Articulate and intelligent, Eve Poole had a passion for the theatre and the arts. Her desire to protect one of Invercargill’s cultural icons led her into politics and she was elected as the city’s first woman mayor in 1983. Cath Tizard broke similar ground in Auckland that year – the two becoming trailblazers at each end of the country. As a member of the QEII Arts Council (later Creative New Zealand), Eve played an active role in encouraging the visual and performing arts across the country. She was equally at home on the stage as an actor and director; on hugely popular national TV shows such as Beauty and the Beast, and as a member of the NZ Committee on Women, an early forerunner of the Ministry of Women’s Affairs, during the UN Decade for Women. She gained national prominence for her leadership when the 1984 floods ravaged her adopted city and the surrounding region. Vivienne Allan tells the story of her mother’s life with warmth and honesty, beginning with the struggle to find passage out of Germany in the 1930s. When war broke out Eve, still only 17 and living with her family in Tel Aviv, joined the British Army, serving as a driver in Egypt. There she met the New Zealander who was to become her husband and, after discharge, moved to Invercargill to raise their family with him. Eve’s practicality, determination and humanity saw her retain the mayoralty for four terms until her untimely death in 1992.

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Pages: 448

Dimensions: 152 x 228 mm

Publication Date: 15-07-2020

New Zealand has always proudly worn its status of being the first country to enfranchise women. But not many know that it took a further 40 long years to get the first woman elected to Parliament. In fact women were not even entitled to stand as candidates in national elections until 1919 – 26 years after they won the right to vote in those elections. Even then there was resistance, with editor of the Auckland Star stating that it would open the way for ‘a class of aggressive females who, thirsting for publicity, would be constantly pushing themselves forward into positions for which they are in no sense fitted’. The journey ‘from the home to the House’ was a shamefully protracted one for New Zealand women, as many male parliamentarians who grudgingly accepted the franchise being extended to women staunchly resisted any further progress. Their political machinations and filibustering were highly effective. Eventually, with an additional 130,000 voters enrolled, politicians began to realise that women’s votes – and even women’s voices – mattered. However, it was not until 1933 that the first woman was elected to the New Zealand Parliament, when Elizabeth McCombs won the Lyttelton seat, following the death of her husband, the sitting MP. The history of women striving to share in governing the country, a neglected footnote in the nation’s electoral history, is now captured in this essential work by Jenny Coleman. She has drawn on a wide range of sources to create a rich portrayal of a rapidly evolving colonial society in which new ideas and social change were in constant friction with the status quo.

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Pages: 338

Dimensions: 150 x 230 mm

Publication Date: 30-05-2020

Olivia really doesn't like her nickname - mostly because it gets her into some sticky situations! How can she persuade her mum to stop using it? A hilarious look at the affectionate names we give the ones we love, with an interesting angle on identity and self-assurance.

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Pages: 32

Dimensions: 250 x 250 mm

Publication Date: 24-01-2020

The poems in Sinking Lessons portray the vitality of a world full of things and beings we too often disregard, using language that vibrates in harmony with the lively tales it tells – from small, everyday events to stories of shipwrecks and strandings, resurrections and reanimations, arctic adventures and descents into the underworld. The cast of characters includes members of the poet’s family alongside heroes from myth and literature, such as Orpheus, Scheherazade and Frankenstein’s Creature. And crowding in upon these, at all times, a multitude of non-human protagonists: sun and stars, wind and water, mud and sand, body fluids, decaying matter, chemicals organic and inorganic, and a great many fishes and birds and beasts. Sinking Lessons is the first collection of poetry from Philip Armstrong, winner of the 2019 Kathleen Grattan Poetry Award.

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Pages: 54

Dimensions: 150 x 230 mm

Publication Date: 07-08-2020

Until about 100 million years ago, New Zealand lay on the Pacific-facing edge of the ancient supercontinent of Gondwana; the formation of our sedimentary rocks provides a fascinating view of the tectonic activity and changes since that time. This volume is the culmination of a comprehensive survey of New Zealand’s Cretaceous–Cenozoic strata, begun in 1978, and presents an up-to-date synthesis and interpretation of regional sedimentary information from a variety of sources; the study has been expanded to include large areas of the continental shelf and beyond. Extensive references and indexing complete this essential work, a key resource for students, professional geologists and enthusiastic amateurs. Topics covered include: • sedimentary basins during the Cretaceous continental margin break-up; • the active tectonics of a ‘passive margin’; • Late Cenozoic sedimentary basins in a new, evolving plate boundary; • eustatic sea-level change in an active tectonic setting; • basin scale and facies change on the new and thin continent Zealandia

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Pages: 312

Dimensions: 210 x 280 mm

Publication Date: 23-07-2020

It is 1853. Widowed Lydia Boulcott has remarried, hoping to escape her shameful past. An isolated new life in the kauri forests of New Zealand’s Far North offers the chance of a respectable future for her and her five-year-old daughter, Hannah. To her dismay, Lydia discovers that one of her few neighbours is none other than ambitious Eliza Noakes - someone from her past who has the power to reveal her guilty secrets to the world. But, despite Lydia’s best efforts, fate constantly throws them together - Inspired by the intertwined lives of two real women, and set against the fast-changing and challenging world of remote pioneer New Zealand, award-winning writer Joanna Orwin’s superbly written new novel tells a gripping and touching story of struggle, love and unlikely friendship.

