Life of a Pioneer
“One question that long fascinated Morris’s readers was how the gender reassignment affected relations with her family.” – Joanne Wilkes
16Jan 
18Dec
A view from Tamaki, and from Sydney
“… no Fair Pay Agreements had been activated by the time of the election: possibly if they had, Brooke would have found it hard to be the Grinch who actually stole Christmas” – Joanne Wilkes
5Dec
Comms versus Competence
“The rise of ‘Comms’ has been a salient feature of organisations in recent years. That is, hordes of people – or sometimes bots – whose actual if not ostensible roles are to make the place sound good, rather than actually do anything.” – Joanne Wilkes
28Nov
Illumination in the Darkest of Times
“The stories of these courageous dissidents had an afterlife as well. This was partly due to those who remembered them, and partly because the regime itself held on to masses of documentation.” – Joanne Wilkes
14Aug
Famous People I Mostly Haven’t Met
A school friend of Cave’s in Melbourne in the 1970s, Tracy became the bassist in Nick’s earlier band, The Birthday Party, which brilliantly wreaked havoc in Melbourne and London through the early 1980s
26Jul
A Variation on ‘Succession’
“…Reading the essays does bring to mind the 1930s, when many of them were written…” – Joanne Wilkes
11Jul
Voyage of the banned
“I once tussled online with the anti-vax candidate for Mayor of Wellington, who told me I really had to ‘READ 1984’.” – Joanne Wilkes
26Jun
Lives in pieces
The book has the author revisit his life, starting with the bodily changes of his childhood and puberty, and his playing dress-ups so as to express his desire to be an actor.
1Jun
In praise of older women
As the concert was on Mother’s Day, some of the audience would also have been grandmothers.
22May
The Perils of Not Following Rugby in New Zild
Whenever I visited Sydney, and then fetched up again at Auckland airport, would the Immigration official grill me about rugby, and arrange for me to be deported if I gave the wrong answer???