The first full reappraisal of one of Britain’s great fighter aces, this book examines the truth behind Tuck’s 1956 biography, Fly for Your Life. It looks at the evidence behind the myths, checks out some of the exaggerated stories and reveals the real Stanford Tuck. In January 1942 Bob Tuck was the top-scoring British fighter ace with an official score of 29 enemy aircraft destroyed. With film-star looks he was the glamorous role model for the RAF publicity machine and an eager press and public wanting wartime heroes. He had joined the RAF in 1935 and quickly showed his excellent flying skills. In 1940 his Spitfire squadron was fighting over Dunkirk where he proved himself an expert shot. During the Battle of Britain his legendary prowess grew and he was posted to command a leaderless and demoralised squadron, this time flying Hurricanes. He continued to prove he was an outstanding fighter ace, gaining the rare distinction of three DFCs and then the DSO for his leadership. He was shot down over France in January 1942 and imprisoned in Stalag Luft III. His room-mate was Roger Bushell, the mastermind of the Great Escape and Tuck worked with him on the committee and was to be his partner in the escape. In January 1944 however, around 20 POWs, including Tuck, were purged to a new camp. Still determined to escape, when his camp was moved out on the Long March westwards, Tuck and a Polish officer took a risky chance and made their way east to Russian forces and thence to England. This book reveals a more complex man than the one-dimensional hero of the previous biography. Post war, he became good friends with the Luftwaffe ace, Adolf Galland, and was a key advisor with him on the film, Battle of Britain, and, often with his other friend, Douglas Bader, made many media appearances. His health suffered in later years from the impact of his war service and his imprisonment and he died aged 70 in 1987.

Bind: hardback

Pages: 224

Dimensions: 156 x 234 mm

Publication Date: 29-09-2023

As he enters his 90th year on the planet, Kevin Ireland describes his third memoir as a process of ‘sweeping up all the reflective wrappers and the tinsel, and describing how, in the setting sun, they glitter with the brilliant romance of nostalgia…’. Unlike his earlier two memoirs, one of which won a National Book Award, this is not a systematic chronicle of lasting interests and colourful occurrences, but a reflective, almost absent-minded, rummaging through 30 episodes – representing a month – at the back of his brain. The method is open and experimental, and it allows the ordinary and everyday to take a rightful place among the souvenirs of his ‘life’. Matters that once seemed significant are relegated to obscurity and events and intersections that were once thought to be minor are now allowed space to reveal how they stealthily altered viewpoints and added to a store of vital experiences. In his 90th year Ireland no longer believes that the highpoints of an existence are always decided by important events. Some of them do have lasting results, but this memoir deliberately sets out to uncover the enduring worth and power of happenings that may have seemed simple at the time but were complex and entirely out of the ordinary in their effects. Overlooked memories return to us in our old age with a new and astonishing energy and with all the buzz of their magic reborn. About the Author Kevin Ireland OBE has published novels, short stories, memoirs, a book on fishing and another on growing old. Awards include an honorary doctorate, the 2004 Prime Minister’s Award for Literary Achievement and the 2006 A.W. Reed Award for his contribution to New Zealand writing.

Bind: paperback

Pages: 174

Dimensions: 152 x 229 mm

Publication Date: 09-11-2022

Diary of New Zealander Clarence Hare on Captain Scott's First Expedition 1901. A likeable young Christchurch man talks his way into joining Robert Falcon Scott's Discovery expedition to remote Antarctica. Also on board as the ship departs New Zealand: 46 men, 25 dogs, 3 cats and 50 sheep. Clarence (Clarry) Hare's diary, now being published for the first time, records life on a small wooden ship in sub-zero temperatures without modern comforts, and includes a thrilling account of being lost in a blizzard for 46 hours.

Bind: paperback

Pages: 173

Publication Date: 27-09-2022

In this compelling memoir, Erich Sommer recalls his life in pre-war Germany and the adventures he had flying for the Luftwaffe during the Second World War. Born in 1912, the third son of a district court judge, Erich grew up in an atmosphere of uncertainty following the First World War. In 1932 he started training as a brewery engineer, shortly before the Nazis came to power. The implications this had on the lives of average Germans are described in great detail. When war came in 1939, he became a navigator, successfully serving with the Luftwaffe's first pathfinding unit, then a special and little-known control commission in Morocco to monitor the disarmament of Vichy French forces. He then served as a navigator with a high-altitude squadron flying the relatively rare Ju 86 bomber fitted with a pressurised cabin in missions during the Battle of Britain. He then went to the Russian Front flying radar-equipped Ju 88s tracking Soviet fleet movements. This led to training as a pilot, following which Erich joined a special commando equipped with the revolutionary Arado Ar 234 jet. Shortly afterwards Erich flew the world's first jet-reconnaissance sortie over the invasion front. He ended his war in Italy. After the war, Erich moved with his wife to Australia where he lived peacefully until his death in 2005. With a detailed introduction from acclaimed Luftwaffe historian J. Richard Smith and illustrated throughout with photographs from private family albums, Luftwaffe Eagle is a fascinating insight into the life of an exceptional Luftwaffe pilot and navigator.

