The Falconer’s Daughter N K Ashworth RSVP, $25.00 ISBN 9780987658760 Being Magdalene Fleur Beale Random House, $20.00 ISBN 9781775537670 It almost goes without saying that novels for the young adult or teen reader are about the quest for personal identity.…
Historic Churches: A Guide to Over 60 Early New Zealand Churches
Linda Burgess (Robert Burgess photographer)
Random House, $50.00, ISBN 9781775537335
Worship: A History of New Zealand Church Design
Bill McKay (Jane Ussher photographer)
Godwit, $85.00, ISBN 9781775538363
One of the inexplicable paradoxes of the human condition is the way in which the religious impulse leads, irresistibly, to the creation of beauty, but also, with seemingly equal passion, to its destruction. Throughout history, buildings and works of art have been created to serve religion, only to be destroyed by reforming zealots who see such works as inimical to worship. The iconoclastic purges of the early Christian churches, the destruction of images and the demolition of monastic buildings during the Protestant Reformation of the 16th century and, in our own day, the dynamiting of monumental Buddha figures by the Taliban in Afghanistan, all testify to these contradictory urges.
To the Is-Land Janet Frame Random House, $30.00, ISBN 9781869411305 The first volume of Janet Frame’s autobiography was initially a bit daunting to me. Not only because it’s the work of one of New Zealand’s most celebrated writers, but because…
Singing Home the Whale
Mandy Hager
Random House, $20.00, ISBN 9781775536574
Magic and Makutu
David Hair
HarperCollins, $25.00, ISBN 9781869509330
If these two titles are anything to go by, New Zealand young adult fiction is in good shape. These are two very different novels, although both integrate Māori culture into the storyline, and both feature a boy as the main protagonist.
The Children’s Pond
Tina Shaw
Pointer Press, $30.00, ISBN 9780473274023
The Faceless
Vanda Symon
Penguin Books, $30.00, ISBN 9780143567202
I am Rebecca
Fleur Beale
Random House, $20.00, ISBN 9781775535492
These books form a disparate collection apparently linked only by the words “compelling” and “thriller” appearing on the dustjackets of each, words which mislead and possibly confuse rather than inform. All three do have an element of suspense, and so become thrillers in the broadest sense, but the real link is that they are totally compelling in very different ways. Jennifer Lawn has identified New Zealand’s burgeoning crime scene, noting that our crime writers use fully realised local settings with confidence and it is, in part, the development of the settings which unites these three books.
Boundless
Greg Hopkinson
Mountford Media, $30.00,
ISBN 9780473260736
ecoman
Malcolm Rands
Random House, $40.00,
ISBN 9781775535034
Boundless and ecoman chronicle the journeys of two of New Zealand’s most colourful and successful entrepreneurs, Greg Hopkinson (founder of pet store Animates) and Malcolm Rands (founder of sustainable products wholesaler ecostore). These two memoirs, while fascinating in their own right, should be of particular interest to budding entrepreneurs, whether of the more traditional commercial variety, or their more recent incarnation, social entrepreneurs. Each author describes his unique business journey, but common to both is how inextricably tied those narratives are to their personal journeys.
Over the Hill to Greytown
Tania Atkinson (Viv Walker illus)
Wai Art Press, $20.00,
ISBN 9780473252526
Bruiser and the Big Snow
Gavin Bishop
Random House, $21.00,
ISBN 9781775534860
Toucan Can
Juliette MacIver and Sarah Davis
Gecko Press, $20.00,
ISBN 9781877467547
The sun did not shine, it was too wet to play, so Sophie, who was having tea with her mummy in the kitchen, spied Tom Thumb, who was in the cupboard. Can’t go under it, can’t go over it, and Alfie got in first and the door shut behind him. I’ll eat you up, I love you so. Your father was put in a pie by Mrs McGregor. And into the water they fell. Frances will only eat bread and jam. Captain Najork came with his hired sportsmen. The cat from Brazil caught a very bad chill. “EEEEEOWWWFFTZ” said Scarface Claw. The little yellow digger will sort it.
The Mighty Totara: The Life and Times of Norman Kirk
David Grant
Random House, $50.00,
ISBN 9781775535799
I was 10 when Norman Kirk died. It was the first death I had ever registered. When the news came through, my parents became so silent (our house was never silent) that I remember it 40 years on: the radio and an absence. My memory also contains a physical location. It is the staircase between the living-room and our bedrooms. I am sitting on it, looking down, and my parents are below me at the big table. It is a photo in my head. An external sense, as if someone else was there to describe it, of me waiting for them to make sense of it all, as parents always do. But they can’t. I tell that story now because Norman Kirk’s death often seems to occasion the sharp remembrance of a closer loss, even in people who never met him. Mine is an almost story book recollection that I carry with me.
From Earth’s End: The Best of New Zealand Comics Adrian Kinnaird Random House, $60.00, ISBN 9781869799953 I’ve read comics since I was very young. I travelled into history with Asterix and to the moon with Tintin. But it wasn’t until…