New Zealand Listener

New Zealand Listener is the country’s most respected general interest magazine, bringing you a wide variety of news, stories, columns, reviews, plus TV listings, every week.

New Zealand Listener

The Left’s two worst ideas • Appropriation and accusing people of having a white saviour complex are two very dumb doctrines, believes Jules Older.

Toxic overload

Bright Lines • For our Headline Competition, we asked for a headline in seven words or fewer on Budget 2024.

Quips & Quotes

10 Quick Questions

Paper tiger

Burning down the tent • Te Pāti Māori is acting like a protest movement outside the political tent but progress so far is hampered by the whiff of electorate scandal.

Clear air turbulence

We will fight them on the beaches

A weight off your mind • Diet is a dirty word for health expert Niki Bezzant, whose new book urges women to radically rethink their attitudes to ageing by shifting the dial from looks to health.

Do the heavy lifting • Women need different types of exercise from men and, particularly as they age, resistance training is key, says Niki Bezzant in this edited extract from her latest book.

Fusion not fission • Could a dead lion help to save humanity from climate change, war and gang crime? A leading anthropologist says yes.

The curious case of the poetic pathologist • We’re fascinated by death, according to pathologist Cynric Temple-Camp, which is why he’s written three slightly bonkers books dissecting some of the country’s most infamous cases.

When weather matters • The timing of the Allies’ WWII invasion of Europe hinged in no small way on the wisdom of a Kiwi weatherman.

Tickets to ride • NZ would have missed out on The Beatles had it not been for the doggedness of people who knew nothing about them.

Yeah! Yeah! Yeah! • From the Listener archive, selected memories of those who met them, saw them, and screamed.

Flower powers • An original and joyously curious investigation of the surprising senses and smarts of plants.

Getting face time • Pleasingly odd coming-of-age tale about what happens when a young mother decides to start an OnlyFans account.

The paradox of progress • Historian Paul Strathern on the 16th century’s intellectual achievements that laid the foundations for the modern world.

Bringing up the bodies • Author draws on her own life experience for macabre whodunit set in 1980s Birmingham.

Wars of the heart • Time-travel romance set in Japan has shades of the Outlander series but shies away from tackling the moral issues it raises.

Short cuts

Of queues and chaos • Meticulous account explains how Everest has gone from the impossible challenge to the McDonald’s of mountaineering.

Reframing Jarman • The first NZ exhibition of legendary avant-garde English painter and director Derek Jarman spotlights his Kiwi connections.

Thrilling tilling tale • A gut-wrenching epic of 18th-century Danish agriculture.

A guest at the country club • Lyttelton songwriter Mel Parsons warms up for a national tour in the cold climes of Gore.

Reigning supreme • Recent Womad NZ visitor Arooj Aftab is on a roll with a third album, and Seattle’s La Luz broaden their retro style.

Still rapt in mystery • The team behind NZ’s own polite whodunit, The Brokenwood Mysteries, ponders the returning show’s 10th anniversary.

Feeling the burn • The Game of Thrones spin-off turns up the heat in its second series.

TV Picks of the week

TV Films

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