Steve Braunias’s top illustrated nonfiction books for Reading Room includes two Massey University Press titles:
Woolsheds: The historic shearing sheds of Aotearoa New Zealand by Annette O’Sullivan and Jane Ussher:
‘The first of four books considered for best book of illustrated nonfiction in the annual ReadingRoom literary awards, published next week. Woolsheds! Another photographer might have turned in a worthy, silly, unloveable portfolio – it’s the sort of subject beloved of newspaper photographers, who think it awesome to stick their lens into a sheep’s face. But the divine Jane Ussher treats everything as an art project and her images of 15 woolsheds around New Zealand are gorgeous to behold, laid out in whopping big double-page spreads as well as full-page portraits (huzzah to designer James Powell from Seven). There are very few people in it. Good. You come for the silence, the architecture, the woolly stink of dark interiors. There is something gothic about the book. It reminds me a lot of Ussher’s earlier masterpiece, Still Life, when she captured the tallowy stink of dark interiors of explorers huts in Antarctica. Like Still Life, Woolsheds has a sense of awe: some of these shearing sheds are as big as cathedrals. The religion they worship is hard work. The book travels to Otago, Canterbury, Manawatu, Wairarapa and other regions, attracted to historic sheep stations in both islands. The text is pretty boring. The author is a design academic. Never mind. You come for the pictures; each is worth a thousand sheep.’
Herbst: Architecture in design by John Walsh:
‘The second of four books considered for best book of illustrated nonfiction in the annual ReadingRoom awards. One of the stranger traditions in New Zealand publishing is that Ockham judges of the best illustrated book very often give first prize to some bland piece of commercial junk over a work of genuine art; and then a few months later at the annual Publishing Association of New Zealand (Panz) book design awards, judges put things to rights, and give first prize to the work of art. Expect Herbst to win the 2025 Panz. It’s the year’s most artistic book design, showcasing 12 houses by husband and wife architects Lance and Nicola Herbst. Huzzah to designers Alan Deare and Anna Wilkinson from Area Design for making this delicate object, with its exposed binding and blank cover – no words, just texture. The photography (by Simon Devitt, Sam Hartnett, Jackie Merling, Patrick Reynolds and Simon Wilson) is in love with the houses. The pages swoon at the dark timbers, the stone work, the glass fibre sheets, and all the other materials in these expensive baches on Great Barrier Island, Leigh, Waiheke, Coromandel and other summer retreats. There are lots of double-page spreads, the text by John Walsh is knowledgeable and economical, and the Herbsts say interesting things. On a home in Clevedon with a concrete roof without solid walls: “There’s an architectural thrill in such a gossamer building holding up this solid slab.”’
Read the rest of the list here.
