Consumption Diary - September 2026

MUSIC

INTERLUDE - IN MEMORIUM

I found out today that Dunedin author Majella Cullinane passed away on 29 September. While Majella had been battling cancer for several years, she seemed well and most definitely in high spirits the last time I saw her. This was at the launch of her short story collection, Islands Ever After in May. I was reading the collection in chunks around other things and finished it earlier in September... 

There's something about Majella's voice that is both present on the page and in person. (I know the tenses need some attention in that last sentence, but not right now.) A kindness and an exactness. There are words that are just Majella words. Some of that might be down to being a Kiwi from Ireland, but not all of it.

Majella was one of the first Dunedin writers to reach out to me when I moved down for the Burns in 2017, and again when I moved back for good in 2021. Our catch-ups in the staff club were infrequent but she had a way of making these gaps feel insubstantial.  

It's tempting to think of everything we have lost with her passing at just 50 - the poetry and fiction that we won't get, the future catch-ups and support - but there is solace in what she did create, the gifts she has left for anyone keen to discover.

The poetry collections Guarding the Flame, Whisper of a Crow's Wing, and Meantime.

The novel, The Life of De'Ath.

And the stories in Islands Ever After.

BOOKS

The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI: How to Think About Artificial Intelligence - Before It's Too Late by Cory Doctorow (non-fiction, audiobook, Canada, 2026)

I saw a talk this week where someone said that they didn't have much hope for the future: either climate change or AI would wipe us out. If you're specifically worried about the latter, I recommend reading Doctorow's latest - he's good at getting to the heart of the AI bubble (growth stocks gotta keep dangling the potential for future growth, baby) and why AI bros keep talking about doomsday scenarios brought about by their own toys.

(It's perfectly fine to worry that, until the bubble bursts, how far back the gross inefficiency of corporate AI compute and resulting egregious use of energy and resources will put the climate cause. But even then, the best antidote to despair is to engage in local repair. Offline, in the flesh, with other meat bodies.)

I See You've Called in Dead by John Kenney (novel, audiobook, US, 2025)

The obituary-writer conceit felt a little half-baked. At times it felt more like the protagonist (mostly an agonist) was better suited to a slice of life humourist for the New Yorker (like Kenney)... And the Manic Pixie Dream Girl detector was making a racket in the second half of the book... And structurally it was looser and more meandery than a book like this should be... And yet, I still liked it.

Life of M by Rachel Cusk (novel, audiobook, UK, 2026)

I've read a lot of Cusk, but always in physical format (and one e-book on my phone). This was my first audiobook experience and I freaking hated it. I think I would have disliked this book in any format (after loving the Outline Trilogy, liking Second Place and being mixed on Parade). 

Life of M shares a similar bent, erring away from traditional story elements and centering an author (who may or may not be Cusk). Even she's partially excised from the text, the absence makes it even more about her. And even though most readers will know the actress M is based on Natalie Portman, with whom Cusk has an acquaintance, the game seems to be how far real Cusk push the unlikability of her stand-in author and what real-life ripples her game of funhouse mirrors with Portman she can cause.

But cripes, there isn't much concrete for the reader (or listener) to grasp here. It's just thoughts and arm's length observations. I'm trying to think who I could recommend this book to... Masochists? Insomniacs? Cusk completists? It's a short list.

Dissolution by Nicholas Binge (novel, audiobook, UK, 2025)

This novel starts with the kind of sci-fi set up that I do not find engaging. It's dialogue between two characters, one who apparently has no memory and the other is guiding her through some kind of arcane technological process. I just feel like Malcolm McDowell on the reprogramming chair in A Clockwork Orange with passages like this.

Thankfully, I made it to the next section, which is set in the 1950s and told from the perspective of the husband of the memory-less character in the opening section, back when he was a school boy. The novel alternates between these more engaging sections and the sci-fi, memory-hopping stuff, until they largely converge. 

Which is to say I was eventually drawn in and found it somewhat interesting on memory and time (is it too basic to call these topics "obsessions"? Like saying I'm grateful for oxygen).

When the Deep Dark Bush Swallows You Whole by Geoff Parks (novel, audiobook, NZ, 2025)

If you're expecting a lot of bush, sorry, there's hardly any. A more accurate, but equally prolix title might be: When a small rural town in the King Country harbours a budding psychopath.

Joke Farming: How to Write Comedy and Other Nonsense by Elliot Kalan (non-fiction, audiobook, US, 2025)

I've purchased my copy of Kluge, but keep putting off reading it. But maybe if you smush Doctorow's AI book and Kalan's comedy book together, you get Kluge?? We'll see.

A Violent Masterpiece by Jordan Harper (novel, audiobook, US, 2026)

Harper also writes for the screen, and this did feel very adaptable. Lots of short, declarative sentences. Lots of violence. A little bit What if James Ellroy wrote about LA in 2026, which isn't a bad thing.

And it gets bonus points for using a Protomartyr song heavily in one of the chapters.

Islands Ever After by Majella Cullinane (short stories, physical book, NZ, 2026)

🎕

FILM & TV

Lanterns, Season 1 (just got the finale to watch when it drops on Monday) - the best superhero show since Watchmen... Yes, I'm a Lindeloff stan.

Michael Clayton - first time watching this movie from 2007, sought it out because it was written by Tony Gilroy... and surprise, surpise, I loved it.

