Graeme Lay

Graeme Lay is a travel writer specialising in the Pacific Islands, and his novels include the best-selling historical fiction trilogy based on the life of Captain James Cook. He was born in Foxton in 1944. Photo credit: The Listener

Books
Dec 30, 2016

Summer reissue: The curious case of the strangest ever winner of a book award in New Zealand

Ahead of the Ockham national book awards in May, Graeme Lay shuddered to recall the time the award for best novel went to a bogan - and Steve Braunias barges his way in at the end of the story, and adds a highly unusual postscript.

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Society
Dec 8, 2016

Auckland's new waterfront: a Downtown lament

Graeme Lay bids a belated farewell to the Downtown Shopping Mall, central Auckland's least glamorous but most useful shopping centre.

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Books
Jun 29, 2016

The old man and the sea: New Zealand's most ancient living writer

Graeme Lay meets John Dunmore, the 92-year-old world authority on Pacific exploration - who has also written thrillers on the side, like the one about an assassin sent to New Zealand to kill Prime Minister Rob Muldoon.

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Books
May 9, 2016

Ockham national book awards: The curious case of the strangest ever winner of a book award in New Zealand

Craig Marriner! What a dude. He dressed like a "Rotorua pig hunter", apparently, and shocked everyone by winning the 2002 national book award for best novel. Graeme Lay and Steve Braunias have rather different versions of a most curious case.

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Books
Nov 5, 2015

Books: A Thousand Leagues of Blue – An Epic History of the Pacific

Graeme Lay gets to grips with Simon Winchester's epic tale of the Pacific Ocean.

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Books
Sep 22, 2015

Books: How to Write a Best-Seller

An essay by author Graeme Lay on how he came to write his best-selling trilogy of novels about Captain James Cook.

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