoorn (Mākaro Press, 2017), 360 pp., $38 There’s a moment in Astride a Fierce Wind when Dutch migrant Huberta Hellendoorn, finally, mostly, settled in Dunedin, opens a telegram from home. Her mother is dead. She cries: ‘I can’t even go to the funeral.’ The cohort of Dutch […]
Three Men Who Defied Authority
Andrew Paul Wood Breaking Ranks by James McNeish (HarperCollins, 2017), 304 pp., $35 When James McNeish passed away last year he left behind a significant body of prose, specialising in historical novels and (in the modern parlance) ‘creative non-fiction’. In practice, his books are impossible to categorise, which is entirely part of their charm. His […]
The Tragic Sense of Life
Denys Trussell Notes from the Margins: The West Coast’s Peter Hooper by Pat White (Frontiers Press, 2017), 202 pp., $40 Peter Hooper (1919–1991) spent most his life in Westland, but travelled far by means of literature. His adult life was lived alone, but he was not a loner. He embedded himself (with reservations) in the […]
Bringing Katherine Mansfield to Life
Claire Mabey Mansfield & Me: A graphic memoir by Sarah Laing (Victoria University Press, 2016), 336pp, $35 There is something to be said for judging a book by its cover. Particularly a book within which the images are as important, as lively and revealing, as the text. The cover of Sarah Laing’s graphic memoir Mansfield […]
Otara Millionaires Club and the Flying Nun Sound
James Dignan How Bizarre: Pauly Fuemana and the song that stormed the world by Simon Grigg (Awa Press, 2015), 255 pp., $38; In Love with These Times: My life with Flying Nun Records by Roger Shepherd (Harper Collins, 2016), 295 pp., $36.99 Two fine new books from insiders at the heart of two important chapters in the […]
The German Wrestler and the Nazis
Brian Clearkin Seelenbinder: The Olympian who defied Hitler by James McNeish (Steele Roberts, 2016), 242 pp., $34.95 The first question for any book purchaser is ‘Why should I buy this book?’ For a biography, the answer may well be ‘to learn more of some person I admire, like, despise, etc’. For a novel, it could […]
Kinetic Experience
Andrew Paul Wood Zizz! The life and art of Len Lye, in His Own Words, by Len Lye with Roger Horrocks (Awa Press, 2015), 208 pp., $30 The Len Lye phenomenon has become almost cult-like in recent years, culminating in July 2015 with the launch of the mirror-finish, fingerprint-prone $11.5 million Len Lye Centre in […]
The Path from the Henderson Creek
Patricia McLean Maurice Gee: Life and work, by Rachel Barrowman (Victoria University Press, 2015), 543 pp., $60 The biographer’s job is not an easy one. For a literary biographer it’s even harder. He or she is expected not only to dish up the dirt, but to see into the mind of the artist, to illuminate […]
A Voyaging Waka
Gerry Te Kapa Coates Heke-nuku-mai-nga-iwi Busby: Not here by chance by Jeff Evans (Huia Publishers, 2015), 288 pp., $45 This is the book of a life spent in discovery. It’s about Hec Busby – who he is and what he has done, from becoming a leader within Te Rarawa and a successful businessman, to helping […]
Bookplates, Stamps and Signatures
Iain Sharp Hocken: Prince of Collectors, by Donald Kerr (Otago University Press, 2015), 424 pp., $60 The first thing one notices about Donald Kerr’s handsome new appreciation of Dunedin bibliophile Thomas Morland Hocken is its expanse: 300 pages of body text, followed by 100 closely printed pages of appendices, notes and bibliography. In Otago University […]
The Tovey Generation and After
Damian Skinner Fred Graham: Creator of forms – Te Tohunga Auaha, by Maria de Jong and others, (Huia Publishers, 2014), 200 pp., $49.99 Thanks to books like Fred Graham: Creator of forms, we are beginning to know so much more about the kaumātua of contemporary Māori art. A generation of artists who emerged in the […]
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