Literary Criticism & Essays & Journalism

A fresh and delightful examination of the character of Oscar Wilde by looking at him through the prism of the books he read. An entirely new kind of biography, Oscar's Books explores the personality of Oscar Wilde through his reading. It argues that reading exercised a formative influence on Wilde's character and was the inspiration for his own writings. Oscar's Books tells the story of Wilde's 'long and lovely' life in a way that is fresh and engaging, from his childhood in Dublin, where he was nurtured on Celtic myth, Romantic p... read more

When Alice was nine years old, she and her father - a beloved school librarian - made a promise to read aloud together for 100 consecutive nights. Upon reaching their goal, they celebrated over pancakes, but it was clear that neither wanted to let go of what had become their reading ritual. They decided to continue what became known as The Streak for as long as they possibly could. From L. Frank Baum to Dickens to J.K. Rowling to Shakespeare, Alice's father read to her every night without fail until the day she entered college, a r... read more

The Swallows and Amazons author's lost study of the author of Treasure Island, finally available with a substantial introduction detailing its rediscovery and Ransome's extraordinary early career.

Late in 1939 a chance meeting between Penguin founder, Allen Lane, and natural history publisher, Noel Carrington, changed the future of children's publishing with the formation of a series called 'Puffin Picture Books'. The first four titles appeared in 1940 and the series quickly established a reputation for presenting children's non-fiction in a unique blend of editing and design. 'Puffin Story Books' soon followed with the publication of Worzel Gummidge in 1941 and, like the original launch of Penguin itself, these story books ... read more

People usually think of books in terms of their contents, their texts, with less thought for books as artefacts. In fact books may possess all kinds of potentially interesting qualities beyond their texts. This text explores books from the Middle Ages to the present day to show why books may be interesting beyond their texts.

From stalking and eventually meeting her Young Talent Time idol when she was twelve, to dalliances with streetwalkers, to a mildly perverse obsession with Bob Ellis, there is nothing Marieke Hardy won't write about. Voyeuristic, painful, hilarious and heartfelt, You'll Be Sorry When I'm Dead reveals the acerbic wit, unflinching gaze and razor-sharp insight of a writer at the height of her powers - or the unhinged fantasies of a dangerous mind with not enough to do.

For more than 40 years, Karl Stead has been New Zealand's leading literary and cultural critic. Whether writing about Christianity or a trip to Croatia, he always brings a clear personal point of view, a strong analytical bent, and a witty pen to his work. In this latest collection of critical writing, a sequel to his successful books Kin of Place, Answering to the Language and The Writer at Work, Stead takes the reader on a personal journey, from his earliest discovery of poetry as a young man to his experiences on the literary tr... read more

Joy Cowley distils her four decades at the top of the children's writing pyramid for the benefit of anyone engaging in writing for young people. In short chapters she covers developing a plot, dialogue, writers' discipline, humour, early reading, novels, picture books, plays, poetry, editing, and presentation.

A commonplace book is the repository for a personal collection of quotations and scraps, pensees and poems. In vogue from the late sixteenth-century, their fans include John Milton, W H Auden and now Elizabeth Smither. Here she shares three of her commonplace books and reflects on the quotations she's gathered that act as foil and ballast to her life and writing. There are no platitudes or sententious maxims here; instead the quotations range from the pensive to the screamingly funny; by the great and famous to the little known; fr... read more

The world, and Australia, is now a profoundly different place - interconnected and yet fractured - and the old stories have lost their relevance. Political and marketing rhetoric has reached its use-by date, and new definitions will be distilled from the work of artists. Stories for Today features new fiction by established, mid-career and emerging writers who make sense of the country as it is now, in a borderless, globalised world balanced between crisis and opportunity. Voices from home and the Australian diaspora explore the ef... read more

