Tell You What: Great New Zealand Nonfiction, 2015

by Jolisa Gracewood (Editor), Susanna Andrew (Editor), Greg Bruce (Contributor)

On the web and the wireless, in magazines and journals, at prizegivings and pōwhiri, New Zealanders are talking and writing about the world right now. We’ve been producing essays and articles, speeches and submissions, tweets and travelogues – nonfiction, in other words. This book collects some of New Zealand’s best true stories from the past year or so together into an anthology.

And tell you what: we are swimming in this great nonfiction. This anthology takes us to new places, introduces us to new people, asks new questions and brings us a little closer to the true and the real. We’ve got mountain climbing and family secrets, cannibal snails and dangerous swims. We’ve got births. Deaths. Marriages. House auctions. Steve Braunias on a mysterious egging and Lara Strongman on Christchurch, Eleanor Catton on our paradoxical islands and Tina Makereti on the resonance of te reo.

With other pieces by Simon Wilson (on mutton), Elizabeth Knox (on Mahy), Keith Ng (on global warming) and Ashleigh Young (on cycling in London) – not to mention contributions from Naomi Arnold, Sarah Bainbridge, José Barbosa, Claire Browning, Greg Bruce, Rachel Buchanan, Anthony Byrt, Megan Clayton, Paul Ewen, David Haywood, David Herkt, Gregory Kan, Nic Low, Chris McDowall, Alice Miller, Jemima Sherpa, Allan Smith, Leilani Tamu, Alice Te Punga Somerville, Giovanni Tiso and David Winter – this is a cracking collection of real, live stories, written to last.

Genres: Nonfiction, Essays

248 pages, Paperback

First published November 1, 2014

About the author

Jolisa Gracewood works as a literary editor, writer and reviewer. She recently co-edited with Susanna Andrew an anthology of longform writing, Tell You What: Great New Zealand Nonfiction 2015.

(from http://www.metromag.co.nz/author/jolisa/)

Reviews

[Barnaby Haszard · Rating 4 out of 5]

We have some bloody good writers in this country. There were only a handful of pieces I didn't really connect with. Favourites were by Simon Wilson, Gregory Kan, Lara Strongman, Megan Clayton, Leilani Tamu, Tina Makereti, David Herkt.

[Laura Cooper · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great collection of essays, very well edited with a narrative and thematic flow that links one essay to the next. The selection includes Eleanor Catton's musings on the powerful emotion pull of the sublime beauty in a natural landscape; house price hell in Auckland; a witty and pithy character study, and more sobering talk of the 2011 earthquake amongst much more. A good way to find another facet of New Zealand from a wide range of voices and viewpoints. Luckily, there's a 2016 edition!