New Zealand Books

'In My Father's Den' is a 1972 novel by Maurice Gee, but also a splendid 2004 film of the same name both set in New Zealand. I luckily own a copy of this book with a movie cover. I really wouldn't be without it now. It was the obvious dark history of the characters, the film hints at, that drew me to the book. With 175 well written pages, and covering a lot of the same ground the film did, which make both book and film worthy of your attention. For younger readers the lapse in time and language between then and now isn't an issue. 'In My Father's Den' instantly drew me in and kept me enthralled throughout. The alternating shifts in time of the chapters is a brilliant way to learn about one important character, teacher Paul Prior's past, and family history as well as other's who have populated his life in memorable or undesirable ways, to turn him into something of a loner. Recorded in present tense, the narritive is never dull, but full of vivid descriptions it's difficult to dislike. It is in Paul's father's secret sanctum, that a world of books awaits, and emotions run strongly for a girl called Joyce Poole. Joyce first met Paul on a bridge that is lovingly stored in my mind now thanks to this book, as well as many other worthy scenes. There is a vital poem with the name Celia in it that Paul shares with Joyce when they're together, both unaware how it would affect their futures. It is at a party that the girl of Paul's dreams is whisked away from him, by Charlie Inverarity. Years of trouble might have ensued had it not been for a girl called Celia Inverarity who Paul eventually takes a vested interest in with a number of motives. One is to help with her studies. The other is to find out about Joyce Celia's mother the girl he loved. Yet Charlie's ever watchful, wondering keen eyes on his daughter threaten to cast a dark brooding cloud over the pair and shatter a blossoming friendship. A murder takes place in Wadesville and Celia is the victim. It is here that the story begins and what follows retraces the events leading up to this act of senseless violence. 'In My Father's Den' is only one book of many around. I highly recommend it for it's tender and thrilling moments. It's everything you could possibly desire in one book. I doubt you'll be disappointed. 'In My Father's Den' is worth finding.

Scottish blacksmith Hamish Miller, and well known New Zealand historian and author Barry Brailsford, team up in SOUTHERN SERPENT, combining their talents to create a novel and fascinating insight into some of the many sacred spaces within New Zealand, and their role in myth and in legend.

Peppered throughout with illustrated maps, magnificent colour photographs from over dozens of people, and light-hearted story telling, SOUTHERN SERPENT is a must buy sequel (or prequel for that matter) to the SUN and the SERPENT; the equivalent journey in the northern hemisphere.

If coming to New Zealand, or simply interested in understanding more about natural earth energies and how one's consciousness can actively interact within sacred space, you can't do better than to purchase SOUTHERN SERPENT. Some of the many sacred sites touched on are Tokatoka, Castlehill, Temple of the Four Winds, Kaimanawa Wall, Navigator Rock, and Punakaiki.

This is a wonderfully whimsical book of verse about Australian mammals. The verse ranges from humour to serious conservation messages. The book is magnificently illustrated throughout with Pamela Conder's paintings and line drawings.

Pamela Conder is reknowned as a painter of animals, with a unique style that captures the essence of the animal. Her line drawings are precise, while her paintings are full of life.

As well as verse about Australia's more well-known animals, such as the koala and kangaroo, the book also features many lesser known species such as the planigale and antichinus. A final indication of the humour within this book is the title itself, which is a play on the title of Ronald Strahan's more well known book "The Complete Book Of Australian Mammals".

While this book is listed as having being written for children, it is highly recommanded for all ages.

I have the big name guides like Lonely Planet, and they are very informative, but they seem to be pointing me toward where to find every other American tourist in the country. This book is different- It tells me how to get around- breaks it down into method of travel: car rental, rail, fairy, public transportation and backpacking (tramping). This book has schedules and routs for excursions which I have confirmed are current, and even includes walking route tours around towns. I find lots of information in each of the guide books I have picked. I am feeling well prepared for my trip and once I get back I can tell you for sure which guide was most helpful, but based on the information I have gotten from this book I am sure it will be something I rely on to live out my dream for this trip to New Zealand! If not your ONLY guide, it's a great compliment to any guide.

