Bob Calkin was born in 1935 and grew up as Aotearoa New Zealand was entering a period of unprecedented stability and boom times. Tales from the Lucky Generation follows Bob’s rise from humble roots in working-class Whanganui to the world of law and business before a spectacular fall from grace landed him with a six-year prison sentence. Imprisonment changed Bob from an ambitious go-getter to a thoughtful, socially conscious man intent on recovering his sense of self-worth by making a positive contribution to society. His experience of the criminal justice system brought him into contact with dozens of disaffected young men and he set about studying the social causes of the wave of crime which, according to his PhD research, exploded from around 1970. Bob’s research has never been more relevant as we continue to deal with the fallout from the resulting crime and alienation. In the best traditions of meaningful autobiography, Tales from the Lucky Generation is also replete with useful and well-researched information about the changing political and economic environment that framed his life, and offers hope and advice for the future.

Bind: paperback

Pages: 240

Dimensions: 152 x 229 mm

Publication Date: 08-04-2024

This is a novel of insights, bold assessments and revelations told by four contrasting characters from the generation whose adult lives were affected forever by World Wars I and II, the Depression, the Spanish Civil War and the domestic upheaval that accompanied the waterfront lockout and protests against the war in Vietnam. It is an account to treasure, not simply because of its narrative power, its superb interweaving of the real and the imagined, and its huge and contrasting canvases, but because of its brilliant and meticulous archival research and its compassionate yet rigorous re-evaluation of some of New Zealand’s most bitter and wounding military, social and political battles, and of the officers, soldiers, nurses, trade unionists, conscientious objectors and political leaders involved. No New Zealand novel about the harrowing experience of our growth towards nationhood has a broader sweep and more detailed grasp of events. It is a masterpiece of times that must never be forgotten - Kevin Ireland The war to end wars ended in 1918. It is, however, still early in the twentieth century and Nelle, the World War I nurse who patched up the remnants of men who ‘survived’, fears for her fighter-pilot son; disastrously, Frank, the intellectual, has fallen in love with a German refugee; World War I sniper hero, Harry, the Christian, now fights for peace; and left-wing activist, Jim, goes to war in Spain to fight Fascism. In Province of Danger, our four narrators tell of their lives and loves during the years of a bitterly divided New Zealand; in the pitiless Spanish Civil War; in the six long years of World War II, and then its aftermath. We learn from them that when soldiers of the New Zealand division are sent to participate in what became the disasters of Greece and Crete, Crete was lost to the vastly outnumbered Germans through a combination of failure by senior officers to exercise initiative or to obey orders – their believing they were still fighting World War I. Thrown then into the North African battles the New Zealanders, at great cost, become a formidable fighting force. Thereafter, against the considered judgement of their general, they are shipped to the bloodshed and torment of the futile Italian campaign. Province of Danger brings to life a rich tableau of characters who, when forced to confront the most demanding circumstances, respond in various ways: many with courage, integrity and resilience. Not all of those at a higher level, however, reacted so positively when military and political blunders – too often glossed over by historians – were committed. Province of Danger, like its predecessor, March to the Sound of the Guns, is a story that vividly recreates the turbulence of the years in which New Zealand stumbled towards nationhood.

Bind: paperback

Pages: 448

Dimensions: 153 x 234 mm

Publication Date: 16-08-2018

Until the age of twenty, Donald McIntyre hoped to play for the All Blacks, and was on his way to achieving that aim. As a young man, however, he acknowledged his exceptional voice and opted for a career in singing. After leaving New Zealand and arriving in London, McIntyre set his sights on the world of opera. His spectacular musical life saw him conquering the stages of two London companies in the 1960s and 70s: Sadler’s Wells and ROH Covent Garden. His increasing command of Wagner roles brought him to the notice of Richard Wagner’s grandson Wolfgang Wagner, and in 1967 he made his debut appearance in Lohengrin. For the next seventeen years he sang in every Festival cycle and became the first “British” musician to sing the role of Wotan in Wagner’s mighty, four-opera Ring. Recognised for nearly three decades as the definitive Flying Dutchman, McIntyre also starred in the Bayreuth Centennial Ring in a production by Patrice Chéreau that completely revolutionised Wagner opera, and shot him to lasting fame, and in 1992, a knighthood. In this fascinating memoir “Sir Don” looks back over a huge slice of operatic history and his role in it. Mixing fun and gossip with judgement and insight, he brings to life a teeming gallery of the world’s most famous musicians – singers, conductors, directors, teachers, designers, sponsors … all the movers and shakers in the opera world of two generations. Edited by music professor and well-known New Zealand Wagnerian and radio personality, Heath Lees, this book is a fitting monument to Sir Donald’s magnificent half century in opera.

Bind: hardback

Pages: 240

Dimensions: 170 x 240 mm

Publication Date: 19-05-2019

Three musical sisters honour their mother with a piano recital every year in her memory. They compete with one another, practising in secret to see who can be the best. In other stories, music, food, and restaurants are themes. A woman fends off a seducer by cooking up a storm; there is a cat called Min; an elderly woman is the pet of a group of young men; an agonising breakup takes place in a luxury hotel; and a young woman is obsessed with her breasts. These are funny, tender, sharply observed stories written in a style that is engaging, humorous, but always compassionate.