Nirvanna The Band The Show The Movie* - a rewatch for me, first time for my kids, I thought they'd like it more than they did. I still liked it a lot. The first time up the CN tower didn't pop the same on the small screen (and knowing what was about to happen). But a second viewing was more rewarding in terms of piecing together how it was made and getting some of the jokes I missed first time around. Check it out on Netflix if you haven't seen it!

Fever Pitch* (US version with the Red Sox instead of Man United) - my daughter chose this. Man, Jimmy Fallon is annoying.

AEW Dynamite - just mentioning this for the most recent episode, which was a tribute to Ben Satterley, aka Pac, who died last week, the day after a big pay per view, and the company did such a good job of putting on a show. Super emotional. Managed to turn kayfabe down to, like, 2 out of 10, and talk about the man behind the character, and how he came up with spots, and it was sad and complex and glorious. 

The Agency - Have started watching season 1. People rave about it, but it feels similar to a lot of spy shows. The Jack White opening song is trying to be like Slow Horses, but so far The Agency doesn't have the humour or charisma.

Alone - finished season 13

Only Connect - the latest season's episodes so far

The Dark Side of the Ring - seasons 1 & 2

The Secret Lives of Dentists

Warm Bodies

Con Air*

But I've got a blank space, baby...

I have vivid memories of judging the novice section of the BNZ Katherine Mansfield Short Story competition in 2013, from refusing the offer of a pre-reader to the boxes and boxes of physical stories arriving at my house, reading them all, picking a winner and recording my video for the awards event as I was in Iowa by that time (sweating an ungodly amount in the four seasons conservatory because anywhere else and I'd wake up my 7 month old daughter), and then the quibbles about whether the winner was actually a novice as she'd had a lot of non-fiction (columns and journalism) published previously.

And then today I was looking for any new reviews of Offshore Service (hold that thought), and a picture of me I couldn't remember seeing caught my eye (->). It was from a Stuff article in 2019 calling for entries into the annual Sunday Star Times short story competition, for which I was the judge of the open category.

And I was like: Was I?

I went back and checked my writing CV - which I only update periodically - and it doesn't mention the SST gig in 2019, but includes judging duties before and after.

I searched online some more and went back through my emails. And I can confirm that yes, I did judge this comp in 2019.

Part of the memory hole was due to the fact I wisely took up the offer of having pre-readers select a short list, so I received around 20 stories and then six days later I advised an SST editor of the winner and two runners up, with little commendations for each and an overall comment.

As an aside, I think my overall comment, which wasn't published as far as I can tell online, is still solid advice:

"The entries this year displayed a high level of technical competence. We have a lot of writers who know their way around a sentence and can create and sustain an engaging tone for the duration of a story. The next thing is what will you do with this skill? Where will you take your reader? The short story form does push the writer to extremes, particularly towards the darker side of life. Death, poverty, despair. This year there were very few writers who fought against this undertow. It’s a fine line between being deep and being maudlin. Humour, irony, joy – these things will take you far in life and elevate your stories, too. Your readers will thank you for it!"

But yes, I was essentially a judge for six days, which pales in comparison to the weeks and months of involvement for things like the BNZ Katherine Mansfield or the Ockham NZ Book Awards.

The other factor is: I was cracking up back then (late 2019). The whole reason I got asked to be the judge was Penguin Random House was the sponsor of the prize and I'd had a new book released by Penguin Random House that August, so it was a way to raise my profile (psst, guys, that shit never works). 

But, as I've written about in the Q&A on my website, I started having panic attacks just after the book was launched. So even if I was fully compos mentis at the time of my judging, the temporary disintegration probably took some of the memories either side of the collapse with it.

I don't recall ever encountering any entrants in the 2019 prize in real life, and hope I've never blanked on one of the people whose stories I liked... I see that Susannah Eliffe, whose story I chose as a runner up, has a book of stories called Patron Saints of Roadkill published this year. How awesome. I must seek it out.

***

Anyway, there was a new review of Offshore Service today. This one is by Siobhan Harvey, published by Kete Books. It says nice things like, "In all Offshore Service is tender, visceral, poignant and penetrating. Not only for its authentic, sensitive and emotional portrayal of contemporary man, but also for the significant things it tells us about modern life." It talks about writing the New Zealand pākehā male, Frank Sargeson and intertextuality, but I especially like that it acknowledges there are feminine perspectives too, and communal ones.

What's neat, but also funny, is Siobhan wrote a review of A Man Melting back in 2010 (this time for The Listener), which also mentioned Frank Sargeson and intertextuality (I can recall most of my initial reviews clearly, LOL). 

And... Siobhan has a new memoir out this year called, What We Remember, What We Forget.

This is all to say even someone as self-absorbed as me can't keep a handle on their own biography. 

***

Speaking of one's own biography... In going back through my emails, I was also reminded that my story, 'Connective Tissue', which is told in the form of an author's biographical notes as his career sputters out, was highly commended in the 2018 SST competition, and the SST asked to publish it in the paper and I asked them not to (despite the Ts & Cs saying they could) as I wouldn't get paid and I'd rather place the story elsewhere... They graciously honoured my request.

In the end (with some improvements, bien entendu), the story was published in Landfall Tauraka 249, which opened the door to my second collection being released by OUP as part of the Landfall Tauraka Short Story Series... So, yeah, it worked out in the end.

