New Zealand/Aotearoa Recent Picks

February 2005

Click on the underlined title links to check the item's availability in our catalogue.

	A radical writer's life by Dick Scott. (2004) "Dick Scott, one of New Zealand's greatest popular historians and leading writers, turns his focus on his own life... Scott discusses his career as an historian and writer, retracing his early life in Manawatu, his role in the Communist Party, the 1951 Waterfront Strike, and his many later political and literary endeavours. This is an illuminating autobiography, with plenty of revelations about seminal events and national figures. Scott's narration of his own 'Parihaka Story' is both moving and fascinating, and his portraits of legendary New Zealand figures - from Jock Barnes through to Tony Fomison - will engross every reader." (Cover)
	A land of two halves by Joe Bennett. (2004) "After ten years in New Zealand, Joe Bennett asked himself what the hell he was doing there. Other than his dogs, what was it about these two small islands on the edge of the world that had kept him - an otherwise restless traveler - for really much longer than they seemed to deserve? It wasn't the sheep, the hobbits had left, and they could no longer claim the best rugby team in the world - what else was there? Bennett thought he'd better pack his bag and find out. Hitching around both the intriguingly named North and South Islands, with an eye for oddity and a taste for beer, Bennett began to remind himself of the reasons New Zealand is quietly seducing the rest of the world." (Amazon)
	People : profiles from the pages of the New Zealand Listener. (2004) "Since its launch in 1939, the New Zealand Listener has covered the political, cultural and literary life of this country. New Zealand Listener People brings together a selection of the profiles of the countless people who have been written about over the years. Those featured in this book range from the famous to the eccentric to the ordinary. From Dame Ngaio Marsh to Bic Runga, from Fred Dagg to Bill Gates, New Zealand Listener People traces the history of the Listener through the people featured on its pages." (Randomhouse)
	Downstage upfront : the first 40 years of New Zealand's longest-running professional theatre edited by John Smythe. (2004) "Downstage began as an alternative theatre. When it proved impossible for touring companies to stay solvent, theatre practitioners who had worked with The New Players and enjoyed a reasonable continuity of radio drama needed a professional theatre. Something that began small and grew from its own community was the answer. Over its first forty years, Downstage has 'parented' a range of related activities and been a support system for other theatres. It has reinvented itself at least a dozen times, in line with the visions of new artistic directors and in response to prevailing economic imperatives, and has come through at least two near death experiences. Downstage Upfront explores the evolution of Downstage, characterises its changing stages of life, and celebrates its achievements and continued existence." (Cover)

Kauri - Witness to a Nation's History by Joanna Orwin. (2004)
"New Zealand's giant native conifer, the kauri, once dominated the northern landscape, looming large in the lives of the country's first inhabitants and the later European settlers. Over the centuries, kauri's high quality timber has yielded war canoes, ships' spars, furniture and houses, and the industries that sprang up around it had a defining impact on early New Zealand society. Today, though the kauri forests are a shadow of their former selves, their legacy lives on in New Zealand's rich cultural inheritance, and the tree still towers over us, commanding respect." (Cover)

Lotto, long-drops and lolly-scrambles : the extra-ordinary anthropology of middle New Zealand by Peter Howland ; photographs by Lucinda Birch. (2004)
"Peter Howland's cheeky and challenging essays focus on the anthropologist's eye on public and private aspects of middle-class life. His chapter titles hint at the content, which ranges from provocative to explosive: Life's a dunny... anthropologically speaking, the rituals of life: out of the shower and into the lolly scramble, the name of the game is lotto. This book is bound to provoke argument, despair occasionally, and insight and delight." (Cover)

Tu by Patricia Grace. (2004)
"Three brothers, a war and secrets. Pita - Little Father, Big Brother - stays at home to look after his family as he has done since he was a small boy. There's Jess and Ani Rose to keep him there, but he decides he has to go to war. Rangi - chatterer, mischievous - is the first to go to war. He has loads of mates and is one of the bravest fighters in the Maori Battalion. He's the go-between for Pita and Tu. Te Hokowhitu-a-Tu - Tuboy, Tu Bear - is the family's hope for the future. First chance he gets he becomes a soldier, and finds there's no place he'd rather be, than with his battalion. Some years later a niece and a nephew come looking for answers. It is time for revelations." (Cover)

How to listen to pop music by Nick Bollinger. (2004)
"It's the music that shook the world. 'I don't sound like nobody,' Elvis Presley said in 1954. True. The truck driver from Memphis was about to set off the biggest music cataclysm since Mozart. In this perfectly realised book, Nick Bollinger, New Zealand's favourite rock journalist, tells how the new music changed not only the world, but his own life - and that of the generation to come. From Beatlemania and the long-playing record to Eminem and the iPod, this is an illuminating guide to pop music - and a true memoir of our time." (Cover)

The New Zealand Genealogist's family historian edited by Richard Stedman. (2004)
"This is a unique collection of essays by New Zealanders who share an interest in family history research and who have contributed to a volume as rich in diversity as the developing nation itself. You will meet the Maori warrior who fought for his country as a member of the 28 Maori Battalion and who made a major contribution to the welfare of his community; the dairymaid, whose skill as a cheese-maker became a cornerstone of the development of New Zealand's dairy industry; and the Chinese community of the West Coast whose meticulous miners found gold when others had given up." (Cover)
For Wellingtonians, 'Henry Mitchell of Mitchelltown' is an interesting read.

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