This witty, clever, mind-expanding and original book is destined to become a classic.
A professor for over 40 years, Jim Flynn found fewer and fewer of his students were in love with reading. However, they were willing to try if he gave them lists. This inspired him to create the definitive list: books so wonderful to read, and so revealing about times and places, that they make learning enjoyable and effortless. The title is in honour of the author's 'uneducated' Irish-American family, who made him love reading - includi... read more

Featured on Radio New Zealand National. Kate gives a personal and entertaining insight into 10 great literary classics, beginning with a short synopsis of each work. She attempts to answer some of the key questions of classic literature, i.e. Was Odysseus the inspiration for James Bond? Who is the most shaggable of Jane Austen's heroine's? (Elizabeth Bennet, apparently). Did Napoleon ever make it into Moscow? Books discussed are: Crime and Punishment, David Copperfield, Jane Eyre, Middlemarch, Moby Dick, The Odyssey, The Old Testam... read more

In the summer of 1858, in a garden behind Christ Church in Oxford, Charles Dodgson - better known by his pseudonym Lewis Carroll - dressed the six-year-old Alice Liddell in ragamuffin's clothes, draped the folds of cloth low enough to expose her bare chest, asked her to look deep into his eyes - and then snapped the camera's shutter. 
In The Alice Behind Wonderland, Simon Winchester uses the famous photograph of Alice - notorious for the child's alluring pose - as the launching pad for an energetic and penetrating... read more

Amid the hand-wringing over the death of "true journalism" in the Internet Age-the din of bloggers, the echo chamber of Twitter, the predominance of Wikipedia-veteran journalists and media critics Bill Kovach and Tom Rosenstiel have written a pragmatic guide to navigating the twenty-first century media terrain. Yes, old authorities are being dismantled, new ones created, and the very nature of knowledge has changed. But seeking the truth remains the purpose of journalism. How do we discern what is reliable? "Blur" provides a road m... read more

From Alan Bennett's Baffled at a Bookcase, to Lucy Mangan's Ten Library Rules, famous writers tell us all about how libraries are used and why they're important. Tom Holland writes about libraries in the ancient world, while Seth Godin describes what a library will look like in 2020. Lionel Shriver thinks books are the best investment, Hardeep Singh Kohli makes a confession and Julie Myerson remembers how her career began beside the shelves. Using memoir, history, polemic and some short stories too, The Library Book celebrates 'tha... read more

The Pen and the Stethoscope is a unique collection of fiction and non-fiction by doctor-writers that gives us a fascinating look behind the doctor's mask and gets inside the minds of those who deal with enormous existential issues and traumatic situations on a daily basis. It is through writing that many doctors have plumbed the depths and richness of their experience. This book takes a critical look at doctors' close observations on their working life.

Words Chosen Carefully brings together some of New Zealand's finest literary practitioners 15 writers and 15 literary critics - in discussions about each author's work, the nature of writing and the place of land, culture, belonging, society, family and art in their work.

Booker-winning novelist and one of Britain's foremost poets, Ben Okri is a passionate advocate of the written word. In "A Time for New Dreams", he breaks new ground in an unusual collection of linked essays, which address such diverse themes as childhood, self-censorship, the role of beauty, the importance of education and the real significance of the recent economic meltdown. Proving that 'true literature tears up the script' of how we see ourselves, "A Time for New Dreams" is provocative and thought-provoking. In an intriguing ma... read more

IN OTHER WORLDS: SF AND THE HUMAN IMAGINATION is Margaret Atwood's account of her relationship with the literary form we have come to know as 'science fiction'. This relationship has been lifelong, stretching from her days as a child reader in the 1940s, through her time as a graduate student at Harvard, where she worked on the Victorian ancestors of the form, and continuing as a writer and reviewer. This book brings together her three Ellman Lectures on 2010 - 'Flying Rabbits', which begins with Atwood's early rabbit superhero cre... read more

We all use grammar and punctuation every day, when we speak and when we write. Knowing a few basic rules can help us communicate more effectively.