Literature: Texts

Esteemed editor Ross Calman (Ngati Raukawa, Ngati Toa, Kai Tahu) further revises the Reed Book of Maori Mythology to blend story, source and commentary into a captivating collection. Published in a distinguished hardback, this work will provide a valuable source of reading and re...ference for years to come.
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From the writer who brought you Tinderbox, a book about a woman trying to write a book, comes Things I Learned at Art School, a memoir by a woman who has never kept a diary. Until now. Part memoir, part essay collection, Megan Dunn's ingenious, moving, hilariously personal Things... I Learned at Art School tells the story of her early life and coming-of-age in New Zealand in the '70s, '80s and '90s. From her parents' split-up to her Smurf collection, from the mean girls at school to the mermaid movie Splash!, from her work in strip clubs and massage parlours (and one steak restaurant) to the art school of the title, this is a dazzling, killer read from a contemporary voice of comic brilliance. Chapters include- The Ballad of Western Barbie; A Comprehensive List of All the Girls Who Teased Me at Western Heights High School, What They Looked Like and Why They Did It; On Being a Redhead; Life Begins at Forty- That Time My Uncle Killed Himself; Good Girls Write Memoirs, Bad Girls Don't Have Time; Videos I Watched with My Father; Things I Learned at Art School; CV of a Fat Waitress; Nine Months in a Massage Parlour Called Belle de Jour; Various Uses for a Low Self-esteem; Art in the Waiting Room and Submerging Artist. Praise for Tinderbox- Tinderbox is deadpan hilarious and Megan Dunn is a comic genius. - Susanna Andrew, Metro Megan Dunn's wry, whip-smart memoir about Fahrenheit 451, literary ambition & the last days of Borders Bookstores is funny & insightful as hell. Like Kathy Acker meets Sue Townsend. The read of the summer! ... already one of my favourite New Zealand books. - Hera Lindsay Bird Witty, highly entertaining. - Philip Matthews, Stuff Tinderbox is such a shape-shifter, such a sui generis work, that to call it a memoir does it a disservice ... Dunn's voice is hard to resist - sardonic, brazen, sagacious - recalling, in places, Nora Ephron, John Jeremiah Sullivan, and Maggie Nelson. - James Cook, Review 31
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Following the success of The Katherine Mansfield Cookbook, the Katherine Mansfield Birthplace Society is pleased to offer a new publication Woman in Love: Katherine Mansfield's Love Letters, edited by Nicola Saker with a foreword by Richard Curtis (Four Weddings and a Funeral, No...tting Hill, Love Actually, Yesterday) and Scarlett Curtis (Feminists Don't Wear Pink & Other Lies, It's Not OK to Feel Blue & Other Lies). Mansfield's short stories are loved by readers around the world. Her letters also showcase the shining quality of her writing, her powers of observation and her humour. This collection of 'love letters' casts its net wide, capturing love in its many forms. There are letters to lovers, but also to family, friends, and fellow creatives, including Virginia Woolf. The letters paint an intimate picture of Mansfield's relationships and capture her love of nature, art, the details of daily life, and Life itself - always with a capital 'L'.
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Lucy Mangan's first foray into fiction is a witty update of the classic Diary of a Provincial Lady.

Nicole Titihuia Hawkins' first collection, Whai, introduces the voice of a strong and assertive poet, who is unashamedly herself. With poems centred around whanau, mana wahine, and love, Whai explores what it means to be Maori in a colonised space. These poems are playful, staunc...h, vulnerable and at times utterly hilarious.
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