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New Zealand Book Awards & Book News
Minister presents Tūhoe Biographer with Supreme Award
Judith Binney Wins 2010 New Zealand Post Book of the Year
Minister of Arts, Culture and Heritage, Christopher Finlayson tonight honoured historian Judith Binney with the country’s highest literary accolade, the New Zealand Post Book of the Year, for her work Encircled Lands, a book about Tūhoe’s quest for self-government of their lands, granted to them in law more than a century ago.
Tūhoe, represented by kaumatua Wharehuia Milroy and Pou Temara, responded in numbers to the presentation at the gala awards ceremony held in Auckland’s tonight. Last year, Tūhoe bestowed Binney with the name Tomoirangi o Te Aroha (a little cloud of rain from heaven) in recognition of her work.
New Zealand Post Book Awards judge, Paul Diamond, described the winning work as one that will profoundly change our understanding of our shared history.
‘Encircled Lands is an exhaustive, comprehensive history of Te Rohe Pōtae o Te Urewera, the only autonomous tribal district that was recognised in law. Not only does it fulfill the author’s hopes of revealing an almost unknown history to a new audience, it also deftly illustrates why the history of the Urewera and its people continues to resonate.’
Debut novelist, Alison Wong won the 2010 New Zealand Post Book Award for Fiction for her book, As The Earth Turns Silver, ahead of established writers, Fiona Farrell and Owen Marshall.
Charmaine Pountney, who joined Diamond with Elizabeth Smither, Paul Diamond, Neville Peat and convenor, Stephen Stratford on the Awards judging panel, said Wong brings a powerful new voice and new themes to New Zealand fiction.
‘Based on meticulous research, this novel opens new windows on the development of our nation; it also opens our hearts to the anguish caused by racism, ignorance, failures in family relationship and communication, and war. The book is a delight to look at and hold, as well as deeply moving to read,’ says Pountney.
Brian Turner, a leading biographer, essayist, poet and conservationist, was presented with the 2010 New Zealand Post Book Award for Poetry for his collection, Just This, described by judge Elizabeth Smither as a life’s work in its reach, its depth and its deceptive plainness of surface.
He took the prize ahead of fellow Mainlanders Bernadette Hall (Bank’s Peninsula) and Michael Harlow (Alexandra).
‘Just This dares to ask the profoundest questions about place and human existence, how we live now and how we hand the world on. It is dangerous poetry because it addresses ethics but at the same time it is leavened with a sweet and sly self-awareness as it searches for “something you can have faith in, swear by”. The journey from the first poem to the last is a revelation,’ says Smither.
In a tightly fought contest that had judges reaching for superlatives, co-owner of Wellington’s famed Logan Brown restaurant, celebrity chef and passionate fisherman, Al Brown won the Illustrated Non-fiction category for his book Go Fish: Recipes and stories from the New Zealand Coast.
Awards’ judge Neville Peat described Go Fish as a seafood recipe book with edge and attitude.
‘Colourful images pour from the pages and spicing up the illustrative side are busy montages demonstrating how to prepare crayfish, crab and paua, and how to fillet a flounder – no mean feat, any of this. The recipes themselves, easy to follow, employ an engaging mix of type sizes and layout techniques. For a cookbook, it’s a remarkable page-turner,’ says Peat.
Go Fish also won this year’s coveted People’s Choice Award as voted by thousands of readers nationwide.
The full list of 2010 New Zealand Post Book Awards winners is as follows:
New Zealand Post Book of the Year and General Non-fiction Award winner:
Encircled Lands: Te Urewera, 1820-1921 by Judith Binney (Bridget Williams Books)
Fiction Award winner: As the Earth Turns Silver by Alison Wong (Penguin Group (NZ))
Poetry Award winner: Just This by Brian Turner (Victoria University Press)
Illustrated Non-fiction Award and People’s Choice Award winner: Go Fish: Recipes and stories from the New Zealand Coast by Al Brown (Random House NZ)
In a substantially increased prize-pool from previous years, the New Zealand Post Book of the Year Award winner received $15,000. Winners of the four Category Awards each received $10,000 and the People’s Choice Award winner $5,000.
Perkins Writes Story of her Wife to Win Montana Medal
Emily Perkins has won the 2009 Montana Medal for Fiction or Poetry for her taut and chilling book, Novel About My Wife. The work (published by Bloomsbury) is described by 2009 Montana New Zealand Book Awards Judges’ Convenor, Dr Mark Williams as highly assured fiction by a writer working at the height of her powers.
‘Novel About My Wife is sophisticated and urban, with characters that inhabit crabbed and threatened worlds. It registers the minute nuances of class, concealment and reserve in domestic English life.
‘Perkins has in a sense re-colonised English literature.’
Wellington curator and writer, Jill Trevelyan has won the 2009 Montana Medal for Non-Fiction for a biography about one of our most celebrated artists: Rita Angus: An Artist’s Life (Te Papa Press). The Awards’ judging panel, comprising English literature academic Dr Williams, journalist Margo White and novelist Jane Westaway, said Rita Angus: An Artist’s Life is a book to use and treasure.
‘Trevelyan’s writing is elegant and lucid and the book’s scholarship is exemplary.’
The complete list of winners at the 2009 Montana New Zealand Book Awards:
Montana Medal for Fiction or Poetry winner and Fiction category winner: Novel About My Wife by Emily Perkins (Bloomsbury).
Fiction runners-up: The 10PM Question by Kate De Goldi (Longacre Press) and Acid Song by Bernard Beckett (Longacre Press).
Poetry category winner: The Rocky Shore by Jenny Bornholdt (Victoria University Press).
Montana Medal for Non-Fiction winner and Biography category winner: Rita Angus: An Artist’s Life by Jill Trevelyan (Te Papa Press).
Environment category winner: A Continent on the Move: New Zealand Geoscience into the 21st Century edited by Ian J. Graham (Geological Society of New Zealand).
History category winner: Buying the Land, Selling the Land by Richard Boast (Victoria University Press).
Reference and Anthology category winner: Collected Poems 1951–2006 by CK Stead (Auckland University Press).
Lifestyle & Contemporary Culture category winner: Ladies, A Plate: Traditional Home Baking by Alexa Johnston (Penguin Group New Zealand).
Illustrative category winner: Len Castle: Making the Molecules Dance by Len Castle (Lopdell House Gallery).
Readers’ Choice Award winner: The 10PM Question by Kate De Goldi (Longacre Press).
NZSA Hubert Church Best First Book Award for Fiction: The Rehearsal by Eleanor Catton (Victoria University Press).
NZSA Jessie Mackay Best First Book Award for Poetry: Everything Talks by Sam Sampson (Auckland University Press).
NZSA E.H. McCormick Best First Book Award for Non-Fiction: Mates & Lovers: A History of Gay New Zealand by Chris Brickell (Godwit).
BPANZ Reviewer of the Year: David Eggleton
BPANZ Best Review Page or Programme Award: NZ Listener
Māori Language Award
He Pātaka Kupu: te kai a te rangatira, the first-ever dictionary written entirely in te reo Māori, has won this year’s Te Reo Māori Literary prize at the Montana New Zealand Book Awards.
Compiled by Te Taura Whiri i te Reo (the Māori Language Commission) and published by Penguin Group New Zealand, the dictionary that translates to ‘A Storehouse of Words: the food of chiefs’ contains some 24,000 head-words from the old world through to the idioms of modern Māori.
This is the second year in a row that a prize for a book written in te reo Māori has been made at the Montana New Zealand Book Awards. The winners of the te reo Māori Literature Award received a $5,000 prize.
And the votes keeping coming…
The highest number of votes in eight years were cast for the Montana Readers Choice Award announced on Monday night. And votes are still being received weeks after the closing date.
Kate De Goldi’s The 10 PM Question was the winning title of the 26 finalist titles of the Awards.
By the time voting closed on 10 July, a total of 4156 votes had been received over the six week voting period. Previously, the highest number of votes received occurred in 2001, with 4,952 total votes made over the seven week voting period.
‘It was exciting to see the piles of votes coming in every day from all over the country, reflecting such a great interest in the finalists and impressive to see such a great response. Many of the finalist books had strong followings, but The 10 PM Question was the clear winner, receiving almost 20 percent of the total votes,’ said Booksellers NZ Promotions Coordinator, Anna Hutchison.
Montana New Zealand Book Awards Fiction Finalist Makes History
Already the Book of the Year at this year’s New Zealand Post Book Awards, Kate De Goldi’s The 10 PM Question has made history as the first book to be simultaneously selected for both the children’s and adult’s national awards, as it was named as a fiction finalist in the Montana New Zealand Book Awards this week.
“The fiction finalists take us inside the land of teenage anxieties and excitations, a world where emotion is physical and sex is as ubiquitous as thought, and where adult codes cannot overwhelm the force of desire. We even enter the worlds of science and political correctness.
“Last year's publishing crop was rich and various. We enjoyed lavish books on food, domestic architecture, gardening and the arts; challenging fiction and poetry; gripping biography and impressive works of history. All are evidence that the literary culture of this country is not about to roll over and die in the face of hard economic times,” says Montana New Zealand Book Awards Judges’ Convenor, Dr. Mark Williams.
This year’s Poetry category finalists are also stand-outs.
“Something significantly new has been achieved in poetic practice in this country. This year produced collections of individual poems and sequences that will stay in the minds of readers.”
The judging panel, on which Williams is joined by novelist and reviewer, Jane Westaway and journalist, Margo White, commented that finalist books across all categories represent the culmination of a period of cultural self-awareness and broadening.
“Janet Frame once described New Zealand, somewhat slightingly, as possessing ‘a rich material culture’. In the past this has perhaps gone with a lack of richness in the non-material aspects of culture. If so, many of the books in this year’s awards demonstrate that that lack has been amply satisfied over the last year,” they said.
More than 200 books were submitted for consideration in this year’s Awards.
The full list of finalists in the 2009 Montana New Zealand Book Awards by category are:
Fiction:
The Crocus Hour by Charlotte Randall (Penguin Group New Zealand).
The Rehearsal by Eleanor Catton (Victoria University Press).
The 10PM Question by Kate De Goldi (Longacre Press).
Acid Song by Bernard Beckett (Longacre Press).
Novel About My Wife by Emily Perkins (Allen & Unwin).
Poetry:
Get Some by Sonja Yelich (Auckland University Press).
The Lakes of Mars by Chris Orsman (Auckland University Press).
The Rocky Shore by Jenny Bornholdt (Victoria University Press).
Biography:
Rita Angus: An Artist’s Life by Jill Trevelyan (Te Papa Press).
The Love School: Personal Essays by Elizabeth Knox (Victoria University Press).
Heaphy by Iain Sharp (Auckland University Press).
Environment:
A Continent on the Move: New Zealand Geoscience into the 21st Century edited by Ian Graham (Geological Society of New Zealand).
Into the Wider World: A Back Country Miscellanyby Brian Turner (Random House New Zealand).
Albatross: Their world, Their Ways by Tui De Roy and Mark Jones (David Bateman Ltd).
History:
Mates & Lovers: A Gay History of New Zealand by Chris Brickell (Random House New Zealand).
First Catch Your Weka: A Story of New Zealand Cooking by David Veart (Auckland University Press).
Buying the Land, Selling the Land by Richard Boast (Victoria University Press).
Illustrative:
Peter Peryer: Photographer by Peter Peryer and Peter Simpson (Auckland University Press).
Certain Words Drawn by John Reynolds (Random House New Zealand).
Len Castle: Making the Molecules Dance by Len Castle (Lopdell House Gallery).
Lifestyle and Contemporary Culture:
The Pavlova Story: A Slice of New Zealand’s Culinary History by Helen Leach (Otago University Press).
Ladies, A Plate: Traditional Home Baking by Alexa Johnston (Penguin Group New Zealand).
Art Icons of New Zealand: Lines in the Sand by Oliver Stead (David Bateman Ltd).
Reference and Anthology:
The Painted Garden in New Zealand Art by Christopher Johnstone (Random House New Zealand).
The Collected Letters of Katherine Mansfield, Volume 5: 1922 edited by Vincent O’Sullivan and Margaret Scott (Oxford University Press).
Collected Poems 1951–2006 by CK Stead (Auckland University Press).
The winner in each category receives a prize of $5,000. Each category winner is eligible for the Montana Medal for Non-fiction or the Montana Medal for Poetry or Fiction, both of which carry a prize of $10,000.
The New Zealand Society of Authors (NZSA) Best First Book Awards Finalists are:
Fiction:
The Year of the Shanghai Shark by Mo Zhi Hong (Penguin Group New Zealand).
Misconduct by Bridget van der Zijpp (Victoria University Press).
The Rehearsal by Eleanor Catton (Victoria University Press).
Poetry:
Everything Talks by Sam Sampson (Auckland University Press).
The Propaganda Poster Girl by Amy Brown (Victoria University Press).
The World’s Fastest Flower by Charlotte Simmonds (Victoria University Press).
Non-fiction:
First Catch Your Weka: A Story of New Zealand Cooking by David Veart (Auckland University Press).
Mates & Lovers: A Gay History of New Zealand by Chris Brickell (Random House New Zealand).
Nga Tama Toa, The Price of Citizenship – C Company 28 (Māori) Battalion 1939–1945 by Monty Soutar (David Bateman Ltd).
Each NZSA Best First Book Awards category winner receives $2,500.
The winner of the poetry category will be announced on Montana Poetry Day on Friday 24 July 2009.
All other winners will be announced at a gala dinner to be held at the Auckland Museum on Monday 27 July 2009.
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B) Reviewing the Reviewers: BPANZ Review Awards, Finalists Announced
“Now, more than ever, in a world awash with entertainment options, we need lively, critical reviewers and book pages to highlight the joys of reading” said the judges Morrin Rout and Stephen Stratford when announcing the six finalists in the Book Publishers Association of New Zealand (BPANZ) Review Awards today.
Three finalists have been selected in each category and four of the six finalists are Dunedin based. Landfall, New Zealand Listener, and Otago Daily Times are the three finalists for the Best Review Page or Programme; Clare McIntosh (Sunday Star-Times), David Eggleton (New Zealand Listener), and Helen Watson White (Sunday Star-Times) are the three finalists contending for the title Reviewer of the Year.
The winners will be announced at the Montana New Zealand Book Awards ceremony in Auckland on Monday 27 July. The Reviewer of the Year Award winner will receive a $1,000 prize.
For a full list of the book reviews submitted by the finalists please visit www.booksellers.co.nz/mba_reviewer
ADULT Book Awards to be Sponsored by New Zealand Post IN 2010
New Zealand Post is to become the naming rights, sponsor of the New Zealand Book Awards from 2010. This follows the decision by Pernod Ricard New Zealand to make the 2009 Montana New Zealand Book Awards its last year of sponsorship.
Announcing the change, Hamish Wright, Chairman of Booksellers New Zealand, the awards administrator, was full of praise for the service to the New Zealand book industry and reading public that had been given by Pernod Ricard New Zealand (formerly Montana Wines), for over a decade.
“Since 1996 excellence in New Zealand writing and publishing has been synonymous with the name Montana. It has been an important feature of the literary scene in this country with much anticipation each year of finalists and winners.
“This year will be no exception, with the finalists for the 2009 Montana New Zealand Book Awards to be announced on 2 June and the winners revealed at a gala function in the Auckland War Memorial Museum on 27 July,” said Mr Wright.
