New Zealand Books

I found the book to be very dsconnected. Definitely full of history but lacking in continunity. Mike Walker had so many sources to use and think he used them all, but many times he lost focus of Mary Bryant and tended to give a history lecture. Very interesting and informative, just didn't care for the structure of the book and presentation of the story.

As one who has spent his entire life in Australia, I can't help feeling that story of the First Fleet is almost a part of me. From an early age I was fed and I absorbed the legends of poor English children transported to Botany Bay for the crime of stealing a handkerchief or a loaf of bread. Brutal guards, corrupt officials and murderous natives are used to complete the picture, and to help create an Australian ethos which is - and of course I generalise - anti-authority, anti-British and, perhaps most tragic of all, anti-Aboriginal.
Mike Walker's work is, in that context, an important contribution to a more complete understanding of Australia, and Australians. It's also a darned good read.
Mary Bryant (nee Broad) is stereotypical in many ways - poor Cornish fisherman's daughter, driven to petty crime, almost hanged, transported, persistent, strong - and so it goes.
Her story moves from the stereotypical to the extraordinary as she battles all before her to return with her family to her beloved Cornwall.
While the tale itself is remarkable, and worth the price of admission in its own right, I enjoyed the other personalities just as much. James Boswell, Arthur Phillip, Watkin Tench (or, in an hilarious error in the index, "Watkin Fench"), and Ralph Clark all come to life in a real, raw and entertaining way, thanks to Walker's style, and also to the way he has structured the book.
"A Long Way Home" is a neat companion to Tom Kenneally's "The Commonwealth of Thieves," also published in 2005, and providing a more general account of the first four years of English settlement in what we now know as Australia.
Walker is more tightly focused, but no less incisive and insightful. His is a book for the vaguely-interested (in Australian history) and also for the vitally-concerned. It is beautifully presented, and - I'm writing this review in early December - would make a superb Christmas for any thinking person.

The B&B book is loaded with choices of nice places to stay with personal writings on each by the owner/operators of the various B&Bs. My only request would be for each entry to show one photo of the rooms at their establishment.

A beautifully illustrated book, very reasonably priced for the wealth of information it contains. My husband and I love choosing our own itinerary when travelling and especially love staying at Bed and Breakfasts. A very informative book which correlates very well with the Lonely Planet on New Zealand. I do have the Friar's Guide to New Zealand Accommodation for the Discerning Traveller 2005 which is a magnificent book to have in one's library. However, this Guide by Elizabeth James is something one can take on one's travels and is compact. It also has a great description and lovely, individual illustrations of many places of varying cost from which to choose in both the North and South Islands. A great purchase!

Not exactly a rivetting read, but does a good job in listing all NZ lichens with good pix and good descriptions. For its specialised purpose very good and probably unbeatable. Format is a flip over lay flat book.

The New Zealand lichens checklist, key, and glossary is the most magnificent checklist ever made. Actually, it is probably the most inspiring book on lichens to date. The coloured photos and the well-illustrated glossary makes it very useful for everyone dealing with lichens, not only for New Zealanders. This book should be available in all university libraries.

Mr Fitzpatrick has researched this topic well, as one would expect, and produced a book which will be of immense help to researchers and family historians.

With an Irish/Australian family background, I found the book very helpful in putting a detailed perspective on the privations of the Irish Immigrants, and those left behind in the homeland.

The book is not a light read. But it is very readable.

PS. I wish the publisher had bound the book as well as the author/editor had written it. Be careful. It will fall apart if opened wide!

Oceans of Consolation is a collection of 111 letters written between 1843 and 1906 to and from members of 14 families of Irish immigrants to Australia. The collections were gathered and the book is edited by David Fitzpatrick, an associate professor of Modern History and Fellow of Trinity College, Dublin.

The letters are augmented by profiles on each of the families written from genealogical, biographical and historiographical sources that give context to the letters and by six themed chapters in which Fitzpatrick analyzes the letters and the general subject of Irish emigration.

The author claims his work is distinguished from similar collections of Irish emigrant correspondence by its focus on "the forgotten vernacular of the steerage classes." In other words, Fitzpatrick aims to give insight into the Australian migration experience of Ireland's lower economic classes.

The book includes a Preface and an introductory first chapter explaining the method of the work. The Introduction is required reading if one is to have a thorough understanding of the many aspects of the author's complicated research method that yields what one well-published Australian historian calls a "showpiece."

