The tingling sand in your toes, the smell of pinewood in the forest and the howling wind everywhere… the earth’s beautiful landscape is poetic. From Whanganui River to Banks Peninsula, from famous poets to eminent photographers, this blog features landscape, river, lighthouse and animal poems from across New Zealand.

Land very fertile : Banks Peninsula in poetry and prose
“Engaging a mix of style and content that embraces the peninsula’s unique heritage and charm, this collection of poetry and prose about a special region in New Zealand draws from a wide variety of sources–including such New Zealand greats as Ursula Bethell, James K. Baxter, Denis Glover, Ngaio Marsh, Allen Curnow, and Maurice Shadbolt, along with many newer voices. The contributions are thematically arranged to capture the ambience of Banks Peninsula on the eastern coast of New Zealand’s South Island.” (Adapted from the Catalogue)

Flow : Whanganui River poems / Beautrais, Airini
“Where there is water, people settle and stories collect. Six generations of poet Airini Beautrais’ family have lived near the Whanganui River, all-encompassing figure at the heart of Flow. Flow is a brilliant polyphony of stories – large, small, geological, ecological, and human. In March 2017, in a world first, the Whanganui River was granted the status of legal personhood. ‘This remarkable sequence winds and eddies like the Whanganui River, filtering the region’s many histories into something rich and swimmable.” (Adapted from the Catalogue)

The nature of things : poems from the New Zealand landscape
“The Nature of Things is a celebration of the relationship between poetry and the New Zealand landscape. It matches a wide range of poems, that in some way evoke or describe our landscape, with images from the pre-eminent New Zealand photographer Craig Potton. The poems have been selected and the introduction written by James Brown, one of New Zealand’s leading contemporary poets The Nature of Things includes work from many of the central figures.” (Adapted from the Catalogue)

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This blog highlights some famous contemporary Chinese people in New Zealand in different fields, including world-renowned haute couturier Guo Pei’s fashion (now showing at the Auckland Museum), and Geeling Ng, currently Geeling Ching, an actress and model. This list also features filmmaker Roseanne Liang and Meng Foon, who was the Mayor of Gisborne and Race Relations Commissioner.

Guo Pei : couture beyond
“The first major book on China’s leading couture visionary reveals the intricate craftsmanship and imperial glamour that has fashion publications worldwide declaring Guo Pei’s creations. including the aureate cape Rihanna wore to the 2015 Met Gala to a gown festooned with 200,000 crystals featured in the Beijing Olympics, distinguishes Guo Pei as a worthy heir to the grand tradition of haute couture. An exponent of artisan craftsmanship and theatrical fantasy.” (Adapted from the Catalogue)

Banana in a nutshell
“Having fallen in love with a white New Zealand boy, 27-year-old Rosanne Liang turns the camera on herself in this thoroughly intimate self-account of the struggle to gain acceptance from traditional Chinese parents.” (Adapted from the Catalogue)

Great New Zealand argument : ideas about ourselves
“Tze Ming Mok is a prominent writer in New Zealand, a column writer at the Sunday Star-Times, and of Singapore and Malaysian Chinese descendent.  This book features: Ideas about ourselves is a collection of some of the most important writing about who New Zealanders are and how we are changing, spanning 70 years of our history. It includes the first published transcript of David Lange’s momentous 1985 Oxford Union debate speech, arguing the proposition that ‘Nuclear weapons are morally indefensible’.” (Adapted from the Catalogue)

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Read these books to celebrate World Wetland Day on 2 February. New Zealand has wetlands across the country, attracting unique wildlife and birds to the habitat. Wetlands are important for filtering waters and reducing floods, as well as returning nitrogen to the atmosphere. They are also stunning environments and harbour beautiful and rare flora and fauna.

Wetlands of New Zealand / Hunt, Janet
“Wetlands are the unheralded gems of New Zealand landscape. They harbour beautiful and rare flora and fauna: plants, aquatic life, birds and animals. Examining the different kinds of wetlands – peatlands, wetlands for waders, coastal wetlands, urban wetlands, upland, geothermal wetlands and rivers – also internationally renowned wetlands: Firth of Thames, Kopuatai Peat Dome, Whangamarino, Farewell Spit, Waituna Lagoon, and the Manawatu estuary.” (Adapted from the Catalogue)

New Zealand wetland birds and their world / Moon, Geoff
“Geoff Moon presents all the major types of freshwater wetland found in the country. It features birds that use New Zealand’s wetlands on a permanent or seasonal basis. A lifetime’s worth of fabulous bird photography is accompanied by lucid text, all collected from more than 60 years’ experience. Some of the country’s most elusive birds are found in wetlands; most of the photographs of the fernbird, bittern and dabchick that feature in this book are not only previously unpublished.” (Adapted from the Catalogue)

Swamp fever : a Golden Bay memoir / Hindmarsh, Gerard
“Swamp Fever is the fascinating tale of Golden Bay, northwest of Nelson. Following the homesteading movement in the 70s, Gerard Hindmarsh quit his job as a cartographic cadet for the Department of Lands and Survey and bought a block of scrub-covered, swampy land at Tukurua near Collingwood. Much of his land was swamp, initially ear-marked for draining till he discovered its vibrant ecology: the bird, fish and plants, which becomes a metaphor to Gerard’s growing connection with the land. “(Adapted from the Catalogue)

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Our beautiful country is covered with native bush and lavish with grass. The picture-perfect green pasture of New Zealand has brought business, wealth, travellers and much more. Farm life is in the blood for those farming through the generations, while others are trying to move into this lifestyle. This blog highlights several personal stories: some about farming through generations; one who went from working in Louis Vuitton to preserving a historical homestead; or coming from a broken family to rising as a farming leader. This blog captures the joy, humour, struggle and success of the people who farm in Aotearoa.

Farm : the spirit of rural New Zealand / Yarwood, Vaughan  
“A contemporary, lyrical, fresh and innovative look at where farming is now, this huge book features engaging text and utterly magnificent, almost epic, photo spreads by one of the country’s leading photographers. Between them all they discuss all the issues that preoccupy New Zealand farmers today: innovation, productivity, export, conservation, succession, science, efficiency, rural land access and more. The book speaks to farmers as much as it does to townies.” (Adapted from the Catalogue)

High Street to homestead / Williams, Angela
“This is an inspirational journey from a corporate life working with Louis Vuitton and living in Grey Lynn Apartment back to one of New Zealand’s most historical homesteads and horse studs on the golden hills of rural Wairarapa. Angela Williams’ great-great-great-grandfather is Henry Williams, famous for translating the Treaty of Waitangi into Maori, and her grandma founded the famous Te Parae thoroughbred stud. Angela took up the challenge of preserving this historic homestead for the next generation.” (Adapted from the Catalogue)

This farming life : five generations on a New Zealand farm / Saunders, Tim
“Tim Saunders is a farmer and a writer. He describes the seasons: Summer, with shearing, slaughter, crop harvest and conservation; Autumn and its floods, trading stock, drenching and dogging; Winter, the maize harvest and lambing; and Spring, with docking, pet sheep and weaning. He explores how a farm that has been in the same family for five generations functions, and describes the everyday lives of farmers and their enduring love of the land and the animals they work with.” (Adapted from the Catalogue)

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