New Zealand Books

I was reading this book on a visit to NZ, flying from Los Angeles to Auckland. This put Smithy's epic adventures in a new light...as a commercial pilot myself, I could start (just start)to appreciate the problems they encountered, let alone the fear they must have felt... An excellent book, well researched, and as the review states, "not a dull page in the book". Well done Ian.

While i confess to not having read any other books on Sir Charles, I have an appreciation of sorts through the many Smithy stories i had grown up with. My father had worked at Brisbane airport where the Southern Cross stands today and as a boy i recall him telling me Smithy stories as we walked around the old plane. Naturally, 70 odd years after the epic flight, traffic streams past and no one gives it a second glance (although oddly this amazing historical icon is almost hidden from view). I wonder how many young Australians today know who this man is and what he contributed to world aviation.

This book offered a smorgasboard of adventure and excitement and really does put into perspective the amazing feats this man accomplished. It also shows to us a character that was flawed in many ways. Smithy is portrayed as being reckless, selfish and irresponsible and yet also often displayed amazing courage, determination and humour. The book seems factually thorough while continues to flow nicely and is really an entertaining read.

This book would provide an ideal starting point for a film, that could further document and publicise, not only Smithy but all those other early aviation pioneers. Just so many amazing flights amidst so much danger and often so much fun.

A great story of a legend from a time when you really had to do something to earn that epithet.

I've never found a more thorough study and comparison of sperm whale diet and conservation to date, and I have studied both in great depth for a number of years. Gomez-Villota presents valuable data and research only available when copious amounts of work and labor have been spent on the subjects at hand. Though at times it would be a bit much for someone unfamiliar with the technical rhetoric of the field, I believe this resource will be extremely helpful for many years to come. Gomez-Villota really performs here with this valuable resource on sperm whale diet and the conservation implications connected with it.

This research was clearly performed by a very educated man. The findings on the Sperm Whale Diets in New Zealand are remarkable in comparison to those of the 1960s. Fascinating results on those Sperm whales found with oceanic squid from the families Histioteuthidae, Cranchiidae, Onychoteuthidae and Octopoteuthida remains in their stomachs. I would suggest this book to educators, students and the general public. I'd buy this book for $112! Well done Felipe Gomez-Villota.

This is a wonderful book, a true story about a man who rose from humble beginnings (nearly starving and walking through a desert to find work) who rose to lead his State in crises and then became a major and respected international Statesman. Sir Hal Colebatch's story should be more widely known, for it casts light on many forgotten aspects of Australia's history before, during and after the Second World War. He was not only an inspiring Statesman, ever conscious of trade as the great force for peace, but in many ways a delightful character. A physically courageous man, he survived an assassination attempt by waterside thugs in 1919, and morally courageous as well, he sacrificed several opportunities in his political career rather than compromise his principles, and spent much of political life fighting powerful vested interests. He emerges too as a delightful compainon in many ways, wise, witty and learned, though he had to leave school at the age of 11. This book, written by the son who was born in his old age, deserves to become a classic.

This is the life of a great Australian who has been in danger of being forgotten. Sir Hal Colebatch left school at 11 and a few years later walked through the desert to the Coolgardie gold-rushes. He camped in a tent, wrapped in newspaper, and when he got a type-writer became a journalist.

A few years later he was chess champion of Western Australia and a few years after that Mining Editor of a major Perth Newspaper. He entered Parliament, became Premier of Western Australia in 1919 and had to cope with the Spanish 'flu epidemic and a major riot on the wharfs. That was in the first quarter of his political career!

He later became Minister for Education, setting up the first country high-schools, West Australian representative in London, editor of the State's official history in 1929 and entered the Senate. There he refused to attend Party meetings on the grounds the Senate was not a Party house, but achieved some important economic reforms. In London again, he was involved in the West Australian secession campaign and, more seriously, travelled to Germany and met leading anti-Nazis who were trying to forestall Nazism by breaking down Germany's trade isolation. He also met Hitler, Goering, Goebbels and other Nazi bosses and was taken on a tour of an early concentration camp.

He also had dealings with Winston Churchill and many other prominent figures. Posted back to Australia in 1939, he campaigned tirelessly for a stronger Australian war-effort, and, after the war, for rational economic and trade policies. A life-long, and often very lonely, free-trader and campaigner against tariffs and other trade-barriers, many of his ideas have since been vindicated. He also worked for other forms of international co-operation.

