Posts Tagged Non-FIction
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September 17, 2020 by Simon Sweetman
Chuck Palahniuk: Consider This
Consider This: Moments In My Writing Life After Which Everything Was Different Chuck Palahniuk Grand Central Publishing I am probably best described as a fairweather fan of Chuck Palahniuk – but certainly the visceral charge of catching up with his first few books (Fight Club, Survivor, Invisible Monsters and Choke) was akin to blasting my […]Archive
July 28, 2019 by Simon Sweetman
Alan Duff: A Conversation With My Country
A Conversation With My Country Alan Duff Penguin Alan Duff wrote one of New Zealand’s most important books – Once Were Warriors. It’s not a particularly well written book. But its timing was crucial. It meant something. Since then he repeated the formula until no one cared, perfected the Old Man Yells At Cloud-persona of the truly entitled, right-wing newspaper columnist […]Archive
May 9, 2019 by Simon Sweetman
Bret Easton Ellis: White
White Bret Easton Ellis Knopf; 1st Edition edition “Stop whining, take your medicine; grow the fuck up” – this is Bret Easton Ellis’ advice in his first effort at non-fiction; a book written to largely justify a series of individual tweets and then all-out Twitter brawls, a book that starts promisingly as actual memoir and then shifts just as surreally […]Archive
March 12, 2018 by Simon Sweetman
NZ Festival Writers & Readers: Francis Spufford & Elizabeth Knox Talk About God
Francis Spufford & Elizabeth Knox Talk About God Circa One, Circa Theatre Saturday, March 10 This Writers & Readers session featured a conversation about God between long-time correspondents Francis Spufford (UK) and Elizabeth Knox (NZ). It was, if you’ll pardon the pun, a spirited conversation. It was lively, funny and often irritating. For a start, […]Archive
September 23, 2017 by Simon Sweetman
Timothy Snyder: On Tyranny – Twenty Lessons From The Twentieth Century
On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons From The Twentieth Century Timothy Snyder Tim Duggan Books; 1st Edition Timothy Snyder, Professor of History at Yale Univeristy and permanent fellow at the Institute for Human Sciences in Vienna, breaks down big concepts into easy-to-digest bites here in a deliberately taut, concise set of fragment-essays that offers a geo-political, historical […]Archive
July 11, 2017 by Simon Sweetman
Joan Didion: South and West
South and West: From a Notebook Joan Didion Knopf; First Edition edition “We tell ourselves stories in order to live”, Didion famously wrote. Here you could imagine a wag in her publisher’s office suggesting “We sell stories in order to make a living” – for this slim volume, this set of notes “from a notebook” […]Archive
June 28, 2017 by Simon Sweetman
Gay Talese: The Voyeur’s Motel
The Voyeur’s Motel Gay Talese Grove Press Gay Talese’s best work helped to create the idea/l of “The New Journalism”; his memorable essay on Frank Sinatra for starters; his foray into being the method-actor-of-writing with the scandalous and heart-racing Thy Neighbor’s Wife; Honor Thy Father too…Archive
July 29, 2016 by Simon Sweetman
Scott McClanahan/Ricardo Cavolo: The Incantations of Daniel Johnston
The Incantations of Daniel Johnston Scott McClanahan (Text) Ricardo Cavolo (Artist) Two Dollar Radio Here Daniel Johnston’s life has been lovingly paid tribute to in a rather exquisitely made graphic novel/biography. The non-fiction graphic novel can at times get bogged down when trying to find room for text but still have something to say, image-wise, […]Archive
June 26, 2016 by Simon Sweetman
R.I.P. Michael Herr
Michael Herr has died. He was 76. He wrote the greatest book about war, one of the greatest non-fiction books you might ever read. I first came across Herr’s name – and extracts of his work – in the extra reading around the very best university class I took; perhaps the only one that stuck. […]Archive
June 20, 2016 by Simon Sweetman
Writers on Mondays: July-September 2016
Once again the popular Writers on Mondays sessions by Victoria Univeristy’s International Institute of Modern Letters will take place at Wellington’s Te Papa Museum (Level 4, Te Marae) from 12.15-1.15pm on Mondays from July 11 to September 26. The sessions are free and will feature writers in conversation discussing upcoming and already published works. It’s […]Archive
June 18, 2016 by Simon Sweetman