Many New Zealand families were affected by the 1918 influenza pandemic. In the space of about six weeks, over 6400 Pakeha died and an estimated 2500 Maori. That equals nearly half the total of New Zealand soldiers killed in the First World War. Yet these were civilians, dying in the first month of peace. This was New Zealand's worst-ever public health disaster. The whole country seemed to shut down for several weeks in November 1918. Because the victims' bodies turned black when they died, many believed it was the plague. Could it happen again? The risk of another major influenza pandemic is even greater now, thanks to international jet travel. Global flu surveillance should give us better earning, and we now have anti-viral drugs and antibiotics to deal with the secondary pneumonia that was the real killer in 1918. But do we have the systems in place to deal with another massive health crisis? This book shows how we coped back in 1918 - the response of public health officials, how the sick were nursed, how thousands of convalescents were fed and the lessons learned that may still be useful today. It is an inspiring and fascinating story that all New Zealanders need to know about.

Pages: 96

Dimensions: 210 x 265 mm

Publication Date: 20-09-2017

The West Coast of New Zealand’s South Island arguably boasts the greatest range of the country’s natural attractions. From the warm, temperate nikau palm forests at Karamea to the cool beech forests of Haast, from the alpine heights of Arthur’s Pass to the dramatic Paparoa coast, glaciers that descend into valleys filled with unique podocarp rainforests, plus pristine lakes and lagoons – the West Coast has it all. New Zealand is a centre of endemicity, with over 80% of our native non-marine birds, reptiles, flowering plants, gymnosperms, land-snails and insects restricted to this country, and hundreds of those species are found on the West Coast. The Coast is an essential destination for any overseas naturalist or bird-watcher, and a place New Zealanders interested in nature should return to time and again. This remote part of the country is New Zealand as tourists and many Kiwis imagine it to be. Remote and wild it may seem, yet most of its natural attractions are accessible from sealed roads and well-formed paths, some even wheelchair accessible. This book presents an introduction to the West Coast’s physical environment, plants and animals, and a guide to the walks, lakes and highways of the region. Short easy paths are described in some detail, along with the plants, animals and natural features to look for along the way. Longer, more demanding trails are described in less detail. The lakes and lagoons are best explored by kayak, and guidance is given for the paddling naturalist. An essential guide to the region’s natural attractions since its publication in 2013, West Coast Walking has been reprinted and includes updates and minor corrections.

Bind: paperback

Pages: 368

Dimensions: 152 x 228 mm

Publication Date: 20-01-2018

The air temperature was probably -35 degrees Celsius with wind chill. We couldn’t stand still for long. Our brains felt taxed and our bodies were running on empty. On the Football Field not far from the summit, Sue discovered a square of chocolate. We shared it, telling our bodies we didn’t need more. As we continued the descent, the air warmed and filled with oxygen. We began to encounter climbers heading up. Most knew who we were, incredulously asking: ‘are you the girls who slept on the summit’? – Karen McNeill, ‘A Ridge Too Far: The first female ascent of Denali’s Cassin Ridge’ A schoolgirl races from class to join a weekend trip to the hills. A mountaineering guide recalls his first weeks on the job during the 1920s. A young climber is shown the best route over the Main Divide by a big bull thar. A climbing party is bombarded by falling rock when Ruapehu suddenly erupts. A mountaineer pays tribute to the Māori guides from south Westland, while a fighter pilot tries to recapture an ascent of the Minarets from his tent in Nigeria during World War II. From the Darrans of Fiordland to Denali in Alaska, New Zealand climbers, both experienced and recreational, have captured their alpine experience in letters, journals, articles, memoirs, poems and novels. Drawing on 150 years of published and unpublished material, Laurence Fearnley and Paul Hersey, two top contemporary authors, have compiled a wide-ranging, fascinating and moving glimpse into New Zealand’s mountaineering culture and the people who write about it.

