Deadpan
James Norcliffe
The new collection from one of New Zealand’s leading authors, Deadpan is the work of a mature and technically astute poet.
The title of James Norcliffe’s tenth poetry collection points deftly to the way it conveys big emotions without cracking a smile or shedding a tear. In Deadpan, Norcliffe writes in an alert, compassionate yet sceptical voice.
‘Deadpan,’ writes the author in his introductory essay, ‘is the porter in Macbeth pausing to take a piss while there is that urgent banging at the gate. It is Buster Keaton standing unmoved as the building crashes down on top of him. It is my poker-faced Yorkshire grandfather playing two little dicky birds sitting on the wall.’
Wild Dunedin
The natural history of New Zealand's wildlife capital
Neville Peat and Brian Patrick
Dunedin city and its environs are home to an amazing range of habitats and landscapes, of plants, animals, birds, insects and geological features. From the ocean, with its albatrosses and penguins, to the high alpine zone of inland ranges, this book introduces a magnificent natural environment.
This revised edition of Wild Dunedin includes new and updated information and stunning new images, including a look at the jewel in Dunedin’s natural history crown, Orokonui Ecosanctuary.
An essential guide to the natural beauty of this stunning southern city.
Details
Peat
Lynn Jenner
Peat starts out as Lynn Jenner’s study of the Kapiti Expressway, built between 2013 and 2017 and passing, at its nearest point, about a kilometre from her own house. She decides to create a kind of archive of the construction of this so-called Road of National Significance. How did it come to be built? What is its character? Who will win and who will lose from its construction? What will be its impact on the local environment?
Jenner begins a quest to find a fellow writer with different sensibilities to help her think about the natural world the road traverses. New Zealand-born poet, editor, art collector and philanthropist Charles Brasch is her choice. Researching Brasch will be her refuge from the constant pile-driving and the sprawling concrete, and perhaps the poet will offer some ways of thinking that will help her understand contemporary events.
A Communist in the Family: Searching for Rewi Alley
Elspeth Sandys
A Communist in the Family: Searching for Rewi Alley is a beautifully written multi-layered narrative centred on New Zealander Rewi Alley and his part in the momentous political events of mid-twentieth-century China. Part-biography, part-travel journal, part-literary commentary, A Communist in the Family brings together Alley’s story and that of his author cousin, Elspeth Sandys.
Two or More Islands
Diana Bridge
Stewart Island
Rakiura National Park
Neville Peat
Stewart Island is an increasingly popular holiday destination for eco-tourism and outdoor recreation, with many bush walks and a wealth of natural features to enjoy. Neville Peat introduces the attractions of the island – what to see and do, its walks and tramps, its national park, wildlife, history and magnificent scenery.
West Island
Five twentieth-century New Zealanders in Australia
Stephanie Johnson
Five notable twentieth-century New Zealanders who made their lives in Australia are the subject of this fascinating biographical investigation by award-winning author Stephanie Johnson.
Roland Wakelin, Dulcie Deamer, Jean Devanny, Douglas Stewart and Eric Baume had little in common in personality, proclivities and politics. Yet they all experienced fame and/or notoriety in the ‘West Island’ while being largely forgotten in their country of origin. They also occasionally crossed paths in the course of eventful lives.
As a writer with strong connections to both countries, Johnson draws on her own experiences of life on both sides of ‘the ditch’ in her reflections on the trans-Tasman diaspora and the subtle differences and cultural divide that set apart the two countries.
Every morning, so far, I'm alive
A memoir
Wendy Parkins
Every morning, so far, I’m alive is about what it’s like to live in a world where shaking a stranger’s hand, catching a taxi or touching a door handle are fraught with fear and dread.
This memoir charts the author’s breakdown after migrating from New Zealand to England: what begins as homesickness and career burn-out develops into depression, contamination phobia and OCD.
Increasingly alienated from all the things that previously gave her life meaning and purpose – family, work, nature, literature – the author is forced to confront a question once posed by the young Virginia Woolf: ‘How is one to live in such a world?’
Landfall 237 Autumn 2019
Edited by Emma Neale
Landfall is New Zealand's foremost and longest-running arts and literary journal. It showcases new fiction and poetry, as well as biographical and critical essays, and cultural commentary.
Landfall 237 features results and winning essay from the Charles Brasch Young Writers’ Essay Competition 2019 along with featured artists Sharon Singer, Ngahuia Harrison, Peter Trevelyan, and many New Zealand writers and poets.
To the Occupant
Emma Neale
To the Occupant takes the everyday and transforms it into something fine and precious and enduring. With an unsparing attention, Emma Neale creates shape-shifting poems that confound prejudices and subvert expectations. Displaying verve and confidence, her poetry is filled with musicality and dynamic language, always observant to the world and its details.
This is an innovative and astounding collection from one of New Zealand’s leading writers of her generation.
The Braided River: Migration and the personal essay
Diane Comer
A migrant lives in the space between self and other. The personal essay expresses this sense of location – and dislocation – the way no other genre does.
The first book to examine migration through the lens of the personal essay, The Braided River presents migration as a lifelong experience that affects everything from language, home, work, family and friendship to finances, citizenship and social benefits. The Braided River explores contemporary migration to New Zealand through an examination of 200 personal essays written by 37 migrants from 20 different countries, spanning all ages and life stages.
Dead Letters: Censorship and subversion in New Zealand 1914–1920
Jared Davidson
Dead Letters: Censorship and subversion in New Zealand 1914–1920 reveals the remarkable stories of people caught in the web of wartime surveillance. Intimate and engaging, this dramatic narrative weaves together the personal and political, bringing to light the reality of wartime censorship.
In an age of growing state power, new forms of surveillance and control, and fragility of the right to privacy and freedom of opinion, Dead Letters is a startling reminder that we have been here before.
