Books

The 2023 New Zealand general election may go down in history as one of the more exciting and important ones in a very long time. The implications could be staggering for ordinary Kiwis, now and years down the line. Some people might still be asking themselves, are we truly back on track, or will issues like the ever-widening wealth gap and the cost of living get worse over time? The title Back on Track? The New Zealand General Election of 2023 raises an interesting question, and if you took a survey, you would probably get several different answers depending on which side of the political fence people sit on.

Rather than concentrating on just the politics, editor Stephen Levine focuses on all facets of the election. This includes the media’s involvement and its role in shaping the news. There is genuine introspection into how the mainstream media has lost some of the public’s trust, and the obstacles they face to reclaim it. While it’s a debate for another time, it needs to be had, especially now when people are relying so much on social media for news coverage.

Political leaders are interviewed, giving readers a chance to peer behind the curtain and see what was going through their minds at the time and why they did what they did. My favourite part of the book was the cartoons – those little political illustrations that poke fun at our politicians but tell a story that news articles never could. It was fun learning a little about the function of the cartoon in our media landscape and how much sway they hold over today’s readers.

At first glance, Back on Track? might not interest those who are less interested in politics. However, for the political animals out there that eat this stuff up and want to know more about the election’s inner workings? This is going to be magic from heaven.

In the second installment of this fantasy series, author Jessica Jayne Webb builds on her first novel, The Secrets of Wilderfort Castle by expanding her otherworldly setting of mystery, intrigue, and a plot full of twists and turns.

In The Waiting, Agatha Wilderfort, now well versed in the many secrets her inherited Wilderfort Castle holds, is at first listless and disengaged – Charles (her love) is missing, or perhaps worse, in the daemon realm. Buoyed by those around her, Caelan, Variwen, Naga, Helgam, the girl-witch Pollyanna, and the deadly but loyal Fey, all encourage her indomitable spirit. The possibility of being able to contact Charles to find his exact whereabouts by combining three dangerous spells is irresistible to a desperate Agatha, and so the journey begins.

The Waiting is Charles’ story too, with the alliances and tradeoffs he must make to survive and return to Agatha unscathed. Lord Caspian is back in all his ugly glory and an uneasy suspense unfolds over Oxxy, the air daemon. Retrieved from Caspian’s manor, Oxxy’s subsequent behaviours beg the question whether he is in the throes of a stunning betrayal, or the victim of something more sinister.

It’s hard not to notice Webb’s progress as a writer in this fantastical saga with daemons – both good and bad – and the parallel realms in which they reside. I enjoyed the carefully crafted characters, the water daemon, shape changer, forest daemon, warlock, and girl-witch. These otherworldly beings with their magic and nuanced powers complement the romance element of the story.

Whether thwarting an impending threat of a greater daemon entering the human realm or summoning her burgeoning powers as a choler, the race is on to open the door to where Charles lingers.

My only slight frustration with The Waiting was the trees printed on the pages, most probably intended to evoke a sense of a dark and foreboding realm. Instead, they were a little distracting. This aside, I look forward to reading the next installment from Webb: The Change, where a new war is brewing.

“Eclectic” is an understatement as a descriptor for this collection. The latest Landing Edge anthology continues its tradition of social commentary – this time with contributions from 92 writers of all ages and from varying cultural and language backgrounds. In place of the erudite and the esoteric, we get a diversity of poetic reflections on the theme of generations that are appealing in their relatability.    

Asher Carey, aged seven, has a view on how generations start – you can say a lot in five lines! Vaughan Rapatahana writes his poem in te reo and English, and concludes with “I walk backwards into the future, with my eyes fixed on the past.” And James Brown opens with “Ancestors are deceased people who bother you sometimes.”

Life’s worth by Maytal Noy, whose extended family lives in Israel, offers a spinechilling view of the conflict between Israel and Gaza: every line here is a challenge. It demonstrates that a poem can make a powerful statement every bit as effective as a political one.

