Search : After Winter Comes the Summer
323 resultsAfter Winter Comes the Summer
A treasury of unique folk songs sung in the Deitsch language
Ten Question Q&A with Roger Buckton
Q1: You lived in Pūhoi for a time. Is this where your interest in the community’s unique music and dances began? I knew of the music and dance prio...
The Spinoff's summer reading list of local crime books
'Crime fiction dominated the most-borrowed or circulated books in 2023, according to information provided by a sample of Aotearoa libraries (thanks...
HomeGround
A place for hope and transformation
Mana Whakatipu
The compelling memoir of a Māori leader
Cyber Security and Policy
Welcome to cyberspace — where all your computing and connection needs are on demand, and where security threats have never been more massive
Publish with us
Massey University Press welcomes proposals from both Massey researchers and authors outside the university that fit our publishing programme, which...
The Fate of the Land Ko ngā Ākinga a ngā Rangatira
The battle for Māori land and livelihoods
Urgent Moments
The story of a remarkable art activation
The Unsettled
What it means to own your past
‘A Prince of Riflemen’: An extract from Experience of a Lifetime
At about 8 p.m. on 25 April, Brigadier General Harold ‘Hooky’ Walker ordered Jesse Wallingford to guide two newly arrived companies of the Canterbu...
The Battle for North Africa
The desperate weeks of desert warfare that gave the Allies hope that they could put Nazi Germany on the run
Ten Question Q&A with Hazel Phillips
Q1: You’ve gone adventuring all over the motu, and we know comparisons are invidious, but what makes the hikes and climbs around Ruapehu so very sp...
Frontline Surgeon reviewed in Health and History
Neil Pollock reviews Frontline Surgeon: New Zealand medical pioneer Douglas Jolly by Mark Derby for Health and History: ‘This is a superbly written...
Ten questions with Jane Sayle and Catherine Bagnall
Q1: Your gorgeous previous collaboration, On We Go, was published in 2021. When did you decide to work together again on another one? On We Go was...
Woolsheds
Inside the historic buildings of New Zealand’s heartland
10 Questions with Peter Walker, author of Hard by the Cloud House
Q1: This your fourth book and it ranges far and wide. Where did the idea for it first take seed? I was reading a newspaper one day and saw a story...
Brian Moloughney
Brian Moloughney taught Chinese history at the University of Otago from 1993 to 2022.
Salmon on Tuna — An excerpt from The Journal of Urgent Writing 2016
Salmon on Tuna Dan Salmon My mum used to make a microwaved curry with canned tuna and raisins, zapped in an smoky oval Arcoroc microwave dish. My...
Extract from Edith Collier: Early New Zealand modernist
St Ives, summer, 1920. The New Zealand artist Frances Hodgkins is busy with a painting school and a ‘crowd of pupils’ is distracting her from her o...
10 Questions with Anne Noble
Q1: What prompted you to begin the Conversātiō book project? Following the inclusion of Conversātiō and a suite of my other works about bees in t...
Read the first chapter of Will to Win
Will to win INTRODUCTION Rivalry, resilience and redemption The Silver Ferns are New Zealand’s national netball team. The team name originates f...
Andrew Cameron
Andrew Cameron grew up in the Hawke’s Bay, New Zealand, and when not working in a war-zone or post-conflict zone, he is the sole medical practitioner in Birdsville, Australia.
Barbara Ewing
Barbara Ewing is a New Zealand-born actress, novelist and playwright.
Dick Frizzell
Dick Frizzell MNZM is one of New Zealand’s best known and most versatile painters. He studied at the Ilam School of Fine Arts at the University of Canterbury.
Duncan Campbell
Duncan Campbell has taught Chinese language, literature and history at the University of Auckland, Victoria University of Wellington, and the Australian National University in Canberra.
Monica Peters
Monica Peters works freelance at the interface between science, conservation and the public.
Fifty Years a Feminist
A pioneering New Zealand feminist reflects on fifty years of feminism
Observations of a Rural Nurse
A unique photographic portrait of the King Country
The Front Line
New Zealand’s war through the lens of those who served
Dick Veitch
Dick Veitch spent his working career with the New Zealand Wildlife Service, now part of the Department of Conservation.
Martin Edmond
Martin Edmond was born in Ohakune and grew up in small North Island towns. He has an MA in English language and literature from Victoria University of Wellington (1977) and a Doctorate of Creative Arts from the University of Western Sydney (2013).
Ten questions with Colin Monteath
Q1: You’ve visited Antarctica many times as a mountaineer and a photographer, as well as working at Scott Base. What was your role there? As the Fi...
Andy Martin
Dr Andy Martin is a professor in the School of Sport, Exercise and Nutrition at Massey University, Palmerston North.
Glyn Harper
Glyn Harper is Professor of War Studies at Massey University.
Joan Skinner
Joan Skinner is a long-time midwife, researcher and advocate of home birth.
Mark Henrickson
Mark Henrickson is Associate Professor in Social Work at Massey University in Auckland, and for many years he worked in HIV-related health and mental healthcare.
Roger Buckton
Roger Buckton was an adjunct associate-professor at the University of Canterbury and lectured in ethno-music, musicianship and music education. He has lived in Pūhoi since 1990.
Kura Te Waru-Rewiri
Kura Te Waru-Rewiri (Ngāpuhi, Ngāti Kahu, Ngāti Rangi, Ngāti Kauwhata) studied fine art at Ilam School of Fine Arts at the University of Canterbury and has taught art in schools, tertiary institutions, universities and whare wānanga.
Poetry New Zealand Yearbook 2017 in the press
Paula Green writes: ‘[Poetry New Zealand Yearbook] has just recieved a well-deserved makeover by Massey University Press. The new design is eye-cat...
Colin Monteath
Colin Monteath is a widely published polar and mountain photographer and writer based in Christchurch.
Inside New Zealand’s most inspiring rooms
‘About a decade and a half ago, after 30 years photographing people for the New Zealand Listener, Jane Ussher left the magazine and developed a new...
Solo
Tales of ambition, risk and death in New Zealand’s backcountry
Sunday Best
How the imprint of the church dominates New Zealand society even in this secular age
The RNZ Cookbook
The recipe go-to for every New Zealand kitchen
We Are Here
An extraordinary visual data book like no other
Skinny Dip reviewed in AKO journal
Janice Jones has reviewed Massey University Press poetry collection Skinny Dip, edited by Susan Paris and Kate De Goldi, for AKO journal. Jones say...
10 Questions with Janet Hunt
1. Now the book is back from the printer, are you pleased with it? Yes! The cover looks great and is attracting a lot of interest but, more than th...
New Zealand Geographic traces the making of The South Island of New Zealand — From the Road
Geoff Chapple has written a story in New Zealand Geographic to celebrate the new edition of The South Island of New Zealand — From the Road by Robi...
Read an extract from Frontline Surgeon in the Otago Daily Times
A new book by Mark Derby tells the remarkable story of Cromwell-raised surgeon Doug Jolly. The following extract describes his work during in the S...
Author Jane Robertson interviewed by The Press
Jane Robertson, author of the ‘spectacularly illustrated’ Living Between Land and Sea: The bays of Whakaraupō Lyttelton Harbour, has been interview...
The Unsettled: Book of the Week on Newsroom
Sally Blundell reviews The Unsettled: Small stories of colonisation by Richard Shaw for Newsroom: ‘In Louise Erdrich’s latest book The Sentence, Fl...
Extract from Herbst: Architecture in context
Ōruawharo Bay Bach, Aotea Great Barrier, 2008 When we came to design this house, we thought we had some answers to the questions of bach living; a...
10 Questions with Nan Blanchard
Your book has just gone to print and it’s your very first. Pleased with it? It feels very unreal (pinch pinch). It takes so many people to create a...
