A Conversation With My Country
Alan Duff
Penguin Random House, $39.00,
ISBN 9780143773269
In 1990, a comet brightened the New Zealand literary scene and society with the publication of Alan Duff’s Once Were Warriors, for it involved both an extraordinary literary style and a powerful story.
Heke Tangata: Māori in Markets and Cities
Brian Easton for Te Whanau o Waipareira
Oratia Books, $30.00,
ISBN 9780947506438
In late 1984, a small group of Māori politicians, public servants and their helpers, invented an iwi to welcome hundreds of Māori from around the country to parliament for the Hui Taumata – the Māori Economic Summit. As delegates of different iwi arrived in the old Legislative Chamber, they were welcomed by the “Ngati Beehive”, an eclectic mix of organisers and staff of different tribal and ethnic backgrounds. The Hui Taumata was a less publicised, lower profile version of the newly elected Labour Government’s Economic Summit, at which Sue Bradford made such an impact. But its significance was that it drew together in a forum the collective voice of Māori, highlighted not just the difficulties, the deprivation and the obstacles, but looked at Māori resources, the positives, the solutions, and the future possibilities.
Growing Apart: Regional Prosperity in New Zealand
Shamubeel Eaqub
Bridget Williams Books, $15.00,
ISBN 9781927277614
When the Farm Gates Opened: The Impact of Rogernomics on Rural New Zealand
Neal Wallace
Otago University Press, $30.00,
ISBN 9781877578724
In the last hundred years, the median population centre of New Zealand has moved from near Nelson (which is at the geographic centre of New Zealand) to near Hamilton. The drift north has been remorseless, as has been the drift to the cities. A hundred years ago, one in two New Zealanders lived rurally; today it is one in six, fewer than those who live in Auckland.
The Christchurch Fiasco: The Insurance Aftershock and its Implications for New Zealand and Beyond Sarah Miles Dunmore Publishing, $38.00, ISBN 9781927212035 Given New Zealand’s reputation as The Shaky Isles, together with its accompanying history of deluges, hurricanes, landslips, tsunamis and…
The New Zealand Tax System: New Zealand Taxes in Comparative Perspective Rob Salmond Institute of Policy Studies, $30.00, ISBN 9781877347450 The New Zealand Economy: An Introduction Ralph Lattimore and Shamubeel Eaqub Auckland University Press, $34.99, ISBN 9781869404895 To…
Crisis: One Central Bank Governor and the Global Financial Collapse Alan Bollard with Sarah Gaitanos Auckland University Press, $29.99, ISBN 9781869404696 I examined carefully the Reserve Bank Bill before Parliament in 1988 to ensure that, come a financial crisis,…
Innovation and Independence: The Reserve Bank of New Zealand 1973-2002 John Singleton (with Arthur Grimes, Gary Hawke and Frank Holmes) Auckland University Press (in association with the Ministry of Culture and Heritage), $49.99, ISBN 1869403649 This history of the Reserve…
Intellectual life, Brian Easton
Brian Easton considers reviewing as New Zealand Books Pukapuka Aotearoa turns 25.
New Zealand Books was founded a quarter of a century ago, responding to a fear that The New Zealand Listener’s book pages were ending. I do not recall that there was then a concern that newspaper book pages would also be cut back. Once, a weekend newspaper devoted a whole broadsheet page – typically opposite the editorial page – to (shorter) book reviews. Today, you are lucky to get in their magazines two or three pages, at least one of which looks like a personality profile of the author issued by the publisher. Sometimes, the review is of a New Zealand book. So the annual award for review pages has been abandoned. (The death of newspaper reviewing is not peculiar to literature. For example, the gap in Wellington music reviewing has had to be filled by the Middle C website; local obituaries have all but disappeared.)
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