Sure to rise by Suse MacGillivray is, perhaps predictably for some readers, a tribute to the Edmonds Cookery Book. Here is an affectionate look at a century-old recipe collection, recalled with images to make us smile: “from dog-eared, sticky and stained” to deluxe editions espousing tahini and cashew cream.   

Kaumatua by Ricky Masterman is the only poem here that rhymes! Rhyming gives momentum and that’s what enhances a ballad-style account of a long and satisfying life. I loved “the kids came fast and grew like grass, we squeezed the beggars in.”

Among the poems about women, Do not go by Jan Jordan is one of the most outstanding. Known for her writings about women as victims and survivors of sexual violence, Jordan’s use of language powerfully recalls the times when the “nymphs of the pave” were most vulnerable “to the blue sleeve of the law”.

Now and Then is an accessible read, an encouragement to new writers, and a breath of nostalgia for us all.

This slim volume comes to us by way of a poet and a painter. The poet is Dinah Hawken and the painter is Patricia France. They never met. But their collaboration gives us a unique blend of words and paintings that evokes a sense of beauty and reflective wisdom.

When she was in her fifties, France – in a remarkable act of self-responsibility – admitted herself to Ashburn Hall, a psychiatric hospital in Dunedin. And it was at her psychiatrist’s urging that she began to “paint out the past” as a path to rebirth. This she continued to do for the rest of her life, and we have this book as a record of her visual reflections.

The paintings feature women – especially their faces – and flowers. I can’t imagine two subjects more suited to contemplation and peace of mind! Hawken references the “straight backs and Wesleyan beliefs” of their forebears and lo! the accompanying painting is of a backward-leaning woman looking straight ahead. The poems throughout comment similarly and sometimes subtly on France’s work. That the writer can only guess the artist’s intention adds to the intrigue of her poems.

Titles are sometimes borrowed from other works: often T.S. Eliot’s Four Quartets which France listened to while painting. A boatshed below the Caselberg house in Broad Bay is charmingly recalled: “It’s as if each artist waits like an upturned boat / for their season and their oars.” One of the more challenging paintings is matched by Hawken’s title What are they thinking? She asks this of three female figures – a mother and on either side two daughters. They “look through / the present, in which she is absent, into the future.” The unimaginable summer is another less-than-optimistic poem, placed side by side with a painting redolent with fiery red – referencing in our poet’s mind the Australian bushfires.

Faces and Flowers: Poems to Patricia France is a tribute to painting, to poetry, and to the colour they both celebrate.

Having recently read Judy Bailey’s Evolving about ageing, reading Age Less: The new science of slower and healthier ageing, it felt like a natural progression to explore the science behind ageing less.

Age Less explains why we age and the scientific theories of ageing. I hadn’t realised there was so much research into why we age.

Not only does author Greg Macpherson introduce a series of ageing experts, but the reader can also scan a QR code to hear an interview with each of the experts from around the world. Their theories transverse biology, genetics, DNA, hyperbaric medicine, immunology, and biophysics to name just a few. There’s a lot to sink your teeth into here and for the scientifically inclined, it’s likely a treasure trove. Macpherson also explores the idea of ageing as a disease.

I found I enjoyed chapter five the most, The Science of Ageing. Macpherson describes how this chapter “gets into the nuts and bolts about what we know about the ageing process.” Here he talks about the ‘hallmarks of ageing’, a framework developed by experts in 2013 which “sought to identify and categorise the fundamental molecular and cellular changes that cause ageing”.

To give you an idea of what the hallmarks delve into, number one is genomic instability and number two is telomere attrition. I won’t even begin to try and explain these but think DNA and how it is effectively a blueprint for all our cells as a very rudimentary start.

Macpherson says, “Our external environment and the biological processes and changes that happen in our bodies influence how we age at a cellular and molecular level.” These, he notes, can be different for everyone, which can explain why we all appear to age differently.

