Tuesday, June 03, 2008

A TREASURE TROVE IN MY MAIL TODAY

Among the treasure:
SPORT 36
New Zealand New Writing - Winter 2008
Edited & published by Fergus Barrowman
$19.95 - Publication date 13 June.

What a joy when twice a year SPORT appears in the post box. This issue contains a host of poetry and fiction from contributors yet to publish their first book, along with work by some of our most experienced writers, an interview with Barbara Anderson plus an extract from her autobiography, the complete script of Charlotte Simmonds' Burnt Coffee presently playing in Wellington, a frank hospital memoir by Trish Hall, and much much more.
And in a nice touch editor Barrowman has dedicated this issue of SPORT to the memory of Robin Dudding who for so many years dominated the world of literary magazine publishing in New Zealand. Dudding would have been delighted, he was a stickler for the highest standard of design and production values, and this publication is a superb piece of publishing, it looks and feels like a chunky paperback rather than a magazine or journal. Super cover art by Victoria Birkinshaw too. Great value at $19.95.

THE NEW YORKER
May 26, 2008.

Filled it seems as always with gems, I did have a quick peek over lunch, read a very funny piece by Woody Allen on dining alone at The Ivy in Beverly Hills, and a great piece on hangovers by author Joan Acocella. The rest will have to wait until after dinner.

Love the cover of the totally naked man going through airport security.



NEW ZEALAND LISTENER
June 7-13, 2008

Super three page story by Paula Morris on Emily Perkins and her new novel, NOVEL ABOUT MY WIFE, (which I started reading last night and am hooked), along with reviews of IS SHE STILL ALIVE by Tessa Duder, BREATH by Tim Winton, THE ENCHANTRESS OF FLORENCE by Salman Rushdie and a rave review by Hamisk Keith for RITA ANGUS: AN ARTISTS LIFE by Jill Trevelyan, which he describes as one of our best artist biographies - ever. There is also a piece by historian author Jock Phillips and a host of other arts related stuff as well.

THE FOOD OF MOROCCO
THE FOOD OF SPAIN

Two utterly gorgeous cookbooks from the clever folk at Murdoch Books, at Millers Point in Sydney and Putney in London.

More about these when I have read them and made some of the recipes from each.
Meantime, I'm drooling just looking at the pictures.
Some days the mail is a lot bettre than others! Today was one of them. My thanks to all those who contributed to my pleasure.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

This weeks Listener also addressed some of the reported issues of regional bias in art review with David Eggleton's piece which was nice to see.

annamcliver said...

hi, my names anna
I'm doing a research assignment on charlotte simmonds and it would be extremely useful for me to get a my hands on the complete script of burnt coffee. Could you please tell me how to get a hold of this magazine or would you be willing to be extremely lovely and post the pages or even email them to me?
my email address is annamcliver@gmail.com
thank you for your time
Anna McLiver