New Zealand Fiction : Nz Fiction

Frankie Parsons has a rather large, quirky family. Until now they've been the centre of his universe. Their small daily rituals, their funny habits, even their smells are part of Frankie's safe and richly coloured haven. In year 8, when he's twelve years old, Frankie's view of his world begins to change. There's a new arrival at school – a dredlocked girl called Sydney who becomes perplexingly fascinating to him. She even starts to draw him away from his best friend, Gigs. Yet this inquisitive new friend disturbs with her Questions; she says what she means. Frankie's an intelligent boy; he's fascinated by any number of topics: he loves wordplay and his COD (Concise Oxford Dictionary), and is something of an expert on birdlife. Yet he's increasingly feeling anxious about everything. He has a list of Contagious Infectious Diseases and a bird flu kit. He worries about the probability of earthquakes, terrorism and global warming. He worries that blowing a sustained forte on the trombone may trigger a brain haemorrhage, but most worrying to him is Ma. The Ten PM Question is a brilliantly funny, poetic and tender novel. While highly entertaining, it also explores difficult terrain; that of preparing children for a complicated and often frightening world. Combining wrenching emotional moments with playful energy Kate De Goldi has written a pitch perfect, exceptional story for readers of all ages.

Title: 10 pm Question
Author: GOLDI KATE DE
Format: Paperback
Publishing status: Active
Publication date: 19/09/2008
Price: $30.00
RRP: $30.00
Imprint: Longacre Press
ISBN: 9781877460203

Collins Modern New Zealand Classics 3 Canoes in the Mist has been selected as the third title to be released in this series, after Tripswitch and The Blue Lawn. With a younger readership, of 9-12, this much-loved classic retells the traumatic events surrounding the 1886 eruption of Mt Tarawera, from the viewpoint of two young schoolgirls. Lillian lives with her widowed mother at Te Wairoa, the village which acts as a centre for tourists who flock to see the famous eighth wonder of the world - the pink and white terraces. When Mattie, an English girl of her own age arrives with her parents, Lillian finally has an opportunity to join a tour party led by her friend, the famous Guide Sophia. But these are worrying times - the old tohunga has been prophesying doom and disaster, and when they travel across Lake Rotomahana, a mysterious canoe appears out of the mists - a waka wairua, or ghost canoe, and all who live in the shadow of Mt Tarawera are about to have their lives changed forever. An exciting tale of New Zealand's recent history, Elsie Locke's timeless classic has now been reissued for a new audience.

Title: A Canoe in the Mist
Author: LOCKE ELSIE
Format: Paperback
Publishing status: Active
Publication date: 04/03/2005
Price: $20.00
RRP: $20.00
Imprint: Harper Collins
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers (New
ISBN: 9781869505684

Journey through the many stories and worlds of the immortal Vela - Vela, so red and ugly at birth they called him the Cooked; Vela the lonely admirer of pigs and the connoisseur of feet; Vela the lover of song maker Mulialofa the Boneman. Follow him down through the centuries on his travels, encountering the single-minded society of the Tagatanei and the Smellocracy of Olfact. Accompany him, too, as he recounts the stories of Lady Nafanua, the fearsome warrior queen, before whose powers Palagi priests and travelling chroniclers still bow down today.

Title: Adventures of Vela
Author: WENDT ALBERT
Format: Paperback
Publishing status: Active
Publication date: 15/05/2009
Price: $35.00
RRP: $35.00
Imprint: Huia
Publisher: Huia Publishers
ISBN: 9781869693633

This second novel by the author of The Widow's Daughter confirms Nicholas Edlin's growing reputation as one of New Zealand's finest young novelists.

Mae Glass is the daughter of a once-famous American novelist. From New York to Auckland via post-war Korea, her colourful childhood was itself the stuff of stories. Thirty years later, a lawyer working in the Auckland crown prosecutor's office, she travels back to booming Seoul, which is preparing to host the Olympic Games. However, in Korea nothing is as it seems. Accompanied by a quirky, dubious team of guides, she tries to uncover the dark secret of her father's wartime exploits. But as she stalks the elusive mystery, Mae finds herself besieged by all manner of ghosts from the past - her Korean childhood sweetheart, her estranged husband, her only son ...

The Below Country is a haunting, beautifully written novel about fragile innocence and the effects of loss. The powerful, ever-present thread of mystery and impending danger that drives the novel along makes The Below Country a readable, narrative-driven story that is hard to put down.