Bind: paperback

Pages: 224

Dimensions: 148 x 210 mm

Publication Date: 11-04-2022

Notes from Inside is a narrative memoir about abuse, intergenerational trauma and mental illness – but it is also about how Anne Thurston managed to address and eventually cope with those issues. Her own stories are positioned in relation to those of other women in her family – both ancestors and descendants. She hopes that shedding light on these narratives will give others in similar situations the tools to begin to overcome their own struggles, escape the bonds of abuse and gain a sense of control over the trauma that remains. Anne’s story is powerful and fiercely honest, and it provides a window into a world that many people will recognise but so few are able to talk about. Violence and abuse that occurs within families – and the huge amount of mental distress and harm caused by violence against women and children – so often remains unspoken, unheard and misunderstood.  This writing will illuminate the immediate and long-term trauma effects of living in an abusive relationship.  These stories, neither sentimental or saccharine, are from one woman’s life, yet in their simplicity and honesty help us find compassion and understanding for those of our friends and family who have been similarly traumatised. — Debbie Hager

Bind: paperback

Pages: 272

Dimensions: 138 x 210 mm

Publication Date: 30-03-2022

“I’ve found over the many years that, when elections come along, I just sit still at my Beehive desk, buy a coffee, the people around me all change, and I just carry on.” This is the story of Peter McCardle’s journey through the last thirty years in New Zealand politics. Beginning as a National MP, then with New Zealand First as a Cabinet Minister, later as a manager with ACT, completing an unplanned full circle return to the Beehive in the John Key Government. In this journey, Peter worked near to twelve political party leaders, including seven Prime Ministers, and played a leading role for NZ First in the 1996 MMP coalition talks. He created WINZ, subsequently served as senior political advisor to National’s health ministers until 2017, which included Nationals response to the 2009/10 Swine flu pandemic. This health experience helped inform his insight into New Zealand’s political and public response to Covid-19 and omicron. This book shares his insights and views on the Nationals party leadership changes over the years, including the current leadership. Party Hopper may surprise, please, differ from your views, or just entertain. Or all of these. Regardless, it will certainly leave you better informed.

Bind: paperback

Pages: 350

Dimensions: 153 x 234 mm

Publication Date: 15-03-2022

After Sarah Jane Barnett had a hysterectomy in her forties, a comment by her doctor that she wouldn’t be “less of a woman” prompted her to investigate what the concept of womanhood meant to her. Part memoir, part feminist manifesto, part coming-of-middle-age story, Notes on Womanhood is the result. Here, Barnett examines the devastation she inflicted on herself as a young woman, the invisibility she feels as her youth fades, the power of female friendship, the stories women learn about midlife and menopause, and how being the daughter of a transgender woman changed her ideas of womanhood. ‘This book is a conversation with myself about my own womanhood,’ Barnett says. ‘The act of looking showed me the stitches: Western society’s beauty standards, the male gaze, a fear of aging, hair and gender, care work, my grandmother, life stage transitions, orca whales and tramping. All the authors I read – Darcey Steinke, Alok Vaid-Menon, Megan Jayne Crabbe, Maggie Nelson, Reni Eddo-Lodge, Judith Butler, Barbara Brookes, Natalie Wynn, Ani Mikaere, Atul Gawande and many more – explore ideas about gender, aging and society in a way that opened a door to the next idea. I kept on walking through those doors. The result is what I am calling my “coming-of-middle-age” story.’

Bind: paperback

Publication Date: 23-06-2022

Humorous and heartfelt, Nothing Like a Dane is a memoir of a New Zealander living her best life in Denmark. The Danish concept of hygge is a wonderful thing. Even if most fail miserably when they try to pronounce or explain its true essence. Unless you’re a Viking of course. As Keri stood in the departure lounge of Auckland International Airport with her four-month-old baby, searching for her flight on the board, hygge wasn’t on her radar. But she’d never imagined a chance encounter with a Dane in a crowded bar in her home city of Wellington would lead her here, a mother, about to circle the globe, with no knowledge of when she'd return home. A witty observer of cultural nuances, Keri reveals the day-to- day realities of a New Zealander living her best life in Denmark. From integration interrogations to rye bread misdemeanours, Nothing Like a Dane provides a humorous and heartfelt insight into creating a new life in a faraway land. And what did she learn? That it’s not all hygge and pastries. Even in Denmark.

Bind: paperback

Publication Date: 19-04-2022

Told for the first time in graphic novel form, the story of Francis Bacon's life is as complex, colorful, and highly charged as his paintings. Drawn in shades of mauve, red, yellow, and blue that distinguished his palette, these illustrations weave together a troubling but compassionate narrative, one that draws on the tragic events of Bacon's childhood and youth, as well as reflecting the profoundly passionate yearnings of the artist he became. Separated into thematic and chronological sections the novel highlights the prevailing influences of Bacon's life and times: his early autodidacticism and estrangement from his family; his struggles to make his way as a surrealist painter and his destruction of his early work. It traces his gradual success in postwar Europe, his powerful and often violent romantic relationships, his foray into portraiture, and his never-ending search for subject matter and meaning in his work. Alternating between full-page illustrations and smaller, captioned works, Portolano imagines not only the known details of Bacon's biography, but also his inner life-the dreams, fears, and obsessions that were equally formidable underpinnings of his oeuvre. Woven to gether with historical facts and figures, this graphic novel reconstructs a life as only a cartoonist could-image led, thoughtfully composed, and deeply evocative of its subject matter.

Bind: hardback

Pages: 128

Dimensions: 170 x 240 mm

Publication Date: 15-03-2022

When Yates McDaniel died in Florida in 1983, few outside his family paid much attention. The only hint of his fame came in a brief obituary buried on the inside pages of the New York Times. The obit suggested bravery and a past far more exciting than almost anyone knew. Even those who worked alongside him in the 1960s at the Associated Press were startled to learn what McDaniel had been, what he had done when he was a young man and the world was at war. Yet, this remarkable reporter covered more of the Asian war than anyone else-from the savage Japanese assault on Nanking in 1937 to the fall of Singapore in 1942 to landing with US Marines on New Britain in 1943. He took risks no other reporter ever accepted, and colleagues joked that Japanese bombers followed him wherever he went.

Bind: hardback

Pages: 256

Publication Date: 14-12-2021