New Zealand Post Group Chief Executive, John Allen, said the company was very pleased to assume naming rights sponsorship of the awards. New Zealand Post are also the current sponsors of the New Zealand Book Awards for Children and Young Adults. Other sponsors of the awards are Creative New Zealand and Book Tokens (NZ) Ltd.
Mr Allen said literature and literacy have for many years been at the heart of New Zealand Post’s community support programmes, which include the New Zealand Post Book Awards for Children and Young Adults, Books in Homes, the New Zealand Post Mansfield Prize, the New Zealand Post National Schools Poetry Awards and Literacy Aotearoa.
“New Zealand continues to produce outstanding, internationally acclaimed writers and we were greatly attracted to this rare opportunity to strengthen our commitment to fostering this country’s literary talent. These prestigious awards serve as both an incentive and recognition for New Zealand writers.”
He commended Pernod Ricard for its past support and said New Zealand Post would seek to build on the already unparalleled reputation of the awards.
A review of the structure of the New Zealand Book Awards will be undertaken prior to finalising the arrangements for the New Zealand Post sponsorship for 2010.
Booksellers NZ Chief Executive Lincoln Gould said the review would be conducted in June with views and opinions on a new structure to be drawn from the widest possible group of stakeholders and interested parties. It is planned that the new structure will be placed to allow for entries for the 2010 awards to begin in October.
The New Zealand Post sponsorship of the New Zealand Book Awards from 2010, will be discussed by a panel on Lyn Freeman’s ‘Arts on Sunday’ programme on Radio New Zealand National at 2.30pm this coming Sunday 17 May. Panellists will include Laura Kroetsch, Guy Somerset and Paula Morris.
Leading Academic Convenes Montana New Zealand Book Awards 2009
A senior academic will lead the judging panel in the country’s most prestigious book awards this year.
Mark Williams, author and professor of English at Victoria University will judge the 2009 Montana New Zealand Book Awards together with award-winning writer, reviewer and editor, Jane Westaway and literary critic, journalist and editor, Margo White.
This year’s judging panel say the field is rich with established and new writers and there is an especially large number of beautifully produced books to consider.
‘We are looking for excellence across the whole range of New Zealand books dealing with subjects as various as art, cooking, war, gardening, and gay lifestyles.
‘With around 215 books to read and 15 separate prizes to award, we have full reading schedules. We are advised by experts in each of the eight main categories: fiction, poetry, history, biography, reference and anthology, lifestyle and contemporary culture, illustrative, and environment…The judges’ responsibilities are collective and we shall all read and, together with our advisors, debate our judgments across the whole range of books submitted,’ says convenor, Mark Williams.
Professor Mark Williams has previously taught at the University of Tokyo and University of Canterbury. His publications on New Zealand and modern literature include Leaving the Highway: Six Contemporary New Zealand Novelists (Auckland University Press, 1990), Patrick White (Macmillan, 1993), and, with Jane Stafford, Māoriland: New Zealand Literature 1872-1914 (Victoria University Press, 2006). He has edited or co-edited numerous anthologies and collections and is on the editorial boards of several international literary journals.
Jane Westaway’s book, Reliable Friendly Girls (Longacre, 1996) won Best First Book at the 1997 New Zealand Post Book Awards for Children and Young Adults. Love and Other Excuses (Longacre, 1999) was shortlisted for the same awards in 2000, and the novel, Good at Geography also appeared that year. She co-edited the anthology, It Looks Better on You - New Zealand Women Writers on Their Friendships (Longacre, 2003) and co-wrote Accusation - A Wife's Story (Longacre, 2005). She reviews for Radio New Zealand's Nine to Noon, and is co-editor of the review quarterly New Zealand Books. She lives in Wellington, and teaches judgment writing in New Zealand, Australia and Papua New Guinea.
Margo White has worked on several magazines, including the NZ Listener, where she first worked as a feature writer before becoming the magazine’s Arts and Books Editor, and Metro magazine, where she was Senior Writer and Books Editor. She is currently the deputy editor of New Zealand Geographic and also writes in a freelance capacity for a range of publications. She lives in Auckland.
In selecting finalists and winners, judges take into account each book’s enduring literary merit and overall authorship; quality of illustration and graphic presentation; production values, general design and the standard of editing and the impact of the book on the community, with emphasis on issues such as quality, topicality, public interest, entertainment, cultural and educational values and life span of the book.
The 2009 Montana New Zealand Book Awards category advisors are:
· Fiction: Tina Shaw is a novelist, short story writer, editor and reviewer
· Poetry: Bernadette Hall is an award-winning poet, essayist, editor, reviewer and creative writing tutor.
· Biography: Philip Norman is a freelance composer, author and biography category winner (2007) in the Montana New Zealand Book Awards.
· Environment: Geoff Chapple is a writer, editor, former Montana New Zealand Book Awards judge and former winner of the award’s environment category.
· Reference and Anthology: Anna Rogers is a freelance book editor and writer.
· History: Tim Beaglehole Emeritus Professor, MA PhD. Chancellor, Victoria University and published writer.
Lifestyle and Contemporary Culture: Charmian Smith is feature writer and food and wine editor at the Otago Daily Times.
· Illustrative: Dr T L Rodney Wilson is recently retired director of the Auckland War Memorial Museum and a former Montana New Zealand Book Awards judge.
· Te Reo Advisor: Hone Apanui is a widely respected Maori linguist, teacher and publisher.
The skills and experience of the panel and category advisors ensures the judging of the 13th Montana New Zealand Book Awards will be robust.
This year’s finalists will be announced on Tuesday, 2 June.
The winners will be announced at a gala dinner held at the Auckland War Memorial Museum on Monday 27 July.
The winner of the poetry category will be announced on Montana Poetry Day, Friday 24 July.
The principal sponsors of the Montana New Zealand Book Awards are Montana and Creative New Zealand. The awards are managed by Booksellers New Zealand and supported by Book Publishers Association of New Zealand, the New Zealand Society of Authors and Book Tokens (NZ) Ltd.
2008 PRIME MINISTER’S AWARDS FOR LITERARY ACHIEVEMENT
Three of New Zealand's most celebrated writers – WH (Bill) Oliver, Elizabeth Smither, and Lloyd Jones were honoured at the 2008 Prime Minister's Awards for Literary Achievement at Premier House in Wellington on Tuesday night.
Each writer receives $60,000 in recognition of their significant contribution to New Zealand literature. The Awards are administered by Creative New Zealand.
These three writers were recognised in the categories of Non-Fiction [WH Oliver], Poetry [Elizabeth Smither] and Fiction [Lloyd Jones].
Prime Minister Helen Clark said writers Bill Oliver, Lloyd Jones and Elizabeth Smither have all added something special to New Zealand's cultural landscape through their work.
"These awards were created to recognise those who have made an enduring contribution to literature in New Zealand. Their work reflects the nuances and subtleties of what it is to be a New Zealand writer. From the uniqueness of this country and the people who live here to worlds beyond these shores, their work adds depth and richness to our literary traditions."
WH Oliver’s Looking for the Phoenix was a finalist for the Montana Medal for Non-fiction Biography Category in the Montana New Zealand Book Awards 2003. Elizabeth Smither was awarded the Montana New Zealand Book Award for Poetry in 2000 for her book The Lark Quartet (Auckland University Press). Lloyd Jones won the Montana Medal in 2007 and the Commonwealth Writers' Prize for Overall Best Book Award and was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize for Mr Pip (Penguin Group NZ).
TIMARU POET WINS JANET FRAME LITERARY TRUST AWARD
Timaru poet Rhian Gallagher has been named as the recipient of the 2008 Janet Frame Literary Trust Award. Gallagher will receive a $10,000 grant from an endowment fund set up by Janet Frame to benefit New Zealand writers. The Frame estate times the annual award to commemorate Frame's birthday, 28 August.
Rhian Gallagher was born in Timaru in 1961. After completing Bill Manhire’s composition course at Victoria University in 1985, she moved to London in 1987. Her first poetry collection, Salt Water Creek (Enitharmon), was published in the UK in 2003, and was shortlisted for the Forward Prize for Best First Collection. Gallagher returned to New Zealand in 2005 and is currently living in Timaru.
Gallagher will be appearing at the Christchurch Writers Festival on 5 September
Master illustrator awarded the Russell Clark Award at LIANZA children’s BOOK AWARDS 2008
Christchurch based author and illustrator Gavin Bishop has received the Russell Clark Award for his intriguing hardcover picture book, Rats (Random House), awarded at the LIANZA Children’s Book Awards ceremony at the National Library, Wellington on Monday. The Russell Clark Award was established in 1975 and celebrates a distinguished contribution to illustrated children’s books. Gavin Bishop has been a regular recipient of LIANZA nominations and awards and was the winner of the New Zealand Post Book of the Year 2008 for Snake and Lizard (Gecko Press) along with Joy Cowley. The judges described Rats as ‘a brilliant story, from a master illustrator, that will be around for a long time’.
Wellington writer and teacher Mandy Hager was awarded New Zealand’s longest running book prize, the Esther Glen Award. The award was established in 1944 and is given to the author who is considered to have made the most distinguished contribution to literature for children. The prize was presented to Hager for her young adult fiction book, Smashed (Random House) and is defined by judges as ‘a stand-out story about seeking the truth, with characters that are believable, strong and still in our minds long after we close the covers’.
Graphic designer Heather Arnold claimed the Elsie Locke Award for her first book Draw New Zealand Birds: A step by step guide (Raupo). The judges described Arnold’s book as ‘a timeless professionally written book’. The Elsie Locke Award was established in 1986 and celebrates a distinguished contribution to non-fiction for young people.
The Te Kura Pounamu was presented to the Kai Ora! 2 – Tikanga a Iwi series (Hana Ltd) by Kararaina Uatuku, Hana Pomare, Charisma Rangipunga, Hana O’Regan and Che Wilson. The Te Kura Pounamu celebrates a work in te reo Māori that promotes excellence in library resources in Māori and makes a distinguished contribution to literature for children and young people. The judges said this fantastically photographed series was ‘unique with nothing else available on the topics in Māori or English’.
Nielsen BookData New Zealand Booksellers’ Choice Award 2008
The winner of the Nielsen BookData New Zealand Booksellers’ Choice Award 2008 was announced during the Booksellers Conference in Wellington on Sunday 20 July.
The winner is The Road to Castle Hill: A High Country Love Story by Christine Fernyhough with Louise Callan, published by Random House NZ.
This award recognises the crucial role booksellers play in promoting books which they know their customers will enjoy.
They were asked to vote for the book they most enjoyed selling this year and The Road to Castle Hill came through as the clear winner for the 2007–2008 period.
The story told by Christine Fernyhough definitely caught the public’s imagination. The book appeals to a wide range of people, from the rural community and the many people who were touched by Christine’s spirit during her time with ‘Books in Homes’ and the ‘Gifted Kids Programme’ through to the ‘baby boomers’ who dream of escaping the city and starting a new simpler life. It is a quintessentially New Zealand story.
For the first time in the history of New Zealand publishing and bookselling, and with the launch of the Nielsen BookScan service in October 2007, bestsellers charts are now available and they provide precise figures based on the actual sales of books.
The Road to Castle Hill has been in the top 200 bestsellers for the last 40 weeks, making it the bestselling book out of the shortlist, and all nine shortlisted titles appeared in BookScan charts.
The Road to Castle Hill was up against:
A Nest of Singing Birds: One hundred Years of the New Zealand School Journal, by Gregory O’Brien, published by Learning Media
Bill Hammond: Jingle Jangle Morning, by Jennifer Hay, published by the Christchurch Art Gallery
Edwin and Matilda: An Unlikely Love Story, by Laurence Fearnley, published by Penguin Books NZ
Mau Moko: The World of Maori Tattoo, by Ngahuia Te Awekotuku, published by Penguin Books NZ
New New Zealand Houses, by Patrick Reynolds and John Walsh, published by Random House NZ
New Zealand’s Wilderness Heritage, by Les Molloy and Craig Potton, published by Craig Potton Publishing
Ribbons of Grace, by Maxine Alterio, Published by Penguin Books NZ
Soundtrack: 118 Great New Zealand Albums, by Grant Smithies, published by Craig Potton Publishing.
Bill Hammond book cleans up at BPANZ Book Design Awards
Bill Hammond: Jingle Jangle Morning, published by the Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetu, cleaned up at the BPANZ Book Design Awards 2008 last night at the Michael Fowler Centre in Wellington. The book won the Best Cover and Best Illustrated categories, then took home the prize for the Best Book.
Dear to Me, a collection of poetry edited by Auckland Girls’ Grammar School for Amnesty International, won the award for Best Non-Illustrated book.
The highly-anticipated Children’s Book category was won by The King’s Bubbles, a favourite in the local children’s book awards scene this year.
Astronomy Aotearoa, created for the NCEA Level 1 Science curriculum, won the Best Educational Book category.
Accompanying Guy Somerset on the judging Panel were bookseller, Mark Fry and magazine publisher, Michael McHugh. Both are experienced book industry professionals, who found it a pleasure to rediscover books that had impressed them on first encounter over the past year.
2008 marks the first year the Book Publishers Association of New Zealand has filled the major sponsorship role of the awards.
OPPORTUNITY KNOCKS: Grimshaw Wins Montana Medal
Charlotte Grimshaw has proven that literary talent runs in families, by winning the Montana Medal for fiction or poetry for her short story collection, Opportunity.
The daughter of literary great, CK Stead, Charlotte Grimshaw’s winning book is an absorbing series of stories delving into a diverse range of lives which are all interlinked.
The award was accepted by her publisher, Harriet Allan at a gala awards ceremony held in Wellington’s Town Hall tonight. Charlotte Grimshaw is currently overseas.
She said, via her publisher, that she was pleased Opportunity had done well.
‘It’s a book centred on New Zealand, and it’s all about our New Zealand stories. Each story is written in the first person, and part of the point of the book is to describe and convey the unique New Zealand voice.’
This year’s Montana New Zealand Book Awards judges’, Lynn Freeman, David Elworthy and Tim Corballis said Opportunity was a clear winner for the breadth and ambition of its design, the layers of its meaning, and the multiplicity of reading experiences it affords.
‘By turns touching, funny, dark, and redemptive, this is a book for reading through then re-reading in a different order, for following clues, for setting aside and thinking about, and for getting lost in.’
Charlotte Grimshaw also took the BPANZ Reviewer of the Year Award at tonight’s ceremony.
Janet Hunt has won the 2008 Montana Medal for Non-fiction for a book that evokes both national celebration and sorrow; the story of our wetlands.
Wetlands of New Zealand – A Bitter-Sweet Story, written over many years and designed by the author herself, is a stunning and touching insight into these beautiful (and broken) eco-systems and their inhabitants.
Judges’ convenor, Lynn Freeman said while all the category winning titles exemplified excellence in their fields, their decision to name the overall Non-fiction winner was made in a heartbeat.
‘The very best Non-fiction is a delicate balance of facts and research, and a sense of the writer and their passion for their subject. When the story told also brings to our attention as a nation, something significant that has been overlooked, we really can’t ask for more.
‘Janet Hunt’s Wetlands of New Zealand has achieved all of these things, and many readers, we are sure, will feel galvanised to explore these revealed mysteries for themselves.’
The winners of the country’s most prestigious awards for contemporary writing were chosen from more than 220 books submitted.