Title: Below Country
Author: EDLIN NICHOLAS
Format: Paperback
Publishing status: Active
Publication date: 29/08/2011
Price: $30.00
RRP: $30.00
Imprint: Penguin Books
ISBN: 9780143566038

Julian Paul is a Wellington barrister with a gambling problem. Anthony Samuels is a remand prisoner and Julian's client. He faces serious drug charges and is desperate for bail. Julian undertakes to arrange this - for an exorbitant fee - by blackmailing a Judge who had a homosexual relationship many years previously. Will Julian succeed? Will he ruin his future and destroy his family in the process? Can same sex relationships be an expression of true love? The author is a former police Inspector and now a practising barrister. He has an intimate knowledge of criminal law and the workings of the justice and prison systems in New Zealand. The story is consistent with the realities of the law and makes for a fascinating and exciting read. The characters are well drawn and their machinations reveal their true nature. The author explores issues of honesty, family responsibilities and same sex relationships in a thoughtful and gripping sequence of events as the story unfolds to its inevitable conclusion.

Title: Beneath the Cherry Tree
Author: BATES DAVID L
Format: Paperback
Publishing status: Active
Publication date: 01/12/2009
Price: $40.00
RRP: $40.00
Imprint: Miscellaneous
Publisher: Polygraphia Ltd
ISBN: 9781877332715

Mallinson Rendel Publishers is pleased to be releasing an expanded, hardback edition of the very popular Big Weather : Poems of Wellington, first published as a paperback in 2000. The new edition is a beautiful hardback book that has been lovingly revised and expanded by Gregory O'Brien and Louise St John. Since the nineteenth century, Wellington has been the site and object of much literary activity and never more so than now. Where many of New Zealand's leading poets once wandered, frequenting bars, delivering mail up the steepest of streets, raising their children in the suburbs, today's XY generation are now vividly, energetically present, and recent poetry has kept track of the changing inner and outer life of the city. As well as New Zealand's major writers, visitors from near and far have responded to the city - poets as various as Australian Henry Lawson and Americans Robert Creeley and Michael Palmer.
Big Weather: Poems of Wellington captures the vivacity and diversity of the capital, beginning with the inner city and harbour, moving into the suburbs and parks, heading out to Lower Hutt, Porirua and as far north as Paraparaumu before - in this new edition - turning again to the heart of the city, this time in the twenty-first century. These poems provide a composite portrait of Wellington and a celebration of its bustling creative life.

Title: Big Weather Poems of Wellington
Author: OBRIEN GREGORY
Format: Hardback
Publishing status: Active
Publication date: 01/06/2009
Price: $36.00
RRP: $36.00
Imprint: Mallinson Rendel
Publisher: Mallinson Rendel Publishers Lt
ISBN: 9781877423345

Powerful and visionary, Keri Hulme has written the great New Zealand novel of our times. The Bone People is the story of Kerewin, a despairing part-Maori artist who is convinced that her solitary life is the only way to face the world. Her cocoon is rudely blown away by the sudden arrival during a rainstorm of Simon, a mute six-year-old whose past seems to hold some terrible trauma. In his wake comes his foster-father Joe, a Maori factory worker with a nasty temper. The narrative unravels to reveal the truths that lie behind these three characters, and in so doing displays itself as a huge, ambitious work that tackles the clash between Maori and European characters in beautiful prose of a heartrending poignancy.

Title: Bone People
Author: HULME KERI
Format: Paperback
Publishing status: Active
Publication date: 09/11/2001
Price: $30.00
RRP: $30.00
Imprint: Macmillan
Publisher: Pan Macmillan
ISBN: 9780330485418

In 1905 a motley group of young New Zealand rugby players sets out by steamer on a journey to the other side of the world. The following year they are back, accorded a hero's welcome the like of which has never been seen in their country before. Their fame has spread before them across three continents.

Title: Book of Fame
Author: JONES LLOYD
Format: Paperback
Publishing status: Active
Publication date: 01/08/2001
Price: $30.00
RRP: $30.00
Imprint: Penguin Books
Publisher: Penguin Group (NZ)
ISBN: 9780143018094

In 1905 a motley group of young New Zealand rugby players sets out by steamer on a journey to the other side of the world. Their exploits on the field of play as they move through the British Isles are staggering. Then the following year they are back, accorded a hero's welcome, the likes of which has never been seen in their country before. Their fame has spread before them across three continents. Winner of the 2001 Deutz Medal for Fiction at the Montana Awards.

Title: Book of Fame
Author: JONES LLOYD
Series: Popular Penguins
Format: Paperback
Publishing status: Active
Publication date: 30/08/2010
Price: $14.00
RRP: $14.00
Imprint: Penguin Books
Publisher: Penguin Group (NZ)
ISBN: 9780143206002