10 Questions with Te Ataakura Pewhairangi
Q1: What is the motivation for you to create books for young readers? As a fluent Māori speaker, a mother and an educator, I understand the role qu...
Ten questions with Rebecca Fawkner
Q1: You teach school children in an amazing place — the Len Lye Centre in New Plymouth. What five adjectives would you use to describe the emotiona...
10 Questions with Simon Wilson
1. Urgent. How urgent? Always urgent, in the sense that climate change, the poverty of our political options and the relationship of race, identit...
10 Questions with Paul Diamond
Q1: This book has been a long quest for you. When did you first get become interested in the Charles Mackay story? Downfall began in 2004 when I wa...
Downfall reviewed in the New Zealand Journal of History
Will Hansen has reviewed Downfall: The Destruction of Charles Mackay by Paul Diamond: 'THE ‘WANGANUI SENSATION’ is a major event in New Zealand’s q...
10 Questions with Susette Goldsmith
Q1: Had editing this sort of book, one that argues for trees, been on your mind for quite some time? Yes. My research interest is natural heritage...
Erebus The Ice Dragon reviewed in Polar Record
Bob Frame has reviewed Colin Monteaths’s Erebus The Ice Dragon: A portrait of an Antarctic volcano, the first social and cultural history of the mo...
10 Questions with Adam Claasen, author of Grid
Q1: Keith Caldwell was one of the stars of your last book, Fearless, about the New Zealand airmen who flew in the First World War. As you were fini...
New Zealand’s Foreign Service reviewed in North & South
Peter Bale has reviewed New Zealand’s Foreign Service: A history, edited by Ian McGibbon, in North & South: Breakfast: Our Most Diplomatic Meal...
Extract from Poetry Aotearoa Yearbook 2024
An extract from the upcoming book Poetry Aotearoa Yearbook 2024, edited by Tracey Slaughter: Writing from the red house The day I wrote my first...
Carl Shuker’s launch speech for Aspiring
Launching Aspiring by Damien Wilkinsby Carl Shuker I remember interviewing Damien for his book Chemistry nearly twenty years ago. Our half-hour tal...
Bordering on Miraculous reviewed in VOLUME
Thomas Koed gives an excellent review of the latest in the kōrero series, Bordering on Miraculous by Lynley Edmeades and Saskia Leek, in VOLUME new...
Erebus reviewed in the Otago Daily Times
David Barnes has reviewed Colin Monteath’s Erebus The Ice Dragon: A portrait of an Antarctic volcano in the Otago Daily Times: ‘Mt Erebus (at 3794m...
Erebus: The Ice Dragon reviews for Otago Daily Times
David Barnes reviews Erebus: The Ice Dragon by Colin Monteath: 'Mt Erebus (at 3794m, 70m higher than Aoraki Mt Cook) dominates Ross Island, the si...
10 Questions with Jenny Gillam
Q1: Your images document a unique wānanga in the north, in which women came together to learn how to pelt kiwi for their feathers for weaving. The...
10 Questions with Jane Robertson
Q1: Why did you want to write this book?Whakaraupō Lyttelton Harbour is my home, the place I love, my tūrangawaewae. I wanted to understand this pl...
10 Questions with Claire Massey
1. What’s the focus of this year’s edition of The New Zealand Land & Food Annual? This year we’ve focused on food, and more specifically the ‘...
Ten questions with Jeff Evans
Q1: What drew you to write the story of this particular waka? Ngātokimatawhaorua is an iconic waka taua, and not just for its size. It is intrinsic...
10 Questions with Marcus Taylor, author of The Ones That Bit Me!
Q1: Being a vet — one of the best jobs in the world? Sorry to go all Charles Dickens on you: it’s the best and the worst. It depends entirely on th...
Ten Question Q&A with John Walsh
Q1: When did the work of Lance and Nicola Herbst first come to your attention? In the early 2000s, not long after Lance and Nicola set up Herbst A...
Poetry New Zealand Yearbook 2018 launched at Devonport Library
The Poetry New Zealand Yearbook 2018 was launched in style last night at Devonport Library. Associate Professor Bryan Walpert’s opening speech is r...
10 Questions with Jacqueline Leckie
Q1: How did the book come about? The book follows from my historical research and friendships with Indian people in Aotearoa dating back to the mi...
10 Questions with Paul Moon, author of Ans Westra
Q1: For how long had you been aware of Ans Westra and what made you decide that you wanted to commit yourself to this project? I had been aware...
Ten Question Q&A with Mark Derby
Q1: You would have come across Doug Jolly while working on your 2009 book Kiwi Campaneros, about the New Zealanders who fought in the Spanish Civil...
Extract from Frontline Surgeon by Mark Derby
‘Crouched in a shallow foxhole, focusing each of her cameras in turn, Gerda Taro blazed with determination to record the debacle that surrounded he...
Short Story Club – 1 November
BUTTERFLY SMITH 1987 The first time they lost Butterfly was in the Auckland railway station. One moment he was standing there guarding the shabby...
10 Questions with Rachael Bell, co-editor of The Treaty on the Ground
Now that it is published, what pleases you most about The Treaty on the Ground? For me it’s the variety of contributors and their experiences. This...
10 Questions with Chris Price and Bruce Foster
Q1: Was it an immediate ‘yes!’ when ‘kōrero series’ mastermind Lloyd Jones asked whether you’d like to work together on this? BF: When Lloyd phoned...
Remarks by the Hon Justice Stephen Kós at the launch of From Empire’s Servant to Global Citizen: A History of Massey University
From Empire’s Servant to Global Citizen Launch remarks by the Hon Justice Stephen KósPresident of the Court of Appeal and former Pro-Chancellor of...
Ten Questions with Ian McGibbon
Q1: Why did it take so long for New Zealand to set up a diplomatic service? For a long time New Zealand was content to follow the United Kingdom’s...
10 Questions with Helen Beaglehole
Q1: What prompted you to write this book? The credit really should go to Wellington historian Gavin McLean. I had finished my book on a history o...
10 Questions with Jacqueline Leckie, author of Old Black Cloud
Q1: The first-ever social history of mental depression in New Zealand . . . what drew you to this topic? It comes from my long-term research, tea...
10 Questions with Robert Oliver, editor of Eat Pacific
Q1: In a nutshell, what is Pacific Island Food Revolution all about? Pacific Island Food Revolution uses the power of reality TV, radio and socia...
Ten Question Q&A with Jessica Hutchings and Jo Smith
Q1: You’ve both published in this kai sovereignty/Indigenous food systems space before. What did you specifically want this book to do? JS: The boo...
Extract from Resetting the Coordinates: An anthology of performance art in Aotearoa New Zealand
PART ONE: 1970–91 SETTING THE SCENE IN THE 1970S If, on 2 April 1971, you had journeyed out across the unsealed metal roads to the west coast of th...
10 Questions with Beth Greener
1. Now that it’s published, what pleases you most about Army Fundamentals? What pleases me most about the book is the fact that many of the contr...
Read the first chapter of One Minute Crying Time
ONE MINUTE CRYING TIME BARBARA EWING IN NEW ZEALAND IN THE 1950s it was very expensive to make a telephone call from one part of the country t...
Ten Questions with Jo Willis and Brigitta Baker
Q1: What prompted you to share your story? JW: This is the book I wished that I could have read secretly under my duvet when I was only just survi...
Extract from The Ones That Bit Me! Camels, cows and other young-vet stories by Marcus Taylor
IT ALL BEGAN WITH A TURKEY. We stood eye-to-eye, locked in a toddler–bird standoff. I was three years old, so we were of equal intelligence, but th...