The complete list of 2008 Montana New Zealand Book Awards winners is as follows:
Montana Medal for Fiction or Poetry winner and Fiction category winner:
Opportunity by Charlotte Grimshaw (Random House)
Fiction runner-up: Edwin & Matilda by Laurence Fearnley (Penguin Group (NZ))
Poetry winner: Cold Snack by Janet Charman (Auckland University Press)
Montana Medal for Non-Fiction winner and Environment category winner:
Wetlands of New Zealand – A bitter-sweet story by Janet Hunt (Random House NZ)
Biography winner: The Life and Times of James Walter Chapman-Taylor by Judy Siers (Millwood Heritage Productions Ltd)
History winner: Te Tau Ihu O Te Waka Volume II: Te Ara Hou – The New Society by Hilary and John Mitchell (Huia Publishers)
Reference and Anthology winner: A Nest of Singing Birds: 100 years of the New Zealand School Journal by Gregory O’Brien (Learning Media Ltd)
Lifestyle & Contemporary Culture winner: Mau Moko: The World of Māori Tattoo by Ngahuia Te Awekotuku with Linda Waimarie Nikora, Mohi Rua and Rolinda Karapu (Penguin Group (NZ))
Illustrative winner: Bill Hammond: Jingle Jangle Morning by Jennifer Hay, with Ron Brownson, Chris Knox and Laurence Aberhart, designed by Aaron Beehre (Christchurch Art Gallery)
Each category winner was presented with a prize of $5,000. The winners of the Montana Medal for Fiction or Poetry (formerly called the Deutz prize) and the Montana Medal for Non fiction were each presented with an additional prize of $10,000. The runner-up in the Fiction category received $2,500. The Readers’ Choice Award carries a monetary prize worth $1,000.
Māori Language Prize announced at Montana New Zealand Book Awards
A short story collection written in Te Reo Māori made history this year by winning the inaugural Māori Language Prize at the Montana New Zealand Book Awards. Editors Piripi Walker and Huriana Raven were presented with the $5,000 prize for their book Te Tū a Te Toka: He Ieretanga nō ngā Tai e Whā.
The judge of the award, Mr. Hone Apanui, says the winning book is ‘especially notable is the use of iwi vernacular, the keen observation and the turn of phrase, which rings clear and true in every piece of writing. How similar experiences can be told in a range of voices and appear fresh each time is remarkable.’
New Zealand Society of Authors (NZSA) Best First Book Awards
The Best First Book awards for Non-fiction, Poetry, and Fiction were established by the New Zealand Society of Authors with the aim of encouraging new writers and their publishers.
The NZSA Hubert Church Best First Book Award for Fiction goes to The Blue by Mary McCallum (Penguin Group (NZ))
The Blue also wins this years Reader’s Choice Award.
Ms Freeman says this book is such an accomplished piece of writing that it has also earned a place in the Fiction category shortlist this year.
‘We only rarely find a first-time novelist who can write with such precision, maturity and real emotional insight.’
Jessica Le Bas wins the NZSA Jessie Mackay Best First Book Award for Poetry for her collection, Incognito (Auckland University Press).
‘Incognito is a book whose poems are sensitive to rhythm as well as the play of words, and letters, on the page. Le Bas is willing to employ a range of forms and acknowledged influences to match the wide-ranging interest of her subject matter, and to allow a range of voices to speak through her work,’ says Ms Freeman.
The NZSA E.H. McCormick Best First Book Award for Non-Fiction goes to The Great Sacred Forest of Tāne – Te Wao Tapu Nui a Tane: A Natural Pre-History of Aotearoa New Zealand by Alan Clarke (Reed Publishing).
‘This study of the historical uses of New Zealand’s native flora is the culmination, one suspects, of a life’s work and deserves the highest praise,’ says Ms Freeman.
Each NZSA Best First Book Awards category winner receives $2,500.
Book Publishers Association (BPANZ) Reviewer and Review Page or Programme Awards
The BPANZ Review Awards recognise the vital importance of articulate, responsible, informed criticism in maintaining a healthy literary culture.
The judges this year were writer, critic and former BPANZ Review Awards winner, David Eggleton, and publisher, Elizabeth Caffin.
Charlotte Grimshaw won the BPANZ Reviewer of the Year award ahead of finalists, fellow New Zealand Listener writer’s Jolisa Gracewood and Paula Morris.
The judges said, Charlotte Grimshaw reviews with a distinctive and welcome rigour.
‘She refuses to condescend to either author or reader, and we were impressed by her understanding that good fiction always worries away at serious moral issues. In sum, she demonstrates the analytical ability to carefully unpack a book, to show us its heart — or lack of it.’
A special acknowledgment was given to Iain Sharp’s, ‘cleverly-worded, knowledgeable and consistently emotionally-engaged’ sequences of short writing in the Sunday Star-Times. And a further special acknowledgment for the best long review was given to Jolisa Gracewood’s ‘sympathetic treatment of Elizabeth Knox’s complex novel, Dreamquake’.
The BPANZ Reviewer of the Year receives a $1,000 prize.
The overall winner of the BPANZ Best Review Page or Programme Award goes to the New Zealand Listener.
The judges said they were especially impressed by the New Zealand Listener for its regular eight pages of quality reviewing, always artfully arranged and carefully selected so as to establish a sense of, not just what issues are important in a rapidly evolving cultural landscape, but also to invite the reader’s involvement.
‘In the New Zealand Listener, books matter and are seen to matter.’
Special acknowledgment went to The Sunday Star-Times ‘for the calibre of its reviewers and for the stylish layout of the particular book pages submitted, calculated to draw the mainstream browser in.’
Cold Snack Devoured by Judges To Take Top Poetry Award
Janet Charman has won the 2008 Montana New Zealand Book Awards poetry category in a tough contest, one that marked a bumper year for New Zealand poetry. Charman took the prize for her poetry collection Cold Snack.
The announcement made today takes place on Montana Poetry Day; a nationwide celebration of events featuring some of the country’s best and emerging poets.
There were 26 books submitted in the poetry category of this year’s Montana New Zealand Book Awards compared to 19 the year before.
Montana New Zealand Book Awards judges’ convenor, Lynn Freeman says poetry was without question one of the strongest categories in this year’s awards.
‘Choosing a winner was the occasion for the longest and most heated debate of this year’s meeting.’
‘Janet Charman’s work stood out for its highly economical writing, where words act as gestures, indicating with small movements things much larger than themselves’, says Ms Freeman.
‘Her off-hand, sometimes deceptively confessional tone belies the poems’ finely-worked structures and the careful precision of the language itself, often pared down into short lines of two or three words.
‘Her poems are accomplished, perceptive, humorous and generous.’
The West Auckland resident competed against poetry category finalists, A Long Girl Ago by Johanna Aitchison (Victoria University Press) and The Pop-Up Book of Invasions by Fiona Farrell (Auckland University Press) to take the prize.
Cold Snack is Janet Charman’s sixth collection of poetry. The former secondary school teacher and tutor at the University of Auckland now writes full time and is working on her seventh collection.
Published by Auckland University Press, Cold Snack will be judged alongside the winner of the Fiction category for the ultimate prize, the Montana Medal for Fiction or Poetry (formerly called the Deutz prize). The winner will be announced at the Montana New Zealand Book Awards ceremony and gala dinner at the Wellington Town Hall on Monday 21 July.
Non-fiction takes a bow in this year’s Montana New Zealand Book Awards Finalist line-up
The quality and scholarship of the non-fiction finalists are the stand outs among the more than 220 books entered in this year’s Montana New Zealand Book Awards.
In a joint statement announced today, the three 2008 Awards judges say the non-fiction categories in this year’s awards have been particularly strong, with our artists and cultural history having been particularly well served.
‘From inner city graffiti to the pristine peaks of the Southern Alps, from a remote nineteenth century whaling station to the impact on our wetlands of decades of use and abuse, from the recognition of ta moko to an insight into the work of one of our most reclusive artists...We have been impressed by the passion, dedication and expertise that have so clearly gone into the finalists’ publications,’ says the judging panel comprising arts critic and journalist Lynn Freeman, publisher David Elworthy and fiction writer Tim Corbalis.
Emerging writers dominate this year’s fiction and poetry finalist categories. Among them are debut novelist Mary McCallum with The Blue, Alice Tawhai with her second story collection, Luminous and Johanna Aitchison with her debut poetry collection, A Long Girl Ago.
‘The judges were attracted by the vivacity and assurance of the work coming from these relatively new writers. They each have a distinctive voice and something to say,’ says Ms Freeman.
Now in their 12th year, The Montana-sponsored awards have a strict set of guidelines. The judging panel takes into account enduring literary merit and overall authorship; quality of illustration and graphic presentation; production values; general design; the standard of editing and the impact of the book on the community.
The judging of New Zealand’s best books published during the 2007 calendar year is carried out across eight categories – Fiction, Poetry, Biography, History, Reference & Anthology, Environment, Illustrative, and Lifestyle & Contemporary Culture.
The full list of finalists in the 2008 Montana New Zealand Book Awards by category are:
Fiction:
The Blue by Mary McCallum (Penguin Group (NZ))
Edwin & Matilda by Laurence Fearnley (Penguin Group (NZ))
Luminous by Alice Tawhai (Huia Publishers)
Opportunity by Charlotte Grimshaw (Random House NZ)
Poetry:
Cold Snack by Janet Charman (Auckland University Press)
A Long Girl Ago by Johanna Aitchison (Victoria University Press)
The Pop-Up Book of Invasions by Fiona Farrell (Auckland University Press)
Biography:
The Best Man Who Ever Served the Crown? A Life of Donald McLean by Ray Fargher (Victoria University Press)
The Life and Times of James Walter Chapman-Taylor by Judy Siers (Millwood Heritage Productions Ltd)
Waimarino County & Other Excursions by Martin Edmond (Auckland University Press)
History:
Age of Enterprise: Rediscovering the New Zealand Entrepreneur 1881-1910 by Ian Hunter (Auckland University Press)
Devils on Horses by Terry Kinloch (Exisle Publishing)
Te Tau Ihu o Te Waka Volume II: Te Ara Hou - The New Society by Hilary and John Mitchell (Huia Publishers)
Environment:
Southern Alps by Alison Ballance (Random House NZ)
The Surface of the Sea: Encounters with New Zealand's Upper Ocean Life by Iain Anderson (Raupo Publishing)
Wetlands of New Zealand by Janet Hunt (Random House NZ)
Illustrative:
Aberhart by Laurence Aberhart, with essays by Gregory O'Brien and Justin Paton (Victoria University Press)
Bill Hammond: Jingle Jangle Morning by Jennifer Hay, with Ron Brownson, Chris Knox
and Laurence Aberhart; designed by Aaron Beehre (Christchurch Art Gallery)
Comma dot dogma edited by Aaron Kreisler (Umbrella)
Lifestyle and Contemporary Culture:
InForm: New Zealand Graffiti Artists Discuss Their Work by Elliot O’Donnell (Raupo Publishing)
Mau Moko: The World of Māori Tattoo by Ngahuia Te Awekotuku (Penguin Group (NZ))
Shot In New Zealand: The art and craft of the Kiwi cinematographer by Duncan Petrie (Random House NZ)
Reference and Anthology:
Look This Way: New Zealand Writers on New Zealand Artists edited by Sally Blundell (Auckland University Press)
A Nest of Singing Birds: 100 years of the New Zealand School Journal by Gregory O’Brien (Learning Media Limited)
The Transit of Venus edited by Mary Varnham (Awa Press)
The winner in each category receives a prize of $5,000. Each category winner is eligible for the Montana Medal for non fiction or the Montana Medal for poetry or fiction, both of which carry a prize of $10,000.
The winners will be announced at a gala dinner to be held at the Wellington Town Hall on Monday, 21 July 2008.
The winners of the New Zealand Society of Authors (NZSA) Best First Book Awards will be announced at this ceremony. There are no finalists in these categories this year.
The principal sponsors of the Montana New Zealand Book Awards are Montana and Creative New Zealand. The awards are managed by Booksellers New Zealand and supported by Book Publishers Association of New Zealand, the New Zealand Society of Authors and Book Tokens (NZ) Ltd.
The winner of the poetry category will be announced on Montana Poetry Day on Friday 18 July 2008.
Award winning broadcaster leads Montana New Zealand Book Awards judging panel
Award winning broadcaster Lynn Freeman is the convenor of the 2008 Montana New Zealand Book Awards judging panel.
Freeman is joined by David Elworthy and Tim Corballis.
Freeman, hosts Radio New Zealand National’s The Arts on Sunday show and fills in on Nine to Noon when the main presenter is away, is a theatre critic and a Chapman Tripp Theatre Awards judge. She is also on the board of the Playwriting agency, Playmarket and served on the panel selecting the Arts Foundation of New Zealand Arts Laureates. She resides in Wellington.
Christchurch based David Elworthy, a veteran in the publishing industry, started his career as a New Zealand diplomat with postings in both London and New Delhi. He then joined A.H. & A.W. Reed as an editor, eventually becoming their Editorial Director. He then became the Publishing Director for Collins for 10 years before he and his wife Ros Henry founded Shoal Bay Press, which they ran successfully for 20 years before selling to Longacre Press.
Wellington writer Tim Corballis, brings a young voice to the judging panel.
In 2005/2006 he spent a year in Berlin as the Creative New Zealand Berlin Writer in Residence. In 2002 he was the Randell Cottage Writer in Residence and in 2000 he was awarded the Adam Foundation Prize and a Modern Letters Fellowship for his work towards an MA in Creative Writing at Victoria University in Wellington.
All three judges are looking forward to the challenge of judging.
“As judges, it is our privilege—and our challenge—to engage thoroughly with the full breadth of a year’s writing”.
“We are all anticipating – and looking forward to – many a robust round table discussion over the next few months, as we hone down the pleasingly extensive list of eligible books.”
The judges are very aware of the task ahead of them and the impact their choices will have on the reading public.
“Looking back on the first 12 years of the Montana New Zealand Book Awards, one is struck first by the quality of the work submitted by New Zealand
authors and publishers, and secondly by the increasing impact of the
Awards on the New Zealand scene. Betting on the Awards may not yet have been taken up by the TAB, but book sales, let alone the interest expressed by the general media, reflect the keen interest of the New Zealand public,” the judges said.
The judging of New Zealand’s best books published during the 2007 calendar year is carried out across eight categories – Fiction, Poetry, Biography, History, Reference & Anthology, Environment, Illustrative, and Lifestyle & Contemporary Culture – and follows strict guidelines.
This is the 12th year of the Montana New Zealand Book Awards. Judges take into account enduring literary merit and overall authorship; quality of illustration and graphic presentation; production values, general design and the standard of editing and the impact of the book on the community, with emphasis on issues such as topicality, public interest, commercial viability, entertainment, cultural and educational values and lifespan of the book.
Each category has a specialist advisor to assist the judging panel. This year’s advisors also boast strong writing and publishing credentials:
Fiction – Diane Brown is a poet, novelist and memoirist, and the co-ordinator and tutor for the Aoraki Polytechnic Creative Writing Course in Dunedin. Her publications include the collections of poetry Before The Divorce We Go To Disneyland, (winner of the NZSA Best First Book of Poetry at the Montana New Zealand Book Awards 1997); Learning to Lie Together, novels If The Tongue Fits, and Eight Stages of Grace, travel memoirs Liars and Lovers and Here Comes Another Vital Moment. She is currently writing a novel, Hooked.