The sets of letters penned by members of the 14 families are organized into chapters in four groups: News from Australia with three chapters of letters and associated family profiles; Victorian Voices containing profiles and letters to/from members of five families; News from Home, with letters and profiles of three families; and Ulster Accents with similar content on and by three families.

Six chapters of analysis follow the 14 family profile / letter chapters. Fitzpatrick includes these commentaries to explore "a formidable range of issues in the history of Ireland, Australia and human migration." It is in these 160 pages where Fitzpatrick meets his obligation as an interpreter of history. While the letters are valuable insight into the Irish-Australian migrant experience - they permit the reader to "hear" the idiom of the writers, thus to know them better as individuals - the meat of interpretation and historical value lies in the final six chapters.

A List of Sources and a Thematic Index complete the 649-page book.

Readers should be aware the Index is difficult to use. In a regrettable omission, the author and his editors fail to include page numbers for the key word references. Instead they are identified with a "letters-number-letter" sequence: a two-letter abbreviation of the family name; a number designating the specific piece of correspondence in which the word, phrase or reference is to be found; and an alphabetical letter identifying the pertinent paragraph in the specific letter. If one is to use the Index, this reader-unfriendly method forces one to memorize the abbreviations of the family names, then to plod tediously through the book to find the citation. The effort is often unjustified by the return.

Fitzpatrick's goal is to discover how the written word sustained solidarity among lower-class 19th Century Irish families separated from their emigrant relatives by the mighty ocean distance between Ireland and Australia. He also claims to reveal the differences between Ireland and Australia and what he calls "the very nature of Irishness."

Because of his complex research method and reliance on "letters of the unlettered," there is little doubt this book was difficult to produce. With commendable candor, Fitzpatrick confesses his need for "the courage to complete what sometimes seemed an impossible assignment." He apparently wishes he'd been more disciplined either in defining his scope or pursuing it. Regardless, Oceans of Consolation is a tour de force.

Fitzpatrick consulted an extensive list of sources, both individual and institutional. He expresses his gratitude to descendents of the correspondents whose letters are included in the book. He is equally grateful to numerous institutional sources and individual specialist scholars in Australia, Ireland, the United Kingdom and the United States. His long list of institutional sources included public and university libraries, archives, museums, offices of public records, church registers, Catholic religious orders and Protestant fraternal organizations.

Fitzpatrick discusses the twin challenges of distance and delay that confronted Irish-Australian families in their correspondence written, he says, to "reinforce the emigrant's fading link with `home'." Both had much greater impact on the new Aussie family than on families of Irish émigrés to other lands, notably England and North America.

Four letters written by Michael Hogan between 1853 and 1857 to his brother Mathew, a cooper and publican in County Tipperary, are the subject of Chapter Five and illustrative of the book's content. As in all the letter collections, the editor's impressively researched and well-written family profile precedes them.

Fitzpatrick tells us Michael Hogan, the only convict immigrant featured in the book, arrived at Port Jackson, Australia on the good ship, "Blenheim" from Cork on Nov. 14, 1834 after being convicted of "maiming" at the Cashel Quarter Sessions in January, earlier that year.

Fitzpatrick refers to the Clonmel Herald to describe the charge against him. "Hogan's violent assault on James Kinnealy had been unprovoked and no motive could be assigned for it by the prosecutor. The principal witness in the case was a little girl of about eight or ten years of age, whose testimony was as artless as convincing."

Fitzpatrick uses Blenheim's "printed convict indent," the penal system's answer to a passenger list or cargo manifest, to introduce us to Michael. He is described as "an unmarried, literate, Catholic `farm laborer' aged 27 years, just over 5 feet 6 inches tall; with a `dark ruddy freckled' complexion, brown hair, bluish eyes and `scar top of left side of forehead, top joints of both little fingers crooked.'"

After receiving his "ticket of leave" - his release - a year early in 1840, Michael Hogan married Margaret O'Brien, also formerly of Tipperary, who bore him seven children. Michael worked at several jobs, bought a freehold house (the house plus the land on which it sits) in south Melbourne, sent his brother two checks of £30 each and referred in his letters to the presence in his house of several servants. His self-image revealed in his letters "was that of a man who had made good," writes Fitzpatrick, "and wished this to be recognized." Michael died in 1873, a widowed laborer who had earned the means to have buried his wife and two of his sons in an eight-foot square grave plot in Melbourne's Old Cemetery.

Thus the reader arrives at the actual letters with an appreciation of the background and personality of their writers. Fitzpatrick's well researched and artfully crafted family stories bring life to the letters, thereby enhancing the reader's experience and raising the historical value of the work.