Recording this all here now for the next time I forget.

Consumption Diary August 2026

MUSIC

 

BIOGRAPHICAL INTERLUDE #1

My fourth book, Offshore Service & Other Stories (OS&OS for short), is out in the world.

The launch on the 19th was fun. Here's the abbreviated version, including a reference to the reviews on this here website, LOL.

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(I gave my daughter my phone to film the speeches, but we neglected to get much footage of the before and after, but I was happy with the turnout and John at the book sales table was kept busy.)

More on OS&OS's life out in the world in the next interlude further down...

BOOKS

[I read one non-fiction book from NZ in a physical format, but will reserve comment on that as I'm reviewing it for Landfall Review Online]

Sophia, Standing There by Meg Mason (novel, audiobook, NZ, 2026)

Yeah, she did it again. Sorrow and Bliss was the favourite book I read in 2021. A good indication of that book's impact is I can't believe that was five years ago, it still feels like it's a part of my short term memory.

S,ST is the right amount of similar and different from S&B. The protagonist of S&B is a big personality who leave chaos in her wake, and suffers from a genetic, mental illness referred only as "--" (or verbalised as "x" in the audiobook). Sophie, in this new novel, is working hard to be the opposite, a character vacuum that avoids notice and doesn't cause any one fuss. The unnamed part is "the author" that Sophia becomes fascinated with, then obsessed. But, thankfully this unnaming trick is only maintained for some of the book, because we actually meet the author in the flesh, wherein she is given a name, Lilac Dunn. Dunn is in some ways like Martha Friel in S&B as they both seem to be incredibly intelligent and insightful about other people, but at heart suffer from an acute lack of empathy.

Glyph by Ali Smith (novel, audiobook, UK, 2026)

I felt like I needed to re-read Gliff again to get more out of Glyph. And maybe audiobook wasn't the best way to consume both. But I think I enjoyed Glyph more than Gliff (sorry to anyone using a text-to-speech app to consume this post).

Wild Dark Shore by Charlotte McConaghy (novel, audiobook, Australia, 2025)

I mean, yeah, okay. It's got all the constituent parts. Plants are amazing. Climate change is an existential threat. The subantarctic islands are fascinating. A mysterious woman washes up on Macquaire Island, I mean whatever its made-up name is in the book. She uncovers mysteries of her own relating to the father and his three kids that remain on the island tending to the global seedbank that will be abandoned due to rising sea levels...

But the plot and the characters never really seemed to be operating on the same plane of existence. The sexual/romantic entanglement felt perfunctory and unearned. The madness of the [redacted] character was convenient, not convincing. 

Oh well. Reece Weatherspoon liked it! 

Operation Bounce House by Matt Dinniman (novel, audiobook, US, 2026)

I tried with this one. I also tried reading Dungeon Crawler Carl as a ebook on my phone through the Libby app, but that's like trying to eat soup with a sex toy.

I can see why people like the DCC series, but I'm gonna use the 'p' word again: PERFUNCTORY.

Climate Wayfinding by Katharine K. Wilkinson (non-fiction, US, 2026)

I struggled with this for a different reason. Like, shame on me for thinking this book would incorporate aspects of Polynesian maritime wayfinding, which has been adapted to other uses through the work of Spiller et.al. in Wayfinding Leadership -- a book I return to often in my life as a climate / sustainability professional. 

Instead, this version of wayfinding is like some kind of vision quest with all the white American cultural appropriation vibes that brings with it. 

The subtitle - Healing Ourselves and the Planet We Call Home - should have tipped me off.

BIOGRAPHICAL INTERLUDE #2

There's only been one review of the collection so far (a very positive one from the legend Paula Morris in the Listener, with a longer version promised on the Academy for NZ Literature's website one day soon). Hopefully there's one or two more.

In terms of media coverage so far, we've had:

• Two short stories from the collection republished: 'The Waikato Farmers' in Newsroom and 'The Kick Inside' in Sunday Star Times
• Two radio interviews, with Emile Donovan on RNZ and Jeff Harford on OAR
• Two print interviews, one in the Sunday Star Times to accompany 'The Kick Inside' and one in the Otago Daily Times.

I also did one of those Book Confessional things for The Spinoff, which I haven't seen appear yet. When I wrote my responses I was about to start Sophie, Standing There, so this blog is officially more up-to-date that the big ol' Spinoff.

FILM & TV

Colin From Accounts - Season 3 - normally, I love when TV shows make a huge leap in time between seasons (final season of Parks and Rec ftw), but the payoff of this leap petered out quickly and felt more like a way to pad out the will they, won't they phase. Still had some good laffs.

The Dark Wizard - Season 1 - I possess neither the strength, the courage or the desire to rock climb, but this was fascinating. Alex Honnold comes across as a sociopath, which on some level he must be. 

Monsters of God - Season 1 - I see what you did there... Are the monsters the reptiles or the people? (It's always the people).

One Battle After Another - I read Vineland some time in the early 2000's, but looking for any connection between that novel and the adapted screenplay made me feel like the baked-ass present day Bob Ferguson in the movie... Maybe if they'd kept his name as Zoyd I would have liked the film more.

It's weird to be left cold and unentertained by films like this, Sinners and Weapons, which seemed to get the average moviegoer hyped and also did well with the Academy. Like, on one level it's cool that there's some overlap between what both sides think is cool... but it'd be better if I also thought these things were cool, rather than... passable. Another P-word!

