Biography (243)

A Communist In The Family

ISBN: 9781988531601

Author: Elspeth Sandys    Publisher: Otago University Press

This is my story of the man, Rewi Alley – family member, writer, humanitarian, activist and unwitting myth-maker. It is also the story of his relationship wit...


This is my story of the man, Rewi Alley – family member, writer, humanitarian, activist and unwitting myth-maker. It is also the story of his relationship with a country, China, about which I now know enough to acknowledge how little I know. A Communist in the Family: Searching for Rewi Alley 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, A Communist in the Family brings together Alley’s story and that of his author cousin, Elspeth Sandys. In 2017, Sandys travelled to China with other family members to mark the ninetieth anniversary of Rewi’s arrival in Shanghai in 1927. One strand of this book follows that journey and charts Sandys’ impressions of modern China. Another tells the story of Rewi’s early life, in an insightful meditation on the complex and always elusive relationship between memory and writing. By placing the man, Rewi, and his work in the context of his time, Sandys is able to illuminate the life of this extraordinary New Zealander in a way that is both historically vivid and relevant to the world of today. Her focus on the role poetry played in his life – both his own and that of the Chinese poets he translated so prolifically – provides moving glimpses of the man behind the myth. Threaded through A Communist in the Family are Sandys’ evolving insights into a nation that looms ever larger in the day-to-day realities of New Zealand and the world. The strange – and strangely intimate – link between the two countries Rewi regarded as home is one in which he played, and continues to play, a crucial role.


Bind: paperback


Pages: 324


Dimensions: 150 x 230 mm


Publication Date: 12-07-2019


Tags: Biography   History   New Zealand
$40.00
Women Mean Business

ISBN: 9781988531762

Author: Dr Catherine Bishop    Publisher: Otago University Press

From Kaitaia in Northland to Oban on Stewart Island, New Zealand’s nineteenth-century towns were full of entrepreneurial women. Contrary to what we might expe...


From Kaitaia in Northland to Oban on Stewart Island, New Zealand’s nineteenth-century towns were full of entrepreneurial women. Contrary to what we might expect, colonial women were not only wives and mothers or domestic servants. A surprising number ran their own businesses, supporting themselves and their families, sometimes in productive partnership with husbands, but in other cases compensating for a spouse’s incompetence, intemperance, absence – or all three. The pages of this book overflow with the stories of hard-working milliners and dressmakers, teachers, boarding-house keepers and laundresses, colourful publicans, brothelkeepers and travelling performers, along with the odd taxidermist, bootmaker and butcher – and Australasia’s first woman chemist. Then, as now, there was no ‘typical’ businesswoman. They were middle and working class; young and old; Māori and Pākehā; single, married, widowed and sometimes bigamists. Their businesses could be wild successes or dismal failures, lasting just a few months or a lifetime. In this fascinating and entertaining book, award-winning historian Dr Catherine Bishop showcases many of the individual businesswomen whose efforts, collectively, contributed so much to the making of urban life in New Zealand.


Bind: paperback


Pages: 400


Dimensions: 170 x 240 x 20 mm


Publication Date: 10-10-2019


Tags: Business   Biography   History   New Zealand
$45.00
Every Morning, So Far, I’m Alive

ISBN: 9781988531618

Author: Wendy Parkins    Publisher: Otago University Press

Every morning, so far, I’m alive is about what it’s like to live in a world where shaking a stranger’s hand, catching a taxi or touching a door handle are...


Every morning, so far, I’m alive is about what it’s like to live in a world where shaking a stranger’s hand, catching a taxi or touching a door handle are fraught with fear and dread. This memoir charts the author’s breakdown after migrating from New Zealand to England: what begins as homesickness and career burn-out develops into depression, contamination phobia and OCD. Increasingly alienated from all the things that previously gave her life meaning and purpose – family, work, nature, literature – the author is forced to confront a question once posed by the young Virginia Woolf: ‘How is one to live in such a world?’ In this fiercely honest memoir Wendy Parkins, a former English professor, explores what it means to belong and feel at home, and how we are shaped by our first environments, both familial and physical. Describing the gradual process of recovery – as well as its reversals – it shows that returning to health can be about rediscovering how we came to be who we are, without becoming trapped by our narratives of origin. Like coming home, recovery is never quite what we expect it to be, however much we long for it. Beautifully written, intensely moving and threaded with self-deprecating humour, Every morning, so far, I’m alive is about claiming the right to tell our own story and learning to embrace the risks that the messy unpredictability of life always entails.


