Book Review: Maggie: Or, A Man and a Woman Walk into a Bar
September 18, 2025
Katie Yee describes the calamitous events in one woman’s life with a light touch, but her beautifully crafted prose is full of power.
Bel likes to read widely around the shelves, but her particular interest lies in literary fiction and non-fiction. Always keen to read and champion writers from Aotearoa and Australia, she keeps a close eye on local publishing as well as international, including a peppering of fiction in translation here and there. She loves reading about messy families, artistic ambition, complex friendships and connection to nature. Favourite authors change weekly, but if pressed, she’d include Kate de Goldi, Elizabeth Strout, Zadie Smith, Eleanor Catton, Helen Garner, Deborah Levy, Robert Macfarlane and Rebecca Solnit.
Katie Yee describes the calamitous events in one woman’s life with a light touch, but her beautifully crafted prose is full of power.
I must admit to being skeptical in the beginning but Dalton’s prose is crisp, taut and had me absolutely in her thrall.
I devoured this brilliant historical fiction! The language is gorgeous and the characters leap off the page reeking of history!
I love Levy’s impressionistic writing and her late, coming of age musings – a post-children, post-marriage, rediscovery of self.
I love a character-driven novel, and Wilkins is so adept at creating a cast that feels complex, relatable and easy to love.
This memoir provided me with a beautiful escape. I needed a calm harbour and this understated memoir was perfect.
With such a flair for drama, Hari somehow manages to make research feel utterly gripping. A thought provoking read, full of good reminders.
McCracken delights in human absurdity and the slippery art of writing about your family – be it fiction or memoir, or both at once.
This man is a GENUIS and yet still completely relatable. If he ever starts a cult, I’ll be the first to join up.
Powerfully disturbing and unpredictable – this book will stay with me. A fabulous, unromanticised window into being young in New York now.
With moments of necessary darkness, this is a mostly gentle, melancholic story about love in all its forms.
This is a funny, utterly heartbreaking and incredibly well crafted novel, but it comes with a warning.
Wallace’s ingenious use of metaphor is poetic and powerful, as is the roar and the restraint in these pages.
Don’t be fooled by the title – the stories show how sometimes our yearning to be ‘single, carefree, mellow’ can often make us anything but.
Nici is real and generous, and her recipes are varied, simple and delicious. These recipes are designed for one, but can easily be modified.
If you haven’t read a poem since high school, or tried to but felt you were missing something – this is a brilliant place to start.
I was hooked from the electric first chapter! A bright, easy romp through a sweltering summer in 1980s New York.
Great to pick up when you get into bed after a long day and only have a few minutes before your eyes close. Kooky dreams guaranteed!
A brilliantly complex mother-daughter relationship, perfect for fans of her Olive Kitteridge books. Keep your eyes peeled for Easter eggs!
A satire of the sad girl novel genre that gently pokes fun at an aspiring novelist and celebrates female friendship.