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 Te Kaiwhakarongo Aotearoa

Where everybody knows your name • If you have a favourite bar or cafe where you feel at home, cherish it, because it might not always be there,

Broken housing market

Quick Questions

“ Quote Marks ”

Bright Lines • Creative words competition

Plumbing the depths • Election year sees parties working out new ways to game the voting system but at what price for faith in democracy?

Losing the culture war

In the red zone

The fish rots from the head

Fight or flight

To-ing and Fafo-ing

Tell me where it hurts • From wearable devices to AI, advancing technology promises to revolutionise healthcare. But could reliance on data overwhelm the patient?

AI TRIAGE • Healthcare agencies are using AI tools to connect with people in need.

Mind your wallet • From the end of the year, we can begin using smart phones to officially identify ourselves. Should we be worried?

PROVE YOURSELF

Tuning in • Psychologist Samuel Mehr took his love of music into his career, exploring how music and language are processed in the brain.

Working in harmony • Singing and performing for visitors is all in a day’s work for Blaise Clotworthy, Auckland Pride’s new executive director.

May 24, 1939 – August 10, 2026 • The poet and arts writer was a great chronicler of the immigrant experience, says her biographer, DEBORAH SHEPARD.

That bloody possum • Writer Bruce Ansley manages a tricky thing: to combine the erudite with the colloquial – and he’s done it again in his new book about being a townie running a deer farm.

Forward thinker • A surprisingly modern man who sailed with Captain Cook gets a worthy resurrection in this impressive biography.

Where it went wrong • A Nobel laureate charts the rise and fall of liberal democracy, but is it possible to get to his more inclusive society from here?

Short cuts

Murder with a twist • Highly readable crime novels from three old hands and one new.

Short cuts

Funny old Russia • A black satire expertly lampoons Soviet authorities as its teen heroine seeks revenge.

Secrets and lies • YA writer branches out to adult fiction with an immersive crime novel about child exploitation.

Working the volume • In a rollicking new memoir, Jon Toogood looks back at his 37 years leading NZ’s premier hard rock band and what it did to his life.

GHOSTING THE MACHINE • Karl Puschmann on co-writing Jon Toogood’s autobiography.

Strange days • Eccentric Englishmen continue to confound.

Daddy issues • Superb performances enhance wonderful, novel-based script.

Lacking bite • Attempts to emulate Spielberg get chewed up and spat out.

All in the whānau • Whakaata Māori’s new drama series This is Home is a family affair both on screen and behind the cameras.

Taming the beast • Ground-breaking therapy for OCD sufferers is filmed for a TV documentary.

Loud and clear • A work that highlights the effects of climate change uses 60 toy megaphones.

Through a glass darkly • Health experts are divided on whether plant-based milks that are ultra-processed are good for you.

Nutrition bites

Cheat sheet • Quick dinners that turn into easy lunches from Aussie ‘school lunchbox dad’ George Georgievski.

Ram jam • With AI-driven price hikes for hardware here already, it’s time to think smarter about replacing tech.

The body politic • Running the health system as a...