Suffer the child workers

BULLETIN FROM WASHINGTON DC

All together now

Yes, schools need to change, but former principal TIM HEATH argues for reforms that have nothing to do with the three Rs.

Facing the storm

Renowned climate scientist James Renwick's sobering new forecast for NZ and passionate plea for action

A different tune

The man who helped turn NZ Opera's fortunes around tells ELISABETH EASTHER opera can be funny, moving and disconcerting

Courting Nanny State

Advocating five-minute showers to offset the rising cost of living invites a label the government won't be wanting to wear

All aglitter

When Martin Amis moved from W London to Brooklyn, his American wife made one thing clear: the greatest obstacle they would face \"the most time-consuming and labour-intensive, the most tediously labyrinthine and the most extortionate\" would be healthcare

Outfoxing the squirrels

In our - mostly laudable - doting on animals, we seldom stop to wonder whether labradors truly appreciate being made to wear bandannas or whether poodle-crosses object to all being called either Ruby or Bella

Untouchable swagger

I had dinner at the end of last month with an old friend, the writer Geoff Dyer, and we spent a good chunk of it talking about Martin Amis, who recently died in Florida at 73

All over the place

Should we return to using some of the country's original Māori place names? JULES OLDER puts the case for change

Fresh off the boat

A BBC series about post-war UK migrants down under steers a curious course

Platforms for change

Wellington’s Kia Mau contemporary indigenous arts festival has become an agenda-setter for other arts events.

Hail to the Chief

How Matu Ngaropo has survived and thrived as George Washington in the musical phenomenon Hamilton.

History in the making

Bustling novel packs in 100 years of life and action in NZ and abroad.

Death takes a toll

A woman who comforts the dying struggles to connect with the living.

A wing & a prayer

A child convict crosses boundaries amid the birth throes of colonial Auckland.

The city as a stage

A young acting troupe fights to stay alive in a fantastical Elizabethan London.

Out of the shadows

How two spooks and a chip shop owner helped broker peace in Northern Ireland.

Going viral

An engaging examination of microbial diseases and their far-reaching impacts on human history.

Mission control

The need to regulate artificial intelligence is becoming urgent and Europe is well out in front on this.

Mental block

Our vulnerabilities to disease and death can provoke reactions of “Eww!”

Tried & true

Greek grandmothers take food writer Anastasia Miari into their homes and share their time-perfected recipes.

Kevin Ireland 1933-2023

Graeme Lay remembers his long-time friend and colleague Kevin Ireland, writer, poet, translator and wit.

'Nowhere else to go'

In 2012, Max Rashbrooke spent three weeks living in a Wellington boarding house, writing about the experience for the Listener. The place he chose, Malcolm’s, has since closed and Healthy Homes legislation has come into effect mandating insulation and heating standards for all residential properties including boarding houses and hostels. We are republishing Rashbrooke’s story from 2012 in light of the Loafers Lodge fire that killed at least five people on May 16. Loafers Lodge is not Malcolm’s, but it also housed a community of vulnerable people. A decade on, Rashbrooke’s experience still resonates

State of inertia

It’s the time of the Great Centrist Drift, writes Danyl McLauchlan, an era of “lost opportunities and gradual failure driven not by ideology but a lack of it”.

Arts & minds

Pressure on students to qualify for careers has seen the BA degree take a battering – but the results may not be as intended.

Matters of the heart

Igor Felippe’s groundbreaking research into blood pressure has meant sacrifices and challenges

Bloom of youth

The director of Oscar-nominated coming-of-age drama Close talks about how his own adolescence inspired the film.

Hostile territory:

Single women trying to forge new lives are at the heart of two trans-Tasman crime debuts.

Home truths

The harrowing history of a Jewish town continues to haunt modern Ukraine.

A saint for the ages

Finely woven stories spanning a thousand years revisit the eventful afterlife of an English bishop.