Light Fantastic: Dance Floor Courtship in New Zealand Georgina White HarperCollins, $49.99, ISBN 9781869506193 Holiday Seasons: Christmas, New Year and Easter in Nineteenth-Century New Zealand Alison Clarke Auckland University Press, $35.00, ISBN 9781869403829 Who doesn’t recall the excited flutter of…
Lucky Bastard Peter Wells Vintage, $27.99, ISBN 9781869419431 At a recent funeral for a friend’s father many of us were surprised – and surprisingly moved – when a uniformed soldier played The Last Post. It struck a sombre note during…
Crisis of Identity? The Mission and Management of Universities in New Zealand Wilf Malcolm and Nicholas Tarling Dunmore Press, $39.95, ISBN 9781877399275 Clark Kerr, a great president of the University of California at Berkeley, once defined the university as “a…
The Kindness of Strangers: Kitchen Memoirs Shonagh Koea (illustrations by Peter Wells) Vintage, $34.99, ISBN 9781869419189 It wasn’t in her own mother’s kitchen that the young Shonagh found out food could make her happy. Things at home were a bit…
Ripples on the Lake Dawn Rotorangi HarperCollins, $26.99, ISBN 13978869506391 Cutting Caleb Keys Glenn Bowden Penguin Books, $28.00, ISBN 9780143006008 Rocking Horse Road Carl Nixon Vintage, $27.99, ISBN 9781969419073 The Blue Mary McCallum Penguin Books, $28.00, ISBN 9780143007234 In the…
A Nest of Singing Birds:100 years of the New Zealand School Journal Gregory O’Brien Learning Media, $59.95, ISBN 9780790319636 It has almost no equivalent elsewhere. Margaret Mahy has called it a “national treasure”. For many, it has been the beginning…
Playing Friends Marilyn Duckworth Vintage, $27.99, ISBN 9781869418694 Trendy But Casual Paula Morris Penguin Books, $28.00, ISBN 9780143006398 It’s that time in later middle age when school reunions have become like a dawn (or twilight) parade of veterans and survivors.…
The Problem of Prisons: Correction Reform in New Zealand since 1840 Greg Newbold Dunmore Press, $49.95, ISBN 9790187399213 Mt Eden Prison in Auckland speaks of an era when punishment and incarceration were very visible. Its turreted buildings of black volcanic…
The Dumpster Saga Craig Harrison Scholastic New Zealand, $16.99, ISBN 9781869438166 Salt Maurice Gee Puffin, $17.95, ISBN 9780143303350 The Sea-wreck Stranger Anna Mackenzie Longacre Press, $18.99, ISBN 9781877361883 It’s hard to imagine and salutary to recall that many teenagers do…