THE GROOVE BOOK REPORT

Rhonda Hāpi-Smith spent nearly 20 years on the front lines of New Zealand’s prison system—and she’s got scars to prove it. In a motu where Māori are over represented in prison and politicians are keen incarceration, her memoir is a gritty and unfiltered.  It's and account of life behind the wire.  And she tells it from the coalface of control with passion, and restraint. Coming from whānau with a strong whakapapa in the prison service, Hāpi-Smith’s journey begins with training and quickly dives into the hard realities of the mahi.  She was the first wāhine to join the riot squad, known for stepping into chaos when others stepped back.   She earned a reputation for being “hard arse”, in violent confrontations.  But, as I've learned working with similar individuals, she also became a maternal figure to the younger tane.  Some even called her “mum.” The book doesn’t shy away from the emotional toll.  Long hours, constant vigilance, exposure to trauma...

Dominic Hoey’s 1985 is a punk-hearted, street-smart coming-of-age tale set in the chaos of mid-80s Auckland. The story kicks off as the Rainbow Warrior is bombed, sending shockwaves through the country—and through the life of twelve-year-old Obi, who’s already navigating a world of dysfunction, poverty, and survival. Obi lives in a rundown Grey Lynn flat with a sick mum, a poet dad allergic to work, and a sister tangled up with a local thug. His days are spent dodging beatings, raiding fridges, and hustling coins for the spacies parlour with his best mate Al. When they stumble across a treasure map in a bag left by Gus—an ex-con and one of his dad’s dodgy mates—the boys set off on a wild hunt across Auckland, chasing dreams, danger, and maybe a way out. With his mum’s health deteriorating and the threat of losing their home looming, Obi enters a gaming tournament with a $500 prize, hoping to save the house and buy Al a movie camera. But the treasure hunt quickly takes over, and the sta...

  “The journey of the women graduates of Otago Medical School from 1896 to 1967 is a story of resilience, progress and enduring impact. These pioneering women did more than just break into a male-dominated profession; they redefined it. Their legacy is one of perseverance, hard work and the pursuit of equality, and it continues to guide women in medicine today” (the Authors) In 2025, the year Otago Medical School celebrates 150 years, 50 per cent of graduates are women. Back in 1891, by contrast, when Emily Siedeberg, who would go on to become the school’s first woman graduate, applied for entrance it was not at all clear that it would be granted. Aotearoa's medical world has been in crisis almost my whole life.  No matter what government or how much money, there are never enough doctors.  And you wonder why.  Is it perhaps because the world of medicine is so hard to get into.  Is it a world that has economic or academic boundaries.  Are there boundaries ba...

We've just had the heads up a new book covering the Rin Patterson Trial is about to come out.  Here's the press release from the publisher,  Text: "For this extraordinary book, the lone wolves became a team. Garner, Hooper and Krasnostein tracked Erin Patterson’s preliminary hearings and trial, joined the media scrum at the Latrobe Valley Law Courts, slept over in Morwell and spent countless hours in fervent discussion of the case and the themes it raises: love, hate, jealousy, revenge, marriage, money, mycology and murder. The Mushroom Tapes  is a true crime book like no other, an unputdownable record of the writers’ private conversations about their impressions from inside the courtroom. They explore the gap between the certainties of the law and the messiness of reality, their own ambivalence about the true crime genre, and all that remains unknowable about Erin Patterson. If you read one book about how Erin Patterson was convicted of triple murder make it...

A book that distils the complexity of the Treaty of Waitangi for young readers has tonight been named the Margaret Mahy Book of the Year at the 2025 New Zealand Book Awards for Children and Young Adults. The judges awarded the highest accolade in children’s literature to The Treaty of Waitangi by Ross Calman (Ngāti Toa, Ngāti Raukawa, Kāi Tahu). “The Treaty of Waitangi is a miracle of concision without sacrificing complexity. It is written clearly and inclusively without avoiding uncomfortable truths,” said judging convenors Mat Tait and Feana Tu‘akoi during an exuberant ceremony held at Wellington’s Pipitea Marae. The judges said all the books in the running for the supreme award were superb examples of the fresh and intelligent literature written for tamariki and rangatahi in Aotearoa, but the Margaret Mahy Book of the Year Award recognises something more – an aspirational book of outstanding overall excellence. “After extensive discussion with both the bilingual and te reo Māori jud...