Read an extract from Woolsheds: The historic shearing sheds of Aotearoa New Zealand
Kuriheka A winding country road from Maheno, southwest of Ōamaru in north Otago, leads to the magnificent Kuriheka woolshed. Kuriheka was originall...
10 Question Q&A with Whiti Hereaka and Peata Larkin
Q1: What was your reaction when series editor Lloyd Jones approached you to see whether you were keen to create the sixth book in the kōrero series...
Read an extract from Hastings: A boy’s own adventure by Dick Frizzell
24: AIN’T GONNA WORK ON MCINNES’S FARM NO MORE I know that the name Frizzell comes from the Fraser clan, so maybe that had some part in how Dad li...
Katie Pickles’ speech from the launch of With Them Through Hell
With Them Through Hell: New Zealand Medical Services in the First World War – launch held on 15 November at Scorpio Books, Christchurch. Speech gi...
10 Questions with John Walsh
Your book has just gone to print. Pleased with it? Well, you can never be really certain about a book until it is printed — but, yes, I think the b...
David Cohen on Jim Bolger and political leadership
‘The ultimate test of political leadership, after all, is a proven ability to win.’ — Author David Cohen discusses Jim Bolger, political leadership...
Waiheke Weekender reviews Kaewa the Kororā
Waiheke Weekender reviews Kaewa the Kororā: ‘This story of Kaewa, a young kororā, is set in the National Aquarium of New Zealand. This is where Kae...
Nick Allen — Mastering Mountains, RNZ interview
As a child, Nick Allen had a map of Mount Everest pinned to the ceiling above his bed. It was always his dream to one day climb it. But after he de...
Modernist mural gets new lease of life
From the Wairarapa Times: A ceramic mural of considerable historical and monetary value could soon come out of the dark to be celebrated on permane...
Sylvia and the Birds reviewed on Ako
Jody Anderson has reviewed Sylvia and the Birds: How The Bird Lady saved thousands of birds and how you can, too by Johanna Emeney and Sarah Laing....
Stuff interviews Downfall author Paul Diamond
‘Paul Diamond has pursued stories his whole life. An accountant-turned-journalist, Diamond is queer and Māori and now works to help tell stories at...
Erebus The Ice Dragon one of the Listener’s Best Books of 2023
The New Zealand Listener has named its best books of 2023, and Colin Monteath’s illustrated history Erebus The Ice Dragon: A portrait of an Antarct...
The Crewe Murders authors James Hollings and Kirsty Johnston talk to Kim Hill on RNZ
The murder of Harvey and Jeannette Crewe in their Pukekawa farmhouse in 1970 is perhaps New Zealand's most infamous unsolved crime. Arthur Allan T...
Downfall jointly wins WH Oliver Prize in the NZHA Awards
Named after New Zealand historian and poet William (Bill) Oliver (1925-2015), the W. H. Oliver prize is awarded to the best book on any aspect of N...
Annette O’Sullivan talks to RNZ’s Kathryn Ryan
Exquisitely photographed by Jane Ussher, Woolsheds takes readers to historic sheep stations in the North and South islands, and explores the rich h...
Read an extract from Sylvia and the Birds on Newsroom
‘Newly rescued birds were always a bit skittish, so I kept them in this dark shelter. The ones who’d been with me a while enjoyed their playground...
Sex scandals and sexism in the swinging 60s
Cathie Dunsford from Newsroom has reviewed Raiment by Jan Kemp, an account of her growing up in the 1950s, and of university life in the late 1960s...
Greg Fleming reviews The Crewe Murders on Kete
Greg Fleming has reviewed The Crewe Murders: Inside New Zealand’s Most Infamous Cold Case by Kirsty Johnston and James Hollings on Kete: ‘The 1970...
Read an extract of Erebus published in the NZ Herald
Former New Zealand Antarctic Research Programme field operations officer Colin Monteath recalls his recovery work after the devastating Mt Erebus c...
New book covers artist's rich modernist history
'Jill Trevelyan is a writer and curator who first encountered the art of Edith Collier at Te Whare o Rehua Sarjeant Gallery during the 1990s. Alon...
Academy of New Zealand Literature reviews Poetry New Zealand Yearbook 2021
Sophie van Waardenberg reviews the latest edition of Poetry New Zealand Yearbook, edited by Tracey Slaughter: ‘Even for a poet, the offering of nea...
Helen Beaglehole on Nine to Noon
Author Helen Beaglehole first visited the Marlborough Sounds in a small yacht after a very stormy Cook Strait crossing. She returned numerous times...
Kete Books reviews Sylvia and the Birds
‘In an eggshell, Sylvia and the Birds pays homage to Sylvia Durrant, who looked after 140,000 New Zealand birds during her 35 years as a bird rescu...
Downfall named one of Unity Books’ top picks
Paul Diamond’s Downfall: The destruction of Charles Mackay is Marion’s pick in this week’s Unity Books newsletter. They say: ‘This is an historical...
Poetry Aotearoa Yearbook 2023 reviewed for Otago Daily Times
Hamesh Wyatt reviews recent work for the Otago Daily Times' poetry roundup: 'New Zealand’s longest-running poetry journal is into its 57th edition....
Marcus Taylor talks to Paddy Gower on RNZ
Marcus Taylor graduated from Massey University 11 years ago - his life as a vet has been pretty action packed since then. He's about to move from...
Downfall reviewed in the Waiheke Weekender
Downfall: The destruction of Charles Mackay by Paul Diamond has been reviewed in the Waiheke Weekender: ‘“Sergeant, I shot a young man through the...
Erica Stretton reviews Poetry Aotearoa Yearbook 2023 on Kete
Erica Stretton has reviewed the new Poetry Aotearoa Yearbook 2023, edited by Tracey Slaughter, on Kete Books: ‘Poetry Aotearoa Yearbook 2023: afte...
The Unsettled reviewed for NZ Booklovers
Lyn Potter reviews The Unsettled: Small stories of colonisation by Richard Shaw for NZ Booklovers: ‘Richard Shaw’s new book The Unsettled: Small S...
Old Black Cloud reviewed in Waiheke Weekender
Jenny Nicholls reviews Old Black Cloud: A cultural history of mental depression in Aotearoa New Zealand by Jacqueline Leckie for Waiheke Weekender:...
Te Whare o Rehua Sarjeant Gallery reviewed on NZ Arts Review
John Daly-Peoples reviews Te Whare o Rehua Sarjeant Gallery: A Whanganui biography by Martin Edmond for NZ Arts Review: ‘Whanganui’s Serjeant Galle...
10 Questions with Pip Desmond
1. Why did you want to write this book? To help me make sense of looking after Mum through the heartbreak that is dementia, and to find her again....
David Herkt reviews Downfall for Kete
An excellent review of Paul Diamond’s Downfall: The destruction of Charles Mackay has appeared on Kete. David Herkt writes: ‘The death of a New Zea...
Read an excerpt from High Wire
HIGH WIRE LLOYD JONES EUAN MACLEOD I’d written to Euan Macleod proposing a project about bridges. He replied enthusiastically — and, over t...
Hard by the Cloud House: Book of the week on Newsroom
Ashleigh Young reviews Hard by the Cloud House by Peter Walker for Newsroom: ‘“Show us the bird,” I found myself muttering at times while reading H...
'A run of bad luck' – How Kiwi soldiers described their wounds
Read an extract from With Them Through Hell on the New Zealand WW100 website: The more sophisticated and powerful weapons used during the First Wor...
Rooms reviewed on The Spinoff
Charlotte Fielding has reviewed Jane Ussher and John Walsh’s new book Rooms: Portraits of remarkable New Zealand Interiors for The Spinoff: ‘As som...