Bind: paperback

Pages: 248

Dimensions: 153 x 234 mm

Publication Date: 30-06-2021

Few have advanced the art of gardening in this country as much as Gordon Collier. New Zealand’s most passionate plantsman and garden designer extraordinaire needs no introduction to garden lovers, but in this beautiful celebration of his three famous gardens – created and nurtured over 60 years – friends, colleagues and fellow gardeners pay tribute to the man behind the legend. T ī toki  Point, Anacapri and The  White House gardens perfectly display the talent and vision of Gordon Collier down the years as he worked tire-lessly to create living works of art. The sheer beauty of his work on display here will undoubtedly further inspire creative gardening in this country and become an important reference for students of garden design. As the man himself has said, a good garden should be judged not by the rarity or the expense of the plant inhabitants but by how those plants are assembled, one with the other. And how that was done in these three memorable gardens is nothing short of magical.

Bind: hardback

Pages: 176

Dimensions: 210 x 250 mm

Publication Date: 21-03-2023

How to Grow an Athlete: From Playground to Podium is every parent’s dream ‘go to’ book to help maximise your child’s growth and development and improve both sporting and academic performance. Exploring a wide range of health, food, sporting and academic advice, this ground-breaking book is by well-known dietitian and nutritionist Lea Stening who has worked in paediatrics and sports nutrition for many years. Team culture is key to providing all children with a supportive enviroment in which to thrive, to be confident, fit and strong. And team culture includes family, school and community, not just your child’s particular sporting code. Here’s how to help your child carry a love for exercise and sport well into their adult life. Lea has worked in all areas of school sporting codes and also nationally at high performance and academy levels including New Zealand Cricket, New Zealand Rowing, and New Zealand Paralympian sports. And although How to Grow an Athlete: From Playground to Podium focuses on children and sports nutrition, the basic themes that encourage healthy eating can be applied to the whole family.

Bind: paperback

Pages: 240

Dimensions: 170 x 240 mm

Publication Date: 20-11-2022

Mike Beveridge's poems return us to a time when poems had rhyme and rhythm (they are, in short, Poems For Remembering), while at the same time being wholly modern in their scope and points of reference. And New Zealand is a constant presence...

Bind: paperback

Pages: 146

Dimensions: 160 x 235 mm

Publication Date: 12-11-2022

Jindra Tichý has a fascinating story to tell – one of exile and survival, of distance and painful longing. Czech born and bred, she was a lecturer in philosophy at Charles University in Prague when the country was invaded by Soviet troops in August 1968. In 1969 she was forced to flee her homeland with her young son Peter; they were on the last train to leave the country before the border was sealed. Joining her logician husband, Pavel, in England, she struggled to learn English, but slowly gained confidence and competence with the help of Jane Austin’s Emma. When Pavel was offered a job at Otago University in New Zealand, she found herself uprooted once again. After living in a communist society, Jindra found New Zealanders refreshingly honest, open and friendly, but she continued to grapple with the fact that in her homeland not only were all women expected to hold a full-time job – as well as take full responsibility for the household – here she was nothing but a full-time housewife. Determined to regain her professional status, she eventually became a lecturer at the university herself, and Dunedin has been her home ever since. After the Czech Velvet Revolution of 1989 Jindra was finally able to return to Prague, after twenty years in exile. Since then she has made annual trips to visit her beloved homeland and the remaining members of her family. In Prague in My Bones Jindra presents her great love – the beautiful city of Prague and its cultural legacy – to the reader. It not only gives a fascinating account of life from the inside under a repressive political regime, but depicts in a moving way the pain and confusion of banishment from home, family and friends into an exile removed from everything familiar. Jindra is the author of nineteen novels, including one in English and also published in NZ, and her short stories have been published in Czech literary journals. She is well known and loved in her home country: in 2012 she was voted number eleven on a list of the most influential personalities among the two million Czechs living abroad.

Bind: paperback

Pages: 344

Dimensions: 152 x 228 mm

Publication Date: 16-06-2021

Who Am I? is a question at the centre of what it is to be human and for artist Kelcy Taratoa (Ngāi Te Rangi, Ngāti Ranginui, Ngāti Raukawa) it has formed the sub-ject of his painting for two decades. Kelcy Taratoa: Who Am I ?... Episode 001 is a bilingual English and Te Reo publication written by Warren Feeney and translated by Hēni Jacob (Ngāti Raukawa). It  traverses the artist’s life from growing up in the suburbs of Levin to Te Haka a Te Tupere, the artist’s wharenui at Rangiwaea marae in Tauranga Harbour. Through his paintings he contends that contemporary technology’s virtual realities and appetite for destruction and distraction is undermining our humanity and experience of the world. Yet painting, that most ancient means of visual communication, is something that continues to remind us of our humanness.

Bind: hardback

Pages: 112

Dimensions: 210 x 295 mm

Publication Date: 06-10-2021

Koenraad Kuiper’s poems are animated by a frugal, astringent, ironic intelligence that reminds me of when the word ‘wit’ was used to describe or even name the verse of the Metaphysical poets. However, these poems are not historical pastiche, but are unmistakably contemporary, as in the several formal variations of his ‘Benedictine Sonnets’. Most of the poems belong in sequences and play with variations on themes, a cumulative strategy that complements and extends their laconic humour. From time to time a translation is included, in Dutch mostly but occasionally in German — sometimes the English reads as though it is the translated version, a deliberate, playful oddness. Erudite, witty, economical, and elegantly composed, these poems are a pleasure to read piecemeal but even more from beginning to end as a complete, sustained immersion. Ian Wedde

Bind: paperback

Pages: 192

Dimensions: 138 x 210 mm

Publication Date: 07-06-2023