Edmund Bohan Richard Seddon, King of God’s Own: The life and times of New Zealand’s longest-serving prime minister by Tom Brooking (Penguin Books, 2014), 584 pp., $65 At a mayoral reception during my first visit to St Helens in Lancashire in 1966, I was, when identified as a New Zealander, proudly ushered by the mayor […]
The Canvas that Ripples
Jodie Dalgleish Mervyn Williams: From Modernism to the digital age by Edward Hanfling, with essays by Leonard Bell and Michael Dunn (Ron Sang Publications, 2014), 336 pp., $135 Mervyn Williams: From Modernism to the digital age is a large and well-illustrated monograph that seeks to chronicle the life-long artistic journey of Mervyn Williams. It contains […]
The Modeller
Andrew Paul Wood Greer Twiss, Sculptor, by Greer Twiss, Rodney Wilson and Robin Woodward (Ron Sang Publications, 2013), 387 pp., $140 Since 2003 the Auckland architect Ron Sang has been publishing lavishly illustrated monographs on some of New Zealand’s most important and fascinating artists (not excluding craft) of the Modern period. So far, veterans Len […]
Man in a Room Selling Dreams
David Eggleton Peter McLeavey: The life and times of a New Zealand art dealer, by Jill Trevelyan (Te Papa Press, 2013), 496 pp., $64.99 ‘I am not slaving my guts out as a dishwasher for kicks,’ Peter McLeavey wrote in a letter to Pat Hanly in December 1968. McLeavey was at that time working as […]
The Dispossessed
Brian Clearkin Andris, Where Are You? From Latvia to New Zealand: The family story of Andris Apse, by Ron Crosby, (Craig Potton Publishing, 2013), 254 pp., $39.99 The story of our lives cannot be told without some recounting of the lives of those closest to us. Thus, the story of Andris Apse begins with the […]
Fanny and Fitz
Edmund Bohan Fitz: The colonial adventures of James Edward FitzGerald, by Jenifer Roberts (Otago University Press, 2014), 392 pp., $40 This is a first-rate and welcome biography of one of the most interesting of all New Zealand’s nineteenth century celebrities and his equally fascinating, multi-talented and adored wife, Fanny Erskine Draper. Jenifer Roberts is an […]
The Weaver’s Shuttle
David Eggleton Beyond the Ohlala Mountains: Poems 1968–2002, by Alan Brunton, edited and introduced by Michele Leggott and Martin Edmond (Titus Books, 2014), 316 pp., $38 Alan Brunton was a poet, a Sixties millennial prophet and a theatrical instigator who flamed out at the beginning of the new millennium, dying of a heart attack while […]
Pākehā Philosopher, Māori Advocate, Psychology Professor
Gerry Te Kapa Coates Paikea: The Life of I.L.G. Sutherland, by Oliver Sutherland, (Canterbury University Press, 2013), 480 pp., $65.00 This fascinating book is about an early twentieth-century New Zealand philosopher and teacher, Ivan Lorin George Sutherland, a relatively little-known or acknowledged Pākehā New Zealand academic now, who threw off his conservative upbringing to become […]
A White Collar and a Red Tie
Edmund Bohan White-Collar Radical: Dan Long and the rise of the white-collar unions, by Mark Derby, (Craig Potton Publishing, 2013), 302 pp., $39.99 White-Collar Radical: Dan Long and the rise of the white-collar unions reveals its author Mark Derby writes well, though this is hardly surprising because he is an experienced writer and historian, whose […]
On the Kamikaze Trail
Helen Watson White The Lost Pilot: A Memoir, by Jeffrey Paparoa Holman (Penguin, 2013), 320pp, $40. You are now 30m from the target. You will sense that your speed has suddenly and abruptly increased … The moment of the crash. You are two or three metres from the target. You can see clearly the muzzles […]
The Mountaineer and the Deer Culler
Nicholas Reid After Everest — Inside the Private World of Edmund Hillary, by Paul Little (Allen and Unwin, 2012) 250 pp., $36:99; Sir Edmund Hillary, An Extraordinary Life — The Authorised Biography, by Alexa Johnston (Penguin, 2008: reprint of biography first published in 2005), 420pp., $35; Stag Spooner, Wild Man From the Bush, by Chris […]
The Classic Trans-Tasmanaut
Denys Trussell Apollo in George Street – The Life of David McKee Wright, by Michael Sharkey (Puncher and Wattman, 2010) 450 pp., $45.99. The poet David McKee Wright (1869–1928) might now be seen as a literary anti-hero with many wrong ideas. This would be to do him an injustice. When we look carefully at […]
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