Sarah Christie ‘A Bloody Difficult Subject’: Ruth Ross, Te Tiriti o Waitangi and the making of history by Bain Attwood (Auckland University Press, 2023), 288pp, $59.99 In A Bloody Difficult Subject, Bain Attwood has taken the overlooked papers of an overlooked historian and used them as the basis for a deliberation on the historiography of Te Tiriti o Waitangi and on the act of writing New Zealand history. Ruth Guscott, later Ross, (1920–1982) was an academically trained historian who developed a strong interest in what was then known as the Treaty of Waitangi and the historic events surroundi ..read more

Stephanie Johnson The Call by Gavin Strawhan (Allen & Unwin, 2024), 304pp, $36.99 Even readers with only a passing interest in contemporary crime fiction may have the impression that female detectives now vastly overwhelm their male counterparts. Smilla Jaspersen, Phryne Fisher and Miss Marple are possibly the best-known of these crime fighters, and women readers generally celebrate this long-evolving change. ‘Why do they all have to be women?’ a keen crime reader asked me, recently, possibly unaware of the domination of the likes of Sherlock Holmes, Hercule Poirot, Philip Marlowe, Maigret ..read more

Michelle Elvy Light Keeping by Adrienne Jansen (Quentin Wilson Publishing, 2023), 238pp, $37.50; Secrets of the Land by Kate Mahony (Cloud Ink Press, 2023), 270pp, $29.99; The Bones of the Story by Sandra Arnold (Impspired Books, 2023), 43pp, USD$9.99 Each of these books has a sense of time passing, of impermanence. There is wreckage and survival. All of them explore questions around isolation and community. And in all of them, there is both darkness and light. Adrienne Jansen’s novel, Light Keeping, tells the story of lighthouse keeper Bill and his wife Annie and how their lives change starti ..read more

Chris Else The Waters by Carl Nixon (RHNZ Vintage, 2023), 288pp, $37 Carl Nixon is one of our most successful writers of short fiction, winner of the BNZ Katherine Mansfield and twice winner of Sunday Star Times short story competitions. His first collection, Fish ’n’ Chip Shop Song and other stories, was shortlisted for the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize for Best First Book. He is also a successful playwright and the author of novels that explore the limits of convention in mystery and thriller genres. He is first and foremost a storyteller, more interested in the dramatic dimension of fiction t ..read more

Tim Jones You Are My Sunshine and other stories by Octavia Cade (Stelliform Press, 2023), 212pp, US$19.99 You Are My Sunshine and other stories includes several outstanding stories and many very good ones, all themed around climate and ecological collapse, and the tentative possibilities that exist to recover from, or at least arrest, that collapse. Biology and ecology are prominent both as subject matter and metaphor. This collection confirms Octavia Cade as a very fine short story writer. Before talking about the collection as a sequence of stories, it’s worth pointing out that many of these ..read more

Pat White Little Doomsdays by Nic Low and Phil Dadson (Massey University Press, 2023), 96pp, $45; Killer Rack by Sylvan Spring (Te Herenga Waka University Press, 2024), 88pp, $30; A Long Road Trip Home by John Allison (Cold Hub Press, 2023), 55pp, $26 Three widely different books are considered here, and there are merits in each. We move from universal to highly personal truths and back again within each title. Little Doomsdays is a collaboration between writer Nic Low and artist Phil Dadson as part of the Korero series published by Massey University Press. In the words of Lloyd Jones, the ser ..read more

Jenny Powell Dream Girl by Joy Holley (Te Herenga Waka University Press, 2023), 252pp, $30; Signs of Life by Amy Head (Te Herenga Waka University Press, 2023), 128pp, $30   Joy Holley’s stories in her debut collection Dream Girl offer young women who have to contend with a world of twenty-first-century abundance. A world where their desires, their must-haves—the incessant Instagram-like curation of details: the decor of bedrooms, wardrobes, bathroom shelves— all serve to express unease about identity or status. It’s not cool to be seen to be striving too hard, but the adole ..read more

Nicholas Reid Our First Foreign War: The impact of the South African War 1899–1902 on New Zealand by Nigel Robson (Massey University Press, 2021), 416pp, $55; I Don’t Believe In Murder: Standing up for peace in World War 1 Canterbury by Margaret Lovell-Smith (Canterbury University Press, 2023), 336pp, $45; Defending Trinity College, Easter 1916: Anzacs and the Rising by Rory Sweetman (Four Courts Press, 2019), 172pp, 17.95 EUR; Who Disturbs the Kukupa? by Kayleen Hazlehurst (Blue Dragonfly Press, 2023), 398pp, $45   Seen from our early twenty-first century, the Second South African War (1 ..read more

Andrew Paul Wood Urgent Moments: Art and social change: The Letting Space projects 2010–2020 edited by Mark Amery, Amber Clausner and Sophie Jerram (Massey University Press, 2023), 352pp, $65; Fierce Hope: Youth activism in Aotearoa by Karen Nairn, Judith Sligo, Carisa R. Showden, Kyle R. Matthews and Joanna Kidman (Bridget Williams Books, 2023), 300pp, $39.99; Past the Tower, Under the Tree: Twelve stories of learning in community edited by Balamohan Shingade and Erena Shingade (Gloria Books, 2023), 216pp, $38   I discuss Urgent Moments: Art and social change: The Letting Space projects ..read more

Jeffrey Paparoa Holman Ngā Kupu Wero edited by Witi Ihimaera with an introduction by Jacinta Ruru (Penguin Books, 2023), 368pp, $37.00   As a Pākehā koroua, on the Landfall marae to pōwhiri a new collection of Māori voices, I’m experiencing this as an honour, and a challenge. It might be argued that Māori have long heard enough from Pākehā on matters Māori. Yet this invitation is an opportunity to sit on the paepae, listening to the speakers, the tangata whenua, before manuhiri can rise to reply. On this marae—as on Te Māpou at Maungapōhatu, where my own work has been challenged and welco ..read more