“Chronological ageing is straightforward and absolute… yet biological ageing is not as predictable or uniform”, the author says.

Age Less provides a wealth of information about how we age. The scientific journey Macpherson takes you on with a team of experts at hand is informative, and though dense in parts, is a well-balanced look at what we can do to increase longevity.

Mothers and memoirs don’t go together, notes our author at the outset – heaven forbid mothers should start editing! That said, this is a tale dedicated to mothers (whaea) and other wāhine in a life packed with drama, reflection, and wry humour.

Whaea Blue has already been described in superlatives and I’ve got some too. I’m offering some specifics, though, as examples of Marshall’s skills as a writer. For a start, the chapter headings – all 37 of them – are enticingly detailed. Who could resist Chicken Feet, Dolphin Princess, and Who are you killing?

The power of writing in the present tense is admirably demonstrated. Given that the narrative line moves back and forth, alternating present and past adds to its effectiveness. Then there are the disarming self-disclosures in comments peppered throughout. Marshall refers to “the silly putty of my imagination” and to being “a determined little adult”.

Grandfather Jim gets the attention he deserves as he lies slowly dying in a rest home in Dunedin. His funeral is held inside the Mormon chapel he built with Māori in the sixties. That’s when Ans Westra’s Maori was published. Marshall paints a sympathetic portrait of Westra and the photographer’s Eurocentric gaze. Her comment that “Ans Westra caught Māori men in the act of being good” juxtaposes the criticism of the sometimes-controversial figure.

It’s maybe arguable that the author has tried to pack too much into over 300 pages. Roving through being the child of an unwed Mormon Pākehā mother, encountering her Māori father (formerly “a construct out of cultural cliches”), a series of lovers, a chilling encounter with magic mushrooms, a clash with a supervisor on cultural matters – and I’m only halfway through!

The second half of Whaea Blue is coloured by our writer’s ongoing struggle with mental health and the sometimes-psychotic experiences that accompany it. This is salutary stuff. Much of Whaea Blue is, but it’s well and truly balanced by a cascading resilience, a growing sense of identity, and an extraordinary honesty.

If you have ever sung a hymn in your life, there is a good chance you have Shirley Erena Murray to thank for it. Growing up in Invercargill, she would go on to make a major impact on hymns sung in New Zealand.

Both Murray and her husband John were staunch believers in equality and fairness all their lives, and no hymn conveys these sentiments so eloquently as the one titled For Everyone Born, A Place at The Table. Written by Shirley in 1998, it beautifully sums up her beliefs and character with its lyrics conveying her ideas of how we should treat each other. While now 26 years old, its message is just as relevant as it was when first written.

Eventually she helped publish three very important titles – Alleluia Aotearoa, Carol Our Christmas, and A New Zealand Hymn Book – each distinctly Kiwi and representing all our peoples: Māori, Pasifika, and European. In addition, she later wrote her own books, further making her mark.

What I love the most about Peace Is Her Song is learning about how Murray achieved her goals while being a devoted wife to John and mother to her three boys Alistair, David, and Rob. As well as her own work, she helped write and compile several books showcasing New Zealand’s best hymns.

Anne Manchester’s lyrical Peace Is Her Song is further proof of what I have always said about biographies: that they not only entertain but teach us that no matter how hard we think we have it, others have overcome similar or worse problems. I have always marvelled at how we can pick up a book, gain access to someone’s life and experiences, and be able to benefit from their wisdom.

If you see Peace is Her Song at your local bookshop, I highly recommend picking it up. Even if you are not into poetry, this is well worth it just to read Shirley’s story and marvel at the life she led.

Want a coffee table book that’s also a great conversation starter? I recommend They Said What?! – a collection of iconic Kiwi quotes from the last 12 years. Voted for by New Zealanders, these represent a broad spectrum of comments, exclamations, excuses, explanations, and gaffes from politicians, sportspeople, comedians, musicians, activists, and broadcasters.

