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A Conversation with my Country
A fresh, personal account of New Zealand, now, from one of our hardest-hitting writers. Following Once Were Warriors, Alan Duff wrote Maori: The Crisis and the Challenge. His controversial comments shook the country. A quarter of a century later, New Zealand and Maoridom are in a very different place. And so is Alan – he has published many more books, had two films made of his works, founded the Duffy Books in Homes literacy programme and endured ‘some less inspiring moments, including bankruptcy’. Returned from living in France, he views his country with fresh eyes, as it is now: homing in on the crises in parenting, our prisons, education and welfare systems, and a growing culture of entitlement that entraps Pakeha and Maori alike. Never one to shy away from being a whetstone on which others can sharpen their own opinions, Alan tells it how he sees it.
The Beetle In the Box
Part fairy tale and part philosophical exploration, this compelling fictional love story is witty and subtle, full of insight into the peculiar blend of reason and passion that makes up our humanity. When Jack Collingham becomes chauffeur to the Casturians, it seems the perfect arrangement. He is capable and obliging and willing to comply with the oddest requests. All he wants is to save some money and have some free time to work out what to do with his life. But when true love strikes, Jack is suddenly forced into a situation he is ill-prepared for – a dangerous choice between what he cares about most in the world and his own survival. The Beetle in the Box is an exciting development in the work of one of New Zealand's most thoughtful writers.
Black Earth White Bones
From one of New Zealand's most thoughtful writers, not just a finely crafted novel but a whole country, complete with dark undertones. Kit Wallace has spent his whole life running away. Through luck and lack of purpose he has finally washed up in the Pacific nation of Ventiak. Here, on the top floor of the Royal Albert Hotel, he avoids his past by drinking whisky and writing poetry he fully intends no one should ever read. Yet, despite himself, he has been drawn into the lives of the people around him. When he is invited to join a scam in the phosphate industry, which will defraud the Ventiakans of millions of dollars, he is torn between disbelief, self-serving cynicism and a loyalty that ta...
Three Pretty Widows
A delicately layered, humorous novel, deliciously written, ranging over time and place. In the aftermath of Barnaby Rivers' death, complictions arise for three beautiful women: Bella, Ruth and wicked old Jocasta. Now nothing can go on in the old way. Crisis looms. In her funniest novel yet, Barbara Else contrasts attitudes to beauty, motherhood . . . and men. Looking down on it all is Barnaby himself, not sure if he's an angel or ghost.
The Warrior Queen
The Warrior Queen is a subversive, funny novel about modern middle-class marriage. Kate Wildburn is in trouble. She is an extrovert, a lateral thinker and a talented pianist. She is also a good wife and mother, and an attractive woman who enjoys being a woman. Richard, her surgeon husband, is balding, aggressive, hard on his children – and is he having an affair? The Warrior Queen is a subversive look at modern middle-class marriage, a guerrilla war of the sexes fought in well-heeled Auckland among the trendy homes and chic cafes of Remmers and Parnell. With her fine ear for male bluster and female bitchiness, and her subtle observations of family life, Barbara Else has created an elegant black comedy to entertain – and warn – readers from either of the warring camps.
On River Road
A compassionate novel exploring our deep need for human comfort and reassurance, even in the midst of seeming plenty. In the trendy satellite town of Durry, four couples live in the support and trust of their joint friendship. They've stuck by one another through young love and marriage break-up, hard times and rising affluence. Each knows the others inside out. But now the teenage daughter of one of them is killed in a hit and run. Cracks begin to appear in their relationships. Can the centre hold?
Going Public
This is a collection of essays in the rapidly growing field of public history. The essays are short think-pieces by leading writers and scholars, which explore the connections between specific aspects of public history and the broader field of New Zealand history in general and show some new and challenging ways of looking at the past. The contributions cover new media, academic vs public history, the Waitangi Tribunal, Treaty claims research, official war history, government history, the origins of public history, museums, heritage, freelance research and writing, public history in popular culture, and state-funded reference histories.
Facing the Past
In her first book, A Small Price to Pay, Ann Beaglehole traced the experiences of European refugees to New Zealand in the 1930s. In Facing the Past she focuses on the lives of a younger generation – the children of those wartime immigrants, whose perceptions and experiences of both the old and the new world were very different from their parents'. At school, in the neighbourhood, or on the sportsfield, many of them were painfully aware of being 'outsiders' in a society unused to cultural diversity. Yet their need to belong was frequently complicated by loyalty to the very different ideals and expectations of their parents. As one of them comments I was getting two messages... the 'always remember,' message and the 'start from now' message. Based on a wide range of interviews as well as documentary evidence from second-generation refugees worldwide, this is a fascinating account of the lives of immigrant children growing up in the decades between the 1940s and 1960s.
Wild Latitudes
A clever and entertaining romp of a novel that is an alluring fusion of history, comedy and parody. After the unusual death of their papa, Adele Overend and her younger brother Godwin are dispatched from comfortable Autumn Hall in Yorkshire to the uttermost ends of the earth - gold rush Dunedin in 1864. Even worse for the grieving pair, they must travel on separate vessels. Self-possessed and practical Adele discovers herself cast up on an inhospitable island occupied by a misfit band of sealers. Godwin arrives on the rim of civilisation to find his sister vanished and nobody willing to employ an unusually pretty boy. Their adventures lead them into a series of mishaps and self-reinventions....
Voyagers
Prose writers have had it their own way for too long. At last, here is an anthology of poetry from New Zealand that captures the essence of science fiction: aliens, space travel, time travel, the end of the world - as well as concepts you may not previously have thought of as science fiction.
