The Jersey: The Secrets Behind the World’s Most Successful Team
Peter Bills
Pan Macmillan, $38.00,
ISBN 9781509856688
Murdoch: The All Black Who Never Returned
Ron Palenski
Upstart Press, $40.00,
ISBN 9781988516127
The cultural historian E H McCormick once noted that the only genuine masterpiece created in New Zealand was the Māori carved war canoe. The argument can be made that the national men’s rugby team, the All Blacks, can be added to McCormick’s list.
War Blacks: The Extraordinary Story of New Zealand’s World War 1 All Blacks Matt Elliott HarperCollins, $45.00, ISBN 9781775540366 Tom Ellison has a lot to answer for. One of the early All Blacks of erudition and original thought, he wrote a…
The Making of New Zealanders Ron Palenski Auckland University Press, $45.00, ISBN 9781869407261 In these febrile times a passing mention of New Zealand in US media can provoke a front-page response from our own. So it’s instructive to discover that…
Century in Black: 100 Years of All Black Test Rugby Ron Palenski Hodder Moa Beckett, $69.99, ISBN 1869589378 Heritage: Golden Years of All Black Rugby Paul Verdon Hill-Verdon Publishing, $39.95, ISBN 0958238707 All Black Magic; 100 years of New Zealand…
Winters of Revenge: The Bitter Rivalry Between the All Blacks and the Springboks Spiro Zavos Viking, $29.95, ISBN 0 670 87574 0 Lochore: An Authorised Biography As told to Alex Veysey, Gary Caffell, Ron Palenski Hodder Moa Beckett, HB$44.95, ISBN…
The richness of New Zealand sports writing, Ron Palenski
Terry McLean, who professes to dislike being known as the doyen of New Zealand sports writing but who I suspect really is quite flattered by it, often tells a tale of confrontation with a career-driven woman journalist in South Africa.…
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