Ōtautahi Christchurch Architecture — revised edition reviewed by John Daly-Peoples
John Daly-Peoples has reviewed John Walsh and Patrick Reynolds’ latest city walking guide, Ōtautahi Christchurch Architecture — revised edition on...
Downfall reviewed in DNA magazine Australia
Graeme Aitken has reviewed Paul Diamond’s Downfall: The destruction of Charles Mckay in DNA magazine Australia: ‘This fascinating book explores a...
John Daly-Peoples reviews Erebus The Ice Dragon for New Zealand Arts Review
John Daly-Peoples reviewed Colin Monteath’s latest book Erebus The Ice Dragon: A portrait of an Antarctic volcano for New Zealand Arts Review: ‘The...
Alison Ballance reviews Erebus for Kete Books
In Greek mythology, Erebus was son of Chaos, and god of darkness and shadows. Erebus was also the former warship, captained by James Clark Ross, wh...
Erebus: The Ice Dragon reviewed on New Zealand Arts Review
The name Erebus for most New Zealanders is associated with tragedy after the fatal crash of flight TE901 in 1979. In many ways that is appropriate...
The Crewe Murders co-author Kirsty Johnston profiled in Taranaki Daily News
‘A former Taranaki Daily News reporter has co-written a book on one of New Zealand’s most fascinating cold case. Kirsty Johnston, who now works for...
The ‘what ifs’ of dazzling New Zealand modernist painter Edith Collier
The paintings that Whanganui painter Edith Collier created in England 100 years ago remain to this day, utterly fresh. At that time, there was no o...
Eat Pacific reviewed in The New York Times
Ligaya Mishan reviews Eat Pacific: The Pacific Island Food Revolution cookbook edited by Robert Oliver for The New York Times: ‘In Fiji, when bread...
Mark Adams clocks up 50 years of undoing ‘othering’ in Aotearoa
Sapeer Mayron interviews Mark Adams about his work and new book Mark Adams: A survey | He kohinga whakaahua for Sunday Star-Times: ‘The acclaimed p...
A Meeting of Cultures
World War I is widely perceived as a pointless conflict that destroyed a generation. Petty squabbles between emperors and elites pushed naive young...
Paul Diamond interviewed by the Whanganui Chronicle about Downfall's Ockham shortlisting
The Whanganui Chronicle recently interviewed author Paul Diamond about his book Downfall: The destruction of Charles Mackay, which is shortlisted i...
Massey News reviews The Ones That Bit Me! by Marcus Taylor
Massey News reviews Marcus Taylor’s book The Ones That Bit Me! Camels, cows and other young-vet stories: ‘From the very first page, it’s evident Ma...
Edith Collier: New Zealand modernist reviewed in Kete
Linda Herrick reviews Edith Collier: Early New Zealand modernist edited by Jill Trevelyan, Jennifer Taylor and Greg Donson for Kete Books: ‘This is...
Read an extract from The Dark Dad by Mary Kisler
In 1985, my father was diagnosed with lung cancer. I took him to the hospital for surgery, and was allowed to sit with him before he was wheeled in...
10 Questions with David Straight
Can you remember the moment you knew you wanted to create a book about John Scott? I had been thinking of a book on John Scott for a few months pri...
10 Questions with Clare Ladyman
Q1: Getting enough sleep is a huge issue for many people today, what drew you to sleep during pregnancy in particular? I was a brilliant slee...
10 Questions with David Cohen
Q1: How would you describe this book? It’s not a biography and nor is it a ghost-written memoir. So what is it? A conversational memoir. In the obv...
Hazel Phillips’ Solo a ‘riveting read’
Carolyn Enting has reviewed Solo: Backcountry adventuring in Aotearoa New Zealand, the new book by Hazel Phillips on her three years’ adventuring i...
Gretchen Albrecht interviewed at Auckland Art Gallery
Catharina van Bohemen speaks with Gretchen Albrecht about Gretchen Albrecht Revised Edition: Between Gesture and Geometry by Luke Smythe: ‘In 2019...
Extract from Hard by the Cloud House by Peter Walker
‘Late one afternoon in March 1860 a man in a thin green velveteen jacket and a wide-awake hat arrived on foot at a sheep station named Glenmark, ab...
Ten Question Q&A with Cynthia Farquhar
Q1: In your introduction you describe how thinking about your mother’s difficult experience at the Otago Medical School in the late 1940s, and in t...
10 Questions with Peter Wells
1. Why did you want to write this book? Dear Oliver was a book that had been in my mind for years, and the time arrived to write it. 2. It’s the...
Dr Mark Stocker’s launch speech for Me, According to the History of Art
Me, According to the History of Art was launched in Auckland on 29 October 2020 by Dr Mark Stocker. Tēnā koutou katoa! As the person who claims chi...
Elizabeth Cox writes of the many surprises discovered while editing Making Space
Historian Elizabeth Cox writes on the Spinoff about the surprises she uncovered during the process of writing Making Space: A history of New Zealan...
Lama Tone reviews Rewi: Āta haere, kia tere for Kete
‘Waiho rā kia tū takitahi ana ngā whetū o te rangi / Let it be one alone that stands among the other stars in the sky (Alsop & Kupenga) In Poly...
Shadow Worlds reviewed in Landfall
Jack Ross reviews Shadow Worlds: A history of the occult and esoteric in New Zealand by Andrew Paul Wood: ‘Whose attention would not be caught by t...
Frontline Surgeon reviewed in SOUTH magazine
Gavin Bertram reviews Frontline Surgeon: New Zealand medical pioneer Douglas Jolly by Mark Derby for SOUTH magazine: ‘Doug Jolly’s ideas largely...
Martin Edmond talks to RNZ’s Mark Amery
Acclaimed writer Martin Edmond did his Christmas shopping in Whanganui as a child, travelling down the river from Ohakune where he was raised. They...
NZ Listener reviews Dear Oliver
Linda Herrick at NZ Listener reviews Peter Wells’ memoir Dear Oliver: ‘Peter Wells’ haunting new book, Dear Oliver: Uncovering a Pākehā History, wi...
The Monday Extract on The Spinoff
An excerpt from Pip Desmond’s best-selling memoir about her mother’s descent into dementia. I read about a hairdresser who had three customers pas...
10 Questions with Steven Loveridge
Q1: New Zealand emerges from the pages of The Home Front as a far more interesting and complex young nation than many readers might imagine. Could...
Lloyd Jones‘s launch speech for Shining Land
Shining Land: Looking for Robin Hyde was launched in Auckland on 11 November 2020. Lloyd Jones had the following to say: Writing is an act of dis...
Our First Foreign War review
‘If you like your history richly-layered then this is just the title for you, with the added bonus that it covers a part of the New Zealand story n...
Mike Houlahan reviews Our First Foreign War
Mike Houlahan reviews Our First Foreign War for Otago Daily Times, 19 June 2021. ‘In the introduction to this excellent book, Nigel Robson sets out...
David Hill reviews The Front Line
‘What are the great war photos? Alexander Gardner’s rag bundles of Confederate dead after the 1862 Battle of Antietam. Capra’s Republican infantrym...
David Herkt reviews A Queer Existence
‘The 27 young gay men in Mark Beehre’s square-format photographs look out upon us from a position of almost preternatural stillness. They might be...
Stephanie Johnson reviews The Forgotten Coast
‘ Stephanie Johnson reviews The Forgotten Coast for the Academy of New Zealand Literature: Family histories are having a moment in the sun. Charlot...
The Architect and the Artists appears in UoA’s Special Collections Twenty at 20
Author Bridget Hackshaw discovered two stained-glass window designs by artist Colin McCahon during her research for her prize-winning book, The Arc...
Otago Daily Times talks to the authors of Bordering on Miraculous
Rebecca Fox at the Otago Daily Times recently talked with Lynley Edmeades and Saskia Leek, the artist–writer duo behind Bordering on Miraculous: ‘H...
