Literature & Essays

According to Plato, fools do not strive for the beautiful and the good, for divine bliss, because they are satisfied with themselves. The wise do not strive for it either because they already have those things. Only the people in between, half-way between fools and the wise, you and I and all the others waiting patiently here in a traffic jam for the next green light, are vulnerable to the arrow of Eros. On Love and Death is a witty and inspiring meditation on the erotic link between the two great forces of human existence. Patrick S

In 1991, at the age of forty-eight, writer and film critic David Denby re-enrolled in two core courses in western civilisation at Columbia University, New York. This is his glorious celebration of writers and philosophers whose works

In Alan Coren's world, children, threatened by Josef Mengele's poisoned chickens, still turn to Winston Churchill to save them from school dinners, Clark Gable snuggles, as ever, against the bristly chest of his lover Errol Flynn (despite having been captured on video by the entire British delegation of a Hong Kong sales conference), and, though the NHS budget has soared to record heights, hysterectomies throughout the queendom continue to be performed by enthusiastic poulterers.As for Coren himself, despite bearing the distinguish... read more

Thirty years on, Granta remains the world's most prestigious English-language magazine of new writing.

As long as people have been writing, they have been writing about nature. But nature - as we know it - is changing. Economic migration, overpopulation and - most significantly - climate change are shaping the natural world into something unfamiliar. Instead of providing a respite from the urban landscape, the natural world now reflects our mistakes; our abuse; our politics. As our conception and experience of nature changes, so too does the way we write about it. "Granta 102" will be a seminal collection, addressing lost worlds, va... read more

The One True God, Allah At present, in Britain, there are at least 200 indigenous active terrorist cells being monitored by the Security Service MI5, with 4,000 British Muslims considered to be a threat to national security. How did we arrive at this state of affairs? A remarkable investigation by Richard Watson into the origins

Four years after Mothers, Granta 104 sets its sights on fathers. Look out for Hisham Matar on his father, who was kidnapped while living in Egypt and imprisoned by Muammar al-Gaddafi in Libya; Helen Epstein on 'fatherhood' within the prisons of San Francisco; a dictator who has styled himself as the Father of the Nation; Rawi Hage on Beirut, as seen through his father's eyes; becoming a father again in middle age; and, Junot Diaz on Latin American 'Big Men'. It also features writers, including Margaret Atwood and Ali Smith, on thei... read more

One of our best-known and best-loved literary critics turns his attention to the more bizarre areas of literature in this miscellany of fact and trivia. Which author had the heaviest brain? Whose manuscript was inadvertently used to light a fire? What was the original title of 1984? This is the ideal anthology of useless information for all literary devotees.

"Intelligence, compassion and artistry are alive and well in America."--Donna Seaman, "Booklist" The winner of honors from the National Book Critics Circle, "Publishers Weekly, Poets & Writers," and others, and acclaimed by readers and reviewers nationwide, the Pushcart Prize series continues to be a testament to the flourishing of American fiction, essays, memoirs, and poetry in our small presses. First published 2009.

NOW APPROACHING ITS THIRD DECADE, "The Pushcart Prize is one of the grand institutions of the American literary scene, but it never fails to surprise, delight, and provoke readers. The short stories, essays, and poems are selected from literary magazines and small presses across the country, and represent the most exciting and innovative writing in America today. Over two hundred distinguished contributing editors helped pick more than sixty selections reprinted from scores of presses in "Pushcart Prize XXIX. An index to the series... read more

This venerable annual has perfected its own brand of DIY publishing: have the editors of little magazines and presses send you their favorite piece from the past year year, then, with the help of friends, cull your own favorites and, with donations from other friends, publish an anthology. Henderson, a longtime Hamptons resident and Pushcart Press founder, has used this formula successfully for 30 years, and the results remain at the very least solid and entertaining, if predictable. At its core are the short stories that, this yea... read more

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From Silence to Voice portrays the early 'silence' of Maori in New Zealand literature - characterised in caricature by colonial writers, then in increasingly sympathetic portraits from the likes of Frank Sargeson, Janet Frame and Noel Hilliard - through to the new and challenging works presented by Maori writers themselves.

Robin Hyde, journalist, poet, novelist, war correspondent (from China, in 1938) and committed political figure, was central to the movements and debates of a volatile period in New Zealand society. As a writer Hyde was not afraid to draw on her own experience of the dangers of new-found freedoms for women. This first critical study of the diverse writings of Robin Hyde includes new information on her life and work and studies that enlarge our understanding of a courageous yet vulnerable figure and the vitality, richness and wit of ... read more

The first critical study to investigate at length how masculine subjectivities are represented in contemporary New Zealand fiction. Notoriously self-contained and private, Kiwi men are often reluctant to talk about their personal feelings and embarrassed at the thought that any private emotional difficulties could be exposed to critical examination. One must go to their imaginative literature to make contact with the reality that underlies the (often calculatedly deceptive) surface. In his investigation of these issues, Fox demonst... read more

Provides a guide to the law of research. This book is suitable for anyone working in New Zealand's research community, whether in public sector research organisations, administering research enterprises or working with human research subjects.

You know all those Joe Bennett newspaper columns you loved this year and wish you’d keptT The ones that made you laugh out loud over your breakfastT The ones in which he said just what you’d been thinking – only so much bettero The ones that inveighed against jet-skis, praised coffee, took a swipe at Paul Holmes, loved dogs, defended the English language . . . Here they are – plus the ones he writes for other papers that you never get to see – in his seventh collection. Buy i... read more

An examination of the state of NZ Literature, from a range of academic & other writers.

Shortlisted for the Victorian Premier's Prize for Non-Fiction in 1996 Helen Garner writes about everything from visiting the morgue to getting the sack for teaching her schoolkids about sex.

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