New Zealand Listener

New Zealand Listener is the country’s most respected general interest magazine, bringing you a wide variety of news, stories, columns, reviews, plus TV listings, every week.

New Zealand Listener3 min read
The Hard Question
In my English class, my white teacher asked me, “Do you know your language?” The question emerged from a discussion about New Zealand’s history of systematically oppressing Māori people through linguistic oppression. Flummoxed, I responded, “Yes”, as
New Zealand Listener1 min read
Bright Lines
For Competition No 68, we asked for ahaiku about the government’s new menu for school lunches. FINALISTS: School lunch numbers crunch Corp flavour curries favour school of thought import ‒Susan Hall, Oamaru Cheap chicken dishes Sitting palely on t
New Zealand Listener9 min read
Mud Puppies
My parents farmed our Taranaki dairy farm from the early 1950s in the way Andrea Graves describes in “Stuck in the mud” (November 2). The property lies adjacent to the Egmont National Park and the climate is harsh, marked by high rainfall and icy win
New Zealand Listener1 min read
Masthead
New Zealand Listener Te Kaiwhakarongo Aotearoa Editor Kirsty Cameron Chief Subeditor Geoff Cumming Managing Editor Ruth Brown Art Director Derek Ward Books Editor Mark Broatch Entertainment & Arts Editor Russell Baillie Television Editor Fiona Ra
New Zealand Listener1 min read
10 Quick Questions
❑ Muscles ❑ Engineering ❑ Poisons ❑ Hair and scalp ❑ 13 ❑ 122 ❑ 144 ❑ 220 ❑ Open ❑ Give in ❑ Waver ❑ Hurt ❑ Cava ❑ Prosecco ❑ Sekt ❑ Beaujolais ❑ Led Zeppelin ❑ Deep Purple ❑ Pink Floyd ❑ Lynyrd Skynyrd ❑ Vietnam ❑ Thailand ❑ Ca
New Zealand Listener3 min read
Fever Dream
Since the wheel of magazine fortune spun me a deadline that’s just before election day, I decided my best approach for this was to make election-related but ultimately irrelevant and invariably incorrect predictions that will be quickly forgotten in
New Zealand Listener4 min read
Up In Smoke
It’s hard to think of a minister who has inflicted more damage on their own government in its inaugural year than Associate Health Minister Casey Costello. With Labour still licking its wounds, the Greens obsessed with internal troubles and Te Pāti M
New Zealand Listener3 min read
A Time For Cold-eyed Clarity
Waiting in the cinema to watch The Apprentice, a movie about Donald Trump, I sat through an interminable stream of advertisements. It was an assault on the senses, not only because of the volume, but because the ads were moronic. They were visually c
New Zealand Listener3 min read
Trust Us
Something never to do: bowl up to a house you used to live in and boggle at the atrocious taste of the new occupants. This was the experience of the family that once owned Sudbury Hall, now converted into a children’s theme park by the National Trust
New Zealand Listener4 min read
Prime Movers
Who was the best prime minister in New Zealand history? Who was the worst? And who coasted along in the middle, not doing very much but not making mistakes? The good, the bad, the indifferent … Such compilations are a popular sport in the United Stat
New Zealand Listener5 min read
No End In Sight
Aucklander Mike Seawright travels to Ukraine often enough that he is used to the nightly noise that freaks out newcomers. On his latest mission, he has just left Kyiv, where Russian ballistic missiles and guided bombs are exploding nightly. “Every ni
New Zealand Listener1 min read
Finishing Touches
Toi Te Mana: An Indigenous History of Māori Art has arrived, the most comprehensive survey of mahi toi ever created. A weighty 600 pages richly illustrated, it sweeps through the centuries, covering the creations of long-gone tūpuna right up to tho
New Zealand Listener8 min read
Being Wichteled
This is quite strange. I am about to interview the journalist and critic Diana Wichtel and I realise I don’t have the foggiest idea how to do it. She wrote for the Listener for 36 years. It seems somehow presumptuous to now be interviewing her for th
New Zealand Listener4 min read
Following The Glow
THE ELEMENTS OF MARIE CURIE: How the Glow of Radium Lit a Path for Women in Science By Dava Sobel (Fourth Estate, $38.99) The world is not short of biographies of Marie Curie, but American science writer Dava Sobel has taken anew approach. In her en
New Zealand Listener3 min read
Shock And Awe
THE CHTHONIC CYCLE by Una Cruickshank (Te Herenga Waka University Press, $35) The Chthonic Cycle is a bold move for a first book, a collection of interlocking antic and anarchic essays sparking off the alluvial gravel of existential angst. It was w
New Zealand Listener3 min read
Doing A Disservice
THE ENEMY WITHIN: The human cost of state surveillance in Aotearoa/ New Zealand by Maire Leadbeater (Potton & Burton, $39.99) Maire Leadbeater has spent her life on the wrong side of the political tracks. Her parents were communists (although her m
New Zealand Listener1 min read
Short Cuts
Out on Nov 20 is WONDERS OF THE DEEP (Simon & Schuster). It’s a series of treasures highlighted by Mensun Bound, who discovered Shackleton’s ship Endurance, and writer Mark Frary. These are valuables found on shipwrecks across 5000 years, from the an
New Zealand Listener3 min read
Twin Peaks
1. IN TOO DEEP by Lee Child & Andrew Child (Bantam) Reacher’s back 2. THE HIDDEN GIRL by Lucinda Riley & Harry Whittaker (Macmillan) Can you change destiny? 3. HERE ONE MOMENT by Liane Moriarty (Macmillan) Predicting your fate 4. THE WAITING b
New Zealand Listener3 min read
Night Moves
GOODNIGHT TOKYO by Atsuhiro Yoshida (Europa Editions, $36.99) ‘There’s a certain style of writing known as the serial short story – a collection of short stories that at first glance appear to be separate tales, but which are actually connected to
