New Zealand Non Fiction : NZ Non Fiction

The 1.5 Hectare World is a delightful, funny, perceptive book crammed with the observations of someone with the time and skill to observe the world around him in a way so few of us ever do. David Yerex is fascinated by Nature but two decades of close contemplation have left him with more questions than answers, though it is sometimes difficult to tell the difference. The 1.5 Hectare World is about life in the country as it's never been written about before, with a number of myths gently deflated along the way. David Yerex writes about animal instincts that look remarkably like intelligence, about animals and birds that refuse to recognize human claims to "ownership", and a host of experiences which sometimes amazed, often amused, and frequently confused, but were always rewarding. David Yerex has written over 20 books, several on historical topics but mostly on aspects of agriculture in New Zealand. This whimsical and thoughtful book is his most personal - and possibly the most insightful.

Title: 1.5 Hectare World
Author: YEREX DAVID
Format: Trade Paperback
Publishing status: Active
Price: $24.95
RRP: $24.95
Imprint: Fraser Publications
Publisher: Fraser Books
ISBN: 9780958252140

John Pettit took up skindiving as a means of relaxation from the pressure of business. His first trip with the legendary Kelly Tarlton stemmed from a desire to dive the virgin waters of the Three Kings in 1967. It was only after they arrived at the Kings that he discovered the real purpose of the trip was to find the wreck of the Elingamite and locate its treasure. And once the first coins were located, he was hooked. Next the reputed gold of the General Grant beckoned and an expedition to the Auckland Islands was organised. While the General Grant remained elusive, the trip itself was a voyage of discovery and wonder. And not without a small profit as you will see. John continued to be involved with diving adventures and the recovery of artifacts including the finding of d'Survilles anchors, now on display at museums in Wellington and the Far North. Appended to this book is the boat's log of the Road Runner from 1979 to 1981, written by Kelly and John giving a day-to-day account of the hunt and recovery of the bulk of the treasure from the Elingamite.

Title: Adventures of a New Zealand Treasure Hunter
Author: PETTIT JOHN
Format: Trade Paperback
Publishing status: Active
Price: $30.00
RRP: $30.00
Imprint: Halcyon Press
Publisher: Halcyon Press
ISBN: 9781877256851

Documents the journey of Andrew Lennox from Adelaide to Darwin in 1899 and 109 years then later repeated by Andrew's grandson Bill.

Title: After Andrew: Two Kiwis Cross Australia
Author: LENNOX BILL
Year: 2010
Format: Trade Paperback
Publishing status: Active
Publication date: 01/01/2010
Price: $35.00
RRP: $35.00
Imprint: Miscellaneous
Publisher: B. Lennox
ISBN: 9780473162917

Bestselling author and investigative journalist Ian Wishart tackles the issue of the century - global warming. In December this year, world leaders will gather in Copenhagen to usher in "a new Kyoto" protocol, conservatively estimated to cost taxpayers in Western countries somewhere in the region of US$45 trillion. For many people, this will mean increases in personal taxes of several thousand dollars a year, and/or much higher prices for food, goods and services because of new emissions caps and taxes. With that sort of money at stake, there are several big questions Wishart asks in Air Con 1. Is global warming actually happening? 2. Is it caused by human activities? 3. Is there really anything we can do to prevent it? 4. Are climate scientists and the United Nations telling the truth? 5. What's really behind the push for the Copenhagen Treaty? The answers to these questions may shock you. Air Con is a must-read for every New Zealander, and is the most up-to-date book on global warming available in the world. With chapters like, 'What Cars Did The Dinosaurs Drive?', and 'Fancy A Cold Bear?'
, this is an easy to read title using everyday language to explain the growing evidence against human-caused global warming.

Title: Air Con: The Seriously Inconvenient Truth About Global Warming
Author: WISHART IAN
Format: Paperback
Publishing status: Active
Publication date: 27/04/2009
Price: $40.00
RRP: $40.00
Imprint: Miscellaneous
Publisher: Howling at the Moon Publishing
ISBN: 9780958240147

'At my worst moments, I lost all sense of hope for the future. As I began to slowly get better, I began to be able to say to myself, 'This will pass, you'll get through this. Hang on to hope.'