Offshore Service - the playlist

The wait is over. Here it is. The playlist for Offshore Service & Other Stories, which comes out on 13 August and has its public launch here in Dunedin on the 19th.

(You can find my playlists for previous books here: A Man Melting, The Mannequin Makers, and Nailing Down the Saint).

As with the playlist for my first story collection, I've picked one song per story. Here's a little about each selection.

1. 

The story: My Yale and My Harvard

A man reflects on his childhood in Brisbane where he spent his evenings in the passenger seat of his father's cab (solo parent, economic necessity). He later moves to Auckland for the first America's cup defence, only returning home when his father becomes ill.

The song: Be Quiet and Drive (Far Away) by Deftones

A classic from Sacramento's finest (sorry Cake). In my head, this is the soundtrack to the narrator when he returns to Brisbane and leaves the Mater Hospital in a stranger's cab. That blend of quiet and loud at once. Sadness and anger.

2. 

The story: Offshore Service

A kiwi engineering grad heads to the mines in Queensland in search of easy money but winds up crewing a helicopter that services the coal ships waiting off the coast. "Service" has a few meanings.

The song: Hanging in the Wire by Dave Dobbyn

You can already tell from the first two stories that people hoping from one side of the ditch to the other is a bit of a theme in this collection. So it's important this playlist features some acts from either side of the Tasman. It's funny that in Australia, Dobbyn is considered a one-hit wonder (Slice of Heaven), whereas in Aotearoa he's more revered. That gulf is part of what these stories explore.

This track comes from the 1998 album, The Islander. I was asked to write a story for an island themed issue of the Griffith Review, and it became 'Offshore Service'. 

I don't think Dobbyn is singing the lines, 'Whatever you need for your redemption / Anything you want I can supply' ironically... but he is for the purposes of fitting with my story.

3. 

The story: Parents in Decline

'Everything is fine and then one day it isn't...' 

Starts in the first person plural 'we', as if all the calamities affect the whole community equally, but eventually an 'I' voice emerges - posing the question: was he just projecting the whole time?

The song: I Me Mine by The Beatles

Is there a better song about selfishness and pronouns? 

4. 

The story: Recessional

Amelia is a twenty-something Kiwi working in Perth on the cusp of the next recession. She's invited to a colleague's annual ANZAC Day barbecue, wherein differences between how they each perceive of ANZAC Day become clear.

The song: Holy Grail by Hunters and Collectors

One of Amelia's gripes is that the barbecue's playlist is exclusively Australian bands. Many are name checked in the story, but 'Holy Grail' gets the nod here for the way it was later co-opted by the AFL (and maybe the NRL also...) and skirted over all that religious crusade stuff to focus on good old Aussie mateship.

5.

The story: Processional

Picks up right where 'Recessional' left off, but has a very different approach to time than the first story (which covered a week or so). Here we get the rest of Amelia's life, from marriage, children, infidelity, empty-nesting in the space of a few pages.

The song: Distant Sun by Crowded House

Crowded House is one of the few truly Australian-New Zealand bands Amelia can come up with in 'Recessional' for a more appropriate ANZAC playlist. It's also the name of a hostel on the Gallipoli peninsula that Amelia visits in both stories.

'Distant Sun' is paddling in similar waters to 'Recessional' - thinking about what you might change, the process of time, and putting things into an astronomical scale - while still being a love song.

6. 

The story: Connective Tissue

Told in the form of 24 author bios from the British writer Terry Voss, moving from early in his career through the literary successes of his wife (and then children) and other family dramas to the eve of publication of his potential magnum opus...

The song: Sigourney Weaver by John Grant

Like 'Recessional', there are lot of songs/artists namechecked in this story, from the cook at his estranged father's house who liked to sing 'Da Doo Ron Ron', 'Do Wah Diddy Diddy' and 'Let's Spend the Night Together', to a full list of songs to play at his funeral for his kids... which is where 'Sigourney Weaver' crops up. 

It's such a weird song, lyrically, which vibes well with Terry Voss and his novel about Tim Berners-Lee and the members of One Direction fighting a zombie apocalypse.

7. 

The story: The Waikato Farmers

A numberless, nameless group of farmers from the Waikato try to find purpose while on holiday in Fiji. They get excited when a tropical cyclone looks as if it may wreak havoc on the island, as they might finally be allowed to make themselves useful.

The song: Hurricane by Kyuss

Okay, so you don't get hurricanes in the  South Pacific, but that hasn't stopped a Super Rugby franchise from the lower North Island rocking that name for the last three decades. 

I think this Kyuss song manages to capture the drive and excitement of a cyclone/hurricane/typhoon, while lyrically it's more like a panic attack, or at best: a dog chasing its tail.

8. 

The story: Ranger Ranger Ranger

Sierra is a sustainability-minded high school history teacher in a small Otago town. She keeps getting cut-off on her bike by utes. Her partner drives a ute. Life is peachy.

The song: A Change is Gonna Come by Sam Cooke

This is the song Sierra sang to herself on her socially-isolated walks during COVID lockdown. Unfortunately, the new normal isn't much better than the old normal... 

9. 

The story: The Pits

This is actually a sequel to the story 'Copies' from my first collection. In 'Copies', Angus was on the cusp of becoming a father, but unfortunately we find out in 'The Pits' that his son did not survive infancy, triggering a period of self-sabotage and his partner leaving him. Angus moves back home to Palmerston North to regather himself and figure out what next. 

