Canterbury University Press (104)

Vile Crimes: The Timaru Poisonings

ISBN: 9781877257599

Author: Peter Graham    Publisher: Canterbury University Press

On a drizzly Monday morning, 16 August 1886, the inhabitants of Timaru woke to astounding news. Tom Hall junior, a well-known local businessman and man about t...


On a drizzly Monday morning, 16 August 1886, the inhabitants of Timaru woke to astounding news. Tom Hall junior, a well-known local businessman and man about town, nephew of former New Zealand Premier Sir John Hall, had been arrested for attempting to murder his wife, Kitty, by poisoning. Also charged was Margaret Houston, Kitty Hall's lady-help. It was without doubt the most extraordinary thing that had ever happened in Timaru, if not the whole colony... So begins Vile Crimes , a riveting and fast-paced examination of one of New Zealand's most sensational court cases. First published November 2007.


Pages: 168


Dimensions: 152 x 228 x 13 mm


Tags: New Zealand   History
$29.50
The Logie Collection

ISBN: 9781877257667

Author: J.R. Green    Publisher: Canterbury University Press

The University of Canterbury's Logie Collection is an outstanding selection of antiquities from the Greek and Roman world. It includes high quality pottery from...


The University of Canterbury's Logie Collection is an outstanding selection of antiquities from the Greek and Roman world. It includes high quality pottery from Classical Greece, some of it world famous, and also a range of other material such as tomb-groups from the Early Bronze Age of Cyprus, marble and terracotta portraits and figurines, glass from Roman Britain, funerary inscriptions from Rome, stone reliefs from Egypt, and pottery from ancient Etruria. The collection began in the 1950s in memory of the former registrar of the university, James Logie. This superbly illustrated catalogue provides a description of the complete collection of 248 objects, together with discussion of their place in the contemporary world.


Bind: hardback


Pages: 424


Dimensions: 215 x 215 mm


Publication Date: 01-06-2009


$120.00 $40.00
The Seven Lives of Lady Barker

ISBN: 9781877257810

Author: Betty Gilderdale    Publisher: Canterbury University Press

This compelling biography of lady Barker is a fascinating account of a Victorian woman who, through the course of her life, lived in England, India, New Zealand...


This compelling biography of lady Barker is a fascinating account of a Victorian woman who, through the course of her life, lived in England, India, New Zealand, South Africa, Mauritius, Australia and Trinidad. Momentous historical events of the period, such as the Indian Mutiny (Revolt) and the Zulu Wars, all directly impacted upon her personal life and resulted in huge domestic upheavals.
Lady Barker wrote 18 books, and is perhaps best known for "Station Life in New Zealand", which was republished by Vintage in 2000.
The Seven Lives of Lady Barker, published here for the first time in paperback, is a full account of the rich and turbulent life of this extraordinary woman.


Pages: 312


Dimensions: 152 x 228 mm


Publication Date: 01-06-2009


Tags: New Zealand   Biography
$45.00
Sleepwalking In Antarctica and Other Poems

ISBN: 9781877257896

Author: Owen Marshall    Publisher: Canterbury University Press

This fine new collection of poetry, Owen Marshall's second, is rich in the themes and preoccupations that have made his short stories and novels so admired. He...


This fine new collection of poetry, Owen Marshall's second, is rich in the themes and preoccupations that have made his short stories and novels so admired. Here are wise, elegiac poems on love and loss, longing and regret, and ageing; beautifully observed, affectionate poems about New Zealand countryside, where 'clear cold barking comes from miles away' ; sly and sharply witty poems about human frailty - 'Death's an old joke, the Russian said / but comes to each of us as a surprise' ; poems that look back to a distant past whose inhabitants were 'much the same as you and me' - all expressed in language that is superbly balanced and finely judged.


Pages: 144


Dimensions: 148 x 210 mm


Publication Date: 01-04-2010


$25.00
Family Business : An Italian-New Zealand Story

ISBN: 9781927145333

Author: Vincent Moleta    Publisher: Canterbury University Press

Bartolo Barnao first sailed into Wellington in 1902, aged 13, and began work in the fish trade. Eight years later he revisited Stromboli to marry the bride who...


