Southern Capital Christchurch: Towards a City Biography 1850-2000 ed John Cookson & Graeme Dunstall Canterbury University Press, $39.95, ISBN 0908812876 Christchurch Changing Geoffrey Rice Canterbury University Press, $29.95, ISBN 0908812531 Christchurch is my home city. My heart and my brain…
City of Reeds Tina Shaw Penguin Books, $24.95, ISBN 014029791X City of Reeds, Tina Shaw’s third novel, is a large and accomplished work. It’s an example of a relatively new departure in New Zealand fiction: the story-telling novel. This sort…
Shapes on the Wind David Lewis HarperCollins, $29.95, ISBN 073226801X In 1934, when I was seventeen, I celebrated my last days at boarding school by building a canoe/kayak and informing the headmaster that I was going home in it…
Salote, Queen of Paradise Margaret Hixon Otago University Press, $49.95, ISBN 1877133787 The image of Queen Salote, in London for the coronation of Queen Elizabeth in June 1953 – defiantly riding in an open coach in the pouring rain, and regally…
Building the Constitution ed Colin James Institute of Policy Studies, $45, ISBN 090893548X Some time in 1997, with the prolonged aftermath of the first MMP election still agitating the establishment and mightily diverting the rest of us, the idea gained…
Recycled People: Forming New Relationships in Mid-life Coral Atkinson & Paula Wagemaker Shoal Bay Press, $24.95, ISBN 1877251046 Recycled People is a timely and welcome book. When one examines the generation of any timely idea, one discovers that it arises…