His first wife died in 1940. He re-married in 1944 and the son of his second marriage, Hal GP Colebatch, a well-known poet, novelist, lawyer and political scientist, has written an absorbing book, charming, scholarly, perceptive, but also detached and objective.

I am so glad I discovered this book! It has given me much to think about and as well as being a warm human document has broadened my appreciation of West Australian history.

for the Olympics. This is an excellent pre-travel reference for anyone planning to attend the Summer Olympics in Sydney this year. The historical background will help to bring the city to life, from its beginnings as a penal colony to its growth into one of the world's truly great cities.

Sydney started out as a landing place for convicts from Great Britain. But from those humble beginnings, it has grown into one of the world's great cities. This is a "must read" for anyone planning a trip Down Under any time soon. The insights provided by the author will help the Australian visitor have a much better understanding of the city before him. With the Olympics coming soon to Sydney, the timing of this release couldn't have been better. This is a book worth the investment of time and money. You'll enjoy it.

I found this at the library 2 days ago when I picked books for my 6 1/2 yr old daughter. She latched onto it when she had the sniffles & felt like snuggling yesterday. In not much more than 24 hrs, I have read to her all 12 stories (96 pages). Every time we finished one, she wanted another. They are clever & the perfect length. Some will remind you of other stories, but they are very cute & timeless. They make you think. The illustrations are priceless; we loved finding the teddy bears almost too tiny to see & the bear pawprints hidden on each page. I did not like the book often putting down humans compared to teddy bears. I know it was all in fun, but it was unnecessary.

It was so fun to listen to the neat stories and not to mention the neat pictures. We love it and we are so glad we found another book for our Aunt.

With 'Terra Nullius', Sven Lindqvist turns his ascerbic, post-colonial attention on the great antipodean continent of Australia, ancient land mass, ancient indigenous cultures and one of the greatest of C18th Enlightenment experiments. The grim life of what was essentally a prison developed when the option of the United states was closed due to the War of Independence, is well documented by Robert Hughes in his, 'Fatal Shore'. Lindqvist's rhetoric is of cooler peruasion, but none the less withering for that. The manner adopted will be familiar to Lindqvist's readers. We are conducted on a studious and lugubrious tour of the literature surrounding the subject, the land mass and the treatment of its indigenous peoples, by its colonizer. These alone are salutory selections and presented in Lindqvist's usual succinct and pithy chapters. However, he is not a long distance operator, drawing conclusions in the safety of a European cell. He does the hard yards, gets the soundbites, scents, geology and social realities right. I recommend this as a primer for intending travellers to central Australia, who might wish for some background to the contemporary malaise in indigenous affairs, or in need of some background on why the federal government saw fit, and found it so easy, to intervene its army in indigenous communities, with barely a ripple of concern from the Australian public. It should be mandatory on the reading lists of Australian students.

Literary historian Sven Linqvist was introduced to Australia at a young age. An 1896 book described how white European invaders viewed and treated the Aborigines. The story depicted a trio of young European boys encountering a group of Aborigines at a meal. Tucked away in a deep cavern, which to the boys meant the Aborigines couldn't have hunted the meal, the boys immediately concluded the group was engaging in cannibalism. The result was inevitable, the boys opened fire with their carbines, wiping out the "natives". For Lindqvist, it launched a train of thought he pursued years later. Journeying around and through Australia, he brought in his swag a background of European literature dealing with "primitive" peoples. In this vivid account, he takes us on both a geographic and a sociological tour of Australia's historical dealings with its indigenous population. At each stopping point, he relates what occurred to the Aboriginal occupiers there. It's not a pretty story.

The Aborigines were the focus of a good many early ethnographic scholars, almost none of whom set foot on the southern continent. Emile Durkheim, Sigmund Freud, Bronislaw Malinovski, among others, read a few accounts of missionary or other observers to draw novel, if still Euro-centric, ideas of what Aborigine social structure was like and what it meant for human history. The common theme was that primitive societies represented a step on the way to "civilisation". According to Lindqvist, these scholars were uniformly incorrect. Instead of family, clan or even religion binding Aborigine society, it was the land they occupied. Europeans, who considered nomadic peoples as "landless", failed to observe the way land featured in family relationships, religion and the way a people who seemed to be constantly on the move, viewed the land. Aborigines may not have farmed the soil or used it to pasture animals, but that was because they understood how fragile that resource truly is. Europeans, under the influence of Christian dogma about "heathens" and academic dogmas about "primitive people", occupied Aborigine land with the view to "assimilating" or eradicating them. Assimilation was achieved by elimination of all ties to their own culture and a brief education leading to demeaning jobs as domestics or labourers. In short, forced off their land, forced to deny their roots, forced to enter an alien life.

