Directed by Ava DuVernay Origin is an extraordinary film which is part-biopic, part-love story, but mostly a socio-political essay. It recounts the academic and personal journey of African-American author Isabel Wilkerson to a fascinating and courag

by Ngāhuia te Awekōtuku (HarperCollins, $39.99) This is a strange memoir. It’s a contradiction: honest but often frustratingly oblique; explicit in some places and coy in others; its people and places and times evoked in depth but its narrative als

by Percival Everett (Panmacmillan, $37.99) Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is arguably the first great masterpiece of American literature. Rich in humour and social realism, it tells the tale of a young boy from a small town in Miss

If you go online, you can find a 15-minute documentary series called Artists Prepare. The six episodes explore the creative process of New Zealand art practitioners, and it features dancers, singer-songwriters, poets and even mime artists. There’s a

Viewing for a certain deputy prime minister perhaps: Dunstan Bruce, the frontman of anarchist indie band Chumbawamba, looks back with a surprising amount of honesty and humility. “I’m a washed up, rinsed out retired radical,” he says, talking to his

by Fuemana When the Polynesian artists of South Auckland arrived back in their home town at the end of an unprecedented national tour 30 years ago, the prime mover, Phil Fuemana, was in an ebullient mood. The milestone album Proud: An Urban Pacific

THE LAST SECRET AGENT: The Untold Story of My Life As a Spy Behind Nazi Enemy Lines by Pippa Latour with Jude Dobson (Allen & Unwin, $37.99) This June, it will be 80 years since D-Day. Pippa Latour, who died in West Auckland late last year aged 10

TVNZ 2, 7pm The first and best in the animated series about how Po the panda went from a clumsy furball still living at home with his father goose, Mr Ping, to Dragon Warrior and worthy comrade of the Furious Five. (2008) ★★★★ Whakaata Māori, 7pm A m

Alexander Hamilton described the courts as the least dangerous branch of government. They had neither soldiers nor money to enforce their decrees. Like all public institutions, the courts rely for their continued acceptance and legitimacy on the trus

The BBC ventures into some of the most spectacular landscapes on Earth, home to fascinating animals and intrepid people. The threepart series explores the worlds of the coastline, the interior, and extremes. Tonight’s first episode follows a coastal

What would happen when Germany legalised cannabis? Maybe clouds of sweet-smelling marijuana smoke would clog up the bars and streets? Maybe dazed and confused stoners would spend their days listening to bad reggae, shops would sell out of snacks know

High above Saks Fifth Avenue, an intimate service takes place in a very special garden every April. Designated as a place to remember the dead of two world wars, the Anzac Memorial Garden stemmed from the drive of New Zealandborn Hollywood movie star

ANSWER: Researchers have found intriguing links between coffee consumption and colorectal cancer risk. Regular coffee consumption is linked to a reduced risk of colorectal cancer occurrence and recurrence in some studies, including a recent large ob

FREEVIEW 51 SKY 422 iHeartRADIO rnz.co.nz/concert NB: Programme details are correct at the time of going to print; check RNZ website for updates News and Weather 6.00, 8.00, 9.00, noon 6.00 Mornings with Carey McDonald 10.00 RNZ Concert Days 3.00 RN

You probably saw it on the news. Last month, Dame Kiri Te Kanawa ONZ, one of our most revered cultural figures, was honoured at Parliament. The occasion was Dame Kiri’s 80th birthday but this was a celebration of a life, not a day. There were speeche

The science fiction author Neal Stephenson coined the term “facebooked” to describe post-industrial societies that have their traditional media outlets destroyed by digital platforms. Because the algorithms curating the platforms optimise for virilit

On the day after World War I began, my father, at 18, volunteered with enthusiasm to join the Bavarian Artillery. He survived the terrible Battle of the Somme, won two Iron Crosses and ended the war, defeated, in a military hospital in Alsace. Lieute

If you thought movies about Air Jordans, the BlackBerry and Flamin’ Hot Cheetos were bad enough, how about the hitherto unknown story of the Top-Tart toaster pastry? But before we consign the film to the food scraps bin of history, it may be importan

Hamish McLaren has already been the subject of a podcast by the Australian newspaper called Who the Hell Is Hamish? and now his exploits are the subject of this doco that features some of the many people McLaren (real name Hamish Watson) targeted ove

by Venki Ramakrishnan (Hodder Press, $39.99) ‘Who wants to live forever?” we bravely tell ourselves. But if we were offered a pill that promised another 10 or 20 years of life, how many of us would really say no? For better or worse, that’s not a d

The dangers of the Tudor period are given full expression in this series based on CJ Sansom’s series of historical mystery novels. His protagonist, Matthew Shardlake, is a lawyer who is sent to investigate all manner of rum doings and in this series,

During the German occupation of the Netherlands in World War II, painter Willem Arondeus and cellist Frieda Belinfante, used their artistic skills to make fake identity cards which saved thousands of Jews from the death camps. Knowing that the Nazis

The week it was confirmed that a significant chunk of the nation’s news media landscape was to disappear was also the week I officially retired my own long-standing media venture. No jobs were lost. Public Address, the website I founded in 2002, had

‘Demanding that the New Zealand Government further mutilate the New Zealand economy in the name of climate science won’t help the planet,” huffs David Seymour in an opinion piece in the NZ Herald in response to the School Strike for Climate. “What wi

A family portrait, you might say, of the great dramatist and writer. Miller’s daughter, Rebecca, “offers an insider’s account of a complicated life”, said the Atlantic, that includes footage she shot when she began her film-making career in her 20s.

There’s a Māori whakataukī (proverb) that says, “Kia whakatōmuri te haere whakamua. / I walk backwards into the future with my eyes fixed on the past.” The loop of past, present and future speaks to New Zealand Wars: Stories of Tauranga Moana, the la

The Gallipoli campaign affected the subsequent lives of all who survived their time on the peninsula to one degree or another. Few members of the New Zealand Expeditionary Force, however, could have experienced wartime reversals of fortune as dramati