Helping Hands is, for the first time, a history of health care in a New Zealand region from pre-European days to today. While the story of health challenges and responses to them deals specifically with the Wairarapa, the events, experiences and flavour of changes to medical practices and patient needs will have been very similar throughout the rest of the country. There are chapters on early Maori health, the very limited health care of the early European period, the first doctors, nurses and hospitals. The towns in the region – Featherston, Martinborough, Greytown, Carterton, Masterton and Eketahuna – have developed their health services, moulded by circumstances and personalities, in distinctive ways. Helping Hands covers the health of the region through epidemics and new medical discoveries, depression and world wars and describes the tensions between national requirements or political agendas and local needs. It also outlines the often bewildering and acronym-filled health bureaucracy of today and the decades of political tinkering that has led to present structures and the ‘contracting’ out of many services . Helping Hands is an important social history focussing on the life and death issues that are central to the functioning and progress of communities. Hundreds of photographs complement the text.

Bind: paperback

Pages: 420

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

When Dr Ron Jones joined the staff of National Women’s Hospital in Auckland in 1973 as a junior obstetrician and gynaecologist, Professor Herbert Green’s study into the natural history of carcinoma in-situ of the cervix (CIS) – later called ‘the unfortunate experiment’ – had been in progress for seven years. By the mid-1960s there was almost universal agreement among gynaecologists and pathologists worldwide that CIS was a precursor of cancer, requiring complete removal. Green, however, believed otherwise, and embarked on a study of women with CIS, without their consent, that involved merely observing, rather than definitively treating them. Many women subsequently developed cancer and some died. In 1984 Jones and senior colleagues Dr Bill McIndoe and Dr Jock McLean published a scientific paper that exposed the truth, and the disastrous outcome of Green’s experiment. In a public inquiry in 1987 Judge Sylvia Cartwright observed that an unethical experiment had been carried out in large numbers of women for over 20 years. Since that time there have been attempts to cast Green’s work in a more generous light. This rewriting of history has spurred Ron Jones to set the record straight by telling his personal story: a story of the unnecessary suffering of countless women, a story of professional arrogance and misplaced loyalties, and a story of doctors in denial of the truth.

Bind: paperback

Pages: 264

Dimensions: 150 x 230 mm

Publication Date: 20-02-2017

This is a book of stunning scenery - a photographic celebration of some of New Zealand's best natural beauty. It is centred on Queenstown, known as the Southern Hemisphere's premier, four season alpine and lake resort - a world class destination, surrounded by majestic mountains, buzzing with tourists, and full of adventure activities. When combined with the surrounding region of the Southern Lakes, Central Otago and Fiordland, as in this book, you discover and experience towns and attractions of colourful and rich history, matched by spectacular landscapes.

Bind: paperback

Pages: 176

Dimensions: 300 x 212 mm

Publication Date: 20-10-2016

This book follows the best-selling publication Canterbury Country Houses series and is a collection of seventy-six heritage houses, most of which have been preserved following the Canterbury Earthquakes of 2010 and 2011 This is the second book of Christchurch Heritage Houses, personally selected by artist and author Rodney Wells, showcasing the domestic architecture that is still a rich part of Christchurch's heritage.

Bind: hardback

Dimensions: 280 x 220 mm

Publication Date: 31-08-2017

Stunning photography capturing the beauty of New Zealand's South Island

Bind: paperback

Pages: 48

Dimensions: 245 x 210 mm

Publication Date: 01-12-2016

Stunning photography capturing the beauty of New Zealand's North Island

Bind: paperback

Pages: 48

Dimensions: 245 x 210 mm

Publication Date: 01-12-2016

This is a book of stunning scenery – a photographic celebration of some of New Zealand’s best natural beauty.

Bind: paperback

Pages: 48

Dimensions: 245 x 210 mm

Publication Date: 01-12-2016