Books

A single word forms the title of Jake Arthur’s second poetry collection. But it’s an evocative one. The Tarot card pack, dating from the 15th century, was (and is) used by practitioners to draw conclusions about past, present, and future.

Your scepticism about such prophesying may be well founded, but you can cast it aside for a perusal – I’m going to avoid the word ‘reading’ – of Tarot, which comprises extraordinarily compelling poems based on this ancient card pack and its preoccupation with matters spiritual, amorous, and prosaic. We are going to get a reading, though, in the form of revelations and advice for a young man.

“We’re bequeathed youth / and slowly it’s repossessed / Like a reversed equity mortgage” from His Mien illustrates Arthur’s characteristic juxtaposition of images to make an observation.

I loved Lost Bantam, a ballad recounting Jim the sailor’s fate. Jim suffers “the hurdy-gurdy of his sealeglessness”, falls overboard and is stranded on an island. “He knew the map of the world was complete / But here he was on an oversight”. His encounter with another human being on the island leads to an encounter of a special kind, superbly rendered by our poet with language that simultaneously describes and conceals.

Of the many memorable poems here, one stands out as bound to give you shivers down your spine. This is Life hack, a mixture of prophecy and lament. It begins “Apt it would end in a fit of pique. / The world I mean.” and goes on to tell us what fate we may be headed for. But the language! It’s mind-blowingly beautiful in its wistful imagery, even when describing horrors. And Arthur concludes it with a despairing question for us all. This is our poet at his finest.

Jake Arthur has a PhD in Renaissance literature, and his erudition shows. But he’s not showing off. On the contrary, Tarot is an extraordinary display of the poet’s gift turned to devastatingly salutary and heart-wrenching effect.

Kitten by Olive Nuttall is a slice-of-life narrative about Rosemary, a trans woman in her early twenties trying to find her footing whilst battling grief and figuring out what she wants. Rosemary’s knee-jerk decision-making as she tries to feel something accelerates the pacing. Forced to revisit the place of her youth, she does all she can to navigate her past as she returns to Hamilton to be with her dying nana. She knows she’s doing the wrong thing most of the time, but just can’t seem to stop herself from doing it, like watching porn while her nana is dying in the next room, or getting into the car with the person who abused her. 

Rosemary is a vibrant character who feels as if she lives beyond the page, like the girl in one of your uni classes who was always late because she had to get an iced coffee and always had the shortest skirt on no matter the weather. Kitten packs personality, charm, and draws influence from internet culture, written with the same kind of self-aware lens you might find on an influencer’s post. Nuttall’s writing style is like a delicious mix of text messages, stream of consciousness, and perfectly encapsulated tweets as she delivers punchy, laugh-out-loud one-liners and poetic moments while exploring sexuality, abuse, and grief. 

Fuelled with a pink Y2K anime nostalgia, Rosemary dissociates on the internet as if repainting her youth, desperately searching for what her teenage years could have been. She navigates the cocktail mix of enjoyment and disgust at being subjected to the male gaze as she figures out how she feels in her skin. But as she dives into virtual realities, online dating, exploring BDSM, queer kinks, and her sexuality, she can’t ignore the glaring truth of the traumatic events that she has to confront. 

Kitten is sexy and clumsy, delving into the complexities of family dynamics, self-love, and forging a path forward while dealing with trauma.

Turbulent Threads was the perfect accompaniment to a languid weekend, of which lately, there seem to be few. The main protagonist stands tall on the cover with her pensive gaze and violin in hand with the promise of a tale to tell. Set in Victorian Dunedin in the last decade of the 19th century, Turbulent Threads was a fulfilling read that took me back to a different time – one so vivid, it was easy to imagine early life in New Zealand.

In Greer Gillies, author Karen McMillan has brought to life a young and spirited woman who is an accomplished seamstress and violinist, educated and wise yet simultaneously naive, sheltered, and inexperienced. Left to fend for herself at Larnach Castle, Greer’s talents and desires seem destined to crumble as a humble servant after the sudden death of her beloved father.

At Larnach Castle, Greer easily falls prey to the charms of a wily and handsome swindler but is blinded to the merits of a genuine suitor, patiently waiting in the wings. Her resilience tested time and again, she is spurred on by the dream of a different life where her talents, desires, and skills know no limits.

Greer finds hope in friendships and love as she dares to be different in a time when attitudes towards women were slowly starting to change, but not soon enough. Women were fighting for the right to vote, to be seen as worthy contributors and people in their own right. Turbulent Threads offers a transformative glimpse into an era of change.

In what became a one-sitting read, I found myself wanting a little bit more drama, but was still engrossed all the same by the muti-layered characters and detailed prose.