Bind: hardback

Pages: 372

Dimensions: 150 x 230 mm

Publication Date: 12-06-2018

You will be challenged and inspired as you join Neville on board for this real-life, white-knuckle adventure on the high seas. A magnificent account of courage and perseverance as a young doctor takes time off from his busy practice to sail a 31’ yacht (single-handed much of the way) from England to New Zealand. • Mutiny by his crew in Port St Louis, France • Confrontation with the Sicilian Mafia at Marsala • Collision with a freighter near Gabo Island, South Australia • Harassed by a UFO mid-ocean in the Tasman sea? Neville de Villiers comes from an aristocratic lineage of French Huguenot extraction. He completed his studies at Oxford University in 1959 and practiced as a doctor in Loughborough, UK for 11 years before purchasing the Doumar, a 31’ sloop, and sailed it to New Zealand. After the Doumar had logged 14,000 miles, he finally tied up at Marsden Point wharf, Whangarei in 1981. He worked as a GP for various practices and then set up his own, Ruakaka Medical Centre, until retiring in 2014. He now lives at One Tree Point and still sails the Doumar to this day.

Bind: paperback

Pages: 122

Dimensions: 140 x 216 mm

Publication Date: 09-04-2018

‘Beyond Manapouri: 50 years of environmental politics in New Zealand’ traces the evolution of environmental administration in New Zealand since the dawn of the ‘environmental era’ in the late 1960s. The national campaign to stop the government from raising the water level in the scenically spectacular Lake Manapouri for a hydro dam is widely credited with the awakening of environmental awareness in New Zealand.Since then, New Zealand has established institutions and legislation dedicated to managing our environment, and the public’s ability to participate in environmental decision-making has been strengthened markedly. At the same time, New Zealanders’ knowledge and awareness of environmental issues have also increased. Even so, the latest reports on our environment indicate that all is not well: our waterways continue to deteriorate, our biodiversity is in decline and our greenhouse gas emissions continue to climb. ‘Beyond Manapouri’is essential reading for anyone wanting to understand why, in spite of the legislation and institutions put in place to improve the stewardship of our environment, we’re now facing more urgent environmental issues than ever before. In this richly illustrated and engagingly written history, Knight also identifies the cultural shifts that will need to take place if we are to live up to the ‘clean, green’ image we have constructed for ourselves in New Zealand. Catherine Knight is the author of ‘New Zealand’s Rivers: An environmental history’(CUP, 2016) which was long-listed for the Ockham New Zealand Book Awards 2017, short-listed for the New Zealand Heritage Book Awards and selected as one of the Listener’s Best Books for 2016. Her 2014 book ‘Ravaged Beauty: An environmental history of the Manawatu’ (Dunmore Press) won the J.M. Sherrard Award in New Zealand Regional and Local History, and Palmerston North Heritage Trust’s inaugural award for the best work of history relating to the Manawatu. Catherine is a policy and communications consultant and lives with her family on a small farmlet in the Manawatu.

Bind: paperback

Pages: 272

Dimensions: 155 x 230 mm

Publication Date: 01-06-2018

From the classrooms and playgrounds of early 1900s New Zealand to the battlefields of Gallipoli, the tragedy of the Marquette, and the trenches of France, this is the story of Private Leslie McAlpine. Many families in New Zealand have an Anzac who served in the First World War. Leslie is the Anzac in our family. He is a fit, healthy young man who never completely loses hope that he will get back home. His story shows how decisions made in the wider world affect our lives and our opportunities. Leslie leaves New Zealand as one of the 2235 men in the 4th Reinforcements and the story follows their lives and deaths. In 1914, as New Zealand goes to war, Leslie is in the navy, on the Torch, and loving it. But he wants to see a bit more action. He reads the accounts in the papers describing what the New Zealand and Australian soldiers are doing as they travel across the world in convoy and he wants to be part of that. So in January 1915 he enlists in the army in the 4th Reinforcements. He is just 18. With an adventure before him that everyone in New Zealand approves of and celebrates, what can possibly go wrong? The Allied forces and politicians plan strategies and make decisions. Leslie and the 4th Reinforcements follow orders and do their very best. Surviving Gallipoli and the Marquette disaster, Leslie is killed in action on the Western Front. He is just 19.