The colony of New South Wales considered the issue of "terra nullius" ["land not occupied"] in the 1820s, but the author mercifully skips over the issue of whether displacing or killing Aborigines was "legal" or not. Instead, he views it as the attitude and the practice of Christian European settlers and miners as they crossed the continent. Until recently, only a few accounts made any effort to bring the Aborigines into historical narratives. Lindqvist makes the most of what he can find to depict the atrocities perpetrated against them. Beyond merely shooting them, Europeans also turned to the seizure of children to be trained in "mission" stations to be domestic servants or road and farm labourers. In addition to simply breaking up families with this tactic, the removal of children dismantled the entire social structure of the culture. With firm ties to particular areas of the countryside and ancient traditions regarding who could marry among the various "moieties", Europeans demolished millennia of finely-tuned cultural foundations.

As a literary historian with a broad outlook in philosophy, the author carefully examines the options facing the white population of Australia. How much guilt is to be recognized when you're living in a place so blatantly wrested from an indigenous population? How much responsibility is there for an individual in those circumstances to consider or bear? It's interesting that Australians have had sufficient sense of conscience to implement a "Sorry Day" in recognition of the injustices done to original peoples. Court cases finally introduced [almost] full citizenship, some justice for recent murders and, most significantly, recognition of what "land rights" implied. Regrettably, the federal government of the time [recently overturned after an over-long tenure] immediately attempted to impose new restrictions on access to sacred places. Even so, some halting first steps have been taken. It will be interesting to watch whether Lindqvist's account provokes Australia into more constructive steps into the future. [stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada]

I've been searching for a book other than a tourist's guide to New Zealand to learn more about my husband's home country. This is the book! Filled with lots of relevant (and recent) information, including gorgeous photos, this book is amazing. I can't wait to visit this beautiful country with him and see it for myself!

I recently bought my first copy of this book in the Auckland airport. I ordered my second copy for a friend. In addition to being a beautiful "picture book" with photos the quality that I wish I had taken while there, this book provides extensive text with factual information on most aspects of life in New Zealand ranging from the land and its climate, its fauna and flora to its history and the quality of life there today. This is a great book for anyone planning a visit or wishing to recall the special beauties of this wonderful country after returning from a visit. Or you may "visit" this country through this book. It is a very up-to-date publication, we even recognized photos of some of the same Maori performers we saw in concert during our recent visit! This is a very comprehensive publication, I think that it is outstanding!

Peak of a climber's career 7 Summits Solo, (Summit, USA) by Robert Mads Anderson To Everest via Antarctica, Robert Mads Anderson Reviewed by Neil Nelson, The Evening Standard, Wellington, New Zealand Saturday, February 24, 1996 Having spent the past 20 years scaling some of the world's most difficult peaks, American-born Aucklander Robert Anderson set himself a new challenge: to climb the highest peak on each of the world's seven continents. As an added challenge, he elected to climb them solo. Ultimately, he failed in his bid, with Everest getting the better of him on two separate occasions. But failure to stand on the top of the world's highest peak doesn't diminish Anderson's achievement or the highly readable accounts he has written of his adventures. As the price tags would suggest, the two books which have resulted from his seven summits project are totally different. 7 Summits Solo is a large-format, lavishly produced, 160-page volume which includes dozens of superb colour photographs taken by Joe Blackburn during the expedition (Note, nearly all photos in the book are Anderson's). Anderson's account of the expedition is essentially a précis of the story he tells in To Everest via Antarctica. The 220 page Penguin book (Stackpole Books, USA) contains just a handful of photographs, but includes a far more detailed account of Anderson's adventures. During the past decade or so, I've read numerous accounts of climbing expeditions: this one rates as one of the best. Unlike some mountaineers, who feel compelled to describe in minute detail everything they did during the expedition, Anderson concentrates more on the adventures he had actually getting to the mountain. He admits it is more of a travel book than a book about climbing and that he wrote it for a broader market. Some chapters have little to do with climbing at all. Nowhere is this better illustrated than in Anderson's descriptions of his travels in Russia, late in 1992, after conquering Mt Elbrus, Europe's highest peak. With Elbrus out of the way, and three weeks left on his Russian visa, Anderson decided the opportunity to see some of Russia was too good an opportunity to miss. With the Russia of old rapidly being split into a series of new countries, and new border crossings appearing at random, it was decided a large bus would be the easiest way of moving around. One was soon found and with several companions Anderson set off for a fascinating tour of parts of Russia which had seldom seen Western tourists. The tales he relates of his journey make for absorbing and humorous reading. With a degree in writing and a career spent mainly in the advertising industry - the business he set up in New Zealand and subsequently sold helped fund his seven summits project - Anderson wastes few words. He has an economical, easy-to-read style and knows how to tell a good story. While the price of 7 Summits Solo means it's unlikely to appear on best-seller lists, To Everest via Antarctica deserves to be. One of the most enjoyable books I read in 1995, I look forward to reading of Anderson's further adventures.