The song: Oh! You Pretty Things by Harvey Danger

I chose Harvey Danger's song 'Diminishing Returns' for 'Copies' in A Man Melting' playlist back in 2010, so it seems appropriate to pick another track from them (albeit a cover, so I can echo the echo motif).

10.

The story: Robinson in the Roof Space

Robinson has taken time away from paid employment to finally write his novel, but must resort to extreme measures (writing in the roof cavity above his garage, with the ladder only replaced by his wife after enough time has elapsed) to actually get some words down.

The song: Stayin' Alive by Bee Gees

At one point Robinson feels taunted by the flashing cursor in his word document and wonders if matched the beats per minute of 'Stayin' Alive'. But he can't Google it because he deliberately doesn't have internet access while in the roof space.

There's something manic about both the beat and the falsetto ah ha ha ha's (and all the background stuff Barry - I think - does in the latter half of the song) that matches poor Robinson's overactive imagination and underactive fingers.

11.

The story: 30 Ways of Looking at Marumaru South

Actually, it's thirty 100-word micro-stories, all set in the fictional South Island town of Marumaru South (which featured in my historical novel, The Mannequin Makers, but everything in '30 Ways' is set in the present.

The song: Eleanor Rigby by Aretha Franklin

Okay, I realise this the second Beatles cover, and third song written by The Fab Four. But things are connected.

This version is explicitly referenced in the section: The Karaoke Queen, which was one of the two most worked and reword sections (the other was The Dieter). It feels like the kind of song you could really go to town on in a TV singing competitions (in this case: Homai te Pakipaki) - at the risk of a televised train wreck.

12. 

The story: Kia Kaha Ōtepoti

A refugee family rocks up on some dude's doorstep and manages to wrangle their way inside, and slowly it becomes clear that this is not an isolated incident. Families across Māori Hill and Roslyn now have 'house guests'... all of this prompts a shift from the individual to the collective. 

(So basically, the opposite to 'Parents in Decline', here we start with 'I... I... I...' and then move to 'we', which become more inclusive with every utterance).

The song: Heavenly Pop Hit by The Chills

Gotta be a Dunedin band for a Dunedin story. This might be Martin Phillips' most upbeat song (maybe that's not saying much) - but I love the way it works in different perspectives (the sun setting on five billion faces / 'we swoop low on trees, or we sweep under carpets' / 'I find it hard to believe'), and the gift economy.

13. 

The story: Paper Universe

Jared moved back to Wellington after pulling pints on his OE in the UK. He moves in with a friend from high school, Daniel, who is still working towards his doctorate in astronomy and hasn't ever had a proper girlfriend. Maybe Jared can help with that...

The song: Resident Evil by Friendship

While 'Paper Universe' is told from Jared's perspective, it's really Daniel's story (or a story about why Jared's not the right narrator). So I like pairing it with this great song of Friendship's 2025 album Caveman Wakes Up. 

I imagine it's Daniel singing the lines 'New roommate moving in / Guess this is how some people live x2 / Some shithead in my living room / Playing Resident Evil / Playing Resident Evil', reflecting on what a fuckup Jared is (yet the chicks seem to dig him).

(It's also valid to interpret Dan Wriggins' lyrics as a kind of dissociative moment, where the singer is looking at himself playing Resident Evil, but my story is definitely not a Fight Club / Shutter Island / Secret Window / The Machinist / Nabokov's 'The Eye' scenario... because there's enough of those already, eh?).

14. 

The story: The Kick Inside

David visits his dying mother in hospital. The narrator intrudes a lot to tell us about his middle name and warming to Kate Bush and his love of Robert Lowell...

The song: Pigeon Camera by The Tragically Hip

I could have picked a Kate Bush song (the story shares its title with a Kate Bush album) or even Bush or Soundgarden who get namechecked... But it wouldn't be one of these playlists without at least one Hip/Gord Downie song (I actually had one Hip and one Gord Downie solo song for The Mannequin Makers playlist).

The intrusive narrator, on one of his tangents, says the story of Robert Lowell watching his mother bathe when he was young reminds him of the lines in 'Pigeon Camera' about a brother and a sister with something they could no longer contain.

Plus it probably has the best guitar solo in the entire Hip catalogue.

---

Consumption Diary - June-July 2026

MUSIC - JUNE

BIOGRAPHICAL INTERLUDE

I had a minor op (day surgery, general anaesthetic) in early July and it took more than two weeks to get back to normal, mostly thanks to the messed up cocktail of drugs they gave me initially. 

I had always said to work I'd take at least two weeks off to recover, but secretly I pictured myself reading heaps of books and maybe writing a couple of insightful essays that can help promote my new book... But yeah, I couldn't really even cope with audiobooks. 

So it was a lot of Fifa World Cup and binging shows that having a temporary VPN unlocked (Shoresy, Hacks).

My book comes out on 13 August and the launch event is on 19 August on the 4th floor of the city library here in Ōtepoti.

Tomorrow I will post the music playlist that accompanies the collection. 14 songs for 14 stories. 

BOOKS

A Short Stay in Hell by Steven L Peck (novella, audiobook, US, 2009) - took a Borges story and sucked the life out of it. Anything promoted as existential is probably best avoided.