This is a splendid book that I would love to use as the core text in a new course on the Indian Ocean. To paraphrase Alfred Doolittle, "I'm willing to use it, I'm wanting to use it, I'm waiting to use it." But I will not ask my students to pay $100 for it: in the absence of expensive color plates or other kinds of graphics, I have a hard time seeing why a 300-plus page book costs so much. I have been hoping for a paperback issue but see no indications that such might be forthcoming.

If you are concerned to understand Indigenous Peoples' Rights from a perpsective that distinguishes an historical, cultural and legal issues and developments, buy this book. It is a carefully edited and well organised collection in which the 20 contributors explore commonalities of experiences under colonialism and social and legal moves towards self-determination in countries with a similar legal and constitutional history. However the collection does not gloss over differences in indenous peoples' experiences within these jurisdictions, and this aspect not only provides stark and thoughtful contrasts, it exposes ongoing problems for governance and social relations.

Paul Havemann provides several chapters that comprise an historical and thematic framework for the close analysis in the six sections that cover: Public International Law; Sovereignty, Self-Determination, and Coexistence; the impact of colonial settlement in the Anglo-Commonwealth; Indigenous Peoples' Rights Claims; the relationships between criminalisation of indigenous peoplss and colonisation; administering citizenship and self-determination and constitutional issues arising from indigenous rights claims. In each of these sections, well known writers including Ranginui Walker, Marcia Langton, Alan Ward and Paul Chartrand analyse the specificities of the experiences of indigenous peoples in their national contexts.

What is especially satisfying (and challenging) about this collection is its attention to detailed analysis, lack of generality and avoidance of stereotyping and puffery. Although there is not an exhaustive coverage of the heterogeneity of indigenous viewpoints, the collection avoids caricature of key differences and demands the reader pay attention to historical complexity in both indigenous narratives as well as the contested nature of law as it's developed in each context. The collection requires time and thought to fully digest, since its multi-dimensional methodology has the reader aware throughout of many further research possibilities opened up by the questions raised. It is an exciting and intelligent contribution to debates about 'rights', 'indigeniety', 'self-determination' and international law.

There's no denying that American educators are fascinated with many New Zealand education programs and results. But there is more to the story than simplistic answers, formulas to emulate, and curriculums to buy! This book is WONderful, in its' balanced comparison of our American and Kiwi systems. Mr. Cullen is an expert, and introduces us to the daily school life of children down under, the daily teacher routines, and philosphical differences. He is careful to share advantages of both, without criticism or preference. This book truly introduced me to the N.Z. education system. As a result, I and my family now live, and I teach, here in New Zealand ( a former lifetime resident and teacher in Washington state). So this book comes recommended from a first-hand source. If you can't come visit and see what's happening in education here, do read this book! Many of the little ideas and methods are easily put to use in your classrooms. There are great things about both education sytems; if New Zealand's successes interest you, here is where to start your personal journey!

I have read the book and I think it's a great training material for our teachers.

The Irish in Australia is a general history of the contribution of people of Irish birth to Australian national life and character first published in 1986 by New South Wales University professor of history, Patrick O'Farrell. The fifth paperback edition published in 1993 contains 362 pages with two prefaces, eight chapters - the eighth a new one on the "The New Irish - an updated bibliography, 21 useful pages of additional reading sources and an index.

The book is a rich chronicle based on primary and archival material noteworthy for its geographic scope as well as its leverage of study the author has done for other work he has published on Irish migration. He describes his sources as small, no doubt one of the reasons he pursued his research on a global basis at several points in Australia and at others in Belfast, Dublin and Rome.

Caution is recommended to readers who might infer too broad a meaning to the book's title, assuming it suggests the Irish in Australia were a homogenous community. On the contrary, O'Farrell weaves a complicated saga of people from Gaelic-Catholic, Anglo-Irish and Ulster Protestant traditions - seasoned with a few Irish Jews and Quakers - engaged in three areas of almost constant conflict.

