Awatere: A Soldier’s Story Arapeta Awatere (ed Hinemoa Ruataupare Awatere) Huia, $49.95, ISBN 1877283819 During the early 1970s, an elderly Maori man, who had been convicted of murder, sat in his cell in Mt Eden Prison and penned his memoirs.…
Colin McCahon: A Question of Faith Marja Bloem and Martin Browne Craig Potton Publishing, $59.95, ISBN 0908802919 Don Binney: Nga Manu/Nga Motu – Birds/Islands Damian Skinner Auckland University Press, $49.99, ISBN 186940288X In the set I moved with in Auckland…
Helen: Portrait of a Prime Minister Brian Edwards Exisle Publishing, $44.95, ISBN 0908988206 Biography is a fraught art. If the subject is dead, then the Author is reliant upon a myriad of sources, often contradictory, to capture the essence of…
Tread Softly For You Tread On My Life: New & Collected Writings Michael King Cape Catley, $34.95, ISBN 0908561881 “This is the sort of letter that doesn’t look well in a Biography,” Rupert Brooke wrote Eddie Marsh in September 1913. Brooke…
He Tipua: The Life and Times of Sir Apirana Ngata Ranginui Walker Viking, $69.95, ISBN 0670911887 In the Foreword, Sir Henare Ngata, son of Sir Apirana, on Behalf of the Ngata family and the Ngati Porou people, thanks Dr Ranginui…
Featherstone Kirsty Gunn Faber & Faber, $34.95, ISBN 0571212476 The epigraph is an entry in an imagined handbook. It provides information you’d expect from a motoring guide about a small town you’ve never visited before, and it’s in the same format…