Bind: paperback


Pages: 220


Dimensions: 150 x 230 mm


$35.00
Wind : The Journey Of My Life

ISBN: 9783899550061

Author: Santiago Lange    Publisher: Gestalten

On August 16th, 2016 Santiago Lange amazed the sporting world when he and his teammate Cecilia Carranza won the gold medal in sailing at the Olympic Games in Ri...


On August 16th, 2016 Santiago Lange amazed the sporting world when he and his teammate Cecilia Carranza won the gold medal in sailing at the Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro. At that time he was 54 years old, it was his sixth Olympic participation and he fought against unbelievable obstacles. His victory was an incomparable demonstration of his will to fight - not even one year after he had to undergo surgery because of lung cancer. Santiago Lange gave the world of sailing an unforgettable moment of glory. But how did he manage to get back on his feet in such a short time, to train without rest and to take part at the Olympic Games again? And why did he fight when his body, friends and family thought it was time to stop? "Nothing gives me more joy of life and adrenaline than the challenge of sport. When I'm on the water, my thoughts rest. Time stands still. I feel the wave, I feel the wind turning. The tension of the boat tells me that I have to change course or trim. I react, the boat gets faster and everything else doesn't exist anymore. It's always been like that." Santiago Lange


Bind: hardback


Pages: 240


Dimensions: 145 x 210 mm


Publication Date: 22-04-2021


$70.00
The Blind Woodsman

ISBN: 9781497104518

Authors: John Furniss, Anni Furniss    Publisher: Fox Chapel Publishing

Inside this moving true story, John Furniss, more famously known today as "The Blind Woodsman," along with his wife, inspiration, and fellow artist Anni — fon...


Inside this moving true story, John Furniss, more famously known today as "The Blind Woodsman," along with his wife, inspiration, and fellow artist Anni — fondly called "Honeybee" by John — share their amazing story with the mission to help and inspire others to pursue their own creative passions, regardless of the challenges they may face. Despite being blind, John is now a highly skilled woodworker creating incredible pieces of art in complete darkness, inspiring millions of viewers on TikTok with his achievements. Although John's creative outlet revolves around woodworking, as a motivational speaker for blindness awareness, drug abuse prevention, and suicide prevention in schools, his overall mission is to help others find true happiness despite what life throws at you. Learn how John and Anni met, as John shares his life experiences from a young teen and all the challenges he faced. Be inspired by stunning images of John's work, while poignant messages make you laugh and smile along the way. The Blind Woodsman is a compelling true story that will give hope and inspiration to those dealing with disabilities, mental health struggles, addiction, chronic illness, and the anxieties and stresses in our everyday lives.


Bind: paperback


Pages: 192


Dimensions: 152 x 228 mm


Publication Date: 07-05-2024


$38.00
DUE > 31st Aug 2024
Keeping the Party in Tune

ISBN: 9780473678081

Author: Graham Kelly   

Keeping the Party in Tune embraces twenty stories ‘for the record’, primarily about battles in the life of a union leader and Labour politician during some ...


Keeping the Party in Tune embraces twenty stories ‘for the record’, primarily about battles in the life of a union leader and Labour politician during some of the most turbulent times in New Zealand’s political and industrial history. As the MP for Porirua and later Mana, Graham Kelly was at the coalface of sweeping changes in the 1980s and ‘90s to working people’s lives. He documents the causes and consequences of neo-liberal economic policies. Other pieces capture the often-hilarious life of a musician and dance band leader. These stories are interspersed with insights from international travels as a New Zealand MP on fact-finding missions to remote countries such as Tibet and North Korea, and later as High Commissioner to Canada.


Bind: paperback


Pages: 288


Publication Date: 22-08-2023


$39.50
Call Me Brother

ISBN: 9780473631253

Author: Kate Day    Publisher: New Zealand Kailakuri Link Group

What happens when one person refuses to tolerate injustice and gives everything they have to see it right? Edric Baker was driven by the idea that healthcare sh...


What happens when one person refuses to tolerate injustice and gives everything they have to see it right? Edric Baker was driven by the idea that healthcare should be available for every person, rich or poor. In wartime Vietnam, he performed complex surgery on a patient, only to see him return and die from dysentery, a disease of poverty. Baker refused to accept that healthcare would remain out of the reach of the poor, and devoted himself to living out an alternative. From New Zealand to Vietnam and finally to Bangladesh, this is a story of dogged persistence as, sustained by his Christian faith, Baker confronts the 'emergency of poverty' allied with the best people for the task: the poor themselves. Over three decades in Bangladesh, Baker became the nation's 'Doctor Brother' and pioneered diabetes treatment costing just a few cents per day.


