From time to time I contribute to the Herald on Sunday's Book Watch column, and my latest column is below. I write brief notes on four books I've written recently - the Herald usually chooses three of these to include in the column, and this time, they decided to leave out the review of Jane Kelsey's latest book about the Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement. But here are all four mini-reviews!
Hidden Agendas: What We Need To Know About The TPPA,
by Jane Kelsey - ebook - http://www.bwb.co.nz/books/hidden-agendas
The Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement
is currently under negotiation between the US and 9 other countries in the
Asia-Pacific region, including New Zealand. It has relatively little to do with
trade but a great deal to do with taking various aspects of the law of these
countries - covering such issues as investment policy, environment policy, and
intellectual property and copyright policy - outside the control of their
citizens and placing them under corporate control. I don't like that idea, and
NZ academic Jane Kelsey doesn’t either. This concise and readable study is a
good introduction to why we should all be concerned about the TPPA.
The Apex Book of World SF 2,
ed. Lavie Tidhar - print and ebook - http://www.amazon.com/The-Apex-Book-World-SF/dp/193700905X/
Disclaimer: I have a story in this volume. I have not
considered it for the purposes of this review.
I enjoyed reading The Apex Book of
World SF 2 a lot. Rather than going for the usual Anglo-American
suspects, editor Lavie Tidhar has assembled an anthology of science fiction
stories from authors around the world, with South America, Europe and Asia
especially well represented. Like any anthology, there are some stories that
didn't grab me, but also a number I liked very much: my favourite was "The
Sound of Breaking Glass" by Joyce Chng of Singapore, a delicate and moving
story.
Wolf at the Door, by J.
Damask - print and ebook - http://www.amazon.com/Wolf-At-the-Door-ebook/dp/B004V51E0K/
Having enjoyed Joyce Chng’s story in The Apex Book
of World SF 2, I bought her novel Wolf at the Door,
written as J. Damask. This novel is about werewolves of Chinese descent living
in Singapore – and I enjoyed this one too. Its great strength is the way the
author interleaves the social dynamics of wolf pack and human family, as both
family members and outsiders threaten to disrupt the lives of the protagonist and
those near and dear to her. There are some flashbacks that didn’t work as well
for me, but that didn't detract from my enjoyment of the main story, which is
well characterised and well told.
Sarah Jane Barnett’s collection, which was shortlisted
for the 2013 New Zealand Post Book Awards, is notable both for its technical
excellence and for the breadth of the poems’ subject matter – from death row
inmates to pipeline workers. While I didn’t always connect with the subject
matter of these poems, the best poems here both moved and impressed me – such
as “Mountains”, selected for Best New Zealand Poems 2012, which I encourage you to read. Any lover of poetry should seek out
this book.
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