New Zealand Books

Peter Pierce's critical study 'The Country of Lost Children: An Australaian Anxiety' is an important contribution to Australian literary criticism. The work surveys the development of the lost child motif in literature of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. It theorises that the motif embodies human (and colonial) anxieties about the vast and untamed natural environment of nineteenth century literature, folktales and visual arts. He asserts that over time, this preoccupation has shifted to a more inward societal critique of the potential for danger and menace in humanity itself. Pierce draws on ficition, theatre (briefly), film and true stories, demonstrating the pervasiveness of this trope in collective memory, lived experience and the imaginary. This survey opens the field to more detailed critical study of texts, broader cultural formations and the reasons for this phenomenon, as well as ongoing analysis of the potency of the figure of the child in the Australian consciousness, especially when we think about the future. More study of popular culture and true stories would be beneficial to this project. Overall, an important contribution to Australian studies.

The book is great: just what I was looking for. The direct text is what the overseas visitor or migrant need to be presented about this amazing country

This book is out-of-print but, as the author, I suggest you put in a cross-reference to "New Zealand by Bike", the second edition, most recently revised in 1998. Thanks. N>B. Please note the author's name is Bruce Ringer not Brude Mirger.

I bought this book when I enrolled in journalism at university, and I thought it was brilliant. It is clear, well written and extremely informative. I recommend it to anybody who is considering a career as a journalist. It is one of the few nonfiction books I have been able to read cover to cover in such a short period of time. It deserves every star I have given it.

Inga Clendinnen's new book traces the history of contact between Aboriginal Australians and British colonisers from 1788-1800. Clendinnen has used a number of primary sources for her book, mainly journals kept by the British. By comparing different versions of the same events, she has - as far as is possible - excavated the facts of what actually happened from the subjective accounts they are embedded in. She has then applied the available anthropological knowledge about the Indigenous people of Sydney to interpret events and relationships through their Aboriginal cultural context.

We meet a fascinating group of people, both British and Aboriginal, and learn about how they coped with their newfound situations, and how they forged relationships with each other. Most of all, we find a story of two very different cultures profoundly misunderstanding each other.

However, we also find a fair and compassionate man in Australia's first Governor, Arthur Phillip. In the years from 1788-1792, his leadership was committed to treating the Aboriginal locals well, interacting with them as equals, and attempting to understand them.

As Phillip leaves the colony and subsequent Governors are less committed to these ideals, we sense an opportunity lost, and glimpse a different set of possibilities for Australia. This is a beautifully written account of a period in Australia's history which reminds us that things could have turned out very differently for Aboriginal people.

This is a very good book for primary grade teachers, but upper-grade teachers can use much of the information provided. This book shows teachers how writers develop, the purposes for writing, and how to make your classroom into a productive writing haven. It is recommended by Learning Network specialists in our district. It is easy to read and easy to implement the strategies taught here. I feel it is a very authentic view of what we as teachers want our students to do in the area of writing.

Solid history of the New Zealand Special Air Service published in 1987. Contents

Introduction to the SAS.
Selection and training: building the SAS.
Specialist roles.
Weapons, equipment and uniforms. Detailed descriptions and photos.

Malaya 1955-7
Thailand 1962
Borneo 1965-6
Vietnam 1968-71

Lots of action photos, both b&w and color but some faces are deliberately obscured. Also contains maps. Bit dated now (20 years or so out of date, but a good early history

Most people are familiar with the 1994 movie by New Zealand director Peter Jackson, 'Heavenly Creatures' which stared Kate Winslet (of 'Titanic' fame) and Melanie Lynskey. 'Daughters of Heaven' is the play that the film was based on. On June 22 1954, on a secluded track in Christchurch's Victoria Park, Juliet Marion Hulme and Pauline Yvonne Parker bludgeoned Pauline's mother to death with a brick in a stocking. They were 15 and 16 years old. The play takes place, mostly, in the courtroom, with flashbacks of the events leading up to the murder of Honora Parker, to outline the evidence of the 'Killing of Mrs. Parker' to the audience (the court). It is both a story of a severly English-influenced New Zealand city being turned upside down by a cold blooded murder at the hands of two schoolgirls, and a story about love - the sweeping away of reason and morality in a crazy devotion. Juliet Hulme says, "We had the right to do what we needed to do in the interests of our own happiness". The play, in my opinion, is far more superior to the movie. The script is moving and repelling all at once, because as it seems like fiction, it is not. Most of the things said in the play are exactly as they were said in 1954. All of Pauline's diary entries are factual, as are the things said in court, in prision, even down to the way the girls, the families and the court acted. If you liked the movie version, then get your hands on this play. It is not to be missed.

I bought this book a year ago and have read it several times since. The photographs are stunning and the information easy to digest. I have a BS in marine science and found the book covered all aspects of New Zealand's ocean world-from geological formation, to sea-floor contours, and life above and below the ocean. The best comprehensive and well organized marine science book about New Zealand available. I would highly recomend to ALL ocean lovers who seek beauty and fascination beyond their own shores.

I recently had the honor of meeting the 80 year-old Hone at a poetry reading in Christchurch (New Zealand). To me, a New Zealander, Hone Tuwhare I regard as a living prophet. Open any New Zealand book of verse and Hone will fill a good twenty pages. It is impossible for me to say how important this man is to our country. His poetry is mystical, political, romantic - he captures the landscape and its people like no-one else ever has. You don't have to be a New Zealander to enjoy these either - they will be, I assure you, the most beautiful, energetic, natural, informed poems you will ever have the pleasure of reading. and in no way am I going to be able to put across the sheer wisdom that is "Deep river talk" with a list of adjectives. Its like cummings got lost in wilderness with Thomas Wolfe and built a monastery and they all came out drinking and laughing and singing Maori spirituals. Hell - just read it for yourself.