Half a Yellow Sun

Posted 11:42am Saturday 30th September 2017

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie is truly a master of words. She combines history with fiction beautifully, and brings us close to the Nigerian Civil War (1967-1970), which I knew nothing about beforehand. The book follows the lives of five characters: Ugwu, a boy from a poor village; Olanna, an Read more...

The Hell Hole | A Smothering Relationship

Posted 2:13pm Sunday 9th July 2017

I’ve been having strange dreams lately. When I moved into my flat I didn’t think twice about the trap door in my ceiling. It looked like it was for an attic, small and square, and it was sealed closed with paint. It didn’t have a handle. The semester proceeded normally. The Read more...

The Vegetarian

Posted 1:40pm Sunday 21st May 2017

Read this book and you’ll be put off meat for several weeks (not the worst thing in the world). Winner of the Man Booker International Prize and the Yi Sang Literary prize, this is Han Kang’s first book to be published in English and I am oh so grateful for it. Written in three Read more...

Misery

Posted 12:44pm Sunday 14th May 2017

More often than not I come across a book I wish I had written myself. Stephen King’s Misery is one of those books - not for any clever reason, simply because it is quirky, weirdly relatable (to a writer), and shit scary. Word of advice folks: don't read when living alone in the Read more...

The Yield

Posted 2:41pm Sunday 7th May 2017

Perfect timing. With the Dunedin Readers and Writers Festival upon us I thought it appropriate to give Sue Wootton’s most recent publication The Yield a go. I admit that I haven’t dabbled enough in modern New Zealand literature. In the past I’ve been prejudiced against it, Read more...

The Hell Hole | Issue 9

Posted 1:14pm Sunday 30th April 2017

Hannah and I had stayed there once on a school trip. You know, the night at the museum thing they do where you go into a tent and learn about astronomy and then they tuck you up in your sleeping bag and tell you spooky stories about the one mummy they have downstairs. So we decided to reminisce and Read more...

Swing Time

Posted 12:24pm Sunday 30th April 2017

After being touted by several friends as one of the best writers alive today, I finally decided to pick up Zadie Smith’s Swing Time. She’s an incredibly accomplished writer, having won numerous awards for her five published novels, including the Orange Prize for Fiction, the Commonwealth Read more...

Room

Posted 1:14pm Sunday 23rd April 2017

Winner of awards like the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize, and based on the infamous Josef Fritzl case of 2008, Room, by Emma Donoghue, captures everyone’s worst nightmare from a decidedly fresh perspective.  Told through the eyes of five-year-old Jack, who was born and raised in a Read more...

Life in Antarctica

Posted 12:20pm Sunday 9th April 2017

What’s double the size of Australia, covered by 98% ice, and has no permanent human residents? Antarctica.   Antarctica is a desert of snow and ice surrounded by freezing ocean at the bottom of the Southern Hemisphere. It has an average temperature of -49°C, katabatic winds of Read more...

The Hell Hole | Issue 1

Posted 2:06pm Sunday 26th February 2017

There is not a more ideal place for a killer to roam than Castle Street, so they told us. I believe it. Ever since that evening the Marsh was evacuated one evening because of a ‘suspicious figure’ wandering the Botans. We thought they meant a gunman.  Of course, the flat doors Read more...