This is a story many New Zealand women - particularly those who grew up in the country - will identify with. Elspeth Biss was brought up on Hawke's Bay farms in the 1940s; attended boarding school in the 1950s; trained as a nurse, married, and brought up a family in the 1960s and 70s on farms in the Wairarapa. As she writes: "The 1960s may well have been 'the Dawning of the Age of Aquarius', as the popular song had it, with the Beatles, Mary Quant and the mini-skirt, but for me and most of my friends it was a decade of child raising, washing nappies, Plunket and kindergartens." In her absorbing memoir, Elspeth Biss evokes the way things were during 'all those yesterdays'. She is fiercely proud of her Scottish heritage, going 'home' for the first time in 1946. Passionate about horses and hunting, she is also always looking for a new challenge - 'retirement' is an opportunity to sell cosmetics and learn to kayak at an age when most prefer sedentary pursuits. All Those Yesterdays celebrates a life well lived away from the headlines and the city lights.

Bind: paperback

Pages: 205

‘New Zealand’s Rivers: An environmental history’explores the relationship between New Zealanders and our rivers, explaining how we have arrived at a crisis point, where fresh water has become our most contested resource and many rivers are too polluted to swim in. Environmental historian Catherine Knight reveals that the tension between exploitation and enjoyment of rivers is not new. Rivers were treasured by Māori as food baskets and revered as the dwelling places of supernatural creatures. But following European settlement, they became drains for mining, industrial waste and sewage, and were harnessed to generate power and to irrigate farmland. Over time, the utilitarian view of rivers has been increasingly questioned by those who value rivers for recreation as well as for ecological, spiritual and cultural reasons. Today, the sustainable use of rivers is the subject of intense debate. Thoroughly researched and richly illustrated, ‘New Zealand’s Rivers’is an accessible and compelling read for all New Zealanders, including anglers, kayakers, farmers, environmental practitioners, policy-makers, students and anyone with an interest in our environment and history.

Bind: paperback

Pages: 324

Dimensions: 170 x 240 mm

Publication Date: 10-11-2016

With the soft jingle of bells, a mysterious gift falls from the sky. Kuwi knows just what to do and sets off to give lovely gifts to all her friends so they too can join in her happiness. But things don't go to plan when her friends forget to say "thank you". Another beautifully told and illustrated story by award winning author Kat Merewether.

Bind: paperback

Publication Date: 01-11-2016

“Surely the Wairarapa doesn't have a maritime history, there are no ports or wharves and only a few fishermen earning their living from the sea.” This has been a commonly held view, and the reason this book has not been written until now. In fact, the maritime history of the Wairarapa coast is both fascinating – and important. The sea lane from Auckland to Wellington, via the Wairarapa coast, was a critically important highway during the 19th century. Coastal shipping, with its use of surfboats, delivered the essentials of life ashore and took off wool, tallow and timber in the decades before roads were carved through the bush to remote settlements and sheep stations. Rugged Coast, Rough Waters tells the story of shipping – of national and local importance – on the Wairarapa coast. It also document’s the coast’s Maori maritime history and the barely remembered sealing, whaling and flax industries that once flourished The unforgiving, exposed coastline and the storms that rage along it have resulted in over 70 shipwrecks and more than100 lives lost.

Bind: paperback

Publication Date: 31-10-2016

The Dominican Sisters of Aotearoa New Zealand The first 10 Dominican sisters arrived in Dunedin in 1871. The congregation expanded rapidly, establishing schools throughout Otago and Southland, and eventually reaching as far north as Auckland. For most of their first century in New Zealand the Dominican sisters were teaching nuns, living in large enclosed convents cut off from the outside world. In the mid-1960s the Second Vatican Council ushered in a period of radical change. The sisters moved out of their convents and into small homes in their local neighbourhoods; out of their schools and into new roles in education, social justice, pastoral care and spirituality. Today they are an ageing congregation that is diminishing in size. Susannah Grant was given full access to the congregation’s rich archives in order to write this book, from the point of view of an ‘outsider’. She has also completed a large number of oral histories with the sisters. In this moving and beautifully written book she chronicles the astonishing transformation of the New Zealand Dominican sisters from a strictly enclosed body of religious teachers to a congregation of religious women who are integrated in the wider community and engaged in a range of active ministries, while still remaining deeply committed to shared Dominican ideals.

Bind: paperback

Pages: 328

Dimensions: 200 x 240 mm

Publication Date: 17-04-2017

These angling stories will whet your appetite to be out on the river again. From one end of New Zealand to the other, these short chapters introduce the reader to some of our country’s fabulous wild waters and the cunning brown and rainbow trout lurking in them. With beautiful photographs of New Zealand’s back country rivers this could almost be a travel book as much as a set of fishing yarns. As author Tony and his wife wander from one river to another you will be introduced to the wild, untamed beauty of our nation. You will experience Tony’s love of nature and the tranquillity of the back country rivers as much as the thrill of landing some of those big trout. Written by the author of The Black Singlet Brigade and Boots ’n’ All, Wimps in Waders is a book for any-one who enjoys a lazy afternoon on a riverbank as much as the adrenaline rush brought on by the hunt for that worthy adversary, New Zealand’s well-schooled trout. Experiences gained in 50 years of fishing make for an enthralling read as Tony grows from a tentative spin fisherman to a fully-fledged angler. A chance encounter with another river bed angler led to Tony’s introduction to the local fishing club and as he confesses his membership led to growth in his skills. This can be noted from the explanations of fishing techniques and fly tying guidelines found throughout the book. These short stories explore some of our relatively unknown streams and are beautifully illustrated with full colour photographs.

