New Zealand Books

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.

When my girls were growing up, this was one of their most favorite books - they never tired of hearing it or reading it themselves when they were able. The story of the puppy trying to find its own identity plus the wonderful illustrations make for delightful reading.

I have recently discovered my childhood copies of Frank Muir's What-a-mess. Flipping through the pages I was amazed by the wit and the intricate detail in the pictures. Unlike numerous children stories What-a-Mess actually has an imaginative story line. As a child and an adult I have found it impossibly not to fall in love with the adventurous, adorable afghan puppy. Unfortunately What-a-Mess is now out of print but if you find a copy in a book shop it is a purchase you certainly won't regret. Due to the intricity of the pictures the book is suitable and holds interest to all ages.

Wild Asia: Spirit of a Continent is a beautiful oblong title providing a visual journey through the Asian wildlife world based on an international television series by the Natural History New Zealand. Enjoy color photos and a variety of writers who focus on their regional knowledge of Asia, from the Arctic tundra to central Asia. An exceptional visual display blends with nature insights.

This book was a great buy for me. Although it is very general as animals and plants go, it opens up the wonder of Asia to the reader. Its pictures are extremely magnificent; they are the main focus of the book. It is said a picture tells a thousand words, and it is very true for this book. The color and great shots are just as good as it gets, next to being there.

If you read this book you get a very good vieuw of the Australian wines and winery's mr.Halliday did,as in his other books,an amazing job. for all the wine lovers out there a must buy

My recent month-plus tour of wineries in Australia and New Zealand was greatly based upon the excellent research,reviews and contacts using this fine reference.As a budding wine writer, collector, and head of a local Enological Society in the Pacific Northwest,Halliday's Atlas has been the virtual bible enabling the design of both the tour and subsequent writing.As my primary interest was a focus upon pinot noirs, my tour began in Australia where I visited Halliday's own Coldstream Hills Vineyard.His work provide a roadmap enabling me to contact other prominent pinot noir producers in the Yarra Valley and Mornington Peninsula-Main ridge, Stonier, Yering Station, Paringa Estates and others.While there, I also made contacts and was invited to a new release winetasting of New Zealand wines held in Melbourne. Quite amazingly, the first person I met was the great James, himself. It was fun and a privilege to share wine tasting experience and comments.
From there, the tour extended to the whole of New Zealand. Again the Atlas laid the groundwork for my visits, enabling me to meet most of New Zealand's greatest owners and winemakers, including John Buck at Te Mata,Kevin Judd at the famous Cloudy Bay,Neil McClallum at Dry River, Grant Taylor at Gibbston Valley and many others.Naturally, covering nine separate wine regions entailed tasting many other prime quality varietals in such warmer climes as Waiheke Island and Hawkes Bay with their magnificent cabernets and Bordeaux blends,plus gorgeous chardonneys,etc. In all cases, the Atlas gave regional and subregional data and exacting descriptions of "terrior" necessary to a serious study.Halliday is, in my book, a more comprehensive writer and reviewer of "new world" wines than even Jancis Robinson or Robert Parker. He also adds the direct insights of his winemaking in Australia and his pioneering of pinot noir developments "down under". His reputation as a critic is simply impeccable and his easily read writing style, while detailed, is at once comprehensive and comprehensible.It is a must read and essential reference for serious oenophiles and fellow wine tourists.

This is a great book. Not only is it quite up-to-date (with tasting of recent vintages), it also covers the majority of the good-to excellent producers. It's written in a 'Parker'-style with many details of the individual wineries - and several of their different bottlings. A (vague) complaint is the absence of general vintage charts. Anyway... definitely recommendable !

Arguably THE book for Aussie and NZ wines, especially good for New Zealand since no major wine magazine has written extensive detail on this region. Great handbook to have. Agree with earlier post that vintage charts by region would be great to have, as well as some index on who the 5* producers are.

This book tells a man's story, from childhood in the Depression to high honour in his native New Zealand. He proved a bright student and became a Presbyterian minister, whose studies of modern scholarship brought conflict with those who took biblical stories literally. A trial for heresy ensued. He was vindicated, but moved to teaching religious studies at university level.
Two other themes warm this story and inform it: the author's family life and his growing concern for the environment.
This is a book to encourage many (but especially those of a Christian background) who seek a modern way of faith.

This is a wonderfully candid reflection on the life of one of the 20th century's theological trailblazers. Readers of Lloyd Geering's many books will know that whilst he was Principal of the Knox Theological College (Presbyterian) in sleepy Dunedin, New Zealand, he was charged with heresy for writing a paper that reinterpreted the story of the resurrection of Jesus in a symbolic fashion. At his church trial in 1967 he was exonerated of the charge. He soon published an expanded version of his thoughts in "God in the New World".

The strength of "Wrestling With God" is that Geering gives us (for the first time) a complete background to the development and maturing of his theological ideas. By the early 1970s Geering was effectively forced to resign from the Presbyterian church, realising that if he were to change people's thinking about God it would have to be outside the traditional religious context. Accepting an offer from Victoria University in Wellington, Geering became the first Professor of Religious Studies in a secular New Zealand university. For the next decade and a half, Geering exercised a key role in the development of a superb department dedicated to the study of all religions from a humanist perspective.

Geering continues to live in good health and has published a series of excellent books (including "Tomorrow's God") to inspire those of us who consider ourselves to be exiled from the church. He is an active member of the Sea of Faith movement, a good friend of radical theologian Don Cupitt and has close links with the Westar Institute in California.

To the Is-Land is the first book of Janet Frame's three-volume autobiography, described by Michael Holroyd as 'one of the greatest autobiographies written this century.' It chronicles her childhood and adolescence spent in a materially poor but intellectually intense railway family in the 1920s and 30s. First published in 1983, it won the prestigious Wattie Book of the Year.

Janet Frame is New Zealand's best-known living writer. In addition to her autobiography she has written eleven novels, four collections of short stories, a volume of poetry and a children's book. Her books have won numerous prizes, includung the Commonwealth Prize for Literature in 1989 for her novel The Carpathians. She has been a Burns Scholar, a Sargeson Fellow, and has won the New Zealand Scholarship in Letters. She has also been made as Additional Member of the Order of New Zealand and awarded the CBE, an honorary doctorate in literature by the University of Otago, and is an honary foreign member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
--- from book's back cover



Angel at My Table (A Women's Press Classic)
The Envoy From Mirror City an Autobiography Volume 3

Too often Australia's development is written off as a bunch of British prisoners sent there for punishment - when in fact there were some notable individuals in its history. "Alexander Collie: Colonial Surgeon, Naturalist, and Explorer" is a look at one of those notable individuals, Alexander Collie, a renown scientist from Scotland who did much to help the colony in its early days and helped establish it for future generations. A complete look at a oft-forgotten individual, "Alexander Collie: Colonial Surgeon, Naturalist, and Explorer" is highly recommended for community library biography collections.

Mr. Doutre shows conclusively manifold evidence for ancient White settlement in New Zealand. Modern establishment concept of New Zealand settlement proven to be myth. Aryan spirals, stone circles, Caucasian skeletons, Maori legend, oral history and folk law, red-haired Maori, gods and dieties, dances, hill forts, astral/solar/lunar calender systems (NZ Stonehenge). Book proves White settlement in New Zealand for pre-historic millenium. Proves modern isolationist theory wrong. A must read for anybody interested in the distribution and diffusion of mankind and the origin of diffused culture worldwide. The mathmatic certainties shown by the author prove his case beyond doubt. [...]