What's New McNab
Constant radical : the life and times of Sue Bradford. Jenny Chamberlain.
Sue Bradford has been a pain in the side of the establishment for many decades now. From the Mao-influenced Workers Communist League, working in the unemployed and beneficiaries’ movement, to 10 years as a Green Party MP where as a backbench MP she managed to get 3 member’s bills passed, Bradford has been a genuine and consistent fighter for social justice and the rights of the marginalised. Auckland journalist Jenny Chamberlain has written a lively biography of Bradford that doesn’t shy away from the lows as well as the highs of Bradford’s life.
A strange beautiful excitement : Katherine Mansfield’s Wellington 1888-1903. Redmer Yska.
Yska grew up in Karori and has a special affinity for the area in which Mansfield spent her early days. Yska’s account of Mansfield’s childhood brings a whole new level of understanding to our knowledge of the formative years of one of our most well-known and cherished writers.
Polly Plum : a firm and earnest woman’s advocate : Mary Ann Colclough 1836-1885. Jenny Coleman.
Colclough was an outspoken early feminist, a teacher and journalist who wrote under the nom de plume ‘Polly Plum’, raising publicly issues relating to women’s position in society. Coleman argues that Colclough’s contribution to the women’s movement in New Zealand is at least equal to that of Kate Sheppard.
The Ascott Martyrs : sixteen women from Ascott-under-Wychwood who were sent over the hills to glory. Beverley McCombs.
The author is a descendant of one of the Ascott Martyrs, sixteen women who were imprisoned with hard labour in 1873 for trying to stop strike-breakers from working in place of their husbands in an agricultural workers’ strike. Several of the women ended up emigrating to New Zealand in search of a better life.
Behind bars : real-life stories from inside New Zealand’s prisons. Anna Leask.
New Zealand has one of the OECD’s highest incarceration rates with the prison population reaching an all-time high of 10,100 in February this year, yet most New Zealanders have very little idea about what goes on inside our prison system. Leask’s book gives us an insiders’ perspective on everyday life in our prisons, sharing the stories and views of inmates and those who guard them.
Te toki me te whao : the story and use of Māori tools. Clive Fugill.
Fugill has been Master Carver at the New Zealand Māori Arts and Crafts Institute in Rotorua for over 30 years. Te toki me te whao is the culmination of more than 50 years of study, experience and collecting. The first part of Fugill’s book explores legendary adzes and craftsmen, while the second analyses the location and exploitation of the principal stone resources.
Tōtara : a natural and cultural history. Philip Simpson.
Among the biggest and oldest trees in the forest, tōtara have deep significance for tangata whenua, being at the heart of Māori carving and culture. Alongside kauri, the wood was prized by Pākehā settlers for building and other uses. This is a wide-ranging natural and cultural history that illuminates our fundamental interdependence with the natural world.