Raiment by Jan Kemp reviewed on Newsroom
Steve Braunias from Newsroom has reviewed Raiment: A Memoir by Jan Kemp. ‘We think of Rosemary McLeod, rightly, as one of New Zealand's great prose...
Rooms reviewed in HOME magazine
Federico Monsalve has reviewed Jane Ussher and John Walsh’s newest book Rooms: Portraits of remarkable New Zealand interiors in HOME: ‘People with...
Take a tour of MacKay’s Whanganui, as explored in Paul Diamond’s new book Downfall
The publication of Paul Diamond’s new book Downfall: The Destruction of Charles MacKay is leading many to see Whanganui’s history in a new light. R...
Sylvia and the Birds reviewed on the Christchurch library blog
One of the Christchurch librarians, Bronwen Knowles, has reviewed Sylvia and the Birds: How The Bird Lady saved thousands of birds and how you can,...
The Fate of the Land reviewed in the Waiheke Weekender
Jenny Nicholls has reviewed Danny Keenan’s latest, The Fate of the Land Ko ngā Ākinga a ngā Rangatira: Māori political struggle in the Liberal era...
Sylvia’s Birds are a Family Treat
In her review for Magpies, Crissi Blair recommends Sylvia and the Birds: How the Bird Lady Saved Thousands of Birds, and How You Can Too! as a book...
Jenny Nicholls reviews Shadow Worlds in the Waiheke Weekender
Jenny Nicholls has reviewed Andrew Paul Wood’s Shadow Worlds: A history of the occult and esoteric in New Zealand in the Waiheke Weekender: ‘A wond...
Downfall reviewed on Landfall
Triumphantly juxtaposing Edwardian Whanganui and Weimar Berlin in granular detail by retailing the life experiences of an apparently minor historic...
A Kind of Shelter Whakaruru-taha reviewed on Landfall
Skip back three years or so to when the world was beginning to understand what the COVID-19 pandemic would be. It’s here that writers and editors W...
Ngātokimatawhaorua reviewed in Heritage New Zealand
Anna Knox reviews Ngātokimatawhaorua: The biography of a waka by Jeff Evans for New Zealand Heritage magazine: ‘Ngātokimatawhaorua, the waka champi...
Vaughan Rapatahana analyses All day on Ma’uke by Rob Hack for How to Read a Poem
Vaughan Rapatahana, editor of Katūīvei: Contemporary Pasifika poetry from Aotearoa New Zealand analyses All day on Ma’uke by Rob Hack for How to Re...
Aotearoa New Zealand Review of Books reviews Edith Collier: Early New Zealand modernist
The ‘Almost Legendary Wanganui Artist’. That description, by the then-director of the National Art Gallery Stewart MacLennan, was made in a 1956 re...
Life at the bach is ‘about experiences, not stuff’
REVIEW: Herbst: Architecture in Context by John Walsh is a beautiful new book on Auckland architects Lance and Nicola Herbst’s award-winning work...
Jim Bolger discusses Fridays with Jim on Magic Afternoons
Jim Bolger discusses David Cohen's new book Fridays with Jim, the future of New Zealand and the upcoming election with Sean Plunket on Magic Aftern...
Claire Mabey reviews The RNZ Cookbook on Afternoons with Jesse Mulligan
Claire Mabey has given a glowing review of The RNZ Cookbook: A treasury of 180 recipes from New Zealand’s best-known chefs and food writers on Afte...
Marcus Taylor talks to Di Campbell and Tom Francis on Rhema Afternoons
Marcus Taylor, author of The Ones That Bit Me! Camels, cows and other young-vet stories, talks to Di Campbell and Tom Francis on Rhema Afternoons:...
Jane Ussher talks to Jesse Mulligan on RNZ’s Afternoons
Jesse Mulligan of RNZ’s Afternoons speaks to Jane Ussher about her work on Woolsheds: The historic shearing sheds of Aotearoa New Zealand written b...
10 Questions with Richard Shaw, author of The Unsettled
Q1: How long after The Forgotten Coast was published did the idea of this book come to you? Pretty quickly. More or less immediately after The Fo...
10 Questions with Bronwyn Holloway-Smith
1. Why did you want to create this book? This adventure began when I stumbled across one of Taylor’s ceramic tile murals stacked in three cardboar...
10 Questions with Frances Walsh
Q1: Choosing 100 objects from a large museum collection is no easy task for an author. Did it help that at the time the book project started you ha...
Invisible reviewed in the New Zealand Journal of History
A review of Jacqueline Leckie’s Invisible: New Zealand’s history of excluding Kiwi-Indians has appeared in the New Zealand Journal of History’s Apr...
10 Questions with John Walsh
Q1: This is a revised edition of a book first published in 2020. Why another edition so soon, and what’s new about it? When the first edition of t...
10 Questions with Tracey Slaughter
Q1: Another bumper edition of Poetry New Zealand Yearbook, this time for 2023. How many poems were submitted? Once again, well over a thousand. Oft...
10 Questions with Louise Callan and Jake Morrison
Q1: So many people have Robin Morrison stories to tell. What’s your connection to Robin? LC: Robin was a colleague I worked with for a wide range o...
Martin Edmond reviews the revised edition of Gretchen Albrecht on Newsroom
Martin Edmond has reviewed the revised edition of Gretchen Albrecht: Between gesture and geometry by Luke Smythe on ReadingRoom: ‘In the European t...
Read an extract from Otherhood on Newsroom
Read an extract from Hinemoana Baker's essay ‘Kingfisher’ from Otherhood: Essays on being childless, childfree and child-adjacent edited by Alie Be...
Ans Westra reviewed in Waiheke Weekender
Jenny Nicholls reviews Ans Westra: A life in photography by Paul Moon for Waiheke Weekender: ‘A gentle biography of the photographer who took some...
Extract from Old Black Cloud by Jacqueline Leckie
When, in the 1990s, my family doctor put it to me that I was depressed, the biochemical model of brain chemistry was ascendant in the understanding...
Old Black Cloud reviewed in North & South
Solomon Lewis reviews Old Black Cloud: A cultural history of mental depression in Aotearoa New Zealand by Jacqueline Leckie for North & South:...
Grid reviewed in Waiheke Weekender
Jenny Nicholls reviews Grid: The life and times of First World War fighter ace Keith Caldwell by Adam Claasen for Waiheke Weekender: ‘“Crackle! Cra...
Ans Westra: A life in photography reviewed in North & South
Theo Macdonald reviews Ans Westra: A life in photography by Paul Moon for North & South: ‘Unpacking required. A photograph can tenderly trace a...
The Fruit Shop by Gilbert Wong: An extract from The Journal of Urgent Writing 2017
The Fruit Shop: A story of growing up as a Chinese New Zealander Wong Gee and Co was open five and a half days a week, and only succeeded when trea...
Announcing the winning poems of the 2021 Poetry NZ Yearbook Student Poetry Competition
We are thrilled to announce that you can now read all the winning entries from the 2021 Poetry New Zealand Student Poetry Competition here. The fir...
Conversātiō: a photo essay for Shepherdess
A beautiful photo essay has appeared in Shepherdess featuring images and an extract from Conversātiō: In the Company of Bees: ‘Upon starting her ow...
Solo reviewed on Kete
Alex Eagles has reviewed Solo: Backcountry adventuring in Aotearoa New Zealand, by Hazel Phillips, on Kete. She says: ‘In 2017, after packing her l...
Jenny Nicholls reviews Life in the Shallows for the Waiheke Weekender
Reviewer Jenny Nicholls has written about Life in the Shallows: The wetlands of Aotearoa New Zealand by Karen Denyer and Monica Peters for Stuff. ‘...
