Our New Zealand nonfiction section features books and eBooks about travel, history, law and more. This list updates when we add new titles to our collection.
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Book
""The Catholic Boys" is a new book by author Mike Ledingham detailing the profound impact of sexual abuse of Mike and two younger brothers by the same Catholic priest. The three Ledingham boys tell their stories of going from being happy, feisty kids...
eBook
"The Grey ghosts were New Zealand's Vietnam veterans. Their powerful story includes chilling accounts of death, injuries and emotional breakdown, along with the intense comradeship of soldiering, and a pervasive sense of humour that is uniquely our own......
"The Gordon family have a historic woolshed, which was built in 1886. It has been turned into a museum to the sheep industry and has an auditorium, where shearing and dog shows are held for tourists. The idea came to Angus Gordon, one of the owners, to...
"From his fledgling days as a constable to being a detective sergeant on high-profile cases, retired Christchurch policeman Al Lester has many a story to tell as he reflects on a career on the wafer-thin blue line."
"This is a natural history and field guide to New Zealand's 14 species of dragonflies and damselflies ... Key features include: Expert and up-to-date information on the 14 species breeding in New Zealand; natural history of the group including an int...
"A comprehensive and detyailed study of New Zealand's military dress regulations from the Volunteer period is published for the first time. It brings together long-forgotten regulations in one place and form."--Back cover.
John Psathas has said that, of all New Zealand composers, John Cousins has ‘thrown the spear furthest’, meaning he is one of our most original artists, going beyond the edge. Provocative and penetrating and fundamentally true, Cousins remains absorbed...
In Lay Studies, Steven Toussaint conducts an impressive range of lyric inventions, pitching his poems to that precarious interval between love and rage. Beneath their formal dexterity and variety, these études sustain a continuous meditation on the c...
This practical guide covers not only bookkeeping essentials but also a range of accounting and taxation issues that tax agents and bookkeepers need to be aware of when dealing with their clients. It has a very practical approach, with numerous worked...
Discover New Zealand with this essential travel guide, designed to help you create your own unique trip and to transport you to this beautiful country before you've even packed your case. Hike up mountains and glaciers, taste world-class wines, go...
"Returned from living in France, he views his country with fresh eyes, as it is now: homing in on the crises in parenting, our prisons, education and welfare systems, and a growing culture of entitlement that entraps Pakeha and Māori alike"--Publishe...
"The book: Bishops, boozers, brethren & burkhas uses cartoons from 1860s to the present day to discuss the way religion in New Zealand has been represented by our cartoonists. There is no general history of religion in New Zealand so this book is a u...
How has Harraways survived to provide New Zealanders with some of their most-loved breakfasts for a century and a half? The story of this remarkable local landmark is told in Harraways - Going for Grain: 150 years of milling at Green Island, Dunedin....
In this gripping biography, Roland Perry paints a fascinating and complex portrait of Lieutenant General Sir Stanley George Savige, a man of character and compassion, a quiet outsider who founded the war veterans' support charity Legacy, whose record...
This fascinating collection of writings and reflections by some of the pioneer women who came to New Zealand in the nineteenth century reveals the challenges they faced and overcame when they arrived in their new country. These are personal records, ...
Renée’s three seminal New Zealand plays Wednesday to Come, Pass it On and Jeannie Once are published together for the first time. In Wednesday To Come Renée takes four women of four generations in a single family and looks at how they cope with the ...
From the sleek futuristic McLaren M8A to the missile-shaped RA Vanguard, these are New Zealand's Historic Racing Cars in all their full-colour, tire-burning glory. The book reveals the fascinating histories of eighteen cars whose stories are intertwined...
"In the early morning of 16 October 1930, Oscar Garden taxied his tiny Gipsy Moth across London's Croydon aerodrome and, with a wave of his hand to the only person there to farewell him, took off. His plan was to fly to Australia, which was sheer madness...
"Climate crisis is upon us. By choice or necessity, New Zealand will transition to a low-emissions future. But can this revolution be careful? Can it be attentive to the disruptions it inevitably creates? Or will carefulness simply delay and dilute the...
