The Listener 2025 collection: Our most popular stories on politics and the politics of modern life

Ten feature stories which reflect the politics of life in NZ today.

Greg Dixon’s Another Kind of Politics: The 2025 Drunken Muldoon Awards

Greg Dixon runs a satirical eye over the year in local and international politics.

Danyl McLauchlan’s annual awards for political bravery & buffoonery

Who deserves the top gongs in the Listener’s 2025 political awards?

Greg Dixon’s Another Kind of Politics: Willis to defend Heartless Tory Finance Minister title in “Grumble in the Jungle”

Greg Dixon runs a satirical eye over the week in local and international politics.

Russell Brown looks back at the year that was 2026

2026 was not the year it was predicted to be.

Pauline Hanson’s resurgence is an indication of deeper threats in Australia

Pauline Hanson continues to cash in on anti-migrant and anti-net-zero populism.

Broadcasting legend on why she’s backing wildlife sanctuary fundraiser

Kim Hill throws support behind a South Island sanctuary once dismissed as a mad idea.

Duncan Garner: Goodbye 2025 - now, can we get positive about 2026?

Life in 2025? It got raw. It got messy. I ended up in the hospital. Twice.

The Listener’s annual sports quiz

How many sporting moments from 2025 can you recall?

Joy ride: Our tribute to Kiwi classic cars, Mark II

Owners whose enthusiasm for old cars defies modern conventions like comfort & performance.

Confronting Nordic father-daughter drama has universal resonance

Cannes Grand Prix winner Sentimental Value strikes a common chord.

Are dreams of living on the coast soon to be washed away?

Online resources show the folly of living the coastal dream as seas rise.

Peter Griffin: The risky business of private health data online

Digital health isn’t a luxury any more, it’s an essential part of modern medicine.

Study shows brains mature early, driving judgment doesn’t

We may have all the grey matter we get by our teens but that doesn’t make us good drivers.

Stitched up? Why the risks of offshore weight loss surgery are troubling NZ doctors

Surgeon urges more controls on “medical tourism” as costs for botched ops rise.

I spent 2025 writing of lives turned upside down by rare diseases and autoimmune conditions. Here’s what it’s taught me about health

Many people I speak to have health conditions they have absolutely no control over.

Surprise packets: Three delicious recipes from Ottolinghi collaborator Helen Goh

Helen Goh's latest book draws on Asian and Middle Eastern flavours.

Weekend wine guide: NZ winemakers meet popular demand in a canny move

Convenience, portability and compact serves explains the latest boom behind tinned wine.

The Good Life: Reasons to be cheerful

'Tis the season of swings and roundabouts at Lush Places.

Chinese-Hungarian heritage provides inspiration for dinner parties

Recipes from Australian foodie Stephanie Fehers' Lucky Dragon Supper Club.

Musical chemistry: Cellist Martin Smith joins a Kiwi cultural institution

Smith is a new addition to the NZ String Quartet in time for the Adam festival.

Top seed: Nick Cave’s musical mate Warren Ellis

A mad chat with Ellis, who almost died in NZ just as he started life as a Bad Seed.

The year in classical music

Richard Betts on the year's best concerts and albums.

Opera singer Morag Atchison swings from choral work to a tango-based mass

Well-known for her singer, Morag Atchison may don her dancing shoes for upcoming show.

Josh O’Connor and Paul Mescal sing a sweet tune together in The History of Sound

Poignant gay love story is set in pioneering era of music recording.

Listener’s January Viewing Guide: Tv year kicks off with The Pitt, The Night Manager, and new Game of Thrones spin-off

The first big shows of 2026 and where to find them.

Penultimate album in Troy Kingi’s 10-year project is one of his best

New music by Troy Kingi and Let's Planet reviewed.

Sydney Sweeney causes relationship havoc in mad but fun domestic thriller

The Housemaid shows it’s still so hard to get good help.

Top 10 bestselling NZ books: January 10

The local books NZers have been buying over the Christmas break.

Short story: Crossed with the cat by Anthony Lapwood

This year's theme in our summer collection of short stories is distraction.

Book of the day: Some Bright Nowhere by Ann Packer

A story of a dying woman who banishes her husband falls short on emotional impact.

Short story: Maia and the Sparrow by Nat Baker

This year's theme in our summer collection of short stories is distraction.

Milk, Madness and Mayhem: The Ruahine Triple Axe Murders

Was it an act of temporary, alcohol-induced madness? Or plain bloody murder?

The Listener 2025 collection: Our most popular crime writing

From contemporary court cases to historic murders, 2025's best read crime stories.

Steve Braunias on the sentencing of the mother responsible for the ‘suitcase murders’

Mercy for Hakyung Lee was bartered for at sentencing.

Foreigner, bigamist, killer: The wild life and dubious conviction of a colonial double murderer

Faced with a double murder that rocked colonial NZ, police were quick to find a suspect.

Pauline Hanson’s resurgence is an indication of deeper threats in Australia

Pauline Hanson continues to cash in on anti-migrant and anti-net-zero populism.

Lives in a holding pattern: Syrian refugees face going home to renewed violence and a devastated economy

Those who fled civil war are increasingly unwelcome in the countries that took them in.

Jonathan Kronstadt: Gen Z don’t have the luxury of the idleness and mindlessness that marked my own 20s

Today, the kids are alright.

Bulletin from Berlin: Our city’s bottle collectors could be harbingers of our own poverty as seniors

Pension poverty is forcing Berlin retirees into scouring rubbish bins.

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See the world anew when science, art and nature converge in Te Papa’s Breathe | Mauri Ora

Te Papa’s new experience is at the cutting edge of technology and immersive art practice.

This Titirangi home was transformed into a functional family home

A mid-century Auckland home is reconfigured to make it more functional for a young family

This contemporary Redcliffs home maximises its view of the estuary

A home on a Christchurch estuary provides its owner with an outlook that’s always changing