Skip to main content

Story: Arts reviewing

Denis Glover reviewing on Bookshop, 1958

Audio file

Bookshop was a long-running book-review programme on the YC radio stations (the most highbrow stations) during the 1950s. In this excerpt from a 1958 programme, poet Denis Glover (at left in the photo, reading a poem to Bill Oliver, James K. Baxter, Louis Johnson, Bill Hart-Smith, Tony Vogt and Keith Sinclair in 1956) satirically reviews a work by Irish author Claud Cockburn.

Using this item

Alexander Turnbull Library, Bridget Williams Collection

Reference: PAColl-2146-009

Sound file from Ngā Taonga Sound and Vision – Radio New Zealand collection. Any re-use of this audio is a breach of copyright. To request a copy of the recording, contact Ngā Taonga Sound and Vision (Bookshop. 1958-04-29/Reference number 39459)

Permission of the Alexander Turnbull Library, National Library of New Zealand, Te Puna Mātauranga o Aotearoa, must be obtained before any re-use of this image.

All images & media in this story

How to cite this page

Peter Clayworth, Arts reviewing – Struggle with modernity, 1900 to 1960s, Te Ara – the Encyclopedia of New Zealand, https://teara.govt.nz/en/speech/45126/denis-glover-reviewing-on-bookshop-1958 (accessed 4 June 2026).

Story by Peter Clayworth, published 6 May 2014, updated 1 April 2020.