What's New McNab
Allen Curnow: Simply by Sailing in a New Direction: A Biography. Terry Sturm. Ed. Linda Cassells.
One of a renowned crop of modernist poets published by Denis Glover’s Caxton Press in the 1930s, Curnow went on to become a giant of the New Zealand literary landscape and increasing international recognition. The late Terry Sturm, professor of English at the University of Auckland, has produced a definitive literary biography of Curnow. Sturm’s widow and literary executor, Linda Cassells, has seen Sturm’s project through to fruition by taking on the immense task of editing the manuscript after his death.
Casting Off: A Memoir. Elspeth Sandys.
The second volume of her memoir, Casting Off follows the life of prolific NZ author Elspeth Sandys after her first marriage and departure for England at the very end of the Sixties. Sandys stayed there for 20 years before returning. Her personal story is told against the backdrop of a rapidly changing society through the politically turbulent Seventies and then the onset of Thatcherism.
Caves: Exploring New Zealand’s Subterranean Wilderness. Marcus Thomas and Neil Silverwood.
Explore some of our longest and deepest caves, go underneath glaciers, and on one of the world’s most dangerous cave dives, in this dramatically illustrated coffee-table book.
Faces From the Front: Harold Gillies, The Queen’s Hospital, Sidcup and the Origins of Modern Plastic Surgery. Andrew Bamji.
Harold Gillies, the father of plastic surgery of the face, was born in Dunedin in 1882. He pioneered the plastic surgery on soldiers with facial injuries at Cambridge Military Hospital in Aldershot, Hampshire during World War I. Following the Battle of the Somme a specialist hospital was set up at Sidcup in London where thousands of patients were treated. In Faces From the Front Bamji reconstructs the history of this pioneering hospital and Gillies’ enduring legacy.
He Reo Wāhine: Māori Women’s Voices From the Nineteenth Century. Lachy Paterson and Angela Wanhalla.
Paterson and Wanhalla’s volume, drawn from a careful excavation of the colonial archives, aims to prioritise the colonial experience of Māori women in their own ‘voices’. Drawn from over 500 texts in English and te reo Māori, written by or quoting Māori women, this book shows how these women engaged with the colonial state and its institutions and how some became keen participants in the new textual culture.
A Moral Truth: 150 Years of Investigative Journalism in New Zealand. Ed. James Hollings.
An anthology of critical investigative journalism from 1863 to the present day. 33 ground-breaking pieces showcase the journalist’s craft and remind us of what is possible in a media awash with noise.
Up the Hill: Blackrock, Lee Stream and Hindon: The Story of the Taieri Uplands. Michael C. Hamblyn.
This is the first comprehensive history of the Taieri Uplands by local writer and historian Mike Hamblyn. An essential reference work for genealogists and others interested in our local rural history. Mike has sourced some wonderful photographs.