2010

  • Chad Taylor – Heaven Again, Chad Taylor puts you right into a fictional Auckland that makes it seem much more dangerous and sexy than the one I live in. Apparently Taylor was doing a long walk along K Road and New North Road every evening when he was writing this, and it feels spot on,…

  • On Beauty – Zadie Smith Apparently a homage to Howards End, On Beauty is the story of a washed out English professor, his family, his deadly rival and how it all breaks down deliciously. Its sexier than Smith’s other books, but has the usual lyrical writing you want to nick. Recommended. The Corrections – Jonathan…

  • Lift off

  • If this review was AFOTW, it would be 1500 words long and mention books I’d read as a lad, books my uncle read, and books I might read in the future. At 700 pages, you could say this novel is a ramble, and sustaining the tone and pace over that length is challenging, to say…

  • I left richardirvine.com in a bit of a undead limbo for a while there, thought I was going to do This Kind Of Thing at Chartered Trips, my tumblelog for a while. Turns out tumblelogs are great, but they are no blog. I will continue to post shiny pictures over at CT, and blog sporadically…

  • April Fool

    I’d been waiting for April Fools for a while in my place of work – here’s my AFD effort, a bit OTT, but I enjoyed it. We release our first Great White to a cabinet 01 April 2010 Today we announced the release of our first Great White Shark to one of our cabinets.As part of our CSR commitments,…