New Zealand Listener2 min read
Into The Sediment
by Rachel Kushner (Jonathan Cape, $38) Rachel Kushner is a mighty writer of fierce intelligence but whose novels I generally find less compelling and engaging than they are instructive and aspirational. Reading Creation Lake, Kushner’s fourth work o
New Zealand Listener3 min read
Waxing Lyrical
by Richard von Sturmer (Spoor Books, $38) This is one of those very rare collections that is at once thoughtful, coherent and very engaging ‒ calming us in an uncertain world. Von Sturmer, once a punk performer and lyricist for Kiwi band Blam Blam B
New Zealand Listener2 min read
Round Trip
by Samantha Harvey (Vintage, $26) In a day, the International Space Station swings around the Earth 16 times. Space tries to rid its inhabitants of the notion of days – “it takes their 24 hours and throws 16 days and nights at them in return.” Orbit
New Zealand Listener5 min read
Watch This Space
GETTY IMAGES Haven’t we been here before? One could wonder why, having presented Wonders of the Solar System (2010) and The Planets (2019), Professor Brian Cox would go back for another dip with the new five-part BBC documentary series Solar System.
New Zealand Listener2 min read
First Night Fever
Directed by Jason Reitman The ground-breaking sketch show Saturday Night Live has amused American viewers for 50 seasons since its debut on October 11, 1975. It’s been the launchpad for generations of comedy stars – 21st-century alumni of the show i
New Zealand Listener2 min read
Room With A View
Directed by Robert Zemeckis A 30-year reunion of director Robert Zemeckis and his Forrest Gump stars Tom Hanks and Robin Wright should elicit excitement, even if you’re just in it for the nostalgia. But while Forrest ran across America, Here stays r
New Zealand Listener3 min read
The Punks Of Jazz
In the rearview telescoping of time, it could seem our 1980s were just Flying Nun, some reggae, polished mainstream pop and a few noisy guitar bands. But to the far left was a vibrant, experimental scene in Auckland around composer/guitarist Ivan Zag
New Zealand Listener1 min read
Soft Sounds
by Fazerdaze Now living in Ōtautahi Christchurch, Amelia Murray (aka Fazerdaze) delivered in 2017 her excellent debut album Morningside – named for the Auckland suburb – on which the classy, mostly upbeat guitar-driven pop belied a downward arc of i
New Zealand Listener4 min read
Elementary, My Dear Arthur
I’ve had a huge, weird crush on Sherlock Holmes since I was about 9 or 10. My favourite story is The Hound of the Baskervilles, which I have read more times than I can count. Although I love Sherlock Holmes, I have always felt less warmly about his c
New Zealand Listener4 min read
Tv Picks Of The Week
What becomes of the deported? Screening: TVNZ 1, 7.30pm Streaming: TVNZ+ The 501s: An Inside Story goes behind a decade’s headlines about Australia’s contentious deportation policy and its repercussions for New Zealand. The Aussies are typically se
New Zealand Listener3 min read
Tv Films
Die Unendliche Geschichte TVNZ 2, 7pm The special effects were ropey even at the time but this German-made – by Das Boot director Wolfgang Petersen – kids’ fantasy film became an international hit and left its mark on 80s pop culture. That title cer
New Zealand Listener4 min read
A Game-changer For Diabetics
These are exciting times for diabetes care. Dramatic progress has been made in the past 10 years and it is starting to make a real difference for the more than 320,000 New Zealanders estimated to have the condition. “It has been a revolution, particu
New Zealand Listener2 min read
Childlike Visions
We all know the Adagio, and the violin concerto is performed often, but the work composed by Samuel Barber I love to hear is Knoxville: Summer of 1915, for voice and orchestra. Its lullaby sway expresses a lot: innocence, wonder, isolation, drowsy-ey
New Zealand Listener4 min read
Eastern Flair
Madeleines are made with a sponge cake batter, but they are still generally considered cookies. You can serve these dusted with icing sugar, or, if you’re feeling a little extra, you can coat them in a thin shell of chocolate. Madeleines are best ser
New Zealand Listener6 min read
From West Auckland To The World
Half a century ago, a wine bearing the name of a totally unfamiliar grape variety eased into the market. Sauvignon blanc vines had been in New Zealand since 1906, but languished until 1974, when Matua Valley marketed this country’s first sauvignon bl
New Zealand Listener3 min read
The Nose Knows
Our friend Andrew holds the glass to his left nostril and covers the right with his hand, before inhaling deeply. The plan for making the most of DramFest (the country’s largest whisky festival), he says, is to “take a deep sniff, take a sip, then po
New Zealand Listener3 min read
Rewild Your Soil
Sometime in the past 20 years, there arose vast fleets of garden waste bins emptied by trucks smogging their way around suburbs. Auckland landscape gardener Mark van Kaathoven reckons we pay someone to take away next year’s garden fertiliser and buy
New Zealand Listener3 min read
In Need Of A Rev Up
It wasn’t hard to find them. You just headed past the sideshows, past the shed where three fat spuds had won first prize in the GREG DIXON vege-growing competition and past the two fatheads manning the NZ First stall, toward the almighty roar of engi
New Zealand Listener1 min read
The ‘Q’ Factor
Quincy Jones, who has died at the age of 91, spent much of his professional life as the coolest man in the room. For much of his seven-decade career, that room was a concert hall or a recording studio. He produced, arranged, composed, conducted and p

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