Dunedin UNESCO City of Literature by Dunedin UNESCO City of Literature

Ōtepoti He Puna Auaha, Dunedin UNESCO City of Literature

Reviews of select reads of the season from our City of Literature collection

Above the Treeline: A Nature Guide to Alpine New Zealand Alan F Mark

Emeritus professor Sir Alan Mark is an eminent botanist, plant ecologist and conservationist. Spending a lifetime researching sustainable management of the snow tussock grasslands of the South Island high country, there are now 10 tussock-land conservations parks located here and some 800,000 hectares formally protected.

This book is a wonderful publication for anyone interested in mountains, remote landscapes with harsh extreme temperatures throughout all the seasons of the year. The plants exhibited throughout the book cover everything you would expect, grasses, shrubs, ferns, mosses, lichens and birds, lizards and invertebrates that thrive in this alpine ecosystem.

The severe conditions and relatively short growing season mean that plants and animals adapt in varying ways to survive and reproduce. Full of wonderful photographs showing alpine treasures at their best and where they are located this book is a treasure trove for nature lovers and gardeners alike.

Bordering on Miraculous Lynley Edmeades, Saskia Leek

This is the fourth book in the korero series, a project that invites new and exciting collaborations for two different kinds of artistic expression in interpreting a shared topic. In this luscious collaboration poet Lynley Edmeades and painter Saskia Leek explore ideas of everyday or ordinary events or things with recurring references and the anxious early days of motherhood. Leek’s high-colour palette and symbolic exploration of the domestic provides Edmeades with plenty to analyse and the conversation that bounces back and forth between the two artists is thought-provoking.

Familiar objects— fruit bowls, ceramic cups, sleeping babies, the view from a window — are held up to new scrutiny and are given a refreshing perspective.

“Suppose, orange ball, that you have no upside-down. And if I turn you this
way or that, only the texture of you will look to smack the silence.”

This book is a joy to savour!

Fossil Treasures of Foulden Maar Daphne Lee, Uwe Kaulfuss and John Conran

Almost everyone will have heard of Foulden Maar, and the public support for this unique place that has preserved more than 120,000 years of life in New Zealand 23 million years ago. In 20 short years Foulden Maar has gone from interesting to globally unique. What makes it so special is the rich deposit of diatomite, lying beneath the grass.

Professor Lee says “internationally maars filled with diatomite are very rare. Ones filled with beautifully undisturbed sediment with fossils in it are very rare indeed”.

This book is full of photographs of the many and varied insects, fungi, leaves, seeds and other well preserved life forms that in some cases include soft tissue cells. Careful archeological practice has meant that this fossil collection is a significant treasure to the region and beyond.

I am not a scientifically minded person, but this is a clear and easily absorbed read and I was left thinking what a minute part of a vast ecological history we inhabit. Sometimes it is good to be reminded of this!

Notes on Womanhood Sarah Jane Barnett

This well written memoir came about after the author had a hysterectomy in her forties when her doctor commented that she wouldn’t be ‘less of a woman’. What started as a personal writing project quickly turned into a manifesto-of-sorts for women entering this middle-phase of life.

Sharing aspects of her life in this exploration of womanhood, Barnett looks back at the choices she made as a young woman, the invisibility she feels as her youth fades, the power of female friendship, and how being the daughter of a transgender woman changed her ideas of womanhood.

Interesting fact: ‘the reason middle age has only recently been studied in depth is because it’s a new concept.’ The author goes on to chronicle this well used term, where it came from, how the demographic shifted and what implications this had on women’s lives. Notes on Womanhood is full of fascinating societal histories woven through the author’s personal experiences past and present, and I found it difficult to put down. Highly recommended!

On Elephant’s Shoulders Sudha Rao

The sumptuous cover gives a hint of the eastern themes, customs and rich heritage contained inside this vibrant collection of poetry. There is a musicality and dance like quality to the works and they evoke a different perspective that is refreshingly unique and mystical.

Sudha Rao grew up in Dunedin after her parents migrated from Karnataka, South India and became connected to the Dunedin dance community through her own training in Classical Indian dance. Sudha has been writing for some time. Her works appear in several publications and anthologies.

In 2017, Sudha completed her Masters in Creative Writing from the International Institute of Modern Letters, Te Herenga Waka Victoria University of Wellington, and is focused on writing and performing her poems.

“She is a visitor on a beach,
sketching a canvas stretched in her head.
She is a mirror of herself, she is not a mirror of herself.
She is a scooped grain of memory,
a love song for a life lived between her worlds”. (From ‘Manuhiri’)

Highly recommended! 

Return to Harikoa Bay Owen Marshall

The latest book of short stories by Owen Marshall is immensely enjoyable. The stories draw the reader in and cleverly sweep you along for the ride. Throughout the book we are presented with a wide range of subjects including premature or untimely deaths, unusual discoveries made about friends or neighbours, business ventures, travel, and much, much more. There are even stories that from the outset seem to be about nothing special but of course there is always the plot reveal that may not have been evident from the beginning.

With over ten years since his last collection of new stories, Marshall explores his fellow New Zealanders, bringing his wisdom and wry eye to vivid, insightful scenes. Writer and academic Vincent O’Sullivan has claimed ‘nobody tells our [New Zealand] stories better’ and this observation is spot on. The characters in the 33 stories are so often unnervingly familiar, wherever they live and whatever their situation. That's part of Owen's magic touch as a writer of stories about us for us to savour. Highly recommended!