Fragments: New Zealand Social and Cultural History ed Bronwyn Dalley and Bronwyn Labrum Auckland University Press, $39.95, ISBN 1 86940 185 9 Fragments bills itself as a step towards a Brave New World of sophisticated histories of New Zealand life,…
Sport, Society and Culture ed Brad Patterson Stout Research Centre, Victoria University of Wellington, $24.95, ISBN 0 473 06403 0 It is extraordinary, to say the least, that sport and academe in New Zealand have squared off against each…
Shadrach Girl Joy Cowley Puffin, $15.95, ISBN 0 14 130899 0 On my eighth birthday I was given a book from a French friend of my parents. It was beautifully bound in pink, with gold lettering, a French children’s classic…
Crime in New Zealand Greg Newbold Dunmore Press, $34.95, ISBN 1 86469 348 6 This is only the second proper survey and consideration of criminal statistics in New Zealand, the first being Crime and Deviance published in 1992 by the same…
Posted Love: New Zealand love letters Sophie Jerram Penguin, $24.95, ISBN 0 14 029010 9 In March 1888, James Crooks left Wanganui on the 300-mile walk back to his home in Petone, hoping to pick up odd jobs so as…
Mr Explorer Douglas John Pascoe’s New Zealand classic revised by Graham Langton Canterbury University Press, $39.95, ISBN 0 908812 95 7 For bushmen, trampers and mountaineers, the exploits and writings of 19th century explorer Charlie Douglas have become folkloric. Enduring…
Birds of Europe Andrew Johnston Victoria University Press, $19.95, ISBN 0 86473 386 0 These Days Jenny Bornholdt Victoria University Press, $19.95, ISBN 0 86473 385 2 Delacroix remarked that to be a poet when one is twenty is…