Bartolo Barnao first sailed into Wellington in 1902, aged 13, and began work in the fish trade. Eight years later he revisited Stromboli to marry the bride who had been chosen for him by the parish priest in his village. Bartolo and Giuseppa returned to New Zealand and raised their five children in Palmerston North and Wellington. In this fascinating book, Italian literary scholar Vincent Moleta traces the story of his grandparents’ childhood on Stromboli at the end of the 19th century; of Bartolo’s year as a cabin boy on a steam trawler sailing out of Napier; of his two years driving a cart of freshly caught fish through the night from Makara Beach to the fish market in Wellington; of the death in 1911 of the couple’s first child; of the family company set up by Bartolo and his brother Giuseppe, which came to dominate the fish trade in the central North Island. We learn of the enormous family rupture 1930 that saw Bartolo sell up and move to Wellington, settling in Island Bay and establishing, in the teeth of the Great Depression, Barnao’s Fish Market in Lambton Quay, which became a Wellington institution. Vincent Moleta paints a lively picture of life in Island Bay, New Zealand’s ‘Little Italy’, from 1900 to the 1960s: of the Catholic tennis club socials and the Fascist club meetings of the 1930s; of Italian weddings; of the New Zealand tour of the Italian grand opera company in 1949. He weaves these events and themes into a moving account of the family’s moments of joy and sorrow, taking their story up to 2004 and the death of his mother, Rosina Barnao Moleta. The book sheds light on a little-understood strand in New Zealand’s post-colonial history, and the rich culture the Æolian migrants brought with them


Pages: 304


Publication Date: 01-07-2012


Tags: New Zealand   Biography   History
$45.00
On a Saturday Night

ISBN: 9781927145371

Author: Michele Frey    Publisher: Canterbury University Press

On a Saturday Night is a warm and colourful celebration of the strength and spirit of small towns all around New Zealand. From Whakapara in the north to Mossbu...


On a Saturday Night is a warm and colourful celebration of the strength and spirit of small towns all around New Zealand. From Whakapara in the north to Mossburn in the South, community halls have been the focal point of small towns for as long as the towns have been on the map. These halls have hosted school classrooms, general elections, stag parties, birthday parties, film screenings, Rabbiters’ Balls, flag euchre evenings, farewells and welcome-home parties for servicemen from both world wars, memorial events for those who did not return, farm auctions, clearing sales, weddings, Christmas parties, Civil Defence teams, mayoral celebrations, church services … Some halls have been demolished and rebuilt over the decades, others have been lovingly restored several times and are still going strong. Some halls have been transported on the backs of trucks to new locations as towns have grown and changed. Fires and floods have taken their toll in more than a few cases. Michele Frey and Sara Newman visited these halls with photographers John Maillard (North Island) and John O’Malley (South Island) to talk to the locals and try to capture the essence of what each hall has meant – and means – to its community. In these stories and pictures they have recorded an aspect of New Zealand’s unique culture that seems to be passing into history.


Bind: paperback


Pages: 260


Publication Date: 01-11-2012


Tags: New Zealand   History
$45.00
Fire In The Hills : A history of rural firefighting

ISBN: 9781927145357

Author: Helen Beaglehole    Publisher: Canterbury University Press

Over six to seven hundred years, Maori burned about one third of New Zealand’s ground cover. In the following 70 years, and at a devastating rate, European se...


Over six to seven hundred years, Maori burned about one third of New Zealand’s ground cover. In the following 70 years, and at a devastating rate, European settlers burned about another third as they cleared and ‘improved’ the land. All too frequently, burn-offs became uncontrollable conflagrations that swept through thousands of hectares, destroying cattle, fences, homes and livelihoods, and burning mills and much-needed timber. Townsfolk, blanketed in dense, acrid smoke needed lights at midday; ships, unable to pick up landmarks, sat marooned in harbour – yet the burning, as in other frontier societies, remained unabated and largely unquestioned. It is against that background that Helen Beaglehole sets the fascinating and previously unexplored history of how settlers’ random and careless burning led, in 1921, to legislation that still underpins New Zealand’s official policy on wildfire. She explores the huge public education campaign that sought to convince all sectors of the public that mindless burning had to be restrained, and traces how increasingly sophisticated fire-fighting technologies, coupled with developing knowledge of weather and fire behaviour, were used to prevent, contain and extinguish fire. Finally she looks at the early Forest Service employees who in effect became the nation’s first rural firefighters, their skills honed in the vast controlled burns of the 1960s, ’70s and ’80s, and describes the regime established after the Service’s demise and the issues faced today. As with Helen Beaglehole’s two books on New Zealand’s lighthouses and lighthouse keeping, Fire in the Hills is grounded in detailed and extensive research. Information from historical records is incorporated with material from interviews with past and present rural firefighters and administrators, bringing vividly to light the times, the people and the problems they faced. Some 200 photographs further broaden our historical understanding.