Fitzpatrick suggests lower class Irish-Australian correspondents often seem to have sought help to write their letters. "Help" means reference to letter-writing manuals, plagiarism of friends' letters and dictation of desired messages to more accomplished - maybe even professional - letter writers. Among many common elements, Fitzpatrick cites the frequency of elaborate, identical salutations and Irish-Australian expressions of intimacy resembling "those recommended in manuals for `the juvenile correspondent'."

He says one might presume this style was quintessentially Irish, but he turns to an English manual published in 1856 to verify it conformed closely "to the general base of letter-writing as practiced by uneducated persons." In other words, there's nothing special in this fact; the same characteristic would have been true, for example, of lower class Irish in North America and England. This is the case with many of Fitzpatrick's observations: perhaps pertinent to Irish emigrants in general, but not unique to the history of Irish-Australian migration.

As is the case for economists, political scientists and sociologists, it's important for historians to focus on statistically significant data and avoid wasting effort where the knowledge is less valuable. With this in mind, Fitzpatrick spends too much time in his analyses at the 50th percentile of interpretation. For example, he writes "The letters illustrate eagerness and reluctance to emigrate in roughly equal measure" and "Advice concerning the prospects for future emigrants, when directive, was as often discouraging as encouraging." These letters are obviously not a statistically valid sample of all Irish-Australian migrant correspondence. Nevertheless, it would be preferable for this editor - and all historians, in this reviewer's opinion - to focus on attitudes and feelings shared by at least 75 percent of his sample. It is at the poles of the semantic differential where the most meaningful learning is to be found.

Fitzpatrick wanders frequently from his Irish-Australian thesis in his six commentaries. He writes extensively about the Irish emigrant experience per se, but often fails to drill down into any geographical destination. He spends time on conditions in Ireland, but often doesn't link his topic either to the families of emigrants or emigrants themselves. He occasionally slips away to citations about Irish emigrants to North America without comparing or contrasting the parallels with their Australian cousins.

Perhaps because they are written as summaries, the final two chapters contain several more specific Irish-Australian examples of the emigration experience, important because they support Fitzpatrick's objective. Here are two of many:

* It was the rough life of the outback, bush, homestead, or diggings which engrossed those trying to imagine Australia from Ireland.

* Emigrant letters gave Irish readers graphic accounts of the unfamiliar Australian climate, with its bewildering succession of floods, frosts and fires and above all its summer heat.

History professor Patrick O'Farrell of the University of New South Wales is quoted in "The Sydney Morning Herald" on his reaction to Oceans of Consolation.

"I am humbled by what Professor Fitzpatrick has done so exhaustively and so well . . . It would be hard, if not impossible, to better his treatment of the exercise he has undertaken; this is a showpiece, a master class, in the handling of a certain type of historical source."

Judith Reid of the Library of Congress says the book is definitely "an important acquisition for libraries collecting Irish and Australian history and emigration history."

Professor Fitzpatrick has produced a Herculean contribution to the history of the Irish-Australian emigration experience in Oceans of Consolation. We trust he has enough energy left for other work of equally high value that will add to the body of knowledge on the subject. At the least, we hope he got some rest after this one. He earned it!

In the 1760s, as the British Empire expanded into Asia and the Pacific, its rulers proposed that certain peoples could be understood, and privileged, as a separate ?Aryan? race. Aryanism suggested that this whole region had originally been peopled by successive waves of vigorous Aryans, culminating in British colonisation. Ballantyne traces how this idea ?was used to naturalise, justify and celebrate British colonisation of South Asia.?

Chapters 1 and 6 look at imperial notions of India, which were used as a template for understanding other colonised societies. Chapters 2 to 5 examine how the Empire used these to try to control New Zealand?s Maori society. As ever, the empire exploited existing social divisions, to divide and rule, while claiming that it freed the most exploited from bonds of caste and priestly power. It called its domination ?liberation?, its exploitation ?development? and its wars ?pacifications?.

Unfortunately, Ballantyne commits what we may call the scholarly fallacy, asserting that the empire was woven together by webs of relationships, modes of discourse, rather than hammered into place by the capitalist mode of production. Only in passing does he note that the East India Company, the revenue manager for Bengal, collected increased revenues while famine killed a third of the people. Under Empire, rule, regular famines, in 1770, 1783 and throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries, killed tens of millions.

Ballantyne does not challenge the imperial myth that settlers, both military and missionary, benefit the host country, not their own individual gain. This is now transmuted into the liberal myth that immigrants benefit the host country.

