Book Reviews Archive
Extract: The Clarence: People and Places of the Waiau Toa
Extract from: The Clarence: People and Places of Waiau Toa by Tim Fulton (David Bateman Ltd).
In The Clarence: People and Places of Waiau Toa, rural journalist Tim Fulton explores more than 200 kilometres of mountains, rivers and valleys bordering Canterbury and Marlborough.
October 2022 release
Extract: Rakiura: The Wild Landscapes of Stewart Island
Extract from: Rakiura: The Wild Landscapes of Stewart Island by Rob Brown (Potton & Burton).
Stewart Island/Rakiura is one of our special places, an island that is increasingly cherished by New Zealanders, whose appreciation for its wild character has flourished in recent years. This has inspired the revising of Rakiura, the work of leading landscape photographer Rob Brown, which was first published in 2006.
November 2022 release
Extract: New Zealand Gardens to Visit
Extract from: New Zealand Gardens to Visit by Rosemary Barraclough and Juliet Nicholas (RHNZ Godwit).
An inspiring guide to outstanding New Zealand gardens that are open to visit (and sometimes to stay).
November 2022 release
Extract: Learning to be French (and failing): A New Zealander, a tiny village and an ancient stone house
Extract from: Learning to be French (and failing) by Anna Bibby (Allen & Unwin NZ)
What happens when an art gallery owner from New Zealand buys a dilapidated French house on a whim?
October 2022 release
Extract: The Other Way
Extract from: The Other Way by David Trubridge (David Trubridge Press).
The Other Way marries designer David Trubridge's visual response to the details and textures of the land with poetic, descriptive and philosophical writing about the land and his relationship with it.
July 2022 release
Extract: In memory of travel
Extract from: in memory of travel by Grant Sheehan (Phantom House NZ).
In memory of travel takes the reader on a series of journeys, from the Central American coast of Nicaragua, the Okavango Delta in Botswana, and the frozen world of Antarctica to many places in between. Grant Sheehan recounts not only the trials, tribulations, and adventures of travelling the world as a working photographer but also explores the place travel occupies in our memory, and how it can and does change the way we view ourselves and the world around us.
August 2022 release
Extract: More Retro Caravans - Vantastic Kiwi Collections
Extract from: More Retro Caravans: Vantastic Kiwi Collections by Don & Marilyn Jessen (David Bateman Ltd).
More Retro Caravans brings together another collection of wonderfully restored caravans from the 1920s to the 1980s highlighting some of the local history behind these vehicles and the people who lovingly restore them.
September 2022 release
Extract: Dogs in Early New Zealand Photographs
Extract from: Dogs in Early New Zealand Photographs with an introduction by Mike White (Te Papa Press).
This entertaining selection of over 100 photos of New Zealand dogs reveals some of the more curious ways in which they have appeared in photographic collections from the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
April 2022 release
Extract: Fossil Treasures of Foulden Maar: A window into Miocene Zealandia
Extract from: Fossil Treasures of Foulden Maar: A window into Miocene Zealandia by Daphne Lee, Uwe Kaulfuss and John Conran (Otago University Press)
A paleontological site of international significance, Foulden Maar in Otago, New Zealand is home to an amazing record of life on Earth. In Fossil Treasures of Foulden Maar, authors Daphne Lee, Uwe Kaulfuss and John Conran share their passion and knowledge for this extraordinary spot, telling its story and revealing the paleontological discoveries that have been made to date.
August 2022 release
Interview: Simon Wilson talks about HomeGround: The story of a building that changes lives
Writer: Simon Wilson. Photography: Mark Smith.
Photographed by Mark Smith and with text by renowned writer Simon Wilson, and Professor Deidre Brown and Dr Karamia Muller of the University of Auckland’s School of Architecture, HomeGround represents an enduring record of a remarkable building built for a remarkable organisation, created through the aroha and vision of many.
December 2022 release
Interview: Katy Soljak talks about her novella It’s a Long Ride to Texas, Baby
Writer: Katy Soljak.
Gala is fleeing a relationship. With her guitar and daughter in tow, she leaves LA and takes the bus to Texas. Three days later she arrives at midnight with only a few dollars in her pocket and a single phone number. Will she be able to find sanctuary, love and fortune in this unfamiliar country where people struggle to even understand her accent
November 2022 release
Interview: R.V. Bayley on her novel Barefoot
Writer: R. V. Bayley.
Barefoot is a moving, evocative story of two people in love: one stranded in the new reality of the local war effort, the other in the stifling deserts and desolate battlegrounds of far-off lands; lands where danger is always just around the corner and death can snatch you in the blink of an eye.
October 2022 release
Interview: Lauren Roche talks about her novel Mila and the Bone Man
Writer: Lauren Roche.
Powerful yet tender and beautifully imagined, Mila and the Bone Man unites enduring love with the power of healing. A novel about guilt, forgiveness and finding your way home. And the secrets we keep to protect those we love the most.
September 2022 release
Interview: Paddy Richardson on her novel By The Green Of The Spring
Writer: Paddy Richardson.
By The Green Of The Spring is the gripping story of lives changed forever by war, the hurts suffered, the losses borne, and the secrets kept, yet it is also the story of the capacity of the human spirit to endure, to hope and to love.
August 2022 release
Interview: Phil Walsh talks about Conquering Cascade: An epic saga of Denniston coal
Writer: Phil Walsh.
From beyond the Denniston Plateau - the birthplace of New Zealand coalmining unionism - comes the remarkable story of the Cascade Westport Coal Company.
July 2022 release
Interview: Sarah Jane Barnett on Notes on Womanhood
Writer: Sarah Jane Barnett.
After Sarah Jane Barnett had a hysterectomy in her 40s, a comment by her doctor that she wouldn’t be “less of a woman” prompted her to investigate what the concept of womanhood meant to her. Part memoir, part feminist manifesto, part coming-of-middle-age story, Notes on Womanhood is the result.
June 2022 release
Extract: Auckland Zoo 100 Years of Stories: A century of wild life at Auckland Zoo
Extract from: Auckland Zoo 100 Years of Stories: A century of wild life at Auckland Zoo by Sarah Ell with Aja Pendergrast and Jane Healy (in association with Sherlock-Co).
Living at the Zoo is every animal-mad kid’s dream. But for former head curator and veterinarian Richard Jakob-Hoff, it was just part of the job.
November 2022 release
Interview: Pamela Wood on New Zealand Nurses: Caring for our people 1880 - 1950
Writer: Pamela Wood.
Pamela Wood’s New Zealand Nurses draws on nurses’ personal stories to identify the values, traditions, community and folklore of the nursing culture from 1880 – when hospital reforms began to formally introduce ‘modern nursing’ into New Zealand – to 1950, three years after New Zealand severed its final tie as part of the British Empire.
April 2022 release
Review: Blood Matters
Author: Renée. Reviewer: Jessie Neilson.
Blood Matters is a solid read, vivaciously told, outlining any small town in New Zealand through which we may have travelled while on our way to more popular destinations.
November 2022 release
Interview: Chris Tse on Super Model Minority
Writer: Chris Tse.
It’s the end of the world and Chris Tse has lost his chill. In Super Model Minority he completes a loose trilogy of books – from the historical racism of How to be Dead in a Year of Snakes to a queer coming of age in HE’S SO MASC – by looking to a future where ‘it’s enough to look up at a sky blushing red and see possibility’.
March 2022 release