Bind: paperback

Publication Date: 28-10-2016

Much of Time of the Icebergs was written while David Eggleton was a Writer-in-Residence at the Michael King Writers Centre in Auckland in 2009. These are poems about the world we live in, tracing a dystopian present 'hurtling globalisation's highway' where 'Google tells Google that Google saves'. As he says, 'I think of it as a collection for browsing and discovering things: soundscapes, seascapes, landscapes, contemporary politics and contemporary people, histories, traditions, and other things besides.' In this time of winebars and infotainment, 'Ngati Cappucino and Ngati Bogan' stalk the streets bent beneath hoodies and 'boxy four-wheel-drives plane through the wet' piloted by 'yummy mummies'. Titles of poems reflect the absurdities of 21st century existence: 'Kate Winslet Promotes a Credit Card' riffs off an ad in the New Yorker, while 'Not for Human Consumption' and 'Twenty Second Century' hint at the ecological chaos of the modern world. Name-droppers, debt-dodgers, ghettoised gods and 'Vern Acular, that good keen bloke' all make an appearance, as does the lost five-cent coin. Poems set in Suva, Sydney, Christchurch, Auckland and Dunedin locate this book firmly in the South Pacific. Eggleton traverses the country: from Cantabrian landscapes of 'a geology sculpted into fists' and Dunedin 'tipped out of a colonial toy-box' to North Island summer idylls where you could 'follow a jiggle-string of beach pulled taut by the soaraway kite of blue sky'. Nationality and 'kiwiness' are under investigation. This is no mere intellectual exercise as through it all thrums the steady beat of life.

Bind: paperback

Pages: 88

Dimensions: 140 x 210 mm

Explosive new poems for election year from David Eggleton, Cilla McQueen, Vincent O’Sullivan, Tusiata Avia, Frankie McMillan, Brian Turner, Paula Green, Ian Wedde, Vaughan Rapatahana, Ria Masae, Peter Bland, Louise Wallace, Bernadette Hall, Airini Beautrais and 84 others… A poem is a vote. It chooses freedom of imagination, freedom of critical thought, freedom of speech. A collection of political poems in its very essence argues for the power of the democratic voice. Here New Zealand poets from diverse cultures, young and old, new and seasoned, from the Bay of Islands to Bluff, rally for justice on everything from a degraded environment to systemically embedded poverty; from the long, painful legacy of colonialism to explosive issues of sexual consent. Communally these writers show that political poems can be the most vivid and eloquent calls for empathy, for action and revolution, even for a simple calling to account. American poet Mark Leidner tweeted in mid-2016 that ‘A vote is a prayer with no poetry’. Here, then, are 101 secular prayers to take to the ballot box in an election year. But we think this book will continue to express the nation’s hopes every political cycle: the hope for equality and justice. Two small but potent words. 101 potent poems. Stand up, write back!

Bind: hardback

Pages: 184

Dimensions: 150 x 230 mm

Publication Date: 17-04-2017

This book by well-known New Zealand maritime writers Nick Tolerton and Captain Michael Pryce is the first history of a major segment of shipping, the product tankers which bring fuel to New Zealand's ports and to ports around the world. It includes a chapter on the history of New Zealand's coastal tankers with many photographs of them from the first, Paua of 1927, to the latest, Matuku, which went into service this year. A superbly-illustrated 256 page A4 book with dust-jacket, Product Tankers has more than 350 illustrations (most of them in colour and most previously unpublished), including some ship plans. As well as the fascinating and little known story of New Zealand's tanker services, it includes a comprehensive history of product tankers from the World War Two standard-designs through the classic post-war tankers to the first pure product tanker designs, the innovative tankers of the late 1960s, the 1970s, and 1980s, and the sophisticated product and chemical carriers of today. It also includes many fascinating reminiscences from New Zealand seafarers, the history of Shell's and BP product carrier fleets, and chapters on ice navigation and tankers at war, including Vietnam and the Falklands. The perfect Christmas present for anyone with an interest in ships and the sea. The authors: NICK TOLERTON - This is the 10th nautical or sports book by this Christchurch writer. He has also written Below the Timeball: 150 Years of the Port of Lyttelton, Lyttelton Icon: 100 Years of the Steam Tug Lyttelton; Spirit of the Coast: The Story of Pacifica Shipping, Reefer Ships: The Ocean Princesses, and Bulk Carriers: The Ocean Cinderellas. CAPTAIN MICHAEL PRYCE - This is the first book by Captain Pryce, the Wellington regional harbourmaster and president of the New Zealand Ship & Marine Society and editor of its respected journal Marine News. A former tankerman himself who served on 26 ships during 23 years at sea with Shell, he is a well-known contributor to nautical publications worldwide.

Bind: hardback

Pages: 256

Dimensions: 210 x 300 mm

Publication Date: 20-11-2016

The first edition of "Richard Pearse" was published to coincide with the IATA conference held in Auckland in 1978. This centennary issue is the fourth edition, reprinted for the centennial of power driven flight, 2003. We do not know what inspired Richare Pearse to try to emulate the birds. From what little we do know of him, Richard Pearse would most probably have wished to remain unknown. Indeed, if he dreamed of aircraft of the future he could never have imagined where his beginnings and the work of other inspired pioneering aviators would lead.

Bind: paperback

Pages: 32

Dimensions: 300 x 214 mm