Enough of the opinions – mine anyway. Time for someone else to have a go …
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“Stupid, bloody man!”
“What do you mean?” I knew I was being stupid, but I was hanging out for an argument.
“It’d be obvious to you, if you weren’t so dense.” (more…)
Who are you when it matters?
Who are you when there is a need for each of us to come down off the mountain to where the work gets done? Which side do you come down on – where what you say and do makes a difference or the side where you can pretend it’s not important and nothing can be done and it doesn’t matter anyway? (more…)
Kevin was concerned. No, he was more than concerned – he was panicking. He was the school captain but he didn’t feel he was really in charge. It was unfair, he thought, that everyone expected him and the Student Representative Council to fix all the problems.
The schoolyard was smelly. The stink had been around for a while, but it was getting steadily worse. It was starting to become unbearable. (more…)
The Writing Class
Jincy Willett
ISBN: 9781921372117
$32.95
326 pp
Scribe 2008
I found this novel difficult to get into, because I made up my mind half-way through the first page that I didn’t like the style. It would have been a big mistake, had I given up then – the first few pages are someone’s diary entry and the narrative begins on page five. (more…)
It’s easy to get carried away over things that are free, such as briefcases stuffed with money or being offered seats in the pointy end of an aeroplane. Stories can be woven around simple incidents, but often the truth will suffice.
Still in New Zealand, my wife and I were following signs to an historic village museum in Auckland. A wrong turn and there it stood – a lone briefcase. It occupied the edge of a car space, right in the middle of a car park. There were a few cars parked around the periphery. We looked at each other. I decided I’d better relieve the briefcase of its loneliness. (more…)
Eyebabies
David George
ISBN: 9781921325045
$26.95
256 pp
Ilura Press 2008
This is an interesting book with a complex structure. It is a love story and a psychological thriller. It is something of a mystery from the enigmatic beginning to the loose end. (more…)
“This is the final wake-up call for passengers travelling on flight EK460 to Auckland. We apologise for disturbing you but we must insist you board the plane and we invite you to continue your slumbers in the cramped seats in sub-economy class C.”
I wake up with the jolt of the wheels touching down. I uncramp myself and smile at my wife uncramping herself next to me.
Yes, I’ve escaped from the kitchen and left the dog in the capable hands of number one daughter. I expect both to survive for a week. (more…)
History Unrepeated
Convincing Ground: Learn to fall in love with your country
Bruce Pascoe
Aboriginal Studies Press, Canberra, 2007
ISBN: 978-085575-549-2
History depends on who writes it and the writing of it creates that history. On that basis, much of the history of this country is still missing. Bruce Pascoe has gone some way to correcting this. (more…)
Today we are urged to remember something that many men and women are still trying to forget – Armistice Day. Like ANZAC Day, it brings back memories of the atrocities they witnessed or were forced to be part of. And what is forgotten on this day of remembrance is that, even on the day that World War 1 ended exactly ninety-one years ago, it took some six hours for the ceasefire to take effect. Germany had already surrendered a day or so earlier – the document was signed at 5 am, and was worded to not take effect until 11 am. Was the ritual timing so important? How many thousands died in those six hours? (more…)