* Conflict between distinct, separate and essentially poor Irish-Australian cultural factions;
* Conflict, "often bitter, sometimes violent," between Australians of Irish birth and the Australian establishment;
* Conflict, "often hostile and sometimes most indignant in its refusal to accept the Irish as true and proper Australians" between the Australian Irish and non-Irish communities.

The parameters of Australia's early foundation were marked by English and Irish extremes. Of the two national ancestral groups, O'Farrell claims the Irish have been the more dynamic force in the evolution of Australian national character.

O'Farrell uses extensive data to explain Australia's foundation as a British penal colony. He reports just over 40,000 mostly Catholic convicts were sent to Australia directly from Ireland by 1853, 26 percent of them women. Of the convicts sent from England, he cites estimates suggesting perhaps 8,000 were Irish-born and a similar number were of Irish ancestries. Irish social rebels, those convicted of crimes of protest against poverty and landlordism, were about 20 percent of the total. The rest can be described properly as ordinary criminals, mostly thieves. O'Farrell undoubtedly offends select conventional wisdom that upholds Irish convicts as honorable victims of gross injustice, social oppression and national persecution, or as heroic rebels. "The facts," he writes, "seem otherwise."

One of the strongest personalities in the formation of the Australian-Irish community was Cardinal Patrick Francis Moran, Archbishop of Sydney from 1884 to 1911. Known for his discipline, dignity and pride in Irish identity, Moran advocated inclusion of the Australian-Irish into the British-run colonial society as themselves, not as imitation Anglo-Saxons. Careful to avoid any appearance of Irish nationalism, Moran stood for the richness of Irish culture, making no apologies for what was Irish. Polished and refined, Moran made it clear, "Australia must swallow the Irish potion neat." Moran's stance framed one side of the continuously simmering conflict between the English colonial administration and the new Australian-Irish population. On the other, the establishment insisted de facto membership in society was dependent on the Irish abandoning their identity. The Australian-Irish would have none of it.

Along with Cardinal Moran, about 2,000 mostly Irish Catholic priests arrived in Australia in the 19th Century and waged a holy war to capture the Australian wilderness of indifference, neglect, heresy and sin. Precisely because the Australian-Irish Catholic laity was so dominated by their exuberant, sometimes belligerent clergy, they were saved from the political tribalism and clannishness into which the American Irish fell. The immigrant priests established Irish Catholic symbols everywhere by building hundreds of churches, schools and convents throughout the country. Their presence and impact was ubiquitous.

Perhaps because of the strong emotion in much Irish poetry and song as well as the long economic and political struggle against Britain, there are several theories for the genesis of free Irish emigration to Australia. O'Farrell acknowledges many, but cuts to the chase with a thesis of common sense. He says the best left Ireland for Australia, not the worst. "It took initiative, resourcefulness, capacity and also, obviously, money."

The first free Irish in Australia built their image in the outback. Many experienced farmers arrived from Ireland between 1860 and 1880, finding immediate opportunity in affordable, plentiful land. Many originally non-farming Irish immigrants gravitated to these quickly successful Australian-Irish agrarian communities, investing their wages from first jobs as common laborers and miners into farms of their own. This combination of real and nouveau Irish immigrant farmers built sizeable Irish communities around the major cities in New South Wales, Victoria and the other colonies.

As time passed, Irish migrants gravitated more to Australia's cities, grouping together beneath the structures of neighborhood, parish church and school, workplace / work role, political party and sports. However, O'Farrell makes it clear the urban Irish in Australia did not retreat into ghettos like many of their emigrant countrymen in the U.S. and England. They maintained their communities, but considered themselves Australian-Irish, not just Irish, and strove to function as fully bona fide members of Australian society.

Useful data are plentiful in this book. We read that 342,842 Irish "free" immigrants arrived in Australia and New Zealand between 1851 and 1921, with 101,000 landing in the Victorian gold rush decade of 1851-60. This compares to nearly four million Irish who left the Old Sod for North America. Very few Famine refugees went to Australia, mainly because of the distance and greater expense of the journey. O'Farrell maintains the Irish people who went to Australia and New Zealand were "a much more accomplished, venturesome and happy lot than those the Famine had dumped on America." It is also true, however, that the Irish arrived relatively late in America, a country already settled and an environment more closed to them than was the case in Australia. Ironically, Australia was seen by many Irish as offering greater opportunity than America, where the urban ghetto - much like what they knew at home - awaited them.