Young Skins by Colin Barrett (short stories, audiobook, Ireland, 2013) - good.

Wild Houses by Colin Barrett (novel, audiobook, Ireland, 2024) - preferred the out-and-out short stories.

Afterparties by Anthony Veasna So (short stories, physical book, US, 2021) - Wanted to like this, but found the stories loose, unfocused and frequently dull.

The Unfinished Harauld Hughes by Richard Ayoade (novel, audiobook, UK, 2024) - needed to be funny.

Henry Goes Bush by Wayne Marshall (novel, audiobook, Australia, 2026) - Didn't enjoy the blend of historical editorialising and speculative multiverse shenanigans.

Hot Desk by Laura Dickerman (novel, audiobook, US, 2025) - I was expecting an office-based version of The Flatshare by Beth O'Leary, but instead that romance plays second fiddle to a Secret History-esque lit-world intergenerational #MeToo thingy. Pretty good, all told.

I gave you eyes and you looked toward darkness by Irene Sola (novel, audiobook, Spain, translated, 2023) - Catalan magic realism.

Even the Good Girls Will Cry: My 90s Rock Memoir by Melissa Auf der Maur (non-fiction, audiobook, US, 2026)

Pop.1280 by Jim Thompson (novel, audiobook, US, 1964) - hollow book about the hollowness of American life.

Country People by Daniel Mason (novel, audiobook, US, 2026) - Speaking of The Secret History... Family moves to Vermont for a university posting... Strangeness ensues.

FILM & TV

Shoresy - Seasons 2-5

Hacks - Seasons 4-5

Welcome to Wrexham - Season 5

The Lowdown - Season 1

Only Connect - Season 21

WWE Unreal - Season 4 (and a bunch of other mindless wresting stuff)

Alone - Season 10 (I think)

Sleeping Dogs

Sione's Wedding* (rewatch for me, first time for my daughter)

Die Hard* (rewatch for me, first time for my son)

Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere

The Bear: Season 5

Gary

Send Help

House of the Dragon - first few eps of Season 3

MUSIC - JULY

May Consumption Diary

MUSIC

I saw Big League at The Crown at the start of the month. They ended the show with a cover of 'Everything Flows'. *Chefs kiss*

BIOGRAPHICAL INTERLUDE

I went to the Auckland Writers Festival in May to:

• announce the winner of the $65,000 Jann Medlicott Acorn Prize for Fiction at the Ockham NZ Book Awards ceremony on the Wednesday night
• chair a solo session with the winner (Ingrid Horrocks) on the Friday morning
• make the most of my festival participant lanyard and check out as many other sessions as possible. Mick Herron! Tony Tulathimutte! Karen Hao!

The vibes were good. Attendance and book sales records were broken. It was a good way to put a bow on my Ockhams judging experience. Time to cross back over the line and get ready to be judged again...

BOOKS

All the books listed below, plus these three which I read/read read earlier to prep for my session with Ingrid at AWF, but had to keep shtum until the award was announced:

• Where We Swim by Ingrid Horrocks (non-fiction, NZ, physical, 2021)
• Travelling with Augusta by Ingrid Horrocks (non-fiction, NZ, physical, 2003
• Mapping the Distance by Ingrid Horrocks (poetry, NZ, physical, 2010)

Shadow Ticket by Thomas Pynchon (novel, audiobook, US, 2025) 

I haven't read a Pynchon novel in years, and the start of Shadow Ticket is intoxicating. The wacky names, the hep lingo, the humour and paranoid fantasies. I was like, Why did I stop reading Pynchon? But about a third of the way through, as the novel was bouncing from one paranoid vision to the next and the characters remained vessels to spout and conspiracy and patois, I was like, Oh yeah.

Such Great Heights: The Complete Cultural History of the Indie Rock Explosion by Chris DeVille (non-fiction, audiobook, US, 2025)

I enjoyed listening to the playlist of songs mentioned at the start of each chapter more than the book itself. By no means "complete" and kind of facile.

We Pretty Pieces of Flesh by Colwill Brown (novel (in stories), audiobook, UK, 2025)

Very good but should come with a surgeon general's warning that can lead to omission of definite articles (it's narrated in a very specific Doncaster voice).

Necropolitics by Achille Mbembe (non-fiction, audiobook, Cameroon, translated, 2011)

Gotta say, like with Franz Fanon, I struggle with this kind of theoretical writing, especially as an audiobook. So much abstraction, it's hard to get a toehold.

Vigil by George Saunders (novel, audiobook, US, 2026)

I was asked to review this at the start of the year but had to turn it down as I was still immersed in Ockhams judging duties. On the plus side, I'm glad I did because I didn't enjoy this book despite loving Saunders (more accurately, Saunders' short fiction and non-fiction). 

On the other hand, maybe if I had read it in hardcopy rather than listened to the over-produced, ensemble-narrated audiobook, maybe I would have found more redeeming features. 

As it is, you can basically take my views of Lincoln in the Bardo from 2017 out of the freezer and reheat them here. 

Don't Burn Anyone at the Stake Today by Naomi Alderman (non-fiction, audiobook, UK, 2025)

I think most of these books (non-fiction about a modern malady situated within historical or theoretical framework) are twice as long as they should be, but then I consume this 4 hour audiobook and feel underwhelmed... so what do I know?

