National Overview: Waitangi Tribunal Rangahaua Whanui Series Alan Ward GP Publications, $154.65 (3 volumes), ISBN 1 86956 209 7 In 1993 I attended the first Pacific island peoples’ science conference in Suva. At that time there were still western scientists…
New Zealand Film 1912-1996 Helen Martin and Sam Edwards Oxford University Press, $49.95, ISBN 019 558336 1 Here are three separate and unrelated personal anecdotes about New Zealand film. Each has a neat and glib “moral” tacked on to it…
It could be You Sue McCauley Vintage, $24.95, ISBN 1 86962 008 9 The Mathematics of Jane Austen Elizabeth Smither Godwit, $24.95, ISBN 1 86941 317 2 Remember Me Linda Burgess Otago University Press, $21.95, ISBN 1 877 13335 3…
Vows: Nuns and Priests Speak Out Denis Edwards Penguin, $24.95. ISBN 0 140 27159 7 This small book represents two trends apparent in recent publishing. One is the vogue for oral history — Vows consists of edited interview material, the voice…
The Dictionary of New Zealand English: New Zealand words and their origins ed H W Orsman Oxford University Press, $150.00, ISBN 0 19 558347 7 It is nearly 20 years since I and a number of fellow conference-goers spent an…
Children’s books The long history of story has inevitably established the effectiveness of traditional patterns. Among the 1997 crop of picture books, though illustrators often choose modern styles, most texts are structured traditionally, giving circularity in a promised repeat performance or…
Palaces in the Sky: a year among Tibetans Ted Reynolds Godwit Publishing, $29.95, ISBN 1 86962 000 3 You’re a Brave Man: a Kiwi odyssey in the Himalayas Elizabeth Harding Random House, $27.95, ISBN 1 86941 302 4 Ted Reynolds’…
Return to Sender Wira Gardiner Reed, $24.95, ISBN 0 140 25676 8 Nga Pepa a Ranginui — The Walker Papers Ranginui Walker Penguin, $29.95, ISBN 0 7900 0460 7 All festivals are acts of collective myth-making, chances for a nation to…
Summer diversion
A quiz by Harry Ricketts and Hugh Roberts Summer’s here and we thought you might enjoy a diversion. We started out with an orthodox quiz (“who wrote…?”) but then we decided that the only thing more tedious than being asked…
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