Bind: paperback

Pages: 242

Dimensions: 170 x 239 mm

Publication Date: 30-03-2018

Hudson & Halls: The food of love is more than just a love story, though a love story it certainly is. It is a tale of two television chefs who helped change the bedrock bad attitudes of a nation in the 1970s and 80s to that unspoken thing – homosexuality. Peter Hudson and David Halls became reluctant role models for a ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ generation of gay men and women who lived by omission. They were also captains of a culinary revolution that saw the overthrow of Aunty Daisy and Betty Crocker and the beginnings of Pacific-rich, Asian-styled international cuisine. Their drinking, bitching and bickering on screen, their spontaneous unchoreographed movements across the stage that left cameras and startled production staff exposed broke taboos and melted formalities. They captivated an unlikely bunch of viewers, from middle-aged matrons to bush-shirted blokes. Hudson and Halls were pioneers of celebrity television as we know it today: the naughty, not-quite-normal boys next door who rocketed to stardom on untrained talent and a dream. When Peter Hudson became seriously ill with prostate cancer, David Halls was inconsolable. What remained unchanged through it all was their abiding love for each other. In this riveting, fast-paced and meticulously researched book, New York Times bestselling author Joanne Drayton celebrates the legacy of the unforgettable Hudson and Halls.

Bind: paperback

Pages: 304

Dimensions: 170 x 240 mm

Publication Date: 19-10-2018

"Standing among Tony's installation of paintings and painted Coca Cola bottles precariously balanced on a shelf held up by a stick, I was a little freaked out. Tony, the art provocateur, had succeeded in provoking me." Welcome to the low-brow, high-art world of Tony de Lautour. Writer and curator Peter Vangioni provides and entertaining introduction to the work of one of Aotearoa New Zealand's leading artists. Described as "a body of work like nothing else this country has seen", de Lautour's paintings and sculptures over the past thirty years are brought together taking the reader on a journey from the chaos of his early paintings inspired by seedy underground street culture to the careful geometric abstracts of his later major canvases. Includes an interview between de Lautour and fellow artist Peter Robinson.

Bind: paperback

Pages: 224

Dimensions: 212 x 270 mm

Publication Date: 21-05-2018

Too often art books are dense and inaccessible. 101 Works of Art is immediately engaging with large images, big details and conversational texts. Written to feel as if the reader is standing with the curator in front of the painting, texts are short, personal and insightful. Learn how an artwork was made, what inspired the artist, the secrets behind the frame. See up close the movement of the painter's brushstrokes, the glinting surface of a glass sculpture the almost-hidden detail of a Dutch master. This large, beautifully presented book showcases 101 treasures from its collection – paintings, drawings, sculpture, film and photographs that stand out in a line-up of New Zealand's most significant collected works. Coloured page edges and ribbons match the colours within. And like an origami cherry on top, the patchwork dust jacket opens out then folds back on itself to make a second dust jacket. Designed by award-winning artist and designer Aaron Meehre, 101 was shortlisted for Best Illustrated book and won Best Cover at the 2016 PANZ awards.

Bind: hardback

Pages: 352

Dimensions: 250 x 295 mm

Publication Date: 31-12-2015

One of Aotearoa New Zealand's most perceptive artists, Laurence Aberhart is a photographer who makes images of the vanishing past in an accelerating world. It was Christchurch where he developed his eye for the scenes that later brought his work to international attention. These early photographs of ordinary suburban houses, abandoned shops, masonic lodges and long-lost fast-food joints - some of them now iconic, others unseen or little know - depict a city and a way of life that no longer exists.

Bind: hardback

Pages: 136

Dimensions: 220 x 220 mm

Publication Date: 11-09-2017