Richard Dingwall Singing Historian: A Memoir, by Edmund Bohan (Canterbury University Press, 2012), 236 pp., $30. As an eight year old Edmund Bohan’s wanted to be both a singer and an historical writer. This is the story of how, by talent, hard work and self-belief, that childhood ambition was realised. It is full of […]
A Kind of Belonging
Denis Harold Touchstones: Memories of People and Place, by James McNeish (Random House, 2012), 295 pp., $30. The publicity material and preliminaries of James McNeish’s recent book Touchstones hedge about its origins and purpose. He is the reluctant author, according to an interview in the New Zealand Herald (August 1, 2012). The book is the […]
Brandishing a Paintbrush
Raewyn Alexander Before I Forget, by Jacqueline Fahey (Auckland University Press, 2012), 192 pp, $45 . Venturing into often extremely private territory with honesty and insight, this memoir’s a remarkable read. Fahey’s stunning cover is a painting that suggests the older artist looking back: her younger self’s presented in a little black dress with high […]
Tango Dancing as a Journey
Jenny Powell Twelve Minutes of Love, by Kapka Kassabova (Portobello Books 2011), 323pp. $39.99 Journeying to the centre of the universe is necessarily fraught with danger. As physical and emotional perils take their toll, the distance travelled ultimately depends on a single variable: that of the depth of desire. While multiple block-busting movies […]
Difficult, Passionate, Flawed Outsider
Philip Temple The Hungry Heart: Journeys with William Colenso, by Peter Wells (Vintage, 2011), 467 pp. $49.99; Give Your Thoughts Life: William Colenso’s Letters to the Editor, compiled by Ian St George, (Otago University Press, 2011) 497 pp. $65. A question lingers throughout a reading of Peter Wells’s The Hungry Heart — what exactly is this book? There are no […]
Nature Study Man
Denis Harold Seabird Genius: the Story of L.E. Richdale, the Royal Albatross and the Yellow-eyed Penguin, by Neville Peat (Otago University Press, 2011), 288 pp. $45 The establishment of the albatross colony at Tairoa Head on Otago Peninsula is iconic, but not so the individual largely responsible. Lance Richdale, born just days into the […]
Quiver and Stamp
Sarah Jane Barnett The Broken Book, by Fiona Farrell (Auckland University Press, 2011), 208 pp., $34.99. Trace Fossils, by Mary Cresswell (Steele Roberts, 2011), 64 pp., $19.99. Originally conceived as a travel book about walking, The Broken Book took an unexpected turn when the Christchurch earthquake, in Farrell’s words, ‘sent a jagged tear’ through the text. Well known […]
Appassionato
Helen Watson WhiteThe Violinist: Clare Galambos Winter, Holocaust Survivor, by Sarah Gaitanos (Victoria University Press, 2011) 280 pp., $40.00.‘On the morning of Sunday 19 March 1944, Klari was at an orchestra rehearsal in the Heavy Metalworkers’ Trades Hall when a man burst in with an urgent message for the conductor. Obviously shaken, the conductor informed […]
Worlds Within
Jamie HantonA Micronaut in the Wide World: the Imaginative Life and Times of Graham Percy, by Gregory O’Brien, (Auckland University Press, 2011), 182 pp., $59.99. Back and Beyond: New Zealand Painting for the Young and Curious, by Gregory O’Brien, (Auckland University Press, 2008), 104 pp., $34.99 Imagination, and all its mighty power, is at the […]
Painted Words
David Eggleton Towards a Promised Land: On the life and art of Colin McCahon, by Gordon H. Brown (Auckland University Press, 2010) hardback, colour plates and illustrations, 216 pp., $79.99 Evangelism takes strange forms. Arthur Stace, a former alcoholic who became a Christian, spent thirty-seven years chalking the word ‘Eternity’ in beautiful copperplate onto the […]
Renaissance Man
Andrew Paul Wood Fantastica: The World of Leo Bensemann, Peter Simpson (Auckland University Press, 2011), 232 pp., $75.00 If you could physically sense an author’s passion and thoroughness, Peter Simpson’s books would glow like fresh bread. His timely and lavishly illustrated Fantastica: The World of Leo Bensemann positively radiates, and yet again shows Auckland University […]
Not Doing Reverence
Philip Temple South-West of Eden, A Memoir 1932–1956, C.K. Stead (Auckland University Press, 2010), 345 pp., $45.00 For someone described by his publisher as a ‘towering figure in New Zealand literature’ – a description the author would probably endorse – one approaches the memoir of his youth with expectations of discovering the magical springs of […]
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