He claims that there was a ?progressive? side of Aryanism, inclusive, globalising and non-racist. He praises the imperial policies of free flows of labour and products and ideas, and he opposes all forms of nationalism as exclusive and racist. This fits neatly into the Empire?s hostility to ?backward-looking? nationalism, and it also suits US imperial policy today.

But empire is always undemocratic, because it is based on rule by one class over other nations. Empire benefits its rulers, never the peoples, whatever the forms in which people think.

I learnt of this book from a friend in London -- it is an excellent history of race and British imperialism. The author has a very impressive breadth of knowledge and writes clearly. I really liked the material on India, especially on Sikhism. It is nice to read a British historian who takes religion seriously and who read Indian sources. The final chapter of the book on Indian nationalism shows the ways in which Hindu nationalists used this Aryan idea for their own Nazist needs agains Muslims and Sikhs.

This is a charming story of the true life experiences of a girl (now a Grandmother) growing up in the Philipines during World War 2.

I am sure that teen-agers would enjoy reading this book, as well as adults. It's a small book and can be read in a matter of hours. I found I could not "put this book down"!

Very appealing!

Written from a child's perspective with vivid detail that will also captivate adults, Barbara-Ann's stories of her childhood in the Phillipines during the WWII Japanese occupation is a fascinating read. Her stories are a personal glimpse into the struggles of a multiracial child growing up poor during wartime told with humor, emotion and acute observation. "Pooh" will steal your heart.

to me, this book was very much about different kinds of relationships. Sarah and Jack, the main characters, have a distant relationship - they do not wish to be too deeply involved in each others lives, and that is what makes their relationship last. Then there are olga and otto becker, the old couple who are still deeply deeply in love at the end of thier lives. how often does that happen? its beautiful. There are also the relationships of sarahs sister, mother and father, and more... i guess i would have like to have the book go a bit more deeply into the characters' motivations and rationale, etc. but anyway, a lovely book.

Definitely one of the best books I've read in ages. The author transcends the usual pettiness of this type of novel, and the story had my attention from the first page. Her writing is evocative, reminding me of my own life experiences. She uses unpretentious language, painting a starkly clear picture of the creation of the Author's Wife

In Disch's book, The Priest, an anti-abortion child molesting Roman Catholic priest is blackmailed into having a large image of the devil tatooed on his chest. As he lays back in the tatoo artist's chair, he changes personalities with a 10th century homicidal maniac Roman Catholic priest. The 10th century priest thinks that he has died and that the two nude tatoo artists are devils torturing him in hell. The story gets more and more crazy from that point on. Anger toward the anti-abortion movement with the Roman Catholic church seems to be the motivating factor behind this book, but I found that the book was full of odd-ball humor and dark dry wit. If you are a Roman Catholic, you will probably find this book very offensive. This is a shame because Disch actually writes very skillfully. I think he is underestimated as a writer. Underneath all the anger is thoughtful social commentary, bitter irony, and masterful use of the English language.

While the cover of The Priest proclaims the book to be "A Gothic Romance", take my word for it that it is in reality far from that. It is a tale of very taboo subjects, such as gays in the Priesthood, abortion rights, and Catholic doctrine. If you are easily offended, back slowly away from this book and leave the room.

Rest assured, Disch actually attacks none of these subjects, simply offers up a well-written piece of fiction with many muses intertwined with the tale. Remember that it is a piece of fiction.

Father Patrick Bryce is not a good man, having already been chastised by the Church for being caught abusing a young boy. Father Bryce is a pedophile, and an unrepentant one, though he is back at work in Saint Bernardine church along with Father Cogling, a strictly old-fashioned Priest with an unkind heart.

Above all, the church wants no scandals, and so when a man named Clay shows up with evidence of Father Bryce's sins, he submits to the blackmail rather than fight it. But Clay doesn't want money, he wants Bryce to get a tattoo of the devil on his chest, and read a book called A Prolegomenon To Receptivist Science by cult leader A.D. Boscage, while Bishop Massey expects him to lead the controversial anti-abortion rallies for the sake of the Church.

Meanwhile, we are introduced to Silvanus de Roquefort, the Bishop of Rodez in the small village of Montpellier-le-Vieux, back in the middle ages, around the thirteenth century. Silvanus is a vain man, and devoted to the Church only insomuch as it benefits his station and well being.

When Patrick and Silvanus begin to switch mind and body, in a process the cult leader Boscage calls "Transmentation", things really start to fly loose and fall apart.