Poetry – Anna Jackson lectures in English and American literature at Victoria University of Wellington. She has published four books of poetry with Auckland University Press, most recently The Gas Leak. She lives in Island Bay with her jeweller husband Simon Edmonds, and children Johnny (13) and Elvira (11).
History – Jock Phillips is General Editor of Te Ara, the Online Encyclopedia of New Zealand. Previously New Zealand’s Chief Historian, he was also the founding Director of the Stout Research Centre for the study of New Zealand society, history and culture. His ten published books on New Zealand history include collections on the major Maori tribes of New Zealand, and on the settler and immigrant peoples of New Zealand. He is just completing a book on the history of British immigration to New Zealand.
Biography – Julia Millen is a biographer, historian and fiction writer whose works include biographies of New Zealand novelists Guthrie Wilson and Ronald Hugh Morrieson. Her social history works include: Kirkcaldie & Stains and Bell Gully Buddle Weir; about the department store and the legal firm respectively, Salute to Service, on the RNZ Corps of Transport; and Breaking Barriers, on IHC New Zealand. She has an honours degree in music, has compiled and presented programmes for Radio New Zealand Concert and was librettist for two New Zealand operas.
Reference and Anthology – Margie Thomson was a journalist for more than 20 years, working on a variety of publications but mainly for the New Zealand Herald where she wrote features before becoming the Books Editor. Over the past 10 years she has edited books pages for Canvas, Herald on Sunday and Next magazine. Last year she left the media to take up a position as the Books Promotions Manager for Whitcoulls.
Environment – Simon Nathan is an earth scientist, with a long standing interest in environmental history. He has written biographical accounts of several New Zealand scientists, most recently Harold Wellman: a man who moved New Zealand. For the last four years Simon has been Science Editor of Te Ara: Encyclopedia of New Zealand which launched "The Bush" theme in 2007, dealing with New Zealand's natural environment.
Lifestyle and contemporary culture – Ann Packer is a freelance writer who last year won the Montana New Zealand Book Awards Lifestyle and Contemporary Culture category with Stitch, featuring New Zealand textile artists. She lives in Eastbourne and walks to Days Bay each morning before starting work on subjects as diverse as children’s books, homes, gardens, arts, travel and visiting authors. Ann has raised three children and worked as a community arts advisor, International Festival administrator and teacher.
Illustrative – Artist Dick Frizzell, having worked as an animator, commercial artist and illustrator, has no qualms about blurring the categories between his commercial work and art. His paintings are often a pastiche of images drawing on modern art and graphic design. In 2005 Frizzell was invited on the Antarctic artist programme. Frizzell’s works are held in major public and corporate collections and his 1997 retrospective exhibition, Dick Frizzell: Portrait of a Serious Artiste, toured major public art galleries of New Zealand.
(Courtesy Gow Langsford Gallery)
The winner in each category receives a prize of $5,000. Each category winner is eligible for the Montana Medal for non fiction or poetry/fiction, both of which carry a prize of $10,000.
The finalists across all categories will be announced on Tuesday 10 June.
The winner of the poetry category will be announced on Montana Poetry Day on Friday 18 July. All other winners will be advised at the awards ceremony in Wellington on Monday 21 July 2008.
The principal sponsors of the Montana New Zealand Book Awards are Montana and Creative New Zealand. The awards are managed by Booksellers New Zealand and supported by Book Publishers Association of New Zealand, the New Zealand Society of Authors and Book Tokens (NZ) Ltd.
Lifetime’s Work Wins Top Book Award
Eagle’s Complete Trees and Shrubs of New Zealand, a book that took author and painter, Audrey Eagle more than 50 years to complete, is the winner of the 2007 Montana Medal for non fiction.
The two-volume work contains more than 800 hand painted plates; images of every single New Zealand tree and shrub, some of which are now extinct.
2007 Montana New Zealand Book Awards judges, Dr Paul Millar, David Larsen and Morrin Rout say the monumental work is a magnificent tribute to Audrey Eagle’s vision, perseverance and consummate skill as a botanical artist.
‘Audrey Eagle has devoted her life to the painstaking work of classifying and illustrating New Zealand flora. The product…is a book that will be treasured and utilised for generations.’
Lloyd Jones wins the 2007 Montana Medal for fiction or poetry with his universally acclaimed novel, Mister Pip.
The win completes a stunning run for Jones, who was awarded the 2007 Commonwealth Writers’ Prize earlier this year.
Judges’ convenor, Dr Paul Millar says Mister Pip is Lloyd Jones’ most significant book yet.
‘It develops certain key themes from earlier novels—history’s equivocal truths, the vulnerability and strength of children— into an extraordinary claim for the power for literature to define, rescue, inspire and create, even across cultural boundaries.’
Mister Pip is also the clear winner of this year’s Reader’s Choice Award.
The Montana New Zealand Book Awards, this country’s most prestigious awards for contemporary writing, were presented at a gala awards ceremony at Sky City in Auckland tonight.
The judging panel said the best books in this year’s awards speak to almost every facet of our lives: art, fauna, flora, food, music, history, industry and politics are just a few of many subjects covered by this year’s entries.
‘Not long ago the doomsayers of the digital age predicted the demise of the book. We salute the New Zealand publishing industry for answering them in the best way possible; by producing year-by-year more books, better books, and bigger books. ‘
The complete list of 2007 Montana New Zealand Book Awards winners is as follows:
Montana Medal for Fiction or Poetry winner and fiction category winner:
Mister Pip by Lloyd Jones (Penguin Books)
Fiction runners up: The Cowboy Dog by Nigel Cox (Victoria University Press)
The Fainter by Damien Wilkins (Victoria University Press)
Poetry winner: The Goose Bath by Janet Frame (Vintage)
Montana Medal for Non-Fiction winner and illustrative category winner:
Eagle’s Complete Trees and Shrubs of New Zealand by Audrey Eagle (Te Papa Press)
Biography winner: Douglas Lilburn: His Life and Music by Philip Norman (Canterbury University Press)
History winner: Vaka Moana: Voyages of the Ancestors Edited by K R Howe (David Bateman Ltd)
Reference and Anthology winner: Furniture of the New Zealand Colonial Era: An Illustrated History 1830-1900 by William Cottrell (Reed Publishing)
Lifestyle & Contemporary Culture winner: Stitch: Contemporary New Zealand Textile Artists by Ann Packer (Random House)
Environment winner: Ghosts of Gondwana: The History of Life in New Zealand by George Gibbs (Craig Potton Publishing)
Each category winner was presented with a prize of $5,000. The winners of the Montana Medal for fiction or poetry (formerly called the Deutz prize) and the Montana Medal for non fiction were each presented with an additional prize of $10,000. The runners-up in the Fiction category each received $2,500. The Readers’ Choice Award carries a monetary prize worth $1,000.
New Zealand Society of Authors (NZSA) Best First Book Awards
The best first book awards for non-fiction, poetry, and fiction were established by the New Zealand Society of Authors with the aim of encouraging new writers and their publishers.
The NZSA Hubert Church Best First Book Award for Fiction goes to The Sound of Butterflies by Rachael King (Black Swan).
‘Rachael King’s strength is her rich, lush and sensuous prose; she has a forte for depicting characters we feel compelled to empathise with,’ says Dr Millar.
Airini Beautrais wins the NZSA Jessie Mackay Best First Book Award for Poetry for her collection, Secret Heart (Victoria University Press).
Poetry category advisor, Dr John Newton describes Beautrais’ book as extremely well-conceived: a decisive choice of form perfectly matched to an original choice of content.
The NZSA E.H. McCormick Best First Book Award for Non- Fiction goes to William Cottrell for Furniture of the New Zealand Colonial Era: An Illustrated History 1830-1900 (Reed Publishing).
Reference category advisor, Peter Simpson says the expertise of the author and his passion for his subject are manifested on every page. ‘A prodigious achievement.’
Book Publishers Association (BPANZ) Reviewer and Review Page or Programme Awards
The BPANZ Review Awards recognise the vital importance of articulate, responsible, informed criticism in maintaining a healthy literary culture.
The judges this year were arts journalist and critic, Lynn Freeman and Auckland Writers’ and Readers’ Festival director, Jill Rawnsley
The BPANZ Reviewer of the Year winner is David Eggleton.
The BPANZ Review Awards judges say David Eggleton’s reviews stand out in part due to his own virtuosity with the written word. ‘His reviews are consistently a serious exploration of the book in question. And he is a master of scorpion-tailed last lines.’
The winner of the Best Review Page or Programme Award goes to The New Zealand Listener.
‘This publication continues to champion authors, particularly New Zealand writers, by offering generous column inches to book reviews and author interviews, and by sourcing robust, opinionated reviewers, many of them writers themselves,’ the judges said.
The principal sponsors of the Montana New Zealand Book Awards are Montana and Creative New Zealand. The awards are managed by Booksellers New Zealand and supported by the Book Publishers Association of New Zealand, the New Zealand Society of Authors and Book Tokens (NZ) Ltd.
Iconic Writer a Montana New Zealand Book Awards finalist
A poetry collection by one of the nation’s most renowned authors, Janet Frame, is a finalist in this year’s Montana New Zealand Book Awards.
Published posthumously, The Goose Bath is Frame’s first new title in almost 20 years. She died in January 2004.
Montana New Zealand Book Awards judges’ convenor, Dr Paul Millar says running through the poems [in The Goose Bath] is a personal and domesticated tone—reminiscent of the intimate voice of Frame’s autobiographies—that subtly conceals the operation of her powerful literary intelligence.
‘As with all Frame’s writing the memorable elements of The Goose Bath are those unexpected encounters with language that surprise and delight.’
There were more than 220 books submitted to the Montana New Zealand Book Awards this year with some 26 finalists announced.
Dr Millar says the judges found the finalists in the non-fiction categories to be exceptionally strong, with a number of books representing the culmination of a lifetime of creativity and dedication.
‘Many of these books are publications of great beauty and significance that focus in original ways on New Zealand’s uniqueness and diversity.’
Literary non-fiction as an emerging genre can also be seen in this year’s Montana New Zealand Book Awards finalists.
‘Many of the books entered in the 2007 Montana New Zealand Book Awards challenged the judges by stretching the boundaries of conventional categories,’ says Dr Millar.
Dr Millar is referring to Chris Price’s Brief Lives which is a finalist in the biography category and Martin Edmond’s Luca Antara: Passages in Search of Australia which is a finalist in the history category.
The judging of New Zealand’s best books published during the 2006 calendar year is carried out across eight categories – Fiction, Poetry, Biography, History, Reference & Anthology, Environment, Illustrative, and Lifestyle & Contemporary Culture.
The full list of finalists in the 2007 Montana New Zealand Book Awards by category are:
Fiction
The Cowboy Dog by Nigel Cox (Victoria University Press)
Mister Pip by Lloyd Jones (Penguin Books)
My Name Was Judas by C K Stead (Vintage)
Ocean Road by James George (Huia Publishers)
The Fainter by Damien Wilkins (Victoria University Press)
Poetry
One Shapely Thing: Poems and Journals by Dinah Hawken (Victoria University Press)
The Goose Bath by Janet Frame (Vintage)
The Year of the Bicycle by James Brown (Victoria University Press)
Biography
A Life of J C Beaglehole, New Zealand Scholar by Tim Beaglehole (Victoria University Press)
Brief Lives by Chris Price (Auckland University Press)
Douglas Lilburn: His Life and Music by Philip Norman (Canterbury University Press)
History
Chiefs of Industry:Māori Tribal Enterprise in Early Colonial New Zealand by Hazel Petrie (Auckland University Press)
Luca Antara: Passages in Search of Australia by Martin Edmond (East Street Publications)
Vaka Moana – Voyages of the Ancestors edited by K. R. Howe (David Bateman Ltd)
Environment
Extinct Birds of New Zealand by Alan Tennyson and Paul Martinson (Te Papa Press)
Ghosts of Gondwana: The History of Life in New Zealand by George Gibbs (Craig Potton Publishing)
New Zealand: A Natural World Revealed by Tui De Roy and Mark Jones (David Bateman Ltd)
Illustrative
Eagle’s Complete Trees and Shrubs of New Zealand by Audrey Eagle (Te Papa Press)
Julia Morison: a loop around a loop by Justin Paton with essays by Jennifer Hay and Anna Smith (Christchurch Art Gallery and Dunedin Public Art Gallery)
Lake of Coal: The Disappearance of a Mining Township by David Cook (Craig Potton Publishing and Ramp Press)
Lifestyle and Contemporary Culture
Crown Lynn : A New Zealand Icon by Valerie Ringer Monk (Penguin Books)
Kāhui Whetū: Contemporary Māori Art – A Carver’s Perspective by Roi Toia and Todd Couper (Reed Publishing)
Stitch: Contemporary New Zealand Textile Artists by Ann Packer (Random House)
Reference and Anthology
An Illustrated Guide to New Zealand Hebes by Michael Bayly and Alison Kellow (Te Papa Press)
Furniture of the New Zealand Colonial Era: An Illustrated History 1830- 1900 by William Cottrell (Reed Publishing)
Tirohia Kimihia: A Māori Learner Dictionary by Huia Publishers (Ministry of Education)
The winner in each category receives a prize of $5,000. Each category winner is eligible for the Montana Medal for non-fiction or poetry or fiction, both of which carry a prize of $10,000.
The New Zealand Society of Authors (NZSA) Best First Book Awards. There are three categories and this year, for the first time, the finalists of these three categories are announced today together with the Montana New Zealand Book Awards category finalists.
The finalists for the NZSA Best First Book Awards are:
Fiction
Davey Darling by Paul Shannon (Penguin Books)
Overdue New Releases by Matt Johnson (Urban by Longacre Press)
The Sound of Butterflies by Rachael King (Black Swan)
Poetry
After the Dance by Michele Amas (Victoria University Press)
Cup by Alison Wong (Steele Roberts)
Secret Heart by Airini Beautrais (Victoria University Press)
Non-fiction
An Illustrated Guide to New Zealand Hebes by Michael Bayly and Alison Kellow (Te Papa Press)
Douglas Lilburn: His Life and Music by Philip Norman (Canterbury University Press)
Furniture of the New Zealand Colonial Era: An Illustrated History 1830- 1900 by William Cottrell (Reed Publishing)
Each NZSA Best First Book Awards category winner receives $2,500.
The principal sponsors of the Montana New Zealand Book Awards are Montana and Creative New Zealand. The awards are managed by Booksellers New Zealand and supported by Book Publishers Association of New Zealand, the New Zealand Society of Authors and Book Tokens (NZ) Ltd.
The winner of the poetry category will be announced on Montana Poetry Day on Friday 27 July 2007.
All other winners including the BPANZ Review Awards will be advised at a gala dinner to be held at Sky City in Auckland on Monday 30 July 2007.
2007 Montana New Zealand Book Awards Finalists’ biographical information
Fiction
The Cowboy Dog
Nigel Cox
Victoria University Press
Paperback $29.95
Nigel Cox was born in 1951 in Pahiatua and grew up in Masterton and the Hutt Valley. His early working life reads like an author trying to find his way: advertising account executive, assembly line worker at Ford, deck hand, coalman, door-to-door turkey salesman, driver. Later he worked as a bookseller and as Senior Writer at Te Papa. With fellow New Zealander Ken Gorbey he led the project team that created the Jewish Museum Berlin.