The Nights are Quiet in Tehran by Shida Bazyar (novel, audiobook, Germany, translated, 2025)

The sections set in Germany felt realer/deeper than the earlier ones in Iran... so I was not surprised to learn Bazyar was born in Germany to Iranian immigrant parents and wanted to use the book to explore the experience of her forebears.

FILM & TV

Weapons

Delores Claiborne

The Crash

Welcome to Wrexham Season 5 (eps 1-4)

Quite a lot of Super Rugby, the Wahs and wrestling.

Consumption Diary April 2026

MUSIC

(I'm seriously considering jumping ship from Spotify to Tidal, but want some reassurance that playlists can port across easily and the music library doesn't have any glaring omissions... Watch this space.)

BOOKS

The Silver Book by Olivia Laing (novel, audiobook, UK, 2025) 

God damn amazing. Shares something of the stripped down, psychological distance of David Szalay's Flesh, but set in the world of mid-1970s Italian cinema. Strap a rocket on this one and send it straight to my Best of the Year post!

Seed by Elisabeth Easther (novel, audiobook, NZ, 2026)

Primarily four women (two pairs of friends) who do or don't want to get pregnant and do or don't get pregnant. I say primarily as there are chapters from secondary characters' perspectives (husbands/partners, the receptionist at the ad agency where one of the main characters works...), and sometimes the narrator slips inside other characters' heads (including children) during a main character's p.o.v. chapter. Overall: a bit much. Maybe if there was just one pair of friends? Or a more regular switching between the groups? Less may have meant more, for this dunce at least.

Saving Time: Discovering a Life Beyond the Clock by Jenny Odell (non-fiction, audiobook, US, 2023)

I really like Odell's How to do Nothing when I read it in 2020. I found Saving Time a lot harder to get into. It seemed to circle round what its thesis might be, without ever really clearly moving forward. All lit review, no fuse lit. (Apart from a growing belief that the best way to talk about time, and alternative framing of time, is within fiction.)

Plus I'm partway through 3 physical books and 1 audiobook, which I'll pick up in the next consumption diary.

FILM & TV

Daisy Jones & The Six (limited TV show)

I enjoyed the book (top 10 in 2023) because it resembled the kinds of Classic Albums / band bio shows my dad used to love... And I liked the album of songs from this show (also listened to in 2023)... but I didn't have Amazon Prime until this past month, so have only now watched the TV show. And, well, it didn't work. The first three episodes in particular, before Daisy Jones intersects with The Six, felt full of rock cliches and lacking in narrative drive. It felt like they were searching for A Star is Born but the plot and format of the source text kept them from reaching escape velocity for hours on end. 

Like, I shouldn't be so bored that I'm searching the cast online. It was cool to discover Riley Keough is Elvis' granddaughter (and inherited Graceland!) and learnt to sing for this role (and her ability to sing is like, THE most crucial plot point). But still.

Oh well. I still think the feat of creating a goooood album of songs for a fictional band, sung by the cast, that still stands on its own in 2026.

Shows in progress: Beef (Season 2), New Zealand Spy (Season 1)

Movies abandoned partway: Now You See Me, Now You Don't, A Big Bold Beautiful Journey, Jurassic World: Rebirth, Mission Impossible: The Final Reckoning, The Naked Gun (2025) (some of these may have been from March, but the moral of the story is I can't seem to finish a contemporary Hollywood movie for the life of me).

Rewatches for me, first time for the kids: A Knight's Tale, Hook, Jurassic Park, Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery

For the Archive: Q&A with myself from 2024

Whenever I update my website, specifically the ABOUT ME page, I put the content I am replacing here for... posterity, I guess. What conversation did I have with myself in 2019? Oh, here it is.

Anyway, here's what I've had on my website for the last two years (written shortly after I had a three week residency at the Michael King Writers Centre and will still riding the high of a productivity burst) and will replace shortly...

Bonus Q&A with myself (from 2024)

What are you working on at the moment?

I'm finishing two manuscripts. One is a new novel (contemporary, with elements of crime fiction) and the other is a short story collection (stories written over the last 15 years). I'm also writing more book reviews and essays than I have in a good while.

Do you write full-time?

No. I work full-time in the climate action/sustainability space, which means I currently write around work and family commitments. 

In this context, writing residencies, even short ones like the three weeks I spent at the Michael King Writers Centre in 2024, are invaluable. They let me focus in a way that is not possible to when writing is measured in hours rather than days. But having a life is a critical part of my creative process, too. Three weeks of solid writing would be fruitless if I wasn't full to the brim with ideas (and frustrations) that have accreted over months and years.

Is it your dream to be a full-time writer?

I've made the choice to live in New Zealand, have a family and a mortgage and be a writer. I can have it all, just not all at once or all the time.

But not having to work for money for an extended period... that does sound nice.

What do you prefer: short stories or novels?

As a reader, I'm consuming more novels at the moment. 

As a writer, perfection is unattainable regardless of the form. Even so, I enjoy grasping for perfection in short stories. Arranging a few thousand words, a limited cast of characters and a handful of settings in just the right way seems like something a human brain could achieve. 

But writing a novel? That requires an even greater sense of self-delusion. Perhaps it's no coincidence my protagonists gravitate towards madness in these longer works.

Your first two novels both had elements of historical fiction. Is that a genre that has always appealed to you?