New Zealand’s Foreign Service reviewed for NBR
Nevil Gibson has reviewed Ian McGibbon’s New Zealand’s Foreign Service: A history for National Business Review. He writes: ‘Prime Minister Jacinda...
Paula Green reviews Sylvia and the Birds for Poetry Box
Paula Green has reviewed Johanna Emeney and Sarah Laing’s new book Sylvia and the Birds: How The Bird Lady saved thousands of birds and how you can...
Read an extract from Urgent Moments on the Spinoff
The producers of Letting Space, Mark Amery and Sophie Jerram, recently teamed up with Amber Clausner to co-edit and produce Urgent Moments: Art and...
One Hundred Havens reviewed in the New Zealand Journal of History
Peter Meihana reviews One Hundred Havens: The Settlement of the Marlborough Sounds by Helen Beaglehole: 'AS A CHILD, I often visited aunties and un...
Urgent Moments reviewed for Landfall
Andrew Paul Wood reviews Urgent Moments: Art and social change: The Letting Space projects 2010–2020 edited by Mark Amery, Amber Clausner and Sophi...
Read an interview with Floor van Lierop, designer of Ans Westra: A life in photography
Kete Books interviews Floor van Lierop, book designer, about her work on Ans Westra: A life in photography by Paul Moon: ‘Floor, hi! Can you tell u...
Frontline Surgeon reviewed in Waiheke Weekender
Jenny Nicholls reviews Frontline Surgeon: New Zealand medical pioneer Douglas Jolly by Mark Derby for Waiheke Weekender: ‘A brilliant war surgeon,...
Freedom and tragedy in exile: The story of Charles Mackay
As an exiled newspaper correspondent living in Berlin almost a century ago, Charles Mackay found freedom — and a tragic death — on the streets of N...
A brief history of Michael Laws’ war on the Sarjeant Gallery
‘Whanganui was in a mood for change in 2004. The incumbent mayor, Chas Poynter, a bookseller and the son of a bookseller, had been in office since...
Ans Westra: A life in photorgraphy reviewed in the New Zealand Journal of History
Athol McCredie reviews Ans Westra: A life in photography by Paul Moon for the New Zealand Journal of History: ‘THE DUTCH-BORN Ans Westra (1936–2023...
Frontline Surgeon reviewed in New Zealand International Review
Roderic Alley reviews Frontline Surgeon: New Zealand medical pioneer Douglas Jolly by Mark Derby for New Zealand International Review: ‘Born in Cro...
10 Questions with Lana McCarthy, Andy Martin and Geoff Watson
Q1: Netball is hugely popular in New Zealand. What is it that has made it such a favourite of New Zealand girls and women? AM: Traditionally netbal...
10 Questions with Michael Keith and Chris Szekely
Q1: This book is the closing act of a couple of years of celebration of Alexander Turnbull’s life and his great gift to the nation of. Since he gav...
Old Black Cloud reviewed in Sunday Star-Times
Sapeer Mayron reviews Old Black Cloud: A cultural history of mental depression in Aotearoa New Zealand by Jacqueline Leckie for the Sunday Star-Tim...
Read an extract from Te Whare o Rehua Sarjeant Gallery
6. The professional era Gordon Harold Brown was born in Wellington in 1931 and trainedas an artist under Ted Lewis at Wellington Technical College....
10 Questions with Jack Ross
1. Now that it’s published, what pleases you most about Poetry New Zealand Yearbook 2017? I think the thing I like best about it is the number of y...
10 Questions with Karen Denyer and Monica Peters
Q1: Why wetlands? KD I’ve always had a soft spot for the underdog, the tatty stray cat, the three-legged dog, those most in need of love. For me we...
Ten questions with Jeremy Hansen and Jade Kake
Q1: A much-loved, much-missed and near mythical figure — when did you each decide that Rewi Thompson should be honoured with a book and that you sh...
Extract from The Unsettled by Richard Shaw
An extract from Richard Shaw's upcoming book The Unsettled: Small stories of colonisation: We also stir up emotions when we begin rummaging aroun...
Extract from Katūīvei: Contemporary Pasifika poetry from Aotearoa New Zealand
‘The first Pasifika poet of the modern diaspora to emerge in Aotearoa New Zealand was Alistair Te Ariki Campbell, who was born in Rarotonga in 1925...
10 Questions with David Littlewood
Now that it’s almost published, what delights you most about your book, Experience of a Lifetime? At the risk of using a cliche, I really can’t pic...
10 Questions with Claire Massey
1. Now that it’s published, what delights you most about the first New Zealand Land & Food Annual? It’s an annual publication, so for as long a...
10 Questions with Andrew Brown
1. Now that it’s published, what pleases you most about The Citizen: Past and Present? It’s the range of periods and societies compared and contr...
10 Questions with Lloyd Jones
Q1: This is the first title in a planned ‘kōrero series’ of books. What’s the idea here? A conversation across craft and discipline between artist...
10 Questions with Dick Frizzell
Q1: After working your way through the history of Western art for your last book, was it a relief to look up at the sun and the stars? Not so much...
10 Questions with Natalia Martín and Nicholas Sneddon
Q1: Who do you see as the target reader? This book is a key text for students in the agricultural and animal sciences areas, as well as those invol...
The Crewe Murders reviewed for Otago Daily Times
Dan Eady reviews The Crewe Murders by Kirsty Johnston & James Hollings: 'The 1970 killing of Harvey and Jeanette Crewe in their Pukekawa farmho...
Urgent Moments reviewed in EyeContact
John Hurrell reviews Urgent Moments: Art and social change: The Letting Space projects 2010–2020 edited by Mark Amery, Amber Clausner and Sophie Je...
Otherhood editors interviewed on RNZ's Nine to Noon
On RNZ's Nine to Noon, Kathryn Ryan discusses Otherhood: Essays on being childless, childfree and child-adjacent with editors Alie Benge, Lil O’Bri...
Read an extract from Otherhood on the Spinoff
Read an extract from Lily Duval's essay from Otherhood: Essays on being childless, childfree and child-adjacent edited by Alie Benge, Lil O’Brien a...
Extract from The Near West: A History of Grey Lynn, Arch Hill and Westmere
This book is about three adjoining Auckland suburbs — Grey Lynn, Arch Hill and Westmere — and the people who have lived here. As in all suburbs, th...
The Whereabouts of Sinbad’s Isle
Jack Ross reviews Hard by the Cloud House by Peter Walker for Landfall Review Online: ‘Travel writing is the least demanding of genres. You can wri...
Read an extract from You Are Here by Whiti Hereaka and Peata Larkin
What is it that stops you now? Is it the possibility of failure? You’ve survived failure many times before, so whywould this be different? Perhaps...
Frontline Surgeon reviewed in Landfall Review Online
Eric Trump reviews Frontline Surgeon: New Zealand medical pioneer Douglas Jolly by Mark Derby for Landfall Review Online: ‘‘It is well that war is...
Hastings reviewed in Kete
Peter Simpson reviews Hastings: A boy's own adventure by Dick Frizzell for Kete: ‘'An element which runs through all of Frizzell’s multiple activi...
An excerpt from To the Summit
Chapter 1 — Rushing to base camp October 2015, Everest region, Nepal The track from Chukhung crossed the ice-laced waters of a cloudy glacial strea...
10 Questions with Rachael Bell
1. You teach the history of New Zealand in the interwar period – what drew you to it? It was such a revolutionary time in our history – the start,...
10 Questions with Glyn Harper
Q1: Four years ago you published the very successful Johnny Enzed, the story of the New Zealand soldiers who signed up with the New Zealand Expedit...
