Spanning the impressive careers of five notable New Zealand women, this uncommon examination portrays the lives of Merimeri Penfold, Margaret Mahy, Anne Salmond, Gaylene Preston, and Jacqueline Fahey. Having each carved out their own distinguished reputations as artists, writers, teachers, filmmakers, and thinkers, this investigation demonstrates how each of them has balanced a professional life with a personal one. In five in-depth interviews, this record explores their families, educatio...

This fascinating look at artists and their intimate partners takes nine well-known New Zealand couples and explores the many aspects of their lives—particularly how the presence of an artistic companion or soul mate impacts the art they produce. Combining the pleasures of gossip with information about how these artists have conducted their lives, this illuminates many of the themes found in the artists' paintings, poems, and films that revolve around their partners and the strains of produ...

For twelve months Deborah Shepard kept a journal to help her with a chronic pain condition. Soon she found herself contemplating all of life’s pains and losses, including the devastating earthquakes that shattered her hometown of Christchurch. Searching for a way through, she began observing the natural world on her doorstep and reflecting on family and friendship, flowers, beauty, literature and art. By ‘giving herself to life’ she discovered the power of writing to heal.

What are the classic works of Australian literature? And what can they tell us about ourselves and the land we live in? Providing a selected overview of Australia's greatest literature, Australian Classics is an accessible companion to our literature and a story of writing in Australia from the nineteenth century to the present.Australian Classics celebrates many of the country's beloved novels, poems, short stories, children's books and seminal works of non-ficti...

Until 1994, the world knew Anne Perry as the writer of bestselling crime fiction at the peak of her writing career. But following the release of Peter Jackson’s film Heavenly Creatures, about the sensational 1954 Parker-Hulme murders, came the shocking revelation that Anne Perry began life as Juliet Hulme, the teenager jointly convicted of murdering her friend’s mother.Life would never be the same for Perry. That a convicted murderer had gone on to become a celebrated crim...

Childhood stories of family, country and belongingWhat is it like to grow up Aboriginal in Australia?This anthology, compiled by award-winning author Anita Heiss, showcases many diverse voices, experiences and stories in order to answer that question. Accounts from well-known authors and high-profile identities sit alongside those from newly discovered writers of all ages. All of the contributors speak from the heart - sometimes calling for empathy, often...

Winner of the James Tait Black Prize for Biography 2014Winner of the Plutarch Award for Best BiographyNew York Times Book Review’s 10 Best Books of the YearPenelope Fitzgerald (1916–2000) was a great English writer, who would never have described herself in such grand terms. Her novels were short, spare masterpieces, self-concealing, oblique and subtle. She won the Booker Prize for her novel Offshore...

Terry Pratchett is one of the most loved writers in the world. With worldwide sales of over 65 million copies in 37 languages, his novels are eagerly awaited by his legions of fans year after year. His first Discworld novel, The Colour of Magic was released in 1983 and ever since then the series, with its whimsical heroes and fiendish foes, has delighted both young and old alike. In 2007 Pratchett announced that he had been diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease. He has courageously faced the ...

Like the better-known Mitfords, the Garman sisters took center stage in Bohemian London during the first half of the twentieth century. Beautiful, flamboyant, and headstrong, they broke away from middle-class conventions, seducing and inspiring a generation of artists. Kathleen, an enigmatic artist's model and aspiring pianist, was the lover and, later, wife of controversial American-born sculptor Jacob Epstein. Mary married the maverick poet Roy Campbell, whose verse attack on the Bloomsb...

The Empress of Crime's life was the ultimate detective story – revealed for the first time in this forthright and perceptive biography.While Ngaio Marsh had a flamboyant public persona, she was fiercely protective of her private life. And no one knows better how to cover tracks with red herrings and remove incriminating evidence than a crime fiction writer…This fascinating biography of Ngaio Marsh pieces together both the public and private Marsh in a way that is as rivetin...

What animal's name means 'riverhorse'? During which war did Anne Frank write her diary while living in the attic of a house in Amsterdam? For the answers check out this new edition of The Whiz Quiz Book. Compiled by members of the National Parents Council (NPC) to meet persistent demands from parents of primary-school children, it is a unique project. Teachers, children and parents worked together to write it. Questions on a wide range of subjects – sport, music, history – are laid out in ...

"What this charming, moving and fascinating collection proves is that the [letter] form itself - a scribbled note, a declaration of love, an outpouring of passion, a bitter word - has always been with us." - Mark GatissA good love letter can speak across centuries, and reassure us that the agony and the ecstasy one might feel today have been shared by lovers long gone. In The Love That Dares, queer love speaks its name through a wonderful ...