The Clean: In the Dreamlife You Need a Rubber Soul by Richard Langston. AUP (2026). RRP: $49.99. PB, 376pp. ISBN: 9781776711567. Reviewed by Joanna Mathers. Music artists The Clean emerged from Dunedin in the late 1970s and have exerted an oversized influence on independent music ever since, both in Aotearoa and internationally. Shaggy, shambolic, with…
Childish Palate by Shariff Burke. Tender Press (2026). RRP: $32.00. PB, 242pp. ISBN: 9780473762490. Reviewed by Cybonn Ang. Childish Palate, Shariff Burke’s debut short story collection, brings together eleven stories centred on protagonists from a range of Asian ethnic backgrounds. Food is involved in all of them—the business of it, the enjoyment of it, the…
What to Wear by Jenny Bornholdt. THWUP (2026). RRP. $25.00. PB, 72pp. ISBN: 9781776923069. Reviewed by Jordan Hamel. Jenny Bornholdt’s What to Wear is the former poet laureate’s 12th collection, and, to my deep shame, the first I’ve read cover to cover (a mistake I’ve since rectified). Coming in with mostly fresh eyes to review…
The Work of Angels by Anisha Sankar. Dead Bird Books (2026). RRP: $35.00. PB, 76pp. ISBN: 9780473772499. Reviewed by Kahu Kutia. The role of a storyteller is to preserve. This work of preserving is a burden that I often think about in my writing. As storytellers, we engage in the work of knowledge collectors, archivists,…
Party Boy by Breton Dukes. THWUP (2026). RRP: $38.00. PB, 320pp. ISBN: 9781776923038. Reviewed by Niamh Hollis-Locke. In 2022, spurred by the 2014 conviction of former Otago Boys High School (OBHS) teacher David Bond for indecent assault against a student in the 1970s, and the wave of further convictions which followed, author Breton Dukes began…
My Bourgeois Apocalypse by Helen Rickerby. Auckland University Press (2026). RRP: $25.00. PB, 80pp. ISBN: 9781776712106. Reviewed by Dani Yourukova. ‘Poets, like architects, love contradiction and near incoherence.’ So reads one of the two Elisa Gabbert quotes that provide the epigraph to My Bourgeois Apocalypse, Helen Rickerby’s eclectic new ‘poetic-memoir’ made with extracts from her…
Giving Birth to My Father by Tusiata Avia. THWUP (2025). RRP: $30.00. PB, 112pp. ISBN: 9781776922918. Reviewed by Hebe Kearney. I set aside time to write this review on the 5th March 2026. There it is: a little blue block in my calendar ‘Review—Giving Birth to My Father.’ I can best describe this latest collection…
show you’re working out by liz breslin. Dead Bird Books (2025). RRP: $35. PB, 82pp. ISBN: 9780473751500. Reviewed by Sylvan Spring. ‘we were born to deviations / gentle ferocious / unexpected ways.’ This first line of the last poem in liz breslin’s show you’re working out feels central to the story they carry us through…
Pastoral Care by John Prins. OUP (2025). RRP: $35. PB, 246pp. ISBN: 9781991348104. Reviewed by Erica Stretton. John Prins’ debut short story collection Pastoral Care probes at the nature of care, of caring, and of safety: what can be sacrificed to stay safe? Prins is a master of pressing hard on small details to evoke…
No Good by Sophie van Waardenberg. AUP (2025). RRP: $24.99. PB, 80pp. ISBN: 9781776711789. Reviewed by Hebe Kearney. No Good is a striking, clear, and soft collection of poetry. It holds the tension of these disparate adjectives perfectly, and while it is at times a sorrowful work, it is never a disheartening one. Upon reading…