Read the introduction of Tooth and Veil
Tooth and Veil NOEL O'HARE Introduction Shop assistants working along the ‘golden mile’ in Wellington had witnessed many marches down Lambton...
10 Questions with Margaret Tennant and Geoff Watson
Q1: Why Palmerston North? What prompted you to see this book in print? GW: It has been nearly 50 years since Petersen’s centennial history of Palme...
10 questions with Duncan Campbell and Brian Moloughney
Q1: Why create a book for the 50th anniversary of diplomatic relations with China? The decision taken in December 1972 to establish diplomatic re...
Ten questions with Kennedy Warne
Q1: You are known for writing about a range of outdoors and environmental subjects. Why did you choose the sea for this book? In 2000, after writin...
Ten questions with Joan Skinner
Q1: What drew you to midwifery as a profession? It probably started before I was born. My Dad was a GP obstetrician and he seemed to be always away...
Hard by the Cloud House reviewed in Waiheke Weekender
Jenny Nicholls reviews Peter Walker's latest novel Hard by the Cloud House for Waiheke Weekender: ‘There is much to love about this book, which is...
Ans Westra reviewed in Art New Zealand
Mary Macpherson reviews Ans Westra: A life in photography by Paul Moon for Art New Zealand: ‘For nearly 70 years, Ans Westra photographed the life...
Ten Question Q&A with Martin Edmond
Q1: You grew up in Ohakune and at the start of this book you write about coming to Whanganui when you were a child, in the early 1960s. Clearly the...
Extract from Grid: The life and times of First World War fighter ace Keith Caldwell by Adam Claasen
In Sally Gordon’s inner city villa in Auckland, the central hallway is lined with photographs of four generations of her family. Among them are two...
Telling the Home Front story
This text is adapted from a speech given by Steven Loveridge at the launch of The Home Front at Palmerston North City Library on 20 November 2019....
Extract from Becoming Aotearoa: A new history of New Zealand
The battle over Māori sovereignty Just when the missionaries were beginning to convince themselves that two decades of arduous and unrewarding labo...
Ian Fraser launches Bill & Shirley
Launch speech, Bill & Shirley by Keith Ovenden We meet in the shadow not just of the pandemic but of the election. So, I want to put it on reco...
Ten questions with Witi Ihimaera and Michelle Elvy
Q1: The subtitle declares ‘new writing for a changed world’. Changed, how so? WI: Nature keeps sending out these SOS messages, and Cyclone Gabriell...
10 Questions wth Glyn Harper
1. In a nutshell, what were the battles of El Alamein, and in what way were they the turning point in the war? Three battles were fought on the El...
10 Questions with Damian Skinner
1. You wrote your MA thesis on Theo Schoon in the 1990s but clearly you weren’t quite done with him. What drew you back? It was actually meeting a...
10 Questions with Barbara Ewing
Q1: When did the idea for this memoir first start brewing? I had vowed always never to write any personal account concerning my life, although I h...
10 Questions with Johanna Emeney
Q1: Jack Ross invited you to be the guest editor of the 2020 edition of Poetry New Zealand Yearbook. Terrifying? Or a great opportunity? Dame Chri...
10 Questions with Mark Derby
Q1: Where did the idea for this book come from? Almost ten years ago, in 2011, I heard that the old prison was being vacated, and its remaining inm...
10 Questions with Peter Lineham
Q1: What prompted you to write the book? I was asked to take on the commission a while ago now, back in 2013. It appealed to me because I have long...
10 Questions with Tracey Slaughter
Q1: Jack Ross has passed on the torch and you are now the editor of the venerable Poetry New Zealand Yearbook. Exciting? An exhilarating honour (an...
10 Questions with Jeff Evans
Q1: What first drew you to the subject of traditional wayfinding and voyaging? I had met several of the Pwo navigators while writing the biography...
10 Questions with John Walsh
Q1: After the success of A Walking Guide to Auckland Architecture and A Walking Guide to Christchurch Architecture, Wellington must have seemed ine...
10 Questions with Te Ataakura Pewhairangi
Q1: Why did you choose the playground for your second book? It’s a place that parents and tamariki go to all the time, and I wanted to share new vo...
Wellington Architecture: A Walking Guide reviewed in Architecture New Zealand
Daniel K Brown has reviewed the latest in our walking guide series by John Walsh and Patrick Reynolds, Wellington Architecture: A Walking Guide, fo...
Fifty Years a Feminist reviewed in the New Zealand Journal of History
Sue Kedgley’s Fifty Years a Feminist has been reviewed by Charlotte MacDonald of Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington. In the latest...
10 Questions with David Cohen and Kathy Paterson
Q1: What part does RNZ play in your daily life? Kathy Paterson: It’s a constant, one that informs me with interviews connected to news headlines fr...
The Forgotten Coast reviewed in the New Zealand Journal of History
Georgina White has reviewed Richard Shaw’s memoir, The Forgotten Coast for the New Zealand Journal of History: ‘This is an elegant, thought-provok...
Deidre Brown reviews Rewi for Architecture NZ
Rewi, the new book on the architect Rewi Thompson (Ngāti Raukawa, Ngāti Porou; 1953–2016), edited by Jeremy Hansen and Jade Kake, demonstrates that...
Encountering China reviewed in the New Zealand Journal of History
Bolin Hu reviews Encountering China: New Zealanders and the People’s Republic edited by Brian Moloughney and Duncan Campbell: ENCOUNTERING CHINA...
Ten question Q&A with Michael Belgrave
Q1: At the start of this book you tell the reader about the urge you felt to write some sort of a history in the immediate wake of the mosque shoot...
Old Black Cloud reviewed in New Zealand Journal of Public History
Emma Jean-Kelly reviews Old Black Cloud: A culture history of mental depression in Aotearoa New Zealand for New Zealand Journal of Public History:...
The Dark Dad by Mary Kisler: ReadingRoom’s Book of the Week
Sally Blundell reviews Mary Kisler’s book The Dark Dad: War and trauma — A daughter's tale for ReadingRoom: ‘On a tattered Red Cross map, four near...
‘A Leader in the Making’: an extract from Experience of a Lifetime
Lindsay Inglis joined the New Zealand Expeditionary Force (NZEF) in April 1915 as a 20-year-old second lieutenant, and spent the entire war as an o...
10 Questions with Lynley Edmeades & Saskia Leek
Q1: These 'kōrero series' projects all begin with an approach from series editor Lloyd Jones and his suggestion of a concept on which each of you c...
10 Questions with Danny Keenan
Q1: You have written books on armed conflict and passive resistance in the nineteenth century. The Fate of the Land feels like another layer of the...
Grid by Adam Claasen reviewed in The Aero Historian
Errol W. Martyn reviews Grid: The life and times of First World War fighter ace Keith Caldwell by Adam Claasen for The Aero Historian: ‘Grid was a...
10 Questions with Paula Morris and Haru Sameshima
Q1: The kaupapa behind the kōrero series is a writer and an artist in collaboration, creating a ‘picture book for grownups’. When series editor Llo...
Extract from Eat Pacific by Robert Oliver
It began with a simple realisation. Over the course of a generation, there had been a fundamental shift in the way Pacific people ate. Processed fo...
10 Questions with Andrew Cameron
1. Now that it is published, what pleases you most about your book? Many times when I have recounted stories to various people, about some of the s...
10 Questions with Adam Claasen
1. Is this a book you’ve long been wanting to write? I actually had plans for something completely different until I was made aware that the peopl...
10 Questions with Deborah Shepard
1. It must be good to see The Writing Life sent off to print. It’s a strange feeling letting go of a manuscript that has occupied your every waking...
10 Questions with Kate Taylor
Your book has just gone to print. Proud of it? I am definitely proud of it. Young Farmers has been a huge part of my life and I know I’m not alone...