Actually, no. I fell into historical fiction with The Mannequin Makers. After finishing the stories in A Man Melting, I started working on a novel that took a character from one of these stories and spent more time with him. I plugged away at this project for quite a while, but always seemed to get bogged down. The novel was set in the present and focused on a dude about my age at the time, with experiences not dissimilar to mine.

When I finally gave up on this novel, I decided that the next thing I worked on would either be set in the past or the future. The future seemed too easy - I could just make things up - and I thought doing research would help me feel like a proper writer. I was also piqued by the kind of historical fiction that was being published in New Zealand at the time, which played up the sense of Aotearoa as a predominantly rural backwater, disconnected from the rest of the world. But that's not how most Pākehā saw themselves before the advent of World War One. It was an age of newspapers and burgeoning towns and department stores. It didn't matter it took the latest fashions from Paris six months to get here by boat, because our seasons are six months out. 

So I chose to focus on two ideas that I'd been kicking around for a while that needed to take place in the past, but reflected this more cosmopolitan, connected vision of Aotearoa and devoted the next two or three years to them.

It was rewarding, but also really hard. 

My next novel, NAILING DOWN THE SAINT, wasn't meant to be so hard. It's mostly contemporary, but does draw a lot on the life of San Guiseppe da Copertino (1603-1663). It was really interesting to write about a sleazy Hollywood director before, during and after the first eruption of #MeToo in 2017. I guess that's one reason some writers prefer to stick to the past: the illusion of immutability. 

That, and no cellphones. 

I can see how cellphones make a lot of mystery plots improbable or impossible now, but they also open up new ways of communication and connection for characters. Some of my favourite books in recent years have been extremely online, like Patricia Lockwood's No One is Talking About This, or phone-y (the opposite of phony, perhaps) like Big Swiss by Jean Beagin or Wellness by Nathan Hill.

You attended the International Institute of Modern Letters MA programme back in 2006. Is that when you wrote the stories in A Man Melting?

No. I actually tried to write a novel that year — a great experience but I think it was a mistake to try and write a novel from go to whoa in eight months. Too many decisions were made for the sake of expedience that then became so integral to the fabric of the novel that it was beyond fixing (though I spent another year trying!). The manuscript now sits in my bottom drawer along with the novel I tried to write when I was twenty-one.

When did you turn your attention to short fiction?

I've always written short fiction. It's a natural progression to start with the shorter form and work your way up to the longer, if that's your goal. I mostly read novels when I was younger (Douglas Coupland, Kurt Vonnegut, Chuck Palahniuk), so that's what I grew up wanting to write. Tastes change, of course, and eventually I found an appreciation for subtlety (though I still love me some Vonnegut). After finishing my MA, I really wanted to keep writing, but didn't have the reserves of energy needed to start another novel. So I returned to short fiction.

The first two stories I wrote after doing my MA were 'Copies' (which has since been included in three anthologies) and 'Another Language' (which won the novice section of the 2007 BNZ Katherine Mansfield Awards). Something just clicked.

In 2008, while living in Edinburgh, I tried to write one million words in 366 days (it was a leap year). I only wrote 800,737 words, but it was a very successful failure. Almost every story in A Man Melting was written or revised during that year. There's also at least one story from this year that I hope to include in my second collection, whenever that may be published.

Fatherhood is a recurring topic in your work. Whether it's Colton Kemp being a very bad parent in The Mannequin Makers, or Duncan Blake trying to juggle Hollywood aspirations and a neuro-divergent son in Nailing Down the Saint. To what extent is this a reflection of your own experience as a son and father? 

My father died when I was sixteen, which may be why the parent-child dynamic is endlessly fascinating to me. That mix of nature and nurture imprinting upon the child, but also the randomness of how these factors are expressed. The futility of trying to shape a child too completely. The slow realisation that parents are flawed and often fickle, and much later (too late?) their noble and tender aspects.

I finished writing The Mannequin Makers before I became a father, though my daughter did attend the book launch as a six-month-old. Looking back, I was imaginatively projecting myself forward into a state of fatherhood. Before that, my stories had been more interested in the child's perspective ('Copies', 'The Skeptic's Kid').

These days, while parent-child relationships might not feature in the high-concept pitch-line for the things I'm writing, these dynamics will be there, idling beneath the hood and occasionally driving the action. 

Please name ten authors who people should be reading.

I don't like to single out writers with no context. People should read widely. Read for enjoyment and to be challenged, though doing so separately is fine. Read local. Read foreign. Read contemporary. Read beyond the now. Read Meg Mason, Kirsten McDougall, Sayaka Murata, Cesar Aira, Jack Butler, Barry Hannah, Thomas McGuane, Steven Millhauser, Ali Smith, Rachel Cusk, Jenny Offill, Tyson Yunkaporta, Robin Wall Kimmerer, Eleanor Catton, Curtis Sittenfeld, Kim Stanley Robinson, Neal Stephenson, Andy Weir, Alexandre Dumas, Charles Dickens, Emily Henry, Beth O'Leary, Jim Shephard, Owen Marshall... How many is that?

Twenty-four.

Patricia Grace, Janet Frame, Iris Murdoch...

Okay, thank you.

David Vann, Sue Orr, Elmore Leonard....

Links
The Quest for a Million Words - the record of a year spent writing like stink.
This Fluid Thrill - My blog, where you can catch my thoughts about writing, reading and whatever else passes my field of vision.
Craig Cliff on The Academy of New Zealand Literature's website