
First Things
Harry Ricketts(Author)
Te Herenga Waka University Press
Published on 9. May 2024
Book
Paperback/Softback
240 pages
978-1-77692-138-6 (ISBN)
Description
First memory. First going hitchhiking. First seeing my father angry. First shotgun. First poem. In First Things, Harry Ricketts chronicles his early life through the lens of ' firsts' those moments that can hold their detail and potency across a lifetime. Set mostly in Hong Kong and Oxford, these bright fragments include the places, people, writers, encounters and obsessions that have shaped Ricketts' world, from his first friends and rivals to his first time being caned by a teacher and his first time dropping acid. There are other, more enigmatic firsts here too, like the first time he realised what really mattered, and the first time he began doubting God. ' I wanted to believe in God and, even more, wanted God to believe in me.' Who really were we, back then? Which parts of ourselves get to be remembered and carried along with us, and which parts are gone forever? In First Things, the gaps in between shine as brightly as the memories themselves.
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
New Zealand
Product notice
Paperback (trade)
Unsewn / adhesive bound
Dimensions
Height: 211 mm
Width: 142 mm
Thickness: 15 mm
Weight
367 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-77692-138-6 (9781776921386)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions

Harry Ricketts
First Things
E-Book
05/2024
Te Herenga Waka University Press
€11.99
Available for download
Person
Harry Ricketts is a poet and literary scholar and has published around 30 books. He has lived in Wellington, Aotearoa New Zealand, since 1981. Until his retirement in 2022, he was a professor in the English Programme at Te Herenga Waka-- Victoria University of Wellington. His books include the internationally acclaimed The Unforgiving Minute: A Life of Rudyard Kipling (1999) and Strange Meetings: The Lives of the Poets of the Great War (2010).