It’s tempting to quote the best ones, so instead I’ll provide clues. What were the memorable words said by three guys who rescued trapped citizens during Cyclone Gabrielle? And who were the guys? Self-deprecation can enhance action.

From the politicians: Who said what about lamingtons? Who was encouraged to raise an eyebrow in defeat? Who did a little dance at certain news and why? What was the one about the benefit? And way back in 2014, who said he was sorry for being a man?

From politics to magic powers: The Christchurch Wizard makes a bold statement that’s been borne out by spells that actually worked; a cannabis user has hopes about a tinny house; Taika Waititi has strong opinions about New Zealand; a musician compares John Clarke to Nureyev; and comedian Te Radar is worried about the economy.

Editor Kavan and her colleagues made rigorous decisions about the winning quotes for each year based on brevity, originality, and impact. Ultimately, the voting public were the deciders. And of all the gems in this collection, one stands out for me. Not made by a politician, sportsman, writer, or public figure of any kind, a 2015 winning quote takes the cake for its extraordinary courage. A schoolboy at Christchurch Boys’ High, on a razor’s edge between life and death, nevertheless delivers a heart-stopping message at the senior prizegiving ceremony. “None of us get out of life alive. So be gallant, be great, be gracious, and be grateful for the opportunities you have.” He goes on to survive the cancer that should have killed him. I wonder what The Christchurch Wizard would have to say about that!

I would like to think these 100+ quotes represent and express what’s best and finest and funniest about us New Zealanders.

Often when writing about the wars of our past, we gloss over the minutiae of what was lost on a personal level and focus solely on how they inflicted us on a global scale.

So, it’s refreshing to discover that Wartime secrets from the family home: The impact of WWI and WWII on the McGrath family, which describes the writer’s own personal history, focuses on the sacrifices his family made during that time.

Author Tom McGrath starts by telling us about his grandfather Frank, who became a schoolteacher and then a headmaster first in England and then in New Zealand, all while training young students to become soldiers.

Years later, Frank’s son Hugh would enlist to defend New Zealand when war broke out in 1939. Hugh’s letters home and his observations about the conflict give us a glimpse into his mindset at the time, shedding light on what the common soldier might have been thinking about.

For me, the inclusion of this correspondence makes the people in this book more relatable. While I am fortunate to never have experienced a war myself, the McGrath family history allowed me to imagine how it might have been.

The book also sheds light on Hugh’s sister Joan, who served in the Royal Air Force (RAF) in England as a nurse during WWI, and even goes further back in time. Here, we discover that one ancestor of the McGrath family tree was married to the Admiral Lord Nelson of Trafalgar.

McGrath’s writing (helped by his father and grandfather) is an honest and open account of what happened during the worst decades of the 20th century. Far from being dry, which is the case in several books centered around this subject matter, Wartime secrets from the family home and its protagonists kept me invested.

Most history books only represent the cost of war – the loss of life – as numerical statistics. McGrath’s book gives those statistics a name, a face, that we can connect to.

Growing up, newsreader Judy Bailey was a permanent fixture on our evening screens. Poised and professional, she would beam into our living room, bringing with her the latest news – good and bad – of the day. I hadn’t given too much thought to what she had moved on to till I picked up her book Evolving: Finding health and happiness as we age.

Once upon a time I wouldn’t have considered it a topic of interest, but now as the much-derided ‘middle age’ approaches, Evolving feels like a timely read. This is a positive and engaging look at ageing, taking us through the journey, the next chapter of life, and how fulfilling a time it can be when we no longer have a place in society’s rat race, buoyed by a perceived, youth-inspired, survival-of-the-fittest mentality.

What’s refreshing about Evolving is that it is very much conversational. Despite Bailey discussing topics not too dissimilar to what’s already out there on the subject – like eating well, staying engaged, exercising, and financial management – she gives fresh insight into the journey of ageing, interspersing her own flair and learnings along the way.