Adventurer's tale takes us to peaks To Everest via Antarctica, by Robert M Anderson Reviewed by the Northern Advocate 27 March 1996 In September 1991, Robert Anderson set out to accomplish a world first - solo ascents of each of the world's seven summits, the tallest peak on each of the world's seven continents. This book is the story of that quest. Anderson has an enviable and formidable reputation as a climber. As a youngster he started his career in Colorado and then spread his activities to the European and New Zealand Alps and to the Himalayas. Regrettably, it was necessary to include Mt Kosciusko as the Australian summit because it is the highest peak on that continent - at 2230 metres in altitude, the lowest mountain in the world. That aberration was climbed in appalling weather of ice that nearly defeated his attempt, but when the weather lifted, he made it. As he comments: "To be beaten by Everest is one thing, but to be beaten by Koscuisco is another." For the record, he knocked off Kosciusko in one hour and 23 minutes. Not bad at all for an Everest soloist. His other peaks were Mt Aconcagua (6969 metres) in South America; Mt Kilimanjaro (5894 metres) in Africa; Mt McKinley (6193 metres) in North America; Mt Elbrus (5633 metres) in Europe; Mt Vinson (5140 metres) in Antarctica, and Mt Everest (8048 metres). But the book is much, much more than bare accounts of ascent. It is a travelogue, a modern Peaks and Passes combined, as it were, with the late Frank Smythe's classics of the Himalayas and Tilman's unsurpassed accounts of his journeys. In short, this is an outstanding mountaineering book that compares with the classics of the genre. It can be referred to time and time again with pleasure. If you like the high hills, this book is a "must". The photos are few but good and the cover photo is superb. Reviewed by Ivo Davey

Sadly I have never been able to get my hands on a copy of the book, but I saw the TV series when I was 6, and it certainly made a lasting impression on me. Great story, great atmosphere! I still vividly remember scenes from it...

Maurice Gee's book Under the Mountain is an amazing book. It was first read to me when I was only about eight years old, and I just found a copy and re-read it. Rachel and Theo Matheson are twins, and apart from having red hair, they seem to be perfectly normal kids. Until they visit Auckland and are encountered by a strange old man, and a couple of freaky neighbours. The twins discover that they are a crucial part in the war between two alien races. Rachel and Theo learn that only red-haired twins can save their world from destruction by huge, powerful alien creatures. This is a great book, and I'd recommend it to people of all ages. I know my parents liked it just as much as my brother and me. The characters are believable, and the plot is well thought out. Although I prefer Maurice Gee's O series, I still love this book.

Nobody alive on earth today can adequately describe the magic that is the Waitakere Ranges -- a unique place on this planet, unrivaled in beauty anywhere at any price. Travel around the Ranges, either on foot or by automobile, and you will be enchanted, spellbound.

Because words are horribly inadequate tools to describe beauty, the Waitakere Ranges must be experienced to be believed. However, _Untamed Coast_ comes about as close as possible to doing this place justice.

A magical book, for a magical place.

This is a great book. I grew up in this area and spent many happy hours on these beaches. It truly is a great present to share with friends overseas and with family.