He published five novels including Tarzan Presley and Responsibility, both named as runners-up in the Montana New Zealand Book Awards. The Cowboy Dog was completed in the weeks before Nigel died in July 2006.
Chester Farlowe was 12 when the coward Stronson shot his daddy down. Chester left the vast cattle ranches of New Zealand’s central Volcanic Plateau for the badlands of urban Auckland. Now, six years later, he is back and looking for revenge. Stronson is waiting, and there must be a showdown.
The Fainter
Damien Wilkins
Victoria University Press
Paperback $29.95
The Fainter is Damien Wilkins’ fifth novel. His other books include the New Zealand Book Award-winning The Miserables, and Little Masters, which was named by critic Patrick Evans as ‘the most substantial work of fiction yet produced in this country.’
He lives in Wellington, where he teaches at the International Institute of Modern Letters, Victoria University.
Luke is a young diplomat in New York. When he witnesses a crime, the fallout from which threatens everything, his childhood fainting spells return and he finds himself back in New Zealand, living on his sister’s farm. Luke has been asked the most testing questions about himself, and these questions will return with a new and surprising urgency.
Mister Pip
Lloyd Jones
Penguin Books
Paperback $35.00
Lloyd Jones is an award-winning and critically-acclaimed author. Mr Pip has received universal critical acclaim and is being published world-wide. His novel The Book of Fame (2000) won the Deutz Medal for Fiction at the 2001 Montana Book Awards and the Tasmania Pacific Fiction Prize in 2003, and was longlisted for the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award in 2003.
His novel, Here at the End of the World We Learn to Dance, was joint runner-up of the Deutz Medal for Fiction at the 2002 Montana Book Awards. It was co-published in Australia by Penguin Books.
Lloyd Jones’s other books include the controversial Biografi (1993), a travel book set in Albania in the aftermath of Communism. Biografi was judged one of the best books of the year in 1993 by the New York Times. His collection of short stories, Swimming to Australia (1991), was shortlisted for the New Zealand Book Awards. Choo Woo (1998), a dark and disturbing novel on the subject of child abuse, was published in New Zealand and Australia.
Lloyd Jones lives in Wellington and publishes essays by New Zealand writers under his imprint the Four Winds Press.
While civil war is raging on the small island of Bougainville, Mr Watts, the only white man on the island, re-opens the school for the local children and starts to read them Great Expectations. But reality and fiction are tragically mixed when the rebel soldiers try to find the mysterious Mister Pip that the students are talking about.
My Name Was Judas
C. K. Stead
Vintage
Paperback $27.99
C.K. Stead was Professor of English at the University of Auckland until 1986. In addition to many prizes and shortlistings for major awards, he was awarded the CBE for services to New Zealand literature in 1984. He has published ten volumes of poetry, two volumes of stories and several works of criticism, and edited the Penguin Modern Classics Letters and the Journals of Katherine Mansfield. This is his eleventh novel.
A witty, original and teasingly controversial version of the gospel story according to Judas. Stead’s Judas lived into old age, from which he recounts his story. It is a story of friendship and rivalry, of a time of uncertainty and enquiry, and of challenges to belief, endurance and loyalty.
Ocean Roads
James George
Huia Publishers
Paperback $27.99
James George is a critically acclaimed author of Ngāpuhi and English descent. Ocean Roads, his third novel was short listed in 2004 for the Montana Book Awards and later the Tasmanian Fiction Prize. George’s first novel was Wooden Horses, published in 2000. In 2001 he won the best story award in the Huia/Māori Literature Awards.
He is the current chair of Te Ha, the Literature Committee of Toi Māori Aotearoa − the Māori Arts Council. He lives in Auckland with his partner.
Three generations of a family have been scarred by war - the horror of the first nuclear detonation, of Nagasaki, of Vietnam. Although hostilities end, an internal war carries on for the former combatants until love starts to grow out of the detritus of conflict, and with it the possibilities of trust.
Poetry
The Goose Bath
Janet Frame
Vintage
Hardback $39.99
Janet Frame was born in Dunedin in 1924. She is the author of eleven novels, five collections of stories, a volume of poetry, a children's book and a three-volumed autobiography. She was a Burns Scholar and a Sargeson Fellow and won the New Zealand Scholarship in Letters and the Hubert Church Award for Prose. She was made a CBE in 1983 for services to literature, awarded an honorary doctorate of literature from Otago University in 1978, and one from Waikato University in 1992. She received New Zealand's highest civil honour in 1990 when she was made a Member of the Order of New Zealand. Janet Frame died in January 2004.
This selection of poems, left by Janet Frame after her death, reveals her love for 'the sweet daily bread of language', for cats, the seasons, the arts and for this country. There are love poems, meditations on mortality, flashes of humour, startling imagery and the celebration of the human imagination.
One Shapely Thing
Dinah Hawken
Victoria University Press
Paperback $29.95
Dinah Hawken was born in Hawera in 1943 and now lives in Wellington. She trained as a physiotherapist, psychotherapist and social worker in New Zealand and the United States and has worked as a student counsellor at Victoria University.
She is the author of four previous books - It Has No Sound and Is Blue, which won the 1987 Commonwealth Poetry Prize for ‘Best First Time Published Poet’, Small Stories of Devotion, Water, Leaves, Stones and her most recent book, Oh There You Are Tui (2001) which collects the majority of the poems from her earlier books along with a substantial group of new poems.
Combining some superb new poems with two prose journals covering the months after 9/11, One Shapely Thing draws together in fascinating new ways Dinah Hawken’s characteristic themes of personal responsibility and social justice, and of living in and with the natural world.
The Year of the Bicycle
James Brown
Victoria University Press
Paperback $24.95
James Brown’s first collection of poems, Go Round Power Please, won Best First Book in the 1996 Montana New Zealand Book Awards. The Year of the Bicycle is his fourth. He has been awarded the Louis Johnson New Writers Bursary, the University of Canterbury Writing Fellowship, and the Sargeson Fellowship.
His poems have been widely published in magazines in both New Zealand and Australia. He is a past winner of the Takahe Poetry Competition and a former Editor of the literary magazine Sport.
He lives in Wellington with his partner and two daughters.
In the Year of the Bicycle, James Brown cycled to the International Institute of Modern Letters every morning to work as the Victoria University Writer in Residence, and in the weekends took to the hills. These exuberant, intelligent poems are the result.
Biography
Brief Lives
Chris Price
Auckland University Press
Paperback $27.99
Chris Price’s first solo poetry collection, Husk, was a top 10 bestseller and won the Jessie Mackay award for best first book of poetry at the 2002 Montana New Zealand Book Awards.
She was, for many years, the co-ordinator of a major international literary event, the Writers and Readers Week, for the New Zealand Festival of the Arts in Wellington. Chris Price now convenes the undergraduate poetry workshop and manages the on-line journal, Turbine at the International Institute of Modern Letters at Victoria University of Wellington.
Chris Price has an MA in English and German from the University of Auckland, and an MA in Creative Writing from Victoria University of Wellington. She has worked as an in-house editor in trade publishing for Reed Publishing, and also edited New Zealand's longest-running literary magazine, Landfall, from 1993 to 2000.
Chris lives in Wellington, and occasionally plays percussion in an improvisational acoustic music line-up called "Waiting for Donald". She has been widely published in literary journals.
Brief Lives is an eccentric collection of biographical pieces and fictional reflections in which famous figures such as Goethe, Petrarch and Antonin Artaud rub shoulders with impecunious aristocrats, actors and art historians as well as a range of fictional characters caught amid the daily chaos of their lives.
Douglas Lilburn: His Life and Music
Philip Norman
Canterbury University Press
Hardback $55.00
Philip Norman is a composer and musicologist who has worked as a full-time freelance musician and composer since 1978.
His many compositions (numbering close to 200) have been performed by a cross section of the major New Zealand performing arts organisations.
He gained a PhD in 1984 from University of Canterbury, with his thesis on Douglas Lilburn’s music forming the basis of his biography Douglas Lilburn: His Life and Music. He is currently the Ursula Bethell Writer in Residence at the University of Canterbury, the first non-fiction writer to be offered this position. He is working on a biography of New Zealand composers born after Lilburn.
Philip lives in Christchurch with his wife, Alison, their four children, and an array of pets.
This twenty-one-chapter salute to ‘the father of New Zealand composition’ offers fascinating insights into the world of this country’s music, literature and fine art through the eyes and ears of one of our most creative sons, Douglas Lilburn.
A Life of J. C. Beaglehole, New Zealand Scholar
Tim Beaglehole
Victoria University Press
Hardback $69.95
Tim Beaglehole is Emeritus Professor at Victoria University, and currently the university’s Chancellor.
J.C. Beaglehole became one of New Zealand’s greatest scholars, recognised particularly for his work on James Cook. Drawing on J.C. Beaglehole’s own writing, especially his sparkling unpublished letters, the author has woven together all the aspects of his father’s life into an immensely readable narrative.
History
Chiefs of Industry: Māori Tribal Enterprise in Early Colonial New Zealand
Hazel Petrie
Auckland University Press
Paperback $50.00
Born in England but raised in New Zealand, Hazel Petrie has a BA in History and Maori Studies, an MA in History and PhD in Maori Studies from The University of Auckland.
Currently a Post-Doctoral Fellow in the Mira Szaszy Research Centre for Maori and Pacific Economic Development at The University of Auckland, Dr Petrie’s research interests include New Zealand and Pacific history, British history (especially 19th century social history), Maori society, oral traditions and language. Over the last 10 years she has focussed particularly on Maori economic history; Pakeha representations of a Maori work ethic and history of Northland.
For six years, she was involved in the ‘Kimihea to Mea Ngaro’ project concerning 19th-century Maori newspapers. Her work here inspired her PhD thesis and then her book Chiefs of Industry: Maori Tribal Enterprise in Early Colonial New Zealand.
She has contributed chapters to the books Rere Atu Taku Manu: Discovering History, Language and Politics in the Maori Language Newspapers, 1842 – 1933 and City of Enterprise: Perspectives on Auckland’s Business History, and has also written or delivered academic papers on related topics.
Dr Petrie is married to a Te Rarawa businessman and has two adult sons.
This fascinating book explores the entrepreneurial activity of Māori in the early colonial period. Hazel Petrie shows how quickly and effectively Māori society adapted to accommodate and develop capital-intensive enterprises, harnessing tribal ownership, existing skills and a keen eye for commercial advantage.
Luca Antara: Passages in search of Australia
Martin Edmond
East Street Publications
Paperback $39.99
Martin Edmond grew up in a remote mountain village in New Zealand’s King Country. After university he joined avant theatre troupe, Red Mole, touring extensively and internationally in the late 1970s. Since 1981 he has lived in Sydney, working as an author and a screenwriter. He has written the feature films Illustrious Energy and Terra Nova; his books include The Autobiography of my Father, The Resurrection of Philip Clairmont and Chronicle of the Unsung, which won the Biography Award at the 2005 Montana Book Awards.
Luca Antara combines imaginative history with contemporary chronicle, as the author attempts to relate his own present to the collective past. It's a quest that ranges round the world and deep in time but always returns to the here and now in Sydney, Australia.
Vaka Moana: Voyages of the Ancestors
Edited by K. R. Howe
David Bateman Ltd
Hardback $89.99
Kerry Howe is Professor of History, Massey University,. His research interests are culture contact in the Pacific Islands (including Australasia) as well as related social and intellectual history.
He has written eight books including Where the Waves Fall (1984); (co-editor) Tides of History (1994); Nature. Culture and History: The Knowing of Oceania (2000); and The Quest for Origins. Who First Discovered and Settled New Zealand and the Pacific Islands (2003).
Kerry Howe curated the Vaka Moana exhibition at Auckland Museum.
The most comprehensive and complete account yet of those ancient seafearers who developed the world’s first ocean-going vessels – and the advanced navigational systems to guide them – and discovered the last habitable lands on earth, the islands of the mighty Pacific Ocean.
Reference & Anthology
An Illustrated Guide to New Zealand Hebes
Michael Bayly & Alison Kellow
Te Papa Press
Hardback $99.99
Mike Bayly and Alison Kellow both completed honours degrees in botany at The University of Melbourne. Mike later obtained a Ph.D. in plant systematics from the same institution, and Alison obtained a Graduate Diploma in environmental science from Monash University, and a Ph.D. in agriculture and natural resource sciences from The University of Adelaide. Work toward this book was done while both Mike and Alison were employed as Research Scientists at the Museum of New Zealand. Together they have written many scientific papers on the classification and evolution of Hebe. They are married and currently live in Melbourne with their daughter Frances.
Hebes are remarkable for their ecological diversity, inhabiting wild places from coastal rocks to the high alps and taking many varied and striking forms. This book is the most comprehensive guide yet to the identification, classification, and biology of this beloved New Zealand genus.
Furniture of the New Zealand Colonial Era: An Illustrated History 1830 - 1900
William Cottrell
Reed Publishing
Hardback $150.00
William Cottrell is one of New Zealand’s leading antique restorers. After working as a television editor, he trained in furniture restoration in the UK, established a leading restoration business in Auckland, and now continues the business from his historic home in Glenroy, Canterbury. Furniture of the New Zealand Colonial Era is the result of 15 years of research.
A definitive, lavishly illustrated social history of furniture, interiors and the cabinetmaking industry of nineteenth-century New Zealand. The book examines in detail early settlement, imported furnishings, campaign furniture, New Zealand timbers, the birth of a local cabinetmaking industry, the major furniture makers, New Zealand design and the great exhibitions.
Tirohia Kimihia: A Māori Learner Dictionary
Huia Publishers
Ministry of Education
Paperback $24.99
Huia is an award winning, independent publisher which, for more than 15 years has been committed to producing quality books, describing the diverse range of Māori perspectives; telling stories that no one else is telling, saying things that are not being said.
Huia is committed to publishing Māori perspectives within a Pacific and indigenous framework.
Ko Tirohia Kimihia te papakupu tuatahi kua tuhia ki te reo Māori anake mā ngā tamariki.
A long-awaited dictionary with headwords, definitions, synonyms, and passives wholly in te reo Māori, Tirohia Kimihia will be welcomed by both fluent speakers and learners of te reo Māori.
Lifestyle & Contemporary Culture
Crown Lynn: A New Zealand Icon
Valerie Ringer Monk
Penguin Books
Paperback $45.00
Valerie Ringer Monk first developed an interest in Crown Lynn over a decade ago, when she began picking up odd plates and brown 1970s mugs in second-hand shops. The retro patterns and colours appealed, as did the 50-cent price tags. As her Crown Lynn collection grew, so did her desire to write the story of the people who made it and the factory it came from. A journalist and public relations professional, Valerie lives in Auckland.
By 1970 Crown Lynn was the biggest pottery in the southern hemisphere, with 500 staff turning out 15 million pieces of china each year until the factory was shut down in 1989. The Crown Lynn story is an irresistible mix of business innovation, stunning products and vivid characters.
Kāhui Whetū: Contemporary Māori Art – A Carver’s Perspective
Roi Toia & Todd Couper
Reed Publishing
Paperback $44.99
Roi Toia and Todd Couper are exceptional contemporary carvers, based in Rotorua, New Zealand. Their works come out of tribal histories, cosmology and a keen spiritual awareness.