10 Questions with Jack Ross
Another Poetry New Zealand Yearbook is off to print. What are the strengths of the 2019 edition? I think this may well be the issue I’m proudest o...
10 Questions with Cliff Simons
Q1: The New Zealand Wars, the Land Wars, the Māori Wars — these nineteenth-century conflicts have had a few name changes, as well as changing ideas...
10 Questions with Paul Spoonley
Q1: You’ve written many books and are well acquainted with the highs and lows of the authorial life. But was this one just a bit different? It is d...
10 Questions with Catherine Bagnall and Jane Sayle
Q1: Your beautiful book is at the printer. How does that feel? CB: Absolutely thrilling — making a book when you love books is a thrill and worki...
10 Questions with Nigel Robson
Q1: Has the South African War 1899-1902 been overlooked in our history? While the war itself has not been overlooked, it has long existed in the sh...
10 Questions with Sue Kedgley
Q1: You’ve had books published before, of course, and so this one is not a new experience but is there something that sets it apart from the others...
10 Questions with Rachel Haydon and Pippa Keel
Q1: What were the challenges and opportunities in basing the story around the real penguins at the National Aquarium? Rachel Haydon: The kororā, or...
10 Questions with Jan Kemp
Q1: Your Waikato childhood must have seemed so far away and so long ago when you sat down to write about it in Germany. How hard was it to tap into...
Invisible reviewed for the New Zealand Journal of Asian Studies
Emeritus professor at Victoria University of Wellington Te Herenga Waka Sekhar Bandyopadhyay has reviewed Invisible: New Zealand’s history of exclu...
10 Questions with Hazel Phillips
Q1: Why go solo? For me a big part of the joy of tramping is attempting things you think might be (too) hard. If you’re lured by the challenge, it...
Ten questions with Andrew Paul Wood
Q1: When you started this project did you have any idea that you would unearth such a rich cast of characters? Yes and no. Some of these people had...
Ten questions with Nic Low and Phil Dadson
Q1: These ‘kōrero series’ projects all begin with an approach from series editor Lloyd Jones and his suggestion of a concept on which each of you c...
Ngātokimatawhaorua reviewed in the Journal of the Polynesian Society
Danny Keenan (Ngāti Te Whiti o Te Ātiawa) reviews Ngātokimatawhaorua: The biography of a waka by Jeff Evans: 'Jeff Evans’s Ngātokimatawhaorua is a...
Read an extract from Otherhood in Ensemble magazine
Ensemble has featured Lil O’Brien's essay ‘Our American fertility dream’ from Otherhood: Essays on being childless, childfree and child-adjacent ed...
10 Questions with Jill Trevelyan, Jennifer Taylor and Greg Donson
Q1: When the Sarjeant Gallery reopens later this year — the 1919 heritage building will be fully restored, earthquake strengthened and expanded wi...
Pinky Agnew’s launch speech for Old Black Cloud
Pinky Agnew’s launch speech for Old Black Cloud, by Jacqueline Leckie, Unity Books Wellington, 12 June 2024 Thank you Nicola, thank you Jacqui....
Ten Question Q&A with Annette O'Sullivan
1. In a country full of woolsheds, why these particular fifteen? There were many possible woolsheds, but the fifteen woolsheds in the book were sel...
Frontline Surgeon reviewed in Recorder
Sylvia Martin reviews Frontline Surgeon: New Zealand medical pioneer Douglas Jolly by Mark Derby for Recorder: ‘Mark Derby’s biography of Dr Doug J...
Woolsheds reviewed in Shearing Magazine
Des Williams reviews Woolsheds: The historic shearing sheds of Aotearoa New Zealand by Annette O’Sullivan and Jane Ussher for Shearing Magazine: ‘M...
10 Question Q&A with Sarah Farrar
Q1: This book is linked to a comprehensive survey of Mark Adams’s work at Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki. Not every living artist gets a survey....
Te Whare o Rehua Sarjeant Gallery reviewed in New Zealand Journal of History
Bronwyn Labrum reviews Te Whare o Rehua Sarjeant Gallery: A biography by Martin Edmond for New Zealand Journal of History: ‘AS THE DIRECTOR of the...
‘At the Table’ by Pita Sharples
Extract from Conversations About Indigenous Rights, edited by Rawiri Taonui and Selwyn Katene. At the TablePita Sharples, Former Minister of Māor...
Ten Question Q&A with Michelle Elvy and Kiri Piahana-Wong
Q1: These stories have their roots in the flash or microfiction movement. Can you explain what that is? Flash and microfiction are the smallest of...
An extract from From Empire’s Servant to Global Citizen: A History of Massey University
Chapter 4 The College Finds its Feet After such a long and troubled pre-history, the agricultural college opened with a burst of enthusiasm and ene...
Afterglow: Unity reports on the lunchtime event with Writing Life authors
On Thursday 8 November, Unity Wellington hosted a lunchtime discussion between author Deborah Shepard, Massey University Press publisher Nicola Leg...
Hauturu co-editor Lyn Wade interviewed on RNZ’s Afternoons
Listen to co-editor Lyn Wade explain the rich history of this remarkable island and the making of the book in an interview with RNZ’s Jesse Mulligan.
David Cohen talks with Jesse on Afternoons with Jesse Mulligan
10 November was the official launch day of The RNZ Cookbook: A treasury of 180 recipes from New Zealand’s best-known chefs and food writers, and au...
Poetry Aotearoa Yearbook editor Tracey Slaughter talks to Jesse Mulligan on Afternoons
Editor for the second year running, Tracey Slaughter talks to Jesse Mulligan about the Poetry Aotearoa Yearbook’s beginnings, its new name — its ‘n...
Home: New Writing in the news
Home: New Writing edited by Thom Conroy was launched at Unity Books Wellington on Thursday 13 July. This collection features essays from twenty-two...
Pip Desmond talks to Jesse Mulligan
Pip Desmond talked to Jesse Mulligan on RNZ Afternoons about the heartache of her mother Rosaleen’s dementia, and the impact that it had on the who...
Read an extract from Song for Rosaleen
Stuff.co.nz features an extract of Pip Desmond’s memoir Song for Rosaleen: This extract from Pip Desmond’s new book Song for Rosaleen is an unflinc...
Claire Mabey reviews Wild Honey
Claire Mabey reviews Wild Honey on Afternoons with Jesse Mulligan: ‘It’s epic!’ Listen to the full review here.
Cartography Is Here — review essay of We Are Here
Igor Drecki reviews We Are Here for the International Journal of Cartography. ‘Originality is one of the prevailing strengths of the atlas, which m...
Listen to Jesse Mulligan read his foreword to The RNZ Cookbook
‘Some of the country's top chefs and food writers have contributed to RNZ's culinary heritage, which is now the inspiration for a new cookbook. It...
The RNZ Cookbook reviewed on NZ Booklovers
The RNZ Cookbook: A treasury of 180 recipes from New Zealand’s best-known chefs and food writers edited by David Cohen and Kathy Paterson has been...
Guy Somerset reviews Shadow Worlds for Aotearoa New Zealand Review of Books
Guy Somerset has reviewed Shadow Worlds: A history of the occult and esoteric in New Zealand by Andrew Paul Wood for Aotearoa New Zealand Review of...
Living Between Land and Sea author Jane Robertson talks to Jesse Mulligan on RNZ
Author Jane Robertson spoke to Jesse Mulligan on Afternoons about her new book Living Between Land and Sea: The bays of Whakaraupō Lyttelton Harbou...
Steve Braunias names two Massey University Press books best illustrated of 2023
Steve Braunias writes for Newsroom: 'The golden age of illustrated New Zealand books is right now. In a land as beautiful and good to look at as A...