John Kirwan was one of the most devastating wingers New Zealand, and world, rugby had ever seen. A prominent and revered figure at the dawn of the professional age of rugby, he seemed to live a charmed life.

Nobody knew, though, that behind closed doors 'JK' was living a life of tormented fear. Afflicted with depression for many years - including those as a high-profile sportsman - Kirwan was able to survive by reaching out, seeking help f

Title: All Blacks Dont Cry
Author: KIRWAN JOHN
Format: Trade Paperback
Publishing status: Active
Publication date: 25/10/2010
Price: $42.00
RRP: $42.00
Imprint: Penguin Books
ISBN: 9780143204800

A house without a chimney doesn't really look like a home. Yet thousands of Christchurch houses no longer have a chimney after the earthquakes of 2010 and 2011. The streets look strangely different without their familiar vertical accents. While this book was prompted by the Christchurch earthquake of September 2010, its author has long had a fascination with chimneys. He grew up in the smoggy Christchurch of the 1950s, not far from the Gasworks, and brick chimneys were all around him, both industrial and domestic, silhouetted against the red winter sunsets. He then noted the variety of British and European chimney pots seen on his travels, and realised that Christchurch had its own unique type, the Homebush pot. The book was first written over the summer of 2010, but then came the devastating February 2011 earthquake, with serious loss of life, and text and photographs alike had to be revisited. Many of the chimneys photographed after September were destroyed in February. This book is a visual history of Christchurch chimneys - domestic, commercial and industrial, most of which no longer exist.
While noting the quirky and unusual, it also attempts to document the typical styles of successive periods, from late Victorian to Art Deco and the latest versions on new houses, that serve as reminders of the diverse heritage of the European chimney.

Title: All Fall Down: Christchurch's Lost Chimneys
Author: RICE GEOFFREY
Format: Limp
Publishing status: Active
Price: $29.95
RRP: $29.95
Imprint: Canterbury University
Publisher: Canterbury University Press
ISBN: 9781927145104

Title: Allan Hubbard - A Man Out of Time
Author: GREEN VIRGINIA
Year: 2010
Format: Trade Paperback
Publishing status: Active
Price: $44.00
RRP: $44.00
Imprint: Random House
ISBN: 9781869794828

An Accidental Utopia? investigates a more egalitarian past at a time when New Zealand ranks fourth in the developed world for social inequality. It is our first systematic analysis of urban social structure, focusing on three major forms of mobility - marital, worklife and intergenerational. This enables it to identify the distinctive forms taken by the capitalist class structure in urban New Zealand during a formative historical period, 1890-1940. By placing the analysis deep within a particular community - one of the two most densely settled urban areas at the time - the book also demonstrates how colonists and their children made class less central to social organisation than it had been in Britain and also how people created a class-based politics to protect and advance equality. The intimate account of political change across the period reinstates the importance of contextual analysis, showing the need to analyse the social and political together in order to explain Liberal decline and the rise of Labour.
In a comparative discussion, the authors demonstrate the importance of size and scale not only to this topic but to sociology and history in general, as these helped to make southern Dunedin critical in creating New Zealand as one of the world's most egalitarian societies. While class is their central focus, the authors also show how religious and ethnic divisions were rendered more marginal than in urban Britain or the US. The final chapter asks to what extent the remarkably fluid social patterns identified resulted from deliberate choices made by the first settlers and their descendants. By interweaving class and culture, structure and agency, the authors provide new insights into the making of modern New Zealand.

Title: An Accidental Utopia?: Social Mobility and the Foundations of an Egalitarian Society, 1880-1940
Author: OLSSEN ERIK
Format: Trade Paperback
Publishing status: Active
Price: $49.95
RRP: $49.95
Imprint: Uni Of Otago
Publisher: Otago University Press
ISBN: 9781877372643

Title: An Angel at My Table
Author: FRAME JANET
Format: Trade Paperback
Publishing status: Active
Price: $30.00
RRP: $30.00
Imprint: Vintage
ISBN: 9781869411329