Turbulent Threads is a sweeping coming-of-age tale of a young woman succeeding in the face of adversity, forming enduring friendships, and forging a progressive path.

Still Is, the final collection by one of New Zealand’s most acclaimed poets, is redolent with recollection, nostalgia, and resignation. How wonderful that the medium of poetry is so uniquely suited to such moods! Here are 90 poems ranging widely over everything from washing lines to a night at the movies to nature in all its glory. Erudition comes near to obscuring meaning at times, but closer acquaintance brings rewards.

In these troubled times actually features hanging out washing! From such a banal-sounding activity, O’Sullivan muses about the messages that might be sent under cover of camisoles, vests, and shirts. “our taut lines / stretching their crisp goodwill / one city, one continent, to another…” represents a grand poetic vision – even if it’s a vision comically undermined by the last three words.

A note of resignation appears in No choice much, any longer in which the poet laments some of the challenges of his vocation and invokes nature and the change of seasons as a comfort. Indeed, nature is celebrated in several other poems, and we are reminded that O’Sullivan lived and gloried in Port Chalmers.

I am bound to revel in To be fair to the Sixties – tempted as I am by the capital letter that justifiably signals such an era – to a prose piece recounting a 21st at Makara Beach with friend Herb “who took a psychedelic starter as we did in those days” and in the company of “a junior lecturer who these days would be cancelled”. O’Sullivan gifts these words to the one of the party left standing: “Silence is poetry bareback, without the horses”.

The National Network gets a going over with Life on air, for example giving O’Sullivan the opportunity to catalogue those birds whose songs are sacrosanct.

Finally, we have The obituarist, our poet’s wry comment on what may be written about him on his death. Vincent O’Sullivan can take comfort from his literary legacy: he’s no longer with us, yet he still is.

Thea is the central character and narrator of this work. She sets the tone and mood of it in the following passage: “I am on maternity leave, which I seem to have taken to with the spirit of an angsty chihuahua.” A vet who specialises in large animal work, she has a husband, two children, and friends with their own troubles too.

She is struggling with priorities, and her tale relates an intense strife to maintain roles, all too often in the face of male condescension. It may not be a fresh complaint, but here it is enlivened by a pervading contrasting of Thea’s work as a vet with her other work in the domestic and family arena. She’s busy palpating rams, enquiring after a bull, and euthanising an elderly cat on the one hand, while contending with piles of laundry, a testy husband, and demanding children on the other.

That’s all in the Before section. The After is dominated by the eponymous ash of the title. Something has erupted – and it’s not just the mountain. The metaphor of disturbance pervades the narrative from now on. There is growing impatience with the men who run the veterinary clinic she works for. The clinic is operating remotely, and the husband is working from home. The tension is palpable.

Interspersed through the book are texts created from other sources. These lend an esoteric aspect that some readers will struggle with. A lengthy notes section acknowledges them.

Intelligence is supposed to be an advantage, but author Louise Wallace makes it sadly clear that intelligence encompassing an awareness of a woman’s place in things and its consequences can only lead to frustration and anger. How did women manage in earlier times? Ah, that can be learned from the musty books purchased at op shops by Thea’s mother-in-law and left handily about the place.

Ash will make angry women angrier. Those of us not yet angry may become aware that eruption is a possibility and, in the face of personal reality grown mountainous, even welcome.

Author Liza Frank states in her introduction that Everyday Folklore: An almanac for the ritual year is “Not your traditional almanac in that it doesn’t provide the times of the tides or the phases of the moon. It does, however, include information about each day that will help you to navigate your way through the year from New Year’s Day to New Year’s Eve regardless of what the year actually is.”

The almanac begins with a folklore key that can be tied to any day of the year, spanning a range of animal, food, plant, and weather lore. Plus, apotropaic magic and the supernatural, calendar customs, celebrations or festivals, competitions, divination, fixed dates or anniversaries, love, luck, the moon and stars, moveable dates, remedies, rituals, and rules. 

The almanac is split into months, each with five categories alongside it: birthstones, flowers, star signs, full moon names, and shopping lists. The shopping list blends everyday things alongside what sounds like ingredients for spells. For instance, the month of June has St John’s wort, lemon-scented soap, sickles and candles, hemp seeds, and nine keys.

Each day of the month includes a snapshot of folklore and a suggestion of something you can do. For example, the 25th of April mentions Anzac biscuits as part of Australia and New Zealand’s food lore. Or the 20th of September simply says to take note of the weather today, tomorrow, and the day after, as from that you’ll be able to predict the weather for October, November, and December. Or that the 27th of November is Pins and Needles Day and what you should do as part of the remedy. 

