Symphony of Queer Errands by Rachel O’Neill. Tender Press (2025). RRP: $30.00. PB, 110pp. ISBN: 9780473725754. Reviewed by Sophie van Waardenberg. Symphony of Queer Errands, the third book by filmmaker, writer and artist Rachel O’Neill, is impossible to describe concisely. Made up of eight parts, it follows a composer conceptualising, crafting and recrafting their titular…
The Life and Opinions of Kartik Popat by Brannavan Gnanalingam. Lawrence & Gibson (2024). RRP: $30.00. PB, 304pp. ISBN: 9780473725976. Reviewed by Cybonn Ang. Brannavan Gnanalingam’s eighth novel, The Life and Opinions of Kartik Popat, is a witty, highly entertaining memoir of one Kartik Popat, a guy from Hutt Valley who manages to climb—nay, worm—himself…
Mana Moana: Ngā Urungi o Te Ohu Kaimoana Toitū mō Anamata / Navigators of Sustainable Fisheries for the Future by Carla Houkamau and Robert Pouwhare. AUP (2025). RRP: $49.99. PB, 304pp. ISBN: 9781776711529. Reviewed by Vaughan Rapatahana. Mau anō e to mai te ika ki a koe. Ki te tino wawata koe ki te ika ka haere…
Surplus Women by Michelle Duff. THWUP (2025). RRP: $35. PB, 240pp. ISBN: 9781776922284. Reviewed by Laura Borrowdale. It’s hard to know what to make of the short story form, and I say this as a short story writer. It’s a spiky, awkward form that often seems to belong more on classroom desks than bedside tables.…
The Enemy Within by Maire Leadbeater. Potton & Burton (2024). RRP $40.00. PB, 250pp. ISBN: 9781988550657. Reviewed by Allan McEvoy. Activist, author and social worker Maire Leadbeater’s latest nonfiction book The Enemy Within is a first rate exposé of Aotearoa New Zealand government-sponsored intrusion into the lives of social activist movements and its lasting effects…
Clay Eaters by Gregory Kan. AUP (2025). RRP: $29.99. PB, 128pp. ISBN: 9781776711536. Reviewed by Tim Grgec. At 18 years old, all male Singaporeans are required to undertake two years of military service. Over 20,000 recruits are enlisted every year, starting with nine weeks of basic military training on Pulau Tekong, or Tekong Island, on…
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…
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…