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Publication Date: 06-07-2020

Based on one of Australia's worst industrial disasters,The Air That We Breathe is an account of ordinary people living through the catastrophic consequences of corporate greed and wilful blindness. in 1961 Italian immigrants Abele and Maria Moretti settle into life in Western Australia. They are promised a financially secure future working in an asbestos mine in the harsh and desolate outback. Despite health warnings to management, the mine continues to operate. Thirty years later, the unthinkable happens and the Moretti family begin an arduous journey to seek justice. At the same time Katerina, a lawyer, representing the mining company, makes a surprising discovery about her family that causes her to rethink her allegiances. The human stories weave between the narratives of the immigrant miner and mine manager, and later, the lawyer and the mine's daughter. The impact of this story will stir emotions that remain long after the last page has been turned.

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Publication Date: 01-07-2020

A Kiwi journalist on the hunt for the truth about assisted dying and the End of Life Choice Act. Join her on a journey of discovery as she tells the stories of those with terminal illness and interviews lawyers, doctors, ethicists and clerics around New Zealand and the world. Includes interviews from Act MP David Seymour, Shirley Seales (mother of the late Lecretia Seales), Dr Jack Havill and Mary Panko PhD of the End-of-Life Choice Society, as well as influencer & disabilities advocate Claire Freeman, palliative care expert Professor Roderick MacLeod MNZM and NZ Disability Rights Commissioner, Paula Tesoriero MNZM among many others. Written in a remarkably personable way while plunging into some of life's most challenging topics, and resurfacing with intriguing results.

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Pages: 280

Dimensions: 152 x 229 mm

Publication Date: 01-07-2020

‘Rape Myths as Barriers to Fair Trial Process’ opens the courtroom door on rape trials to investigate how and why they re-traumatise complainants. Despite decades of targeted law reform, adult complainants still report that the process of being a witness is a significant point of re-victimisation. This book contains the findings of four years of research that compares the trial process in 30 adult rape cases from 2010 to 2015 (in which the defence at trial was consent) with 10 cases from the Sexual Violence Court Pilot heard in 2018. The aim of the research was to find out at which points in the questioning process the complainant displayed heightened emotionality, including distress, and why cross-examination (in particular) is so resistant to reform measures. Researchers also considered the extent to which the current rules of evidence and procedure are applied appropriately and consistently, and identified examples of best practice in order to develop proposals for changes to law and process. Elisabeth McDonald is a Professor of Law at the University of Canterbury. She has taught and published in the areas of sexual and family violence, law and sexuality, criminal law and the law of evidence for 30 years, as an academic and as the Policy Manager for the evidence law reference at the New Zealand Law Commission. Elisabeth is the author of a number of evidence law textbooks and online legal resources, as well as co-editor of ‘From “Real Rape” to Real Justice’ (2011) and ‘Feminist Judgments Aotearoa: Te Rino, the Two-Stranded Rope’ (2017). In June 2018, she became a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit for Services to Law and Education.

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Pages: 584

Dimensions: 210 x 296 mm

Publication Date: 03-06-2020

In 1869, a businessman from China’s Guangdong Province first set foot on New Zealand soil at Port Chalmers. It was the beginning of an illustrious career that would change the shape of commerce and industry in Otago and Southland. ‘Merchant, Miner, Mandarin’ depicts the fascinating life of Choie Sew Hoy – from his early days in China before emigrating to Australia and then New Zealand, to his death in 1901 as one of Dunedin’s most prominent entrepreneurs. The store Choie Sew Hoy established in Dunedin’s Stafford Street was a huge success, while his revolutionary gold-dredging technology improved the fortunes of the gold-mining industry in Otago and Southland. He backed dredging, quartz crushing and hydraulic sluicing ventures in the goldfields of Ophir, Macetown, Skippers, Nokomai and the Shotover. Sharp as a razor, Sew Hoy was a visionary, able to spot opportunities no one else could, whether sending vast amounts of unwanted scrap metal from New Zealand back to China, or joining famous Taranaki businessman Chew Chong’s fungus export trade. Sew Hoy was also a local character, always elegantly dressed and with legendary success in horse racing. His self-assurance and charm gained him entry to the Chamber of Commerce, the Jockey Club, the Masons and even the Caledonian Society. A benefactor to many social causes, he supported hospitals and benevolent associations to help his fellow Chinese immigrants. When the success of the Chinese in New Zealand aroused hostility, he fought the prevalent racism and unfair government legislation of the day. A man of two worlds, Choie Sew Hoy was a success in both. Richly illustrated and deeply researched, ‘Merchant, Miner, Mandarin’ is both the compelling biography of one of the most distinguished figures of New Zealand business and an intriguing account of late 19th-century society, industry and race relations.

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Pages: 288

Dimensions: 210 x 265 mm

Publication Date: 19-06-2020