A resource you can reuse throughout the years, Everyday Folklore: An almanac for the ritual year doesn’t require you to use it daily or even monthly. It’s a way you can brighten your day, learn something, and perhaps even try something new like a chant to reveal who your true love is.

Pav Deconstructed: Pavlova through the eyes of everyday Kiwis is literally an anthology of all things oriented towards the humble pav.

Authors Jac Jenkins and Kathy Derrick – two serious pavlova aficionados who set up their own publishing company, Pavlova Press, to get Pav Deconstructed out into the world – give rise to the iconic dessert. Whether pride-of-place centrepiece of the Christmas table, or standard fare as a housewarming-cum-barbeque offering, wherever it appears, however it’s consumed and experienced, pavlova has a rich history and argue-worthy origins (it’s Kiwi, of course!).

If it’s about a pav mishap, or where family and festivities collide, Pav Deconstructed offers a unique trove of tales where pavlova has played its part. There’s the cat who got the cream, the priest and the pavlova, and the first pav on Mars. With its fruity and pastel-pink cover, Pav Deconstructed is like a walk through the bizarre.

For the cheesy at heart, there’s an included fridge magnet that screams: “You’re the cream on my Pavlova.” In Pav Deconstructed, the art and the kitsch intertwine – pavlova, poetry, pop art, and consumption – in a weird and wacky way. There’s even a song sheet, should you feel inclined to whip out your ukelele for an impromptu serenade to your next pavlova. Whether it’s pavlova the colour, pavlova the style of dress, or pavlova the cocktail, it’s all in there.

There’s no rhyme or reason to many of the stories shared. Some will regale you with the fate of the common pav: down the loo for one, just for it to stubbornly resist and float in all its meringue-like glory. Another will tell you the time that adding aquafaba spelt disaster. Seemingly everyone has an opinion on the pav. Soft, gooey, and fluffy, with the perfect amount of meringue on top… so perfect in fact, you may just want to sing a song to it.

In Pav Deconstructed, Jenkins and Derrick plunge headfirst into pavlova, convinced it is more than just a dessert. “It brings people together,” they say.

Set six months after Bennett’s last novel Better the Blood, Return to Blood finds the series’ heroine Hana Westerman living a quiet life in her childhood home of Tata Bay.

Since her last adventure, Hana’s left the police force and is trying to reconnect with the extended family she left behind. But while she may not be a police officer anymore, it is not long before she is dragged into a new mystery.

Return to Blood is such a great read and has everything I love in a sequel: more thrills, more fun, and most importantly, a greater sense of danger. This time, Hana does not have the cops backing her up, and instead finds herself relying on her wits and resources to bring the book’s killer to justice.

Just like in Better the Blood, the characters make the book a joy to read. Not only do they come to life as if leaping off the page, but the ones we already know and love have evolved and grown since I last met them.

Once again, Hana is the star of the show, this time evoking hints of Tom Selleck in Magnum, P.I. as she runs a parallel investigation alongside the police. And once again, we get to spend time with the book’s suspects and see them as more than just villains. We see them as people – real, genuine people. Bennett’s use of prose is as impressive as ever, and Hana’s latest story keeps me glued to the pages till the very end.  

One of my favourite aspects of Return to Blood is that we don’t only spend time with the bad guys, but with their victims as well. Getting to know them as people and then discovering what happens to them eventually is like a real punch to the gut and draws me closer into Hana’s world.

If you love crime drama and need something to distract you this winter, I cannot recommend this book enough.

Set in Wellington at the end of WWI against the backdrop of the Spanish flu, the fictional novel Kiss of Death follows Lorna Dragana McDougal, one of Wellington’s few female solicitors. Her life is not easy. Besides raising her little sister, she is constantly having to prove herself worthy in a society dominated by men.

I have to admit, as a man living a cushy life in 2024, I simply cannot relate to what a woman in 1918 must have had to go through. If you were a woman in a male-dominated industry, life was gonna be hard. Looked down on, disrespected, and underpaid… that’s the order of the day. But Lorna rises above the abuse she suffers, managing to come out on top more than just a few times.

One of the best parts of the book for me was Lorna herself. While sharp-witted and intelligent protagonists are nothing new, it is not often we find one who has the literal world rallying against her. I really enjoyed her story and found myself wanting to spend more time with her. My favourite part was when she is forced to team up with police detectives who see her as more of a hindrance than a help. Of course, she succeeds in proving her worth all the same.

The story also deserves praise, and while I found it a little slow to begin with, it was not long before I started warming up to the narrative and where it was taking me. While I understand that authors must set up their main characters and the worlds they inhabit, in this case I would have much preferred to just dive into the main plot. That may be more of a ‘me’ problem, but I thought I should at least mention it.

