Diggers, Hatters and Whores: The Story of the New Zealand Gold Rushes Stevan Eldred-Grigg Random House, $55.00, ISBN 9781869419257 In the closing pages of this comprehensive, even magisterial, historical survey, the author quotes the observation by Joan Stevens in The…
Enemy at the Gate Philippa Werry Scholastic New Zealand, $17.99 ISBN 9781869438135 Old Drumble Jack Lasenby HarperCollins, $16.99, ISBN 978169506742 Chicken Feathers Joy Cowley and David Elliot (illus) Puffin Books, $17.95, ISBN 9780143303909 Five (and a bit) Days in the…
This Horrid Practice: The Myth and Reality of Traditional Maori Cannibalism Paul Moon Penguin Books, $40.00, ISBN 9780143006718 Macaulay said that history was sometimes fiction, sometimes theory. But Paul Moon’s provocative and controversial book sets out to establish objective facts…
The Real McKay Graham Bishop Otago University Press, $45.00, ISBN 9781877372223 The Amazing World of James Hector Simon Nathan and Mary Varnham (eds) Awa Press, $25.00, ISBN 9780958275071 The first time I went on a Geological Society field trip, we…
Sit There and Draw That! Helen Crabb (“Barc”): Artist and Teacher Patricia Fry Steele Roberts, $29.99, ISBN 9781877448546 Bill’s Story: A Portrait of W A Sutton Pat Unger Canterbury University Press, $39.99, ISBN 9781877257704 Painting Out the Past: The…
Ngai Tahu: A Migration History – The Carrington Text Rawiri Te Maire Tau and Atholl Anderson (eds) Bridget Williams Books with Te Runanga o Ngai Tahu, $69.99, ISBN 9781877242397 The Beating Heart: A Political and Socio-economic History of Te Arawa …
Samuel Marsden: Altar Ego Richard Quinn Dunmore Publishing, $34.95, ISBN 9781877399350 As a New Zealand schoolboy in the 1960s, I knew the Rev Samuel Marsden (1765-1838) as the great and good man who introduced Christianity to the Maori in 1814.…
The Sea Between Carol Thomas HarperCollins, $36.99, ISBN 9781869507626 Weathered Bones Michele Powles Penguin Books, $28.00, ISBN 9780143011248 Flashback Forward John Cairney Black Swan, $29.99, ISBN 9781869419219 After generations of being like adolescents with no interest in “that old stuff”,…