There are many other interesting characters interwoven into the plot, like Gerherdt Ober and his sister Hedwig, religious fanatics who run the Birth-Right Center where girls are locked in cells and forced to bear their children. Bing Anker, a former victim of Father Bryce who stirs his friend Father Mabbley into action, and a young girl named Alison who gets caught up in the storm brewing at Birth-Right.

The Priest is a complex novel, full of sin and degradation and mysticism, but what's waiting for you in the end is a plot twist of rare and satisfying dimensions, tucked neatly into a action packed race against time and some brutal revelations. If you have read Disch before, you'll love The Priest. If you haven't, you may want to start with a tamer piece like 334 or The Genocides. Enjoy!

A police action involves bystander Penrose, who picks up a man's wallet at the scene of a crime and becomes involved in a stranger's life. From a questionable antiques store to a policeman convinced that Penrose has something to hide, Shirker provides many intriguing twists of plot in a surreal atmosphere.

This novel could be interpreted in a number of different ways, and I by no means claim that mine is definitive. What I am sure of is that it operates on two very different levels. The first is an engaging, well plotted murder mystery. The novel begins with a scene from the end and then jumps back in time. This, coupled with the almost 18th century prose, serves to immediately catapult the reader into a confused, uncertain plot. And that's perfect, because that's how the characters perceive their world.

The second level is where things get a little more murky. I see at least two arguments as to the underlying theme of "Shirker". The first is a statement on how our modern society has left us awash in information (and memories) to the point where it is impossible to move forward due to the baggage of the past. The second speaks to being true to one's self. More specifically, it refers to holding on to what is truly important, recognizing what is truly important, in a world drowing in irrelevance.

Ultimately, this is a novel that will mean different things to different people. That's what makes it special; not only does it entertain the reader with an intelligent mystery, it also leaves the reader thinking about something bigger. I know it will stay with me for a long time.

Dr. Visser is obviously a person who loves her work. She is a scientist specializing in cetacean research. In particular, she studies the behavior of orca, or killer whales. If you have been lucky enough to meet Visser in her native New Zealand or on an expedition to the South Pacific or Antarctica, you know how passionate she is about the creatures to which she has dedicated her life.

The book, "Swimming with Orca," is semi-autobiographical, tracing the 40 years of Visser's remarkably rich life from that of a child growing up in New Zealand and sailing around the world with her father, to that of a scientist observing orca in their natural habitat. It is the story of a young woman with a dream and the obstacles she surmounts to attain that dream. As such, the book is both educational and inspirational. The writing is unpretentious, honest and easily accessible, and is illustrated by excellent pictures, in black and white and color. It is good reading for young and old alike.

The title of the book reflects Dr. Visser's courage in the face of animals with a reputation as the deadliest in the ocean. Even more so, it reveals the mutual trust that has come to exist between Visser and the orca who know her: she literally does swim with the orca, unafraid and without the use of protective devices. And individual orca do recognize Visser and her boat, and come to play, communicate, and seek affection. Dr. Visser lovingly describes these encounters.

Important issues of wildlife management also get their due. Dr. Visser addresses some of the situations which endanger orca and other marine mammals including industrial pollution; keeping animals in captivity; and irresponsible boat handling and fishing practices. She also describes efforts to protect the N.Z. orca, including an interesting discussion of the process of rescuing beached whales.

The book is a good resource for learning about cetacean research. It documents Visser's observations of orca behavior, and it describes the scientific methodology required to do work in this field. Additionally, Visser addresses the issue: should field research among animals be of the hands-off, observation-only kind, or can a more humane and interactive approach be as valid? Visser comes squarely down on the side of the humane and interactive, citing the work of Jane Goodall and Dian Fossey. This is fortunate for the reader: a tale about a whale named Ben is entirely more enjoyable and memorable than one about a scientific specimen labeled NZ101.

Although Swimming with Orca is her first book intended for a general audience, Dr. Visser has also helped produce a video for The Discovery Channel titled "Orca - Killers I have Known," has written several books for the children's market, and has published articles in scientific journals.

This book strikes a wonderful balance between straight science and the more emotional stories of interaction with the orcas. She discusses her own work, researching the orcas of New Zealand and Antarctica under more rigid scientific situations. But at the same time, she also discusses the more emotional side of her fascination with killer whales. The stories she tells of coming face-to-face with killer whales in their own element are wonderful. It's also interesting to see her acknowledge the possibility that these interactions could affect scientific data, but then also look at what she's been able to learn because of them. This book can appeal to both the more scientific-thinking public as well as the laymen - it does a wonderful job of bridging the gap between the two, a critical factor in today's world of translational science. Highly recommended for anyone with a love of wildlife!