"[This] is a beautifully written multi-layered narrative centred on New Zealander Rewi Alley and his part in the momentous political events of mid-twentieth-century China. Part-biography, part-travel journal, part-literary commentary, [it] brings tog...
"The RAW Truth is the story of two sisters – Annah Stretton and Rebecca Skilton – who chose to immerse themselves in the lives of a group of women who came from a very different world to their own; a world filled with hardship, abuse, crime, under-ed...
"The story of one historian, and a country, awakening to New Zealand's past. `Men no longer whisper Revolution , they shout it; and they no longer carry banners, but throw bricks' - Letter home from Harvard, 1970. Jock Phillips grew up in post-war Ch...
Dinah Hawken's new long poem interweaves her family history in the early years of Pākehā settlement in Taranaki; a short history of the Taranaki Wars; and her thoughts and feelings as she researched and wrote the poem.
A documentation of Volunteers and Veterans 1881 to 1918, who are at Peace in Waikumete Cemetery, a small microcosm of the many who were a part of the early years of Auckland.
"New Zealand has an intriguing collection of native freshwater fish that tend to live out their lives largely unnoticed ... Native fish are easy to look after once their needs are understood, and are an interesting and unusual alternative to exotic a...
Updated with new chapters and written with her trademark deadpan humour, Urzila's memoir is full of ripping yarns about both the big and the little things in life. Urzila's accidental beginning in stand-up has led to an incredibly successful career in...
"No magician in twentieth century New Zealand became as well known and iconic as Jon Zealando. Other New Zealand magicians had migrated overseas to pursue and advance their careers, and succeeded, but Jon concentrated on the market within his home country...
"Verses is a book-length collection of poems that Ridge wrote when she lived in New Zealand and Australia, before she came to the United States in 1907. Completed by 1905, Verses was submitted to the Sydney Bulletin's literary editor for possible...
Contents Under Pressure blends poetry, narrative and collage, and is complemented by collage-style illustrations by Rata Ingram. It tells the story of a mother-turned-graffiti-artist and her teenage sons, who experience mental health and drug issues as...
Upbeat, a selection from the early poetry of Margaret Webb, is a period gem. The title conjures literary and music associations i.e. the howl of the Beat Generation and the jazz, folk and rock music of the 1960s/1970s. Margaret dedicates this volume to...
"The poems in MaryJane Thomson's third collection, Songs of the City, continue to develop her highly original poetic since her first two collections Fallen Grace and Lonely Earth announced the arrival of an exciting new talent in New Zealand poetry. Songs...
"Over the course of his life in the Air Force, Gordon Cammell has had many life-threatening experiences. He believes that no one should give up after having such experiences. Also, that our lives are destined for something greater. He credits his Gua...
"Diana Bridges subjects are reflected through a range of cultural lenses. To engagement with Western and New Zealand literature should be added her immersion in the great Asian cultures of China and India. Her poetry is an intricate meshing of realities...
"Leading the Way celebrates the centenary of New Zealand’s first tramping club, established in 1919, and places its achievements within the evolution of tramping, our most popular sporting activity. The TTC inspired the formation of other tramping cl...
"A collection of bags from all over the world, significant because of their cultural roles; including army kitbags, a sporran, a bag made out of an albatross foot, and high-fashion handbags. The bag, and the handbag in particular, has achieved high f...
"In this powerful collection, Amy Leigh Wicks takes the reader on a literal journey from New York City to Wellington and Kaikōura, and on an emotional journey from youth into ‘the dangerous country of love and marriage’. Wicks produces sharp, sensory...
"Author Peter Murnane became an ordained priest in 1965 and has worked in Australia, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands in parishes, universities and prisons. In Archways to the Infinite, Peter bares his soul, sharing his life's jo...
A collection of some 50 short essays on living well and connecting body and soul in Aotearoa, based on ten years of programmes first broadcast on Radio New Zealand.
"New Zealand is at a crossroads. People are increasingly concerned about where we are headed. Can we improve our appalling statistics on poverty and violence? What about work - will we all be replaced by robots? Will our children (let alone our grand...
"A memoir of the author's life, from his troubled childhood and conviction for murder, through a traumatic time in prison to self-education to PhD level, rehabilitation and a new career as a performance coach and facilitator"--Publisher information.