Apart from that, this is a great little historical legal thriller that will definitely scratch the itch anyone has for a good mystery with a likeable and fun heroine. If you see this at your local bookshop, I highly recommend it.

If you could describe just one novel as having a ‘fly-on-the-wall perspective’ Smoko by F.E. Beyer would have to be it.

Many years ago, I worked for Sky City first as a waiter, then as a bartender. The hours were long, the pay was bad, and the supervisors and managers were insufferable (from my perspective). But it was my first job, so what could I do but grin and bear it? Reading Smoko brought me back to those days when I was a fresh-faced kid who just needed a job.

The book follows a newly minted postal worker named Ed as he navigates the perilous world of mail couriers. From putting up with a power-mad supervisor to avoiding the perils of office politics, Ed encounters it all, and all I could do was nod my head and smile the whole way.

One of the reasons I loved Smoko so much is that Ed is someone we can all relate to. Essentially, he is us – all of us. We see ourselves in him and understand what he is going through. We have all had to suffer through that one boss who rules over us like a tyrant, or that one workmate who drones on and never stops. Beyer pulls no punches. There are no airs and graces here; he tells it like it is, and it is precisely that kind of writing that keeps the story grounded and relatable.

And while Beyer’s writing is great, for me, it is the characters who bring the book to life. From Mavis the aforementioned tyrant, to Ross the outspoken rebel, all the way to Johnno the company veteran, each character made an impression and I cared about all of them.

These elements all add up together to make Smoko a must-read title that I think everyone will relate to. A quick little read that took me back to my early working days, and a great start to 2024.

Many moons ago, I remember the impending installation of the Len Lye windwand in New Plymouth being met with a certain amount of mockery, derision, and a rolling discourse from the locals that it was not, in fact, a work of art. Nowadays, the bendy sculpture is hailed as an icon of the city, a must-see for tourists, and a familiar sight on the coastal walkway.

Art in all its glory makes everyone ripe to opine. Ultimately though, what is art is highly subjective in the end. In Ziggle, author Rebecca Fawkner, who has worked at the Govett-Brewster Art Gallery| Len Lye Centre in New Plymouth for 20 years, has created a zany and comprehensive activity book with 65 Len Lye inspired ways to be an artist. Fawkner brings together synergised activities that follow Len throughout his life, each activity paying homage to the way Len expressed himself through art, and whose fascination with the melding of art and science, light and colour, and kinetic sculptures abounds throughout.

My son and I enjoyed the Exquisite Corpse activity (bizarre name, I know), based on a drawing game Surrealist artists played together to generate new art ideas. In a nutshell, you fold a piece of paper into three: one for the head, one for the body, and one for legs. You should only see the section you are drawing and then swap alternatively with your buddy. You have no concept of what each other has drawn and the ensuing creature is a whole new piece of art altogether.

Ziggle is cool, especially for those young creatives who might otherwise be tempted by a digital world. The activities are simple yet intelligent and experimental.

At the end, there’s a reminder that if you get stuck on creating, think like Len and trust the artist part of yourself and just start doing. To leave you with a quote from Len himself, “I encourage you to untie mental shoelaces so your thoughts can go barefoot and trip the light fantastic.”

“Do you know your bones?” is the central question posed in this collection of poetry and prose. Knowing your bones is the Māori way of phrasing the question of identity – of knowing who you are. For Māori, that involves knowing your family whakapapa and, indeed, entire iwi history.

For author Stacey Teague, who has not grown up in te aō Maori, the question looms large now that she has returned to Aotearoa after a lengthy absence. The opening section Hoki (to go back, to retrace) sets us up for a poetic exploration of the writer’s way back.

The journey is fraught. To begin with, her mother is referred to as “plastic”, a clearly derogatory descriptor, meaning a Māori who does not know te reo, tikanga, or their whakapapa. “A fire inside the house that no one acknowledges.” As she turns to relatives to learn more, she struggles with her non-Maori appearance and what others tell her: “You’re not Māori enough”.

The pain and occasional ambivalence she feels are captured in statements such as “it’s always the end of the world / and I’m a character I don’t recognise”. Pounamu helps: “let it beat against your sternum as you walk”.

The section Paratiki, in which all poems have te reo titles, has me busy with my dictionary. I appreciate the multi-meaning of some of the words, a characteristic of the language that emerges frequently and adds to the richness and complexity of this work.

Teague’s near final section is the most satisfying. It is set in Waitomo, in the area of her iwi Ngāti Maniopoto. She is there with her family to visit her marae, and to meet “Aunty”, who will show them the graves of her ancestors. Our writer is close to the object of her personal journey, to her deepfelt desire to be like these ancestors, to embody their best characteristics. “I am still learning”, she declares. A mantra for us all.