Shadow Worlds: A History of the Occult and Esoteric in New Zealand by Andrew Paul Wood. MUP (2023). RRP: $55.00. PB, 424pp. ISBN: 9781991016379. Reviewed by Angus Smith. ‘It all distils to a yearning for spiritual experience.’ To the layperson, attempting merely to define the terms ‘occult’ and ‘esoteric’ seems an obscure task, breaching a…
Ezra has all of his teeth. This is not particularly important but considering his peers, it is noteworthy. The other guys on his logging crew are not so dentally successful. They ride together with chainsaws and fuel cans in a flatbed truck to a forestry block almost exactly like the one they’ve just left. The…
The east wind is blowing the day Meg finds out she is pregnant. She leaves the remains of the pregnancy kit strewn across the floor of the public toilet, strides out across the carpark and follows the gorse-choked path to the ocean. Standing on the dune, wind and sand whipping her face, she stares out…
It was a different story last night, driving homethrough the jewelled nightscape of the city, branches spangled across the back window,but morning is monochrome: silvered stumps splayedagainst an absent sky, limbs truncated, lopped offat the wrist; a torso stripped by the sure swipeof secateurs. The old man sighs. Hard to equate this petrified presence,these blanched discs…
Whaea Blue by Talia Marshall. THWUP (2024). RRP: $40. PB, 352pp. ISBN 9781776920136. Reviewed by Ariana Tikao. Whaea Blue is one of those friends who gets wasted and says the embarrassing things, the unfiltered. Talia Marshall’s writing is like the strong coffee my friend makes with the finest of grounds that permeate and sink to the bottom of the cup.…
The Royal Free by Carl Shuker. THWUP (2024). RRP: $38.00. PB, 312pp. ISBN: 9781776922147. Reviewed by Nurus Van Vliet. Author Carl Shuker certainly has a knack for extracting drama from human error, each turn of the cog cinematically engineered towards a looming crisis point. His 2019 novel A Mistake, finalist for the 2020 Acorn Fiction…
The Mires by Tina Makereti. Ultimo Press (2024). RRP: $39.99. PB, 320pp. ISBN: 9781761153693. Reviewed by Tulia Thompson. If the teenage character Wairere from Tina Makereti’s (Te Ātiawa, Ngāti Tūwharetoa, Ngāti Rangatahi-Matakore, Pākehā) The Mires were a colour, she would be bright seagreen, water-coloured and inky. She is an unusual teenager caught between worlds. A…
The Fight for Freshwater: A Memoir by Mike Joy. Bridget Williams Books (2024). RRP: $39.99. PB, 218pp. ISBN: 9781991033840. Reviewed by Tim Jones. I’ve met Mike Joy, and I’ve heard him speak. He’s a knowledgeable, passionate, and an effective critic of the disastrous effect agribusiness in Aotearoa has had, and continues to have, on that…
Poorhara by Michelle Rahurahu. THWUP (2024). RRP $38. PB, 344pp. ISBN 9781776921287. Reviewed by Emma Hislop. Tragedy and comedy are perfectly paired in Poorhara, the debut novel by Michelle Rahurahu (Ngāti Rahurahu, Ngāti Tahu–Ngāti Whaoa), a road trip story that swings between the hilarious and the heartbreaking in magnificent fashion. ‘If the ceiling burst, the landlord might think of selling…
Kataraina by Becky Manawatu. Mākaro Press (2024). RRP: $37.00. PB, 284pp. ISBN: 9781067011307. Reviewed by Jack Remiel Cottrell. Kataraina is the follow up to the acclaimed Auē by Becky Manawatu, but it would be a bit of a misnomer to call it a sequel. Or a prequel, to be honest. Kataraina is something of a…