The gripping story of a New Zealand solider who escaped the clutches of a prisoner-of-war camp to join the Yugoslav freedom fighters during the Second World War After a daring escape from a prisoner-of-war camp in occupied Yugoslavia, John Denvir reached...
"Ripe Deli has established a reputation among food lovers for preparing some of the most healthy and flavoursome dishes in town. Now they have put together a collection of their most popular recipes, arranged in seasonal sections, for you to cook at....
A New Zealand squadron leader, flying-boat captain and airliner pilot on a life of aerial adventure Planes were rarely seen above the small Central Otago sheep-farming town of Ranfurly in the 1940s. Yet as a young boy, Tom Enright had a fascination with...
"All the Juicy Pastures tells the story of Greville Texidor's extraordinary life in full for the first time, and puts her small but essential body of work in vivid context. Illustrated with many never-before-seen photographs, it restores an essential...
"In 1956, the New Zealand photographer Tom Hutchins traveled to the People's Republic of China on a freelance assignment, earning a rare opportunity to document what was then one of the world's most isolated countries. Following his return home, Hutc...
"These poems follow refugees, seekers of asylum, and the response to them"--Back cover.
"Among the thousands of New Zealand deaths in the First World War, the 32 caused by the 1915 sinking of the Marquette were particularly poignant and shocking. Along with a British ammunition column, No. 1 New Zealand Stationary Hospital sailed from Egypt...
Everything's Something in Place publishes a selection from the lifetime's work of editor, critic and poet John Geraets. It includes influential essays first published in the NZ Listener, Landfall, Poetry NZ, the Journal of NZ Literature, as well as o...
"EASIER records Tao Wells' adventures in the art world from the late-1980s until today, with critical and black humor effect. It includes new writing by author, critic and filmmaker Chris Kraus. And is designed by Carla Schollum of White Fungus...
Between 1956 and 1971 the New Zealand SAS were deployed on active service four times. Michael 'Wings' Williams career in the New Zealand Army, and the New Zealand SAS, spans a significant portion of this period - and this book takes the reader through...
The Remaking of Television New Zealand outlines and analyses the radical changes made to television broadcasting in New Zealand during the period 1984-1992. It looks closely at how TVNZ, a division of the Broadcasting Corporation of New Zealand, was....
Mervyn McLean is the acknowledged world authority on Maori music, author of the classic Traditional Songs of the Maori (AUP), as well as many other titles. This book is the best introduction available to Maori music - the instruments played, the songs...
The Journal Box contains four journals kept at different times since 1975 by the poet Elizabeth Smither. She records with wit and charm a rich life of the mind, of feelings and the complexities of thought that drive her work. Beautifully written, the...
"In early 1928, during a time of pioneering, long-distance flights, two New Zealand pilots set off from Australia on the first attempted aerial crossing of the wild Tasman Sea. Amid fervent hope, government interference, a spirit of patriotism, wide ...
"In May 2012 Auckland businessman Matt Blomfield found himself the target of a vicious online attack, the work of Whale Oil blogger Cameron Slater. The attack came out of the blue, destroying Blomfield's reputation and career, stealing his identity, ...
Auckland is an amazing region to explore with kids. Clamber up volcanoes, squelch across tidal mudflats or jump on a ferry and zip across the harbour to the country's youngest volcano, Rangitoto Island. There are so many free kid-friendly accessible walks...
"In her new collection of poems, Ashleigh Young fails to learn to drive, vanishes from the fossil record, and finally finishes writing a book." -- Back cover.
"Slavery in the popular imagination has always been associated with the enslavement of Africans, and with good reason. Slavery however, is universal and not something that only white people did to black people. Throughout history, slavery has been practiced...
A pictorial history of the transport companies in the Nelson, Marlborough, West Coast areas of New Zealand in the 1970s and 1980s.
Based on a nationwide survey of voters, this is a study of the historic 1993 New Zealand general election and referendum. It seeks to explain why New Zealanders made the choices they did? an extremely narrow majority for the National Party and a decision...