This book is a result of 35 years of collective experience actively working within the confines of the carving fraternity. Roi and Todd are continually developing their artistic styles, and are rapidly becoming nationally and internationally renowned, fulfilling commissions in the domestic, USA, Canadian and European and Asians markets.
Stitch: Contemporary New Zealand Textile Artists
Ann Packer
Random House
Hardback $59.99
Freelance writer Ann Packer has loved textiles from the moment she first curled tiny fingers into a handknitted baby shawl.
Born in Napier, she learned to sew from her mother, to knit from her grandmother and to be thrifty in all things from an extended family of aunts.
After nine years as a community arts advisor in Wellington, Ann began contributing to the Evening Post between working for New Zealand International Arts Festivals.
She has been a children’s book reviewer for 15 years and now contributes to The Dominion Post, North & South, NZ House & Garden and NZ Quilter.
In 2004, she wrote the sell-out Crafty Girls’ Road Trip for Random House.
She is married with three adult children.
Work by 60 of this country’s best textile artists, all of whom have a consuming passion for fabric and fibre, feature in Stitch. Their art is beautiful and challenging and speaks of the past, present and supernatural. Inspiringly written and perfectly photographed, Stitch tells the story of textile art in New Zealand today.
Environment
Extinct Birds of New Zealand
Alan Tennyson & Paul Martinson
Te Papa Press
Hardback $65.00
Alan Tennyson is Curator of Fossil Vertebrates at the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa.
He has published numerous papers in scientific journals around the world. A world authority on several species of seabird, Alan has previously worked in the Threatened Species Unit at New Zealand's Department of Conservation and as a conservation campaigner for the Forest & Bird Protection Society. Extinct Birds of New Zealand is his first full-length book.
About the artist
Paul Martinson is known internationally for his detailed, lifelike paintings of New Zealand's rare and extinct birds.
A self-taught artist, he studied at Massey University and worked at New Zealand's Department of Scientific and Industrial Research before taking up painting full-time in 1986.
Paul has exhibited widely throughout New Zealand and his work has been published in the books Paul Martinson's New Zealand Birds (Grantham House, 1991) and New Zealand's Extinct Birds (Random Century, 1991), and reviewed in international wildlife magazines.
In New Zealand’s lush rainforests, isolated from the outside world for 80 million years, many extraordinary birds evolved. They included the giant moa, the beautiful huia, and the largest eagle the earth has ever seen. Within a few hundred years, human settlement extinguished a quarter of these species. All 58 are illustrated here.
Ghosts of Gondwana
George Gibbs
Craig Potton Publishing
Hardback $49.99
Dr George Gibbs is a retired university teacher with a passion for New Zealand’s natural history. From a background of entomology, forged by his grandfather, G.V Hudson, and fostered by his parents with their recreational interests in the mountains, George has pursued a career researching butterflies, moths, weta and, in particular, the evolutionary background of our fauna and flora. George is a graduate of Victoria University with a PhD from Sydney University. He has published numerous scientific papers and is the author of four previous books on New Zealand insects. He is a Senior Research Associate at Victoria University.
New Zealand is an extraordinary place, unique on Earth. George Gibbs' very accessible story summarises exciting new research which leads to an understanding of where our fauna and flora came from and how they evolved to become some of the strangest in the world.
New Zealand: A Natural World Revealed
Tui De Roy & Mark Jones
David Bateman Ltd
Hardback $59.99
Tui De Roy is known internationally for her magnificent wildlife photographs, which have appeared in dozens of wildlife magazines and award-winning books on the Galapagos and Andes, published in North America, South America, Germany and Australasia. She is deeply involved in conservation efforts on the Galapagos Islands and travels frequently to speak on the topic. She is also the recipient of many photographic awards.
Mark Jones, writer and photographer, has collaborated with Tui on many projects, including travelling on their yacht to the Subantarctic islands to photograph many of the species there. He has a strong interest in conservation issues, both in NZ and internationally. Both Mark and Tui are based in Golden Bay. Their next collaboration is a major international book on albatrosses.
Through hundreds of photographs, New Zealand: A Natural World Revealed celebrates this country’s many habitats, plants and animals. The authors describe their encounters with some of New Zealand’s most intriguing inhabitants, and detail some of the triumphs that have brought back many species from the brink of extinction.
Illustrative
Eagle’s Complete Trees and Shrubs of New Zealand
Audrey Eagle
Te Papa Press
Hardback $200.00
Audrey Eagle has been painting New Zealand native plants since1952. The author of Eagle’s Trees and Shrubs of New Zealand in Colour (1975) and a number of other books, Eagle is an active member of botanical and conservation societies such as the Royal Forest and Bird Protection Society, the Nature Conservation Council and the Loder Cup Committee. Eagle’s Complete Trees and Shrubs of New Zealand represents her life’s work and the achievement of her goal: to illustrate representatives of all genera of native trees and shrubs.
This beautiful two-volume set brings together Audrey Eagle’s botanical artworks from her best-selling 1975 and 1983 publications with over 170 new paintings, bringing the total number of plants described to more than 800. All are reproduced in colour, with flowers, fruits, and other features shown in superb detail.
Julia Morison: a loop around a loop
Justin Paton, Jennifer Hay & Anna Smith
Christchurch Art Gallery / Dunedin Public Art Gallery
Hardback $69.99
Justin Paton has been Curator of Contemporary Art at Dunedin Public Art Gallery since 1999, and from 1999 until 2005 was editor of the journal of arts and letters Landfall. He is widely published as an art critic and has written books on artists including Ricky Swallow, Anne Noble, Ronnie van Hout and Jude Rae. Most recently, he is the author of Jeffrey Harris (Dunedin Public Art Gallery and Victoria University Press), which was a finalist in the 2006 Montana New Zealand Book Awards, and How to Look at a Painting (Awa Press), a category winner in the same awards.
Jennifer Hay is Assistant Curator of Contemporary Art at Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetu. She has written for the New Zealand Journal of Art History, Art New Zealand, Sculpture International and extensively on the work of sculptor Andrew Drummond.
Anna Smith teaches children’s literature and adolescent fiction, postcolonial literatures, modern drama and literary theory at the University of Canterbury. Her publications include work on Julia Kristeva, New Zealand women writers and children’s literature. She has also written essays on the art of Jude Rae, Kristy Gorman, Jenny Lee, Marian Maguire and Charlotte Handy. Most recently she has completed a novel, Politics 101, for Canterbury University Press.
An elegant, collectable book on one of New Zealand’s most inventive and provocative artists. Richly illustrated, from her austere and exquisite early work to her grand, flamboyant later series, Julia Morison: a loop around a loop reveals an artistic world where the only rule is one of constant imaginative change.
Lake of Coal: The Disappearance of a Mining Township
David Cook
Craig Potton Publishing / Ramp Press
Paperback $49.99
David Cook is a photography lecturer in the Waikato Institute of Technology’s (Wintec) Department of Media Arts. He is also part of Wintec’s Media Arts’ Creative Industries Research Centre. He comes from a background of professional and museum photography and has an interest in long-term social documentary projects. His work is held in major collections including Te Papa. Lake of Coal is the culmination of the three phases of his documentary project. The first phase, Rotowaro: The Last Days of a Waikato Coal Mining Township (1985) looked at the life of the community. This was followed by Off the Map: The Story of Rotowaro (1989) which examined the transitional phase of the community when residents and buildings were removed from the township site. His third phase, Memory Maps, explored the environmental and psychological impact of the mining activities on the townspeople of Rotowaro.
Rotowaro was once a mining township on the Waikato coalfields west of Huntly. Situated in the path of an opencast mine, it was entirely removed in the late 1980s. The destruction of this community is the subject of Lake of Coal, a 20 year photo-documentary by photographer David Cook.
NZSA Best First Book – Fiction
Davey Darling
Paul Shannon
Penguin Books
Paperback $28.00
Born in Ashburton in 1961, Paul Shannon graduated from Otago University before moving to Wellington where he did all sorts of meaningful things like working in PR (for a very short time), doing finished art for a commercial artist and then learning the trade of sub and production editing for a business media publishing house.
His O/E extended as far as Sydney where he discovered he had an ability (and inclination) for making things up. He returned to Wellington, made a lot of coffee and pursued with ease a lowly life-style of working late and rising later. He edited the weekly paper, Capital Times.
He now lives in Auckland with his partner Leanne and two sons.
In this classic coming-of-age novel, Paul Shannon vividly evokes life in the working-class suburbs of the South Island in the 1970s. Davey’s tough and often humorous voice of rapidly diminishing innocence recounts a tale of strife and independence, full of the ambiguities of becoming an adult.
Overdue New Releases
Matt Johnson
Longacre Press
Paperback $29.99
Matt Johnson was born in Wellington where he received a BA in English from Victoria University. He has worked variously as a waiter, labourer, cat-minder, journalist and customer services representative. He was also the film critic for The Dominion Post and once accosted George Lucas at Versailles in France.
With street-wise, street-weary, yet disarmingly self-deprecating humour, Mark Penny recounts the days-of-his-life as a video store clerk in urban Wellington. Mark wisecracks his way through an ordinary week of customer service that takes in Yummie Mummies, art house boffins and blue movie addicts. A bitter sweet, darkly comic first novel.
The Sound of Butterflies
Rachael King
Black Swan
Paperback $27.99
Rachael King has worked for various magazines, including Rip it Up, Staple and Pavement, and for bFM, where she was a sales rep, DJ and host of the Culture Bunker for a brief period in the early 90s. She also played bass guitar in several Flying Nun bands until the mid-90s. She grew up in Auckland but for the last few years has made Wellington her home, where she now writes full time. She is the recipient of the 2005/06 Lillian Ida Smith award.
When Thomas Edgar arrives home from the Amazon, he's not only emaciated but unable to speak. What happened amidst the wild jungles and decadent city of Manaus? His wife Sophie must scavenge information from Thomas's diaries and boxes of exquisite butterflies, learning as much about herself as about her husband.
NZSA Best First Book – Poetry
After the Dance
Michele Amas
Victoria University Press
Paperback $24.95
Michele Amas completed her MA in Creative Writing from Victoria University in 2005, and was awarded the Adam Prize for best folio. Her poems appear in Sport, Turbine and Best New Zealand Poems 2005. Best known as an actor, Amas wrote and directed the short film Redial, which was in competition at the Venice film festival in 2002.
After the dance
the doors are locked
the dancers sleep
in single beds
The mother asks the father
did he know about the wolf? . . .
Extract from the poem, After the dance.
Cup
Alison Wong
Steele Roberts
Paperback $19.99
Alison Wong was born and raised in Hawkes Bay. She studied mathematics at Victoria University of Wellington, worked in IT, and spent several years in China. In 1996 she held a Reader's Digest–NZ Society of Authors Fellowship at the Stout Research Centre, and in 2002 the Robert Burns Fellowship at Otago University.
Alison was a founder of Porirua's Poetry Cafe. She lives overlooking the sea in Titahi Bay, where she is working on a novel. Her poem 'The Archaeologist' was selected for Best New Zealand Poems 2006.
This is what we form
what we hold in our hands
ten thousand blessings
the colour of air
and the sound of hunger…
Extract from the poem, cup.
Secret Heart
Airini Beautrais
Victoria University Press
Paperback $24.95
Airini Beautrais completed a Master of Arts in Creative Writing at Victoria University in 2005. She has a background in ecological science. She is also a musician and has played in a folk/rock band called The Raskolnikovs for the last three years. She is presently training as a secondary teacher.
I have a growing collection of lone black socks that turn up around the house. Whenever I clean out a cupboard or do the laundry I find another one. Winter is on the way and there is a melancholy comfort in things with holes in them, however warm.
Extract from the poem, Black Socks.
NZSA Best First Book – Non-fiction
An Illustrated Guide to New Zealand Hebes
Michael Bayly & Alison Kellow
Te Papa Press
Hardback $99.99
Mike Bayly and Alison Kellow both completed honours degrees in botany at The University of Melbourne. Mike later obtained a Ph.D. in plant systematics from the same institution, and Alison obtained a Graduate Diploma in environmental science from Monash University, and a Ph.D. in agriculture and natural resource sciences from The University of Adelaide. Work toward this book was done while both Mike and Alison were employed as Research Scientists at the Museum of New Zealand. Together they have written many scientific papers on the classification and evolution of Hebe. They are married and currently live in Melbourne with their daughter Frances.
Hebes are remarkable for their ecological diversity, inhabiting wild places from coastal rocks to the high alps and taking many varied and striking forms. This book is the most comprehensive guide yet to the identification, classification, and biology of this beloved New Zealand genus.
Douglas Lilburn: His Life and Music
Philip Norman
Canterbury University Press
Hardback $55.00
Philip Norman is a composer and musicologist who has worked as a full-time freelance musician and composer since 1978.
His many compositions (numbering close to 200) have been performed by a cross section of the major New Zealand performing arts organizations.
He gained a PhD in 1984 from University of Canterbury, with his thesis on Douglas Lilburn’s music forming the basis of his biography Douglas Lilburn: His Life and Music. He is currently the Ursula Bethell Writer in Residence at the University of Canterbury, the first non-fiction writer to be offered this position. He is working on a biography of New Zealand composers born after Lilburn.
Philip lives in Christchurch with his wife, Alison, their four children, and an array of pets.
This twenty-one-chapter salute to ‘the father of New Zealand composition’ offers fascinating insights into the world of this country’s music, literature and fine art through the eyes and ears of one of our most creative sons, Douglas Lilburn.
Furniture of the New Zealand Colonial Era: An Illustrated History 1830 - 1900
William Cottrell
Reed Publishing
Hardback $150.00
William Cottrell is one of New Zealand’s leading antique restorers. After working as a television editor, he trained in furniture restoration in the UK, established a leading restoration business in Auckland, and now continues the business from his historic home in Glenroy, Canterbury. Furniture of the New Zealand Colonial Era is the result of 15 years of research.
A definitive, lavishly illustrated social history of furniture, interiors and the cabinetmaking industry of nineteenth-century New Zealand. The book examines in detail early settlement, imported furnishings, campaign furniture, New Zealand timbers, the birth of a local cabinet making industry, the major furniture makers, New Zealand design and the great exhibitions.
Experienced convenor leads Montana New Zealand Book Awards judging panel
The nation’s JK Baxter expert is the convening judge for this year’s Montana New Zealand Book Awards.
Dr Paul Millar, a senior lecturer in New Zealand literature at Victoria University of Wellington is joined on the judging panel by reviewer, editor and writer, David Larsen and broadcaster Morrin Rout. Millar was also a judge for the Montana New Zealand Book Awards in 2004.
Dr Millar says he agreed to be a judge for the Montana New Zealand Book Awards again this year because it is exhilarating to discover what our best writers are achieving, and see where our most innovative authors are taking us.
‘New Zealand publishing, at its very best, is something I’m immensely proud to be associated with. It’s impossible to be a judge and not learn something new about the craft of writing or become excited about the future of New Zealand publishing.’
Millar has produced five books and a number of articles on the poetry of James K. Baxter.
The judging of New Zealand’s best books published during the 2006 calendar year is carried out across eight categories – Fiction, Poetry, Biography, History, Reference & Anthology, Environment, Illustrative, and Lifestyle & Contemporary Culture – and follows strict guidelines.