Bind: paperback


Pages: 324


Publication Date: 01-07-2012


Tags: New Zealand   History
$50.00 $19.99
Understanding Violence

ISBN: 9781927145487

Author: Annabel Taylor & Marie Connolly    Publisher: Canterbury University Press

For most of us, violence is something observed from the safety of our living spaces where we watch televised terrorist attacks and ongoing global conflict. We e...


For most of us, violence is something observed from the safety of our living spaces where we watch televised terrorist attacks and ongoing global conflict. We engage with the horror of mass shootings, and try to make sense of what appears to be senseless violence toward innocent victims. Domestic murders and assaults now seem commonplace items in our newspapers. But many human service workers and social workers confront violence-related issues every day in situations arising across every stratum of our society.
This book takes a multi-disciplinary perspective towards understanding and developing effective responses to violence, its prevention and management. It encompasses a variety of fields of practice and offers sound analysis of theories that underpin these fields along with their pracice implications.
Understanding Violence: Context and Practice in the Human Services is a reference for professionals, an essential resource for students and will be of interest to the wider community in explaining community responses to violence. The editors have recruited a wide range of experts who collectively offer valuable insights into different aspects of violence. There is something in the book for researchers, practitioners amd policy analysts and it should provide readers with a comprehensive overview of both New Zealand and international cutting-edge strategies for dealing with violence in its various forms.


Bind: paperback


Pages: 254


Dimensions: 152 x 228 mm


Publication Date: 17-06-2013


$45.00
Bill's Story: A Portrait of W. A. Sutton

ISBN: 9781877257704

Author: Pat Unger    Publisher: Canterbury University Press

Three years after the artist's death, W. A. Sutton: A Retrospective was held to celebrate the opening of the new glass-bright Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o...


Three years after the artist's death, W. A. Sutton: A Retrospective was held to celebrate the opening of the new glass-bright Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetu, in 2003. Thousands of visitors to the exhibition were bowled over by Bill Sutton's artistic skill and his vision of Canterbury. Bill's Story goes behind the artist to discover the child, the student, the tutor, the citizen, the well-mannered bohemian. The book is derived mainly from Sutton's extensive archives, and from the author's personal knowledge of the artist. We meet his pioneer grandparents, who hailed from England and Northern Ireland, and his parents and brother in their modest family home in Sydenham, Christchurch. Pat Unger portrays an attentive son, a steadfast friend and erudite academic, a resolute administrator and a multi-skilled professional artist. First published March 2008.


Pages: 252


Dimensions: 170 x 240 mm


$39.99
Sliding Down the Hypotenuse

ISBN: 9781927145005

Author: Eric Beardsley    Publisher: Canterbury University Press

In the 80 years since veteran journalist and broadcaster Eric Beardsley arrived in Christchurch from the West Coast, he has lived a full and varied life and de...


In the 80 years since veteran journalist and broadcaster Eric Beardsley arrived in Christchurch from the West Coast, he has lived a full and varied life and devoted much time to observing the Canterbury scene, its people, politics, conflicts and progress. The result is Sliding Down the Hypotenuse, an eclectic and wholly delightful mix of memoir, biography and history. Beardsley gives a breezy account of a satisfyingly free-range childhood spent in the wasteland of sandhills and scrub that was Aranui in the Jazz Age of the 1920s and the miserable Great Depression days of the 1930s. His is a story of distant and different schooldays when strap and cane ruled, where the Sugarbag Years dominated the lives of the workless poor, and of a career as night messenger, reporter, sub-editor and leader writer at the Press - work that did not always sit comfortably with his more radical outlook on life. As information officer for the University of Canterbury, he slipped readily into academic life for nearly a quarter of a century and used his journalistic skills to tell the university's story both to itself and to the city and province as it expanded into the spacious new Ilam campus, and began to turn from being a teaching to a learning institution intent on research. Superbly written and rich in humour and piquant, punchy observation, Sliding Down the Hypotenuse will bring lasting pleasure in its vivid portrait of a life well lived, of a province and its university, and of New Zealand over the last eight decades.


Pages: 224


Dimensions: 152 x 228 mm


Publication Date: 01-07-2011


Tags: New Zealand   Biography
$35.00
© 2024 Nationwide Book Distributors