First published in 1974, A Show of Justice remains the essential and definitive text on official policies towards the Maori people in the nineteenth century. Professor Ward shows how an understanding of the past explains why Maori today, formally equal...
It shows that Hodgkins deserves not only her considerable reputation as a painter, but also that of a brilliant and engaging writer. The letters reveal Hodgkins' changing moods, impressions and fortunes and provide vivid sketches of the people and la...
The coastline, where sea, land and sky meet, a place of incident and memory, threads through poems which range from brief lyrics to an imagined account of the marriage of nineteenth-century missionary Samuel Marsden. Indeed, the idea of spiritual mar...
At the turn of the twentieth century, Edward Tregear was one of New Zealand's most prominent citizens and widely published intellectuals. He was an authority on Maori and Polynesian studies, a controversial 'socialist' and secretary of the Department...
Leaving the Highway was the first critical study of some of New Zealand's major novelists: Janet Frame, Keri Hulme, Witi Ihimaera, Maurice Gee, Ian Wedde, and C.K. Stead. Here Mark Williams concentrates on their important works to explore how deeply ...
The morning she wakes to, the island she watches, the lover she adores each one undresses or unwraps itself. For Rachel Tobin nakedness is a synonym for beauty. It is also straight-talking in the face of pretense and disguise on one hand and the reality...
From the Orkney Islands to Coastlands shopping mall, Working the tang is liberally seasoned with salt and spit, kelp and wrack, and the creatures who live within coo-ee of the sea. Nicola Easthope writes of the ghosts of her British ancestors, and the...
Acclaimed Instagram poet F.D. Soul (@featherdownsoul) debuts a new poetry collection, telling her own invigorating, unapologetic narrative of love, loss, and adversity. Soul's words pulse, they are alive on the page, attesting to the significance of ...
"Flight paths is a first collection of poems by an Auckland-born poet, who has been writing since childhood. The poems are drawn from published material from the past 30 years in periodicals and anthologies and from unpublished works. The book offers...
"Dan Davin's World War 2 memoir of Paddy Costello recounts the beginnings and the deepening of their friendship as they talked, tippled and fought their way through North Africa and Italy. It a significant addition to New Zealand's literature of the ...
"On edge is a collection of poems by a respected Wellington poet, who has been writing for many years. The poems are drawn from published material in highly regarded journals and from unpublished works. The book gives a marker of Damian Ruth's distin...
"An entertaining and challenging story of faith, family, adventure and danger - but above all of love: love of God, love of family, love of people. When God gently called her to the life of a Religious Sister, Joan wasn't at all sure that this was the...
In the course of his political career Gordon Coates (1878-1943) experienced the extremes of popular adulation and contempt. Handsome, young and debonair, with the common touch, he was a successful minister in the early 1920s and seemed full of promise...
Drawing on information recieved through a random survey of New Zealanders. Shows how different groups of people responded to the wide range of economic, social, environmental and gender issues that emerged in the Lange-Palmer-Moore period.--Cover.
Restrained elegance, fine craft and wit characterise the verses. This is, in the words of the last line of the title poem, 'A skilled performance anyone could share'.
Politics in New Zealand is an excellent introduction to the study of New Zealand politics, by a well-known and respected political scientist, that has been reprinted and revised repeatedly since 1994. This updated edition was designed to incorporate the...
"Unconquered tells the remarkable story of a group of men and women from Australia and New Zealand who fought and conquered extraordinary challenges from the battlefield to the sporting arena. These veterans of the Army, Navy and Air Force served their...
To the Occupant takes the everyday and transforms it into something fine and precious and enduring. With an unsparing attention, Emma Neale creates shape-shifting poems that confound prejudices and subvert expectations. Displaying verve and confidence,...
The true story behind the stories When news is often confined to sound bites and brief backgrounders, some of the best stories behind the news go largely untold. Here, without those constraints, Mike is able to give full, truthful and honest portrayals...
This is the remarkable story of Mary Bumby who was the first person to take honeybees to New Zealand. When, in 1838, her brother, John, was appointed as superintendent missionary at the Mangungu Mission House in New Zealand she decided to accompany him...
An endless vegan inspiration for bakers and anyone willing to eat healthy and delicious.
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