New Zealand Books

to cultural poetics in timely, disjunctive, and importan ways from the interviews with Clifford and Said to the poems and stories and essays by indigenous peoples, settlers, interlopers, disciplinarians and a cast of thousands. I have used this text in a postcolonial writing course at Santa Cruz and it worked quite well to prod theory reflection and to thicken Pacific dimensionality. It is a well wrought text, finely made by editor and UH Press deserving broad circulation and use

This is authentic writing from a master of Maori Metaphysics. Incredibly valuable read if you would like an overview of the Maori view of the world. Stunning. Highly recommended.

Jessye loves living with her Nana in the Maori village by the river, but she also misses her mother and their very different world in the city. So when one day her mother returns and asks Jessye to return to the city, she's willing to give her flighty mother one more chance - until a handsome stranger threatens her world. Her determination to survive and build a better life makes for an inviting saga of change and adjustment in RIVER SONG.

This is a terrific recap of a life well led, so far, by an ordinary woman who's had some extraordinary times, from physiotherapist for the Washington Redskins to First Lady of the Aussie consulate in New York (including during 9/11). Great warmth, humor, common sense, and sense of family.

This is a great map of New Zealand. Its unfortunate that it is becoming hard to find.

The map was printed a few years ago, so some things have changed, but for 95% of the areas you would be traveling to it is very accurate. Most of the changes are not the addition or changing of streets but rather the condition of the roads. Many roads that are said to be unsealed are now sealed, especially in the North Island.

The map is also made out of a plastic type material that is waterproof. You could dump a bucket of water on the map and it would still be fine, maybe just cleaner! Wish they made all maps out of this material.

Great map if you can find it, and its worth the hunt!

In American histories of the naval battles in the Pacific during World War II there are often little side messages such as the Australian Navy cruiser 'Canberra' lost at the Battle of Savo Island. In general, the activities of the Australians have been ignored (as has the Australian Army's fight along the Kokoda trail).

It is nice to see that Allen and Unwin, one of the premier publishers of military history now has their books sold through Amazon. These books show a side of the war in the pacific from somewhat of a different attitude than the typical American book.

While not the largest navy in the war, the Australians made significant contributions to the war effort. They build, repaired and operated ships of all sizes from torpedo boats to aircraft carriers. They were involved in almost every battle in the Pacific from Coral Sea to the end. Indeed they started their war before the US got involved. As part of the British Commonwealth they were first placed on a war footing when England went to war with Germany.

This is a well written and informative book that describes a little known (in the US) part of the history of World War II.

This is an extraodinary story. It is based on fact and is one of the most powerful children's stories I have read. It is one of those books that can easily cross over from children to adult fiction.

Elsie Locke was a New Zealand author based in Christchurch, this is her most famous and best book. She had read about the Phipps/Small family in some books about early New Zealand Settlers and decided to follow up the story. She found out what she could from the grandchildren of the original settlers and checked up on records. It has been fictionalised what she didn't know, but the detail in it is superb. You really feel like you know and understand early New Zealand in general and Christchurch in particular.

It is about a family, a mother, four sons and two daughters who make the decision to escape from an abusive father in Australia. They wait until he has gone on a droving trip for 7 days and make their way to Sydney where they hide out with a secret friend for a few days while they find passage somewhere else, anywhere else. They change their name and finally get passage on a boat to New Zealand. Only the eldest child, a daughter, cannot get passage and must remain with the friends.

The rest of the family escape to New Zealand, to Christchurch where the eldest two boys are set to work draining swamps and cutting flax to pay their passage. The mother manages to settle a small farm house in Governers Bay on the Cracroft Wilsons land with her youngest three where she establishs a small farm growing lots of fresh produce which she uses to better the family.

The trials and tribulations make sobering reading. Suriving on damper and oats for weeks on end, living in a single room in a thatched cob cottage. Young teenages having to alk 7 miles with produce to sell in Lyttelton, having only squares of greased calico over openings in the wall to make windows. The most incredible of it was the droving trip she took to the west coast going hundreds of miles with 30 odd cattle to sell on the gold fields, just the mother and teenage son. The hardship and responsibility of it all is sobering.