Acknowledging the realities of ageing, like losing loved ones and the grief and isolation that can stem from this, Bailey says it’s important, no matter the cause, to address loneliness and try to find new friends when others pass away. She talks about the kind of loneliness too, that can reside deep within you, even when you’re surrounded by others.

Bailey shares how being in the public eye for years and the subsequent loss of anonymity left her wondering if she measured up to people’s expectations. It’s a feeling she still sometimes experiences today, and she acknowledges it’s a lonely place to be. Social connection keeps us happier and healthier, she says.

In Evolving, Bailey doesn’t shy away from the unpretty stuff, like illness, feeling irrelevant, funerals, and the disappointment of seeing a face in the mirror that no longer ‘fits’. But instead of wallowing, she reminds us of the power of resilience in the face of ‘toxic ageing’.

A killer is on the loose and all leads point to a man who died three years ago while trekking overseas. But what looks like an open and shut case – complete with DNA evidence – soon sends the story’s hero Myron Bolitar on an odyssey to hell and back.

From the get-go, Think Twice drew me in and kept me hooked. Within the first few pages of the prologue, someone dies, and we get a front-row seat into the mind of the victim’s killer. No messing about, no drawn-out introductions, just bam! Straight into the action! This was exactly what I wanted. For me, wasting a reader’s time is a cardinal sin, and lengthy exposition always pulls me right out of a story’s narrative.

The second thing Think Twice gets right is how wonderfully the characters have been written. None of them are perfect – each one sins and is horrible to the other – and yet even the criminals have some redeeming qualities. Yes, this includes the killer. They live and breathe with real motivations, desires, and lives of their own. As I often like to say, they come alive off the page.

One character embodies the word ‘sin’ like nobody else and is a joy to read whenever he features in the story. While I will not spoil anything for you here, for me, he was the star of the show, even though he was only meant to be sharing the limelight with Myron.

The twists and turns are exhilarating and despite trying to guess what was coming next, I never saw many of them coming. So many authors attempt to throw these curve balls, but never quite manage it. Coben does, which makes the ride he takes you on all the more exciting.

Bottom line: if you want to sink your teeth into a good whodunnit and love a topsy-turvy twisty tale, then Think Twice is for you.

What do poet James Brown and I have in common? Palmerston North – for both of us a stamping ground, a provincial upbringing, and a writer’s target. Not content with sounding off about it in his earlier collection Tip Shop, Brown includes three poetic evocations of the place we love to hate.

Not that One Thing Leads to Another or my Part in the Dairy Industry is critical. Instead, it is a celebration of a bygone job: the milk run. “The cul-de-sac’s streetlamp / glows like a glass of milk” sets the scene and there’s “A standing man / on the brink of his / water feature / A hesitation in a / dressing gown.”

I am compelled, however, to mention Another Palmerston North Poem in which our writer’s take on the town is reflected in an over-simplistic rhyme scheme, words that jar, and unkind observations.

I almost forgive Brown though because of his services to theatre as related in Set Building. Former university students will smile nostalgically at recollections of such an activity and its rewards. “It doesn’t convert me to Shakespeare, / though I do get together with Cordelia.” And some of us may also grin wryly at Unfamiliar Text in which a misprint in a student exam paper leads hapless readers on an unwelcome search for meaning. Students, by the way, “know nothing and, worse, / they don’t know that they know nothing.” This poem is hilariously clever: it’s a linguistic and intellectual delight.

This may be a slim volume, but it contains a disproportionately fat poem titled simply Amen, five and a half pages worth of expansion on the subject of the male sex. No woman writer could get away with this – so thanks Mr Poet. “Men on top of their game, the world, spaghetti…all covered with cheese”. No egg on your face for these observations, James!

The final few poems are characterised by free-form presentation, and philosophical observation dressed in metaphor. You Don’t Know What You’re Missing is a fine example. I’m borrowing that title as my advice to would-be readers: take on the welcome weight of Slim Volume.