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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
A Book in the Hand: Essays on the History of the Book in New Zealand ed Penny Griffith, Peter Hughes and Alan Loney Auckland University Press, $39.95, ISBN 1869402316 These fifteen essays, based on papers given at the first New…
Purposeful nonsense? John O’Connor
Comment Lenin once said, “When I see a dung heap, I do not rummage in it to see if it is a dung heap.” Polemics, of course – entertaining, but not enlightening. Freed, Morepork, Parallax, And, Splash (all discontinued) –…
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