New Zealand Listener

February 28 - March 6 2009

Readers should not miss these features in the Listener that went on sale today:

* OUT OF THE BLUE -the "big bang moment" in NZ pop music happened very gently according to a most interesting piece by music historian and author Chris Bourke who is currently working on a new book, Blue Smoke: The Lost Dawn of Popular Music in New Zealand 1918-1964.

*FIRST PRIZE - a two page review of Prizes:Selected Short Stories by Janet Frame (Vintage $34,99) by reviewer and broadcaster Elizabeth Alley.

*VOICE OF AMERICA - two page review by Califoirnian-based NZ English teacher Hugh Roberts of two recent poetry titles, BEAUTY OF THE BADLANDS by Cliff Fell (VUP $25), and GET SOME by Sonja Yelich (AUP $24.99)

For gardening booklovers there is Maggie Barry on Monet's Garden; for wine-loving readers there is Michael Cooper on Hawkes Bay wines while for keen cooking readers we have Michael Bosley with a devine-sounding recipe for Prawn salad, cucumber, cherry tomatoes, mint & coriander with palm sugar dressing.\

Then of course there is curmudgeonly Hamish Keith on the arts...........

Loads more too including Jane Clifton's lengthy, interesting cover story on the way we Kiwis mangle the English language. Don't miss this issue.