Elsie Locke has invested this story with a wealth of detail so you can understand the times much better. The detail never gets in the way of the story though. Pwerful, compelling and a great read.

This book details the history of Australian Mining, but don't be put off by the seemingly dry subject-it is anything but dry. Stories are told of the romantic gold rushes, the lucky, the unlucky, the schemes, plots, the deceptions, the clouded histories, the despair of the many, and the fortune of the few. For students of both human nature and history it has interesting insights, such as how plain luck plays a significant part in human events, and how apparently small innocuous irrelevancies can lead to profound outcomes.

An interesting example is that of the Mount Morgan Mine in Queensland. Black boulders, which cattle shied from, formed a low hill in the ranges. There was a gold rush a few miles away, but nobody thought to test the black hill, as the rocks were all wrong. Farmers sold the useless land the cattle didn't like. A lazy miner was sacked from his job, his wife pleaded for his re-employment, in return for the locale of a "silver mine" in the hills. A few savvy mine managers wandered into a black innocuous hill. They chipped away, took out leases over the whole hill (a wise move), kept it very quiet (another wise move). When samples were broken, there was more gold than black earth-it was assumed it wasn't gold but something else. They began to mine quietly away until a local newspaper noticed there was a phenomenal amount of gold leaving a nearby town. The word was out. Mount Morgan -the "freak lode" as described by geologists at the time-became one of the richest and mightiest gold mines on earth. It defied virtually everything known about gold mines at the time. Geologists were perplexed, but as long as shares repaid 413,000% of their value, the owners didn't care. The copper that got "in the way" of gold processing eventually amounted to about 250,000t of copper. It was mined for around 100 years, and money that came from the mine was used to find oil in the Middle East, which eventually formed the company BP. Mine owners declared in World War 1, that Mount Morgan money was used to fight the Germans. In the 1950s over half of Great Britain's revenue came from oil discoveries that were originally financed by one small black hill in the outback of Australia.

The world's largest resource of lead and zinc-the Broken Hill Lode-is another case in point. For some years in the 1800s a large, jagged hill of black boulders more than a mile long and 500 feet wide was ignored by local prospectors at the nearby silver rushes at Silverton. A surveyor's fence was put across it. A trig station crowned the summit. Samples were chipped which came back high in uninteresting lead, but little else. It wasn't near any main thoroughfares. The owner of the land wasn't interested in prospectors. It was too big to be a lode. A good lode was said to be five feet wide, Broken Hill was over 500 feet wide. The rocks were wrong. So numerous hopefuls mined the molehills, whilst the mountain was ignored.

When people finally got around to examining it, a few speculators bought and sold shares, making a few bucks, as the hill guarded its riches. Finally, when a shaft was sunk on the wrong rock type-white kaolin-bonanza silver assays came back and the hill was born. The first 48 tons produced about 36,000oz of silver, which in the 1880s, was a lot of dough. The ensuing stock market mania and mining development transformed Australian history. Over $AUS 70 billion has been taken from the hill to the 1990s.

There are many other similar tales, twists and turns- the vagaries and tides of history. Curiously and well written, it is recommended for those interested in history, particularly Australian, or those simply interested in curious human anecdotes of life.

Inglis took 15 years to write this book. The book has been written in easy to read non-academic style that makes for easy access by the casual reader. I read this book with ease finding it full of useful and interesting facts. Inglis does not attempt to analyse the theory behind memory or memory representation but does allow enough material for the investigative reader to develop his or her own thesis.

In short it is a long book, but a good book and certainly one that helps to remind us that there are those that we should not forget.

I am impressed with the way the author has set out the drama scripts - the storyline itself, followed by an inside look into the characters, and then a suggested play format to follow. What I also like is that it gives the ability for students to amend and adjust the storyline as they wish - in order to accentuate any aspect they make like to. I like the fact that the drama pieces are short - it leads to lots of possible development and support activities - particularly in the younger classes. The opportunity to add Maori language script alongside to enhance what's already provided is another bonus.

The additional parts at the back of the book (the cultural and pronunciation guides and the glossary) provide some valuable support information for teachers and learners.