O'Farrell refers to the celebration of St. Patrick's Day in Australia several times, explaining its various forms as a religious saint's feast day, a political statement, a social holiday and a boozy down-market street party. Occasionally it was all four, but most often it balanced precariously between an excuse for a drink-up and a lightning rod of both general public and Irish-Australian disapproval for its divisive, irrelevant rowdiness. Cardinal Moran took control of St. Patrick's Day observances during his tenure, trying to bring a sense of balance, sobriety and respectful Australian-Irish character to it. Sadly the celebration remains most famous for excessive drinking, brawling and otherwise objectionable behavior of many participants.

Several lay individuals played prominent roles in sustaining the Australian-Irish community. J.G. O'Connor, who had arrived in Australia from Ireland in 1841 at the age of two, became Sydney's premier Irish social chairman for over 40 years in the last half of the century. He acted under the mantle of the Hibernian Australasian Catholic Benefit Society, founded in Victoria in 1871 and spread rapidly throughout Australia and New Zealand in the 1880s. Neither a nationalist radical nor a man of great means, O'Connor was the quintessential hale hearty, well met Irishman, always promoting an Australian-Irish cause to raise money. The Hibernians continue their preservation of Irish heritage, loyal support of the Catholic Church and good works for the less fortunate today.

The Australian Irish, then and now, take great pride in their sporting life. Sport allowed them to create instant heroes to help fill their needs for self-esteem. One of the most famous was Australian-born boxer Les Darcy who came to fame in Sydney in 1914. O'Farrell describes Darcy as "a pure and simple hero, a good boy who loved and looked after his mother, went to daily Mass, said the rosary - and won: the power in his fists came straight from God." At his death in 1917 at age 21, Darcy was discussed by some as a potential nominee for canonization as Australia's first saint.

O'Farrell explains how single Irish women immigrants often outnumbered Irish men in Australian cities. Bachelor Irish men in the cities tended to work at inferior jobs with low status and realized their inability to offer a woman much more than a life of drudgery and poverty. Their alternatives were to defer marriage until they accumulated sufficient wealth or not marry at all. As a result, many Irish female immigrants as well as first generation Irish-Australian women never wed.

This resulted in substantial age differentials between husbands and wives in the early Australian-Irish community. It also meant Irish-Australian widows of means as well as spinsters were not uncommon in Australia in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Irish immigrants didn't carry nearly as much of their homeland to Australia as one might assume. The Catholic school system where many Australian Irish sent their children competed with public schools in examinations. The priests and nuns who ran the schools were thus forced to load their syllabi with state-mandated classes on top of religious instruction, attendance at Mass and various other church events. "There was no room in the school day for Irish culture," O'Farrell writes. In addition, Irish Catholic Australians didn't want their children studying and embracing Irish culture. Most regarded the study of Ireland as irrelevant in their new situation as Australians.

"The Irish in Australia" by Patrick O'Farrell is a well-researched, comprehensive work written in a pleasant style describing the conflicts faced by people of Irish birth who emigrated to Australia. It bridges the great distance between Ireland and Australia with well-documented demographics as well as numerous stories of colorful Australian-Irish personalities from all corners of society. It includes numerous comparisons of the Australian-Irish immigrant experience with that of the much larger group of Irish emigrants to the United States. It provides entertaining and informative insight into Australia's rich Irish character and must be considered a premier source on Irish migration.

"The Irish in Australia" has been honored with the New South Wales Premier's Award for non-fiction and the Ernest Scott Prize for Australian history.

This book is by far the most comprehensive Irish - Australian historical book I have ever come across. If you can get your hands on one of these books you will not be disappointed. It covers every aspect of Irish history in Australia. Patrick O'Farrell has done a great job in researching and compiling this book.