Liz Breslin
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Isn’t it beyond words: Essie Summers
Between the covers with Aotearoa’s Queen of Romance. IN THE BEGINNING WAS ESSIE. ESSIE SUMMERS. THE MOST FAMOUS NEW ZEALAND NOVELIST YOU’VE MAYBE NEVER HEARD OF. TO VERIFY THIS CLAIM, IN A HIGHLY SCIENTIFIC SURVEY, FOR A PERIOD OF A WEEK, I ASKED EVERYONE I KNEW OR MET WHAT THEY THOUGHT OF ESSIE SUMMERS AND
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There’s a poem in that
Three poets, three bikes, and one noisy bird. Liz Breslin revisits Rail:lines, a pedal-powered poetry tour of the Otago Central Rail Trail. MOST PEOPLE DON’T LIKE MOST POEMS BECAUSE MOST POEMS DON’T LIKE MOST PEOPLE. THOUGH THIS IS AN APPROXIMATION OF SOMETHING POET ADRIAN MITCHELL ONCE SAID, APPROXIMATELY 50 YEARS AGO AND 19,000 KILOMETRES AWAY,
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The greatest outdoors
The 1964 guide to the sweet campgrounds of the South Island. IF NEW ZEALANDERS HAVE A SUPERPOWER, IT’S THE ERECTING, AND DECONSTRUCTING, OF CAMPING INFRASTRUCTURE WITH MILITARY PRECISION. EVERY SUMMER, THEY USE THIS POWER TO SPEND SEVERAL WEEKS LIVING ON A DIET THAT IS 70% SAUSAGES AND 30% FRUJU ICEBLOCKS, DROPPING MANUS OFF WATERLOGGED WHARF
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Book Review: Is This the Promised Land? by Peter Simpson
“DRIVING ONE DAY WITH THE FAMILY OVER THE HILLS FROM BRIGHTON OR TAIERI MOUTH TO THE TAIERI PLAIN,” WRITES COLIN MCCAHON, “I FIRST BECAME AWARE OF MY OWN PARTICULAR GOD, PERHAPS AN EGYPTIAN GOD, BUT STANDING FAR FROM THE SUN OF EGYPT IN THE OTAGO COLD.” This is a sensibility that drove McCahon’s life work
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Hide and seek
Turns out there are many ways to be cryptic, even if you’re not a crossword. Some words don’t mean what you think they mean. Cryptic is an adjective that usually refers to something having a meaning that is obscure – hence the deep and frustrating seam of hard-to-decipher puns mined by the sadists who design
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Canada Girl
IT’S HIS LEGS SHE NOTICES FIRST, UNDER THOSE SHORT, SHORT SHORTS. BEYOND THE LEGS, STREAKED SKINS HANG STRETCHED ON THE WIRE FENCE ON THE BOUNDARY OF HIS PROPERTY. EASY ENOUGH TO FIND IN THE END. SHE DROVE INTO TOWN, STOPPED AT THE SHOP. ASKED FOR BILL. SECOND ON THE LEFT, FOLLOW THE ROAD FOR ABOUT
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Second hand news
The 1964 guide to the top op shops of the south. WALK IN WARDROBE – QUEENSTOWN One of the very few upsides to living in a region where people move away all of the time is that those people often leave great clothes behind. Queenstown’s Walk in Wardrobe is like rummaging through your mate’s closet