Bind: paperback


Pages: 348


Dimensions: 140 x 214 mm


Publication Date: 12-05-2023


$39.99
From Behind Closed Doors

ISBN: 9780473669836

Author: Olive Webb   

"A year or so before I had been asked by a senior space scientist why 'someone as clever as me would want to be concerned with the lowest one percent of humanit...


"A year or so before I had been asked by a senior space scientist why 'someone as clever as me would want to be concerned with the lowest one percent of humanity”’… The answer to this question sums up Olive’s life’s work. From an early age she saw the plight of ‘them’,the people whose disabilities set them apart. They were bullied, victimized, patronised or just neglected. Many facilities for ‘them’ were buried in the far reaches of an institution. ‘The further from the front door you were, the less attention and care you received.’ So, she became determined to do something about it. Olive Webb started work at the old Sunnyside Hospital at the end of 1969. Conditions there were terrible. From that time until now she has worked with people who have intellectual disabilities and their support people in all the places where they have lived – with their families, in the large institutions and in community homes. But Olive is clear, ‘the journey is far from over’.Miserly funding and discriminatory provision of basic services and supports continue to dog the sector and ensures that people who are disabled by intellectual disability, and any additional conditions, are still only variously successful in what they do. From Behind Closed Doors chronicles Olive’s career with both anecdotal and evidence-based data. It traverses an important time in the history of disability in New Zealand and demonstrates that until governments and the health sector truly recognize the rights of all people, there will always be a ‘them’ class.


Bind: paperback


Pages: 170


Dimensions: 153 x 234 mm


Publication Date: 16-06-2023


$38.00
The Burned Letter

ISBN: 9780473662417

Author: Helene Ritchie    Publisher: HR Press

A New Zealander’s Holocaust Mystery. “Every day, I am in Auschwitz,” she would say. Even though she never had been. During the Holocaust, Lidi, as a teena...


A New Zealander’s Holocaust Mystery. “Every day, I am in Auschwitz,” she would say. Even though she never had been. During the Holocaust, Lidi, as a teenager, flees from Hitler and the Nazis. Forced to leave behind everyone whom she loves, she eventually arrives in New Zealand as a Jewish refugee, with her mother. Alive in their new country, but labelled again, they immediately are called ‘enemy aliens’, monitored by the police, their letters censored, their lives and movements restricted. Five years later in 1945, a few months after the liberation of Auschwitz, Lidi burns the letter written to her that tells her what happened to those she loved most dearly. She hopes that in turning the letter to ashes, her survivor guilt and trauma would disappear too. But her efforts are in vain. “They - all those relations - just perished,” Lidi says over and over again. Nearly 70 years later, just before she dies at the age of 92, Lidi said she regrets burning the letter. Too late. “They” remain a mystery to Helene, Lidi’s daughter. As does their fate. For 50 years, she travels the world, searching for her grandparents and her “just perished” family. It was as if “they” all just disappeared in a puff of smoke. But she does find traces in the killing centres, ghettos and death marches across Poland, Czechoslovakia and Germany, discovering murder, suicides, theft, and tragic love affairs.


Bind: paperback


Pages: 562


Dimensions: 153 x 234 mm


Publication Date: 01-06-2023


$45.00
Katherine Mansfield's Europe

ISBN: 9781990048531

Author: Redmer Yska    Publisher: Otago University Press

Beautifully written and illustrated, Katherine Mansfield’s Europe is part travelogue, part literary biography, part detective story and part ghost story. Guid...


Beautifully written and illustrated, Katherine Mansfield’s Europe is part travelogue, part literary biography, part detective story and part ghost story. Guided by Mansfield’s journals and letters, author Redmer Yska pursues the traces of her restless journeying in Europe, seeking out the places where she lived, worked and – a century ago this year – died. Along the way, he meets a cast of present-day Mansfield devotees who help shape his understanding of the impressions Mansfield left on their territories and how she is formally (and informally) commemorated in Europe. In Katherine Mansfield’s Europe, Yska takes us to the villas, pensions, hotels, spas, railway stations, churches, towns, beaches and cities where Mansfield wrote some of her finest stories. Hauntingly, these are also places where she suffered from piercing loneliness and homesickness, rooms in which she endured illness and extreme physical hardship, windows from which she gazed as she grappled with her mortality. With maps and stunning photography, this engaging and well-researched book richly illuminates Katherine Mansfield’s time in Europe and reveals her enduring presence in the places she frequented. Whether familiar or unfamiliar with Katherine Mansfield’s work and life, readers will find Yska’s account of her travels and travails in Europe freshly informative and deeply moving.


Bind: paperback


Pages: 272


Dimensions: 170 x 230 mm


Publication Date: 02-05-2023


Tags: New Release   Biography
$50.00
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