This is the 11th year of the Montana New Zealand Book Awards. Judges take into account enduring literary merit and overall authorship; quality of illustration and graphic presentation; production values, general design and the standard of editing and the impact of the book on the community, with emphasis on issues such as topicality, public interest, commercial viability, entertainment, cultural and educational values and lifespan of the book.
Each category has a specialist advisor to assist the judging panel. This year’s advisors also boast strong writing and publishing credentials:
Fiction – Louise O’Brien, a book critic who has lectured in English literature at Victoria and Massey Universities.
Poetry – John Newton who is a widely published and critically acclaimed poet. Dr Newton is a lecturer of English literature at the University of Canterbury.
History – Peter Gibbons was senior lecturer in History, University of Waikato for many years. He has written on a number of historical subjects.
Biography – Elizabeth Alley, QSO, reviewer and renowned broadcaster and a previous convening judge of the Montana New Zealand Book Awards
Reference and Anthology – Peter Simpson, a writer, curator, editor and associate professor of English at the University of Auckland.
Environment - Kerry-Jayne Wilson, a senior lecturer in ecology at Lincoln University and author of Flight of the Huia, a 2004 Montana New Zealand Book Awards finalist.
Lifestyle and contemporary culture – A journalist, broadcaster and writer, Liz Grant has been involved on several occasions with the Montana New Zealand Book Awards; as a presenter and as co-judge of the Reviewer of the Year Award.
Illustrative – Lawrence McDonald is a writer, curator, editor, and tertiary lecturer. His publications include Handboek: Ans Westra Photographs, which won the Illustrative category of the 2005 Montana New Zealand Book Awards.
The winner in each category receives a prize of $5,000. Each category winner is eligible for the Montana Medal for non fiction or poetry or fiction, both of which carry a prize of $10,000.
The finalists across all categories will be announced on Friday 1 June.
The winner of the poetry category will be announced on Montana Poetry Day on Friday 27 July. All other winners will be advised at a ceremony in Auckland on Monday 30 July 2007.
The principal sponsors of the Montana New Zealand Book Awards are Montana and Creative New Zealand. The awards are managed by Booksellers New Zealand and supported by Book Publishers Association of New Zealand, the New Zealand Society of Authors and Book Tokens (NZ) Ltd.
www.montananzbookawards.co.nz
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SPECTRUM PRINT BOOK DESIGN AWARDS FINALISTS ANNOUNCED
MAY 28: This year's Spectrum Print Book Design Awards shortlist is as follows:
BEST ILLUSTRATED BOOK
Eagle's Complete Trees & Shrubs of New Zealand, Audrey Eagle, designer - covers Neil Pardington, interior Robyn Sivewright (Te Papa Press)
Landscape Paintings of New Zealand, Christopher Johnstone, designer Nick Turzynski (Random House)
Stitch, Ann Packer, Designer Sharon Grace (Random House)
BEST NON-ILLUSTRATED BOOK
Brief Lives, Chris Price, illustrator Brendan O'Brien, designer - cover Sarah Maxey, interior Katrina Duncan (Auckland University Press)
How to Catch a Cricket Match, Harry Ricketts, designer - cover Scott Kennedy, series design Sarah Maxey (Awa Press)
Instructions for New Zealanders, Richard Wolfe, designer - cover Katy Yiakmis, Interior Christine Hansen (Random House)
BEST EDUCATIONAL BOOK
African Wildlife, Dr. Rod East, designer Alexandra Johnson & engine (Rod's Friends)
Sigma Mathematics (3rd Edition), David Barton, designer – cover and page design Polly Faulks, interior Mona Mohun (Pearson Education)
Te Kete Kupu, Huia Publishers, designer Rose Miller (Huia Publishers)
BEST CHILDREN'S BOOK
Barnaby Bennett, Hannah Rainforth and Ali Teo, designer Lynley McDonald (Huia Publishers)
Legends of Ngatoro-i-rangi, Karen Taiaroa-Smithies and Mervyn Taiaroa, designer Cheryl Rowe (Reed Publishing)
Riding the Waves, Gavin Bishop, designer Jacinda Torrance and Sharon Grace (Random House)
BEST COVER
Eagle's Complete Trees and Shrubs of New Zealand, Audrey Eagle, designer - covers Neil Pardington (Te Papa Press)
Farm, Vaughan Yarwood, designer Nick Turzynski (Random House)
Paintings of the Birds of New Zealand, J G Keulemans, designer Chester Elliot (Random House)
The winners will be announced on 29 July during the Industry Awards at the Booksellers Conference in Auckland.
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Maurice Gee’s winning novel described as a narrative tour de force
Maurice Gee’s novel, Blindsight has won the Deutz Medal for Fiction or Poetry in the Montana New Zealand Book Awards 2006.
The judges – Lawrence Jones, convenor, Linda Burgess and Bob Ross – described Gee’s novel as a narrative tour de force, with a strong ending that makes the reader reinterpret everything that has gone before. “It is,” they agreed, “a worthy addition to the oeuvre of this country’s greatest living novelist.”
Pōhutukawa & Rātā: New Zealand’s Iron-hearted Trees by Philip Simpson won the Montana Medal for Non Fiction. The judges considered this title to be a very valuable reference book, with a strong environmental message. Lawrence Jones went on to say that Pōhutukawa & Rātā is “very readable and gives a greater understanding of the unique nature of this group of native New Zealand flora. Clear text and well selected and presented illustrations make this an outstanding publication.”
For the first time since the Readers’ Choice Award was introduced in 1998, the public vote was evenly split between two books. Maurice Gee’s novel Blindsight and Fiona Kidman’s The Captive Wife are joint winners of this sought after award. Voting was not just close, it was impossible to pick right down to the last minute.
Jones commented on the quality of submissions for this year’s awards, saying “the judging panel was impressed with how well New Zealand writing and publishing served the differing but overlapping reading publics of this culture. For a society with a comparatively small population base, the range of what is being written and published is great indeed, and across that range the quality is high.”
If you’d like to read the full Judges’ Report for the Montana New Zealand Book Awards go to http://www.booksellers.co.nz/mba_winners.htm and click on the link to the pdf. You can also download Acrobat Reader free if you don’t already have it.
The full list of winners is as follows:
Deutz Medal for Fiction or Poetry and Fiction category winner – Blindsight by Maurice Gee (Penguin Books)
Fiction Runners Up:
Responsibility by Nigel Cox (Victoria University Press)
The Captive Wife by Fiona Kidman (Vintage)
Poetry – Lifted by Bill Manhire (Victoria University Press)
Montana Medal for Non Fiction and Environment category winner – Pōhutukawa & Rātā: New Zealand’s Iron-hearted Trees by Philip Simpson (Te Papa Press)
Biography – Dingle: Discovering the Sense in Adventure by Graeme Dingle (Craig Potton Publishing)
History – Thrift to Fantasy: Home Textile Crafts of the 1930s – 1950s by Rosemary McLeod (HarperCollins Publishers)
Reference & Anthology – Great Sporting Moments: The best of Sport magazine 1988 – 2004 edited by Damien Wilkins (Victoria University Press)
Lifestyle & Contemporary Culture – How to Look at a Painting by Justin Paton (Awa Press)
Illustrative – Contemporary New Zealand Photographers edited by Hannah Holm and Lara Strongman (Mountain View Publishing)
Each category winner was presented with a prize of $5,000. The winners of the Deutz Medal and the Montana Medal were presented with an additional prize of $10,000. The runners-up in the Fiction category each received $2,500. The Readers’ Choice Award carries a monetary prize worth $1,000 for each of this year’s two winners.
NEW ZEALAND SOCIETY OF AUTHORS BEST FIRST BOOK AWARDS:
The best first book awards for non-fiction, poetry, and fiction were established by the New Zealand Society of Authors with the aim of encouraging new writers and their publishers. This year’s competition was fierce with 36 books of non-fiction, nine of poetry, and nine of fiction vying for the awards. The books are judged on the basis of literary excellence. This year’s winners are:
New Zealand Society of Authors E H McCormick Best First Book Award for Non Fiction – Pakeha and the Treaty: Why it’s Our Treaty too by Patrick Snedden (Random House New Zealand). The judges felt this book truly deserves recognition and acknowledgement. The author has researched his subject with great sensitivity and has presented us with an intelligent statement that gives us a clearer understanding of the Treaty.
New Zealand Society of Authors Jessie Mackay Best First Book Award for Poetry – Dream Fish Floating by Karlo Mila (Huia Publishers). “With her roots in Pakeha New Zealand, Samoa and Tonga,” said the judges, “Karlo Mila writes with flair, energy and passion, creating a direct, accessible poetry. This multi-cultural, lyrical voice is one the judges expect to hear a lot more of.”
New Zealand Society of Authors Hubert Church Best First Book Award for Fiction – A Red Silk Sea by Gillian Ranstead (Penguin Books). “A Red Silk Sea is ambitious in its sweep, consciously literary in its language, it is a strong début book,” said the judges.
A W REED AWARD FOR CONTRIBUTION TO NEW ZEALAND LITERATURE:
The A W Reed Award for Contribution to New Zealand Literature was presented to Kevin Ireland. This award is presented biennially in recognition of an outstanding contribution to New Zealand literature and an involvement in activities which foster and promote literature to wider audiences.
REVIEWER and REVIEW PAGE OR PROGRAMME AWARDS:
The Book Publishers Association of New Zealand Reviewer of the Year and Best Review Page or Programme Awards are an integral part of the Montana New Zealand Book Awards. They recognise the role of the critic within this country’s book publishing industry. The judges this year were independent publisher and editor, Linda Cassells, and executive director of the New Zealand Society of Authors and poet, Elizabeth Allen.
The Reviewer of the Year Award was presented to Jolisa Gracewood. The judges said Gracewood’s reviews are of a consistently high standard, looking critically at a book’s successes and failures, giving good overall background and never giving too much away. They are always engagingly written. Her reviews are published in The New Zealand Listener.
The winner of the Best Review Page or Programme Award was The Dominion Post. The judges agreed that these review pages have it all – clean layout, easy to navigate, a consistency of style and content, four whole pages devoted to books and authors, with a lively mix of genres, and a balance of New Zealand and overseas titles.
The principal sponsors of the Montana New Zealand Book Awards are Montana and Creative New Zealand. The awards are managed by Booksellers New Zealand and supported by the Book Publishers Association of New Zealand, the New Zealand Society of Authors and Book Tokens (NZ) Ltd.
SPECTRUM PRINT BOOK DESIGN AWARDS SHORTLIST ANNOUNCED
8 JUNE:The shortlist for this year's Spectrum Print Book Design Awards has been announced. This year the judges received a record 170 entries. Two new categories have been added to the awards this year: Best Educational and Best Non-Illustrated. The awards will be announced at the HarperCollins Publishers Conference Dinner at the Booksellers Conference on Sunday 23 July. The shortlist is as follows:
BEST BOOK
Afternoon of an Evening Train, Gregory O'Brien, Designer Sarah Maxey (Victoria University Press)
Contemporary New Zealand Photographers, Hannah Holm and Lara Strongman, Designer Neil Pardington (Mountain View Publishing)
Mona Minim and the Smell of the Sun, Janet Frame, Illus. David Elliot, Designer Christine Hansen (Random House NZ)
BEST COVER
Contemporary New Zealand Photographers, Hannah Holm and Lara Strongman, Designer Neil Pardington (Mountain View Publishing)
David Lange: My Life, David Lange, Designers Mary Egan and Jenny Nicholls (Penguin Group (NZ))
Sir Edmund Hillary: An Extraordinary Life, Alexa Johnston, Designer Alan Deare and Dean Foster (Penguin Group (NZ))
BEST ILLUSTRATED
Contemporary New Zealand Photographers, Hannah Holm and Lara Strongman, Designer Neil Pardington (Mountain View Publishing)
Into a Vacuum of Future Events: Daniel von Sturmer, Daniel von Sturmer, text by Justin Paton and Andy Thomson, Designer Karina McLeod (Dunedin Public Art Gallery)
Jeffrey Harris, Justin Paton, Designer Karina McLeod (Dunedin Public Art Gallery and Victoria University Press)
BEST CHILDREN'S
Haere: Farewell Jack, farewell, Tim Tipene, Illus. Huhana Smith, Designer Walter Moala (Huia Publishers)
Mona Minim and the Smell of the Sun, Janet Frame, Illus. David Elliot, Designer Christine Hansen (Random House NZ)
BEST NON-ILLUSTRATED
Afternoon of an Evening Train, Gregory O'Brien, Designer Sarah Maxey (Victoria University Press)
The Cat's Whiskers: New Zealand Writers on Cats, ed. Peter Wells, Designer Janet Hunt and Matthew Trbuhovic (Random House NZ)
The Colour of Distance: New Zealand Writers in France, French Writers in New Zealand, eds. Jenny Bornholdt and Gregory O'Brien, Designer Sarah Wilkins (Victoria University Press)
BEST EDUCATIONAL
Frontier of Dreams (Scholastic box set), John Parker, Designer Vasanti Unka (Scholastic NZ Ltd)
Patterns of Life for NCEA Level 2, Meg Bayley, Designer Polly Faulks and Michele Peddie (Pearson Education Ltd)
Tai ki Tai, Hannah Rainforth, Designers/Illustrators Josh Smits and Stacy Macfarlane (Huia Publishers)
Finalist list highlights a robust year for New Zealand publishing
The finalists in the prestigious Montana New Zealand Book Awards 2006 have been announced. Over the last five months the judging panel narrowed down a staggering 210 entries, the highest ever for these awards, to a group of 26 finalists spread across eight categories.
Lawrence Jones, Emeritus Professor at the University of Otago and convenor of the judging panel, said 2005 was a great year for New Zealand publishing in terms of quality as well as in quantity. “The entries for fiction and poetry were especially strong,” said Jones. “It will be a difficult but pleasurable task to select a winner in each category from among the five distinguished finalists in fiction and the three in poetry and then to select from those two texts the recipient of the Deutz Medal.” Jones is joined on the panel by Linda Burgess, novelist, script writer and teacher of creative writing, and Bob Ross, a publisher with over 40 years experience in the trade.
The judging panel follows a strict set of guidelines taking into account enduring literary merit and overall authorship; quality of illustration and graphic presentation; production values, general design and the standard of editing and the impact of the book on the community, with emphasis on issues such as topicality, public interest, commercial viability, entertainment, cultural and educational values and lifespan of the book.
The finalists in the Montana New Zealand Book Awards 2006 are:
Deutz Medal for Fiction or Poetry:
Fiction Category:
Blindsight by Maurice Gee (Penguin Books)
The Captive Wife by Fiona Kidman (Vintage)
Dreamhunter by Elizabeth Knox (Fourth Estate)
Responsibility by Nigel Cox (Victoria University Press)
Watch of Gryphons and other stories by Owen Marshall (Vintage)
Poetry Category:
Footfall by Brian Turner (Godwit)
Lifted by Bill Manhire (Victoria University Press)
The Time of the Giants by Anne Kennedy (Auckland University Press)
Montana Medal for Non Fiction:
Biography Category:
Charles Fleming: Environmental Patriot by Mary McEwen (Craig Potton Publishing)
Dingle: Discovering the Sense in Adventure by Graeme Dingle (Craig Potton Publishing)
Sir Edmund Hillary: An Extraordinary Life by Alexa Johnston (Viking)
History Category:
Black November: The 1918 influenza pandemic in New Zealand by Geoffrey W Rice (Canterbury University Press)
Thrift to Fantasy: Home Textile Crafts of the 1930s – 1950s by Rosemary McLeod (HarperCollins Publishers)
We Call it Home: A History of State Housing in New Zealand by Ben Schrader (Reed Publishing)
Reference & Anthology Category:
The Geographic Atlas of New Zealand by Roger Smith / GeographX (Craig Potton Publishing)
Great Sporting Moments: The best of Sport magazine 1988 – 2004 edited by Damien Wilkins (Victoria University Press)
The Nature of Things: Poems from the New Zealand Landscape edited by James Brown, photographs by Craig Potton (Craig Potton Publishing)
Lifestyle & Contemporary Culture Category:
The Art of Māori Weaving: The Eternal Thread / Te Aho Mutunga Kore by Miriama Evans and Ranui Ngarimu (Huia Publishers)
How to Look at a Painting by Justin Paton (Awa Press)
I Had a Black Dog: His Name was Depression by Matthew Johnstone (Pan Macmillan Australia)
Environment:
New Zealand Birds in Focus: A Photographer’s Journey by Geoff Moon (Reed Publishing)
Pōhutukawa & Rātā: New Zealand’s Iron-hearted Trees by Philip Simpson (Te Papa Press)
Swimming with Orca by Dr Ingrid N Visser (Penguin Books)
Illustrative:
Contemporary New Zealand Photographers edited by Hannah Holm and Lara Strongman (Mountain View Publishing)
Faithfully Mozart: The Fantastical World of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart by Donovan Bixley (Hodder)
Jeffrey Harris by Justin Paton (Victoria University Press / Dunedin Public Art Gallery)
The winner of the Poetry category will be announced on Montana Poetry Day, Friday 21 July 2006. The winners of the other categories, plus the Deutz Medal for Fiction or Poetry and the Montana Medal for Non Fiction will be announced in Auckland at a special awards ceremony on Monday 24 July 2006.
The principal sponsors of the Montana New Zealand Book Awards are Montana and Creative New Zealand. The awards are managed by Booksellers New Zealand and supported by Book Publishers Association of New Zealand, the New Zealand Society of Authors and Book Tokens (NZ) Ltd.
The 2005 Awards
Patricia Grace’s novel Tu has won the 2005 Deutz Medal for Fiction or Poetry. The announcement comes just 12 days after she joined the hallowed ranks of the Arts Foundation’s Icon Artists.
The judges said that Tu made an important and lasting contribution to New Zealand literature. “It is a work which cements her place as one of our finest contemporary writers and is a worthy winner of this prestigious award.”
The Montana Medal for Non Fiction was awarded to Douglas Lloyd Jenkins for his book, At Home: A Century of New Zealand Design. It was the judges’ unanimous choice in a strong line up of non fiction category winners vying for the Montana Medal. In describing this book’s merits, they said “At Home is fascinating, absorbing, and convincing; a book whose rigorous research, fluent and witty writing and handsome production would make it impressive in any part of the world.”
The coveted Readers’ Choice Award, won last year by historian Michael King, went to Julie Le Clerc and John Bougen for their book, Made in Morocco: A Journey of Exotic Tastes and Places.
The overall objective of the Montana New Zealand Book Awards is to recognise excellence in books published annually in New Zealand and to stimulate the reading of quality New Zealand books. “When one looks at the entries this year,” said the convenor of the judging panel, former publisher Graham Beattie, “it is apparent that this objective is being achieved. New Zealand readers are being especially well served by a significant pool of writing talent engaging with a wide range of subjects.” Beattie was joined on the panel by Wellington writers and critics John McCrystal and Laura Kroetsch. Eight specialist category advisors also assisted in the judging process.
The awards, New Zealand’s most prestigious for contemporary writing, were presented by the Prime Minister Helen Clark at a gala dinner and awards ceremony at the Town Hall in Wellington tonight.
The full list of winners is as follows:
Deutz Medal for Fiction or Poetry and Fiction category winner – Tu by Patricia Grace (Penguin Books)
Fiction – Runners Up:
Mansfield by C K Stead (Vintage)
Tarzan Presley by Nigel Cox (Victoria University Press)
Poetry – Nice morning for it, Adam by Vincent O’Sullivan (Victoria University Press)
Montana Medal for Non Fiction and History category winner – At Home: A Century of New Zealand Design by Douglas Lloyd Jenkins (Godwit)
Biography – Chronicle of the Unsung by Martin Edmond (Auckland University Press)
Reference & Anthology – The New Zealand Oxford Dictionary edited by Tony Deverson & Graeme Kennedy (Oxford University Press)
Lifestyle & Contemporary Culture – Hip Hop Music in Aotearoa by Gareth Shute (Reed Publishing)
Environment – Tiritiri Matangi: A Model of Conservation by Anne Rimmer (Tandem Press)
Illustrative – Handboek: Ans Westra Photographs by Luit Bieringa and Lawrence McDonald (BWX (Blair Wakefield Exhibitions))
Readers’ Choice Award – Made in Morocco: A Journey of Exotic Tastes and Places by Julie Le Clerc and John Bougen (Penguin Books)
All category winners are presented with a prize of $5,000. The winners of the Deutz Medal for Fiction or Poetry and the Montana Medal for Non Fiction were each presented with an additional prize of $10,000. The Readers’ Choice Award carried a monetary prize worth $1,000.
New Zealand Publishing: equal winners Random House New Zealand and Penguin New Zealand
Spectrum Print Book Design Awards
Best Book and Best Cover: Shane Cotton, Lara Strongman, Designer Neil Pardington (City Gallery Wellington and Victoria University Press)
Best Typography: Clubs, Kate De Goldi, Designer Jacqui Colley (Trapeze Publishing Ltd)
Best Use of Illustration: The Night Kite, Peter Bland, Designers Carl Bland and Margaret Cochran (Mallinson Rendel)
BEST FIRST BOOK AWARDS:
The winner of the New Zealand Society of Authors Hubert Church Best First Book Award for Fiction went to Julian Novitz for his collection of short stories, My Real Life and Other Stories (Vintage). The judges described this as a collection made up of “authentic stories, funny, affectionate, poignant, and imbued with a sense of wonder at the weirdness and inadequacy of everyday life.”
The New Zealand Society of Authors Jessie Mackay Best First Book Award for Poetry was won by Sonja Yelich for her collection, Clung (Auckland University Press). “Yelich is endlessly inventive,” said the judges, “This is a collection rich with verbal wit and sharpness … anarchic and subversive humour.”
The New Zealand Society of Authors E H McCormick Best First Book Award for Non Fiction was presented to Douglas Wright for his memoir, Ghost Dance (Penguin Books). The judges called this an extraordinary piece of writing and a terrific book. “It’s hugely readable; it’s brave, engaging and funny. Qualities rarely attributed to any book, let alone the first one.”
Each of these first-time authors was presented with $1,000.
REVIEWER and REVIEW PAGE OR PROGRAMME AWARDS:
The Montana New Zealand Book Awards also recognise the role of the critic with the Reviewer of the Year Award and Best Review Page or Programme Award. This year’s judges, Ruth Todd, presenter of the National Radio’s Bookmarks programme and John Ahradsen, a Wellington bookseller, said they were looking for book reviews that put the reader and the book first.
The winner of the Best Review Page or Programme Award was North & South magazine. The judges said North & South’s book review pages made a visual impact that will increase reading across a wide cross-section of New Zealanders, and that they achieved a superb balance between New Zealand and international writing.
Wellington writer, Tony Simpson was named Reviewer of the Year. The judges commented on Simpson’s ability to communicate with readers at every level. “He draws the reader into his work to totally connect with the book being reviewed,” they said.
Vincent O’Sullivan’s acclaimed collection, Nice morning for it, Adam, has won the Poetry category in the Montana New Zealand Book Awards 2005. The announcement came this morning on the dawn of Montana Poetry Day, Friday 22 July.
The judges said that O’Sullivan was an extraordinary voice in New Zealand literature, and perhaps, only perhaps, this is best seen in his poetry. The judging panel comprises of former publisher Graham Beattie (convenor) and Wellington writers and critics John McCrystal and Laura Kroetsch.
They also commented that judging the Poetry category this year was particularly difficult as most of the 29 submissions came from established and respected poets. “This year’s finalists are all senior poets,” they said. “Each of them has written a number of collections, and all have established their place within the history of our letters.” The other two finalists in the category were C K Stead’s The Red Tram and Murray Edmond’s Fool Moon.
Nice morning for it, Adam, published by Victoria University Press, goes on to be judged alongside the winner of the Fiction category for the ultimate prize, the Deutz Medal for Fiction or Poetry. This is the first time poetry has been eligible for this major New Zealand literary award. In past years it has been judged amongst non fiction categories for the Montana Medal for Non Fiction. The winner of the Deutz Medal for Fiction or Poetry will be announced, along with the winner of the fiction and all non fiction categories, at a gala dinner at the Town Hall in Wellington on Monday 25 July. As winner of the Poetry category, O’Sullivan will be presented with a monetary prize of $5,000 at the awards ceremony.
Vincent O'Sullivan is one of New Zealand's leading writers. He graduated from the universities of Auckland and Oxford. He is the author of two novels - Let the River Stand, which won the 1994 Montana Book Awards, and Believers to the Bright Coast - and many plays, collections of short stories and poems. His poetry collection, Seeing You Asked won the Poetry prize at the 1999 Montana New Zealand Book Awards, the same year that Believers to the Bright Coast was runner up for the Deutz Medal for Fiction. His biography of John Mulgan, Long Journey to the Border, was a finalist in last year's awards.
O'Sullivan has a well-earned reputation as a thoughtful and incisive editor and critic. He has been awarded a series of writer's residencies and research fellowships and in 1994 he was the Katherine Mansfield fellow. He was appointed Director of Victoria University's Stout Research Centre in 1997 and is now an Emeritus Professor of English. O'Sullivan was made a Distinguished Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit in 2000. In June 2004 he was awarded the Creative New Zealand Michael King Writers’ Fellowship. He lives in Wellington.
Judges’ Comments: Writing in Landfall Michael Husle described an O’Sullivan poem as ‘the marriage of relaxed language and form to radical subject matter.’ This most recent collection certainly bears this out. The poems in this collection are, as described by Peter Simpson [category advisor], ‘subtly linked by a series of aesthetic, philosophical and metaphysical preoccupations’. O’Sullivan begins by evoking Eden, the fall, and the fate of man, and he does this with the wry ease that characterises so much of his work. This collection wrestles the secular and the metaphysical, idealism, time and death. There is also, and we suspect O’Sullivan would deny it, a hint of the autobiographical. There are poems here which don’t so much reveal the poet as evoke a thoughtful intimacy that we want to associate with a ‘real’ world. The reader knows that for the poet this is the point, but we still want to think otherwise. O’Sullivan is an extraordinary voice in New Zealand letters, and perhaps, only perhaps, this is best seen in his poetry.
Talented mix of new and established authors make up the finalist list in celebrated book awards
The finalists in New Zealand’s celebrated Montana New Zealand Book Awards have been announced. Close to 200 books written by New Zealanders and published during the 2004 calendar year have been read and debated by the judging panel with assistance from a team of category advisors during the last five months.
“And what a joy it was,” said the convenor of the judging panel, former publisher Graham Beattie. “The calibre of the books submitted for this year’s Montana New Zealand Book Awards prove that the local book publishing industry is in good heart fuelled as it is by many talented writers, both new and experienced, across all genres.” Beattie is joined on the panel by Wellington writers and critics John McCrystal and Laura Kroetsch.
The finalists are:
DEUTZ MEDAL FOR FICTION or POETRY:
FICTION:
Book Book by Fiona Farrell (published by Vintage)
Mansfield by C K Stead (published by Vintage)
Tarzan Presley by Nigel Cox (published by Victoria University Press)
Tu by Patricia Grace (published by Penguin Books)
What Happen Then, Mr Bones? by Charlotte Randall (published by Penguin Books)
POETRY:
Fool Moon by Murray Edmond (published by Auckland University Press)
Nice morning for it, Adam by Vincent O’Sullivan (published by Victoria University Press)
The Red Tram by C K Stead (published by Auckland University Press)
MONTANA MEDAL FOR NON FICTION:
BIOGRAPHY:
Chronicle of the Unsung by Martin Edmond (published by Auckland University Press)
Ghost Dance by Douglas Wright (published by Penguin Books)
Toss Woollaston: A Life in Letters edited by Jill Trevelyan (published by Te Papa Press)
HISTORY:
The Anzac Experience: New Zealand, Australia and Empire in the First World War by Christopher Pugsley (published by Reed Publishing)
At Home: A Century of New Zealand Design by Douglas Lloyd Jenkins (published by Godwit)
A Carved Cloak for Tahu by Mere Whaanga (published by Auckland University Press)
REFERENCE & ANTHOLOGY:
The New Zealand Oxford Dictionary edited by Tony Deverson & Graeme Kennedy (published by Oxford University Press)
Spirit Abroad: A Second Selection of New Zealand Spiritual Verse edited by Paul Morris, Harry Ricketts & Mike Grimshaw (published by Godwit)
The Wide White Page: Writers Imagine Antarctica edited by Bill Manhire (published by Victoria University Press)
LIFESTYLE & CONTEMPORARY CULTURE:
Celebrating New Zealand Wine by Joëlle Thomson, photography by Andrew Coffey (published by New Holland Publishers)
Hip Hop Music in Aotearoa by Gareth Shute (published Reed Publishing)
Made in Morocco: A Journey of Exotic Tastes and Places by Julie Le Clerc & John Bougen (published by Penguin Books)
ENVIRONMENT:
Flight of the Huia: Ecology and Conservation of New Zealand's Frogs, Reptiles, Birds and Mammals by Kerry-Jayne Wilson (published by Canterbury University Press)
The Frozen Coast: Sea Kayaking the Antarctic Peninsula by Graham Charles, Mark Jones, Marcus Waters & Sarah Moodie (published by Craig Potton Publishing)
Tiritiri Matangi: A Model of Conservation by Anne Rimmer (published by Tandem Press)
ILLUSTRATIVE:
Handboek: Ans Westra Photographs by Luit Bieringa (published by BWX (Blair Wakefield Exhibitions))
Icons Ngā Taonga: From the Collections of the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa by The Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa (published by Te Papa Press)
Michael Smither: Painter by Trish Gribben & Michael Smither (published by Ron Sang Publications)
This year, for the first time, the winner of the Poetry category will be announced on Montana Poetry Day, Friday 22 July. The winner of the Poetry category will then be judged alongside the winner of the Fiction category for the Deutz Medal. All other category winners plus the winners of the supreme awards – the Deutz Medal for Fiction or Poetry and the Montana Medal for Non Fiction – will be announced at a gala dinner in Wellington on Monday 25 July 2005.
REVIEWER OF THE YEAR and REVIEW PAGE OR PROGRAMME OF THE YEAR AWARDS:
The Montana New Zealand Book Awards also recognise the role of the critic with the Reviewer of the Year Award and Best Review Page or Programme Award. The judges for this year’s awards are Ruth Todd, presenter of the National Radio’s iconic New Zealand book programme, Bookmarks and John Ahradsen, long-standing Wellington bookseller.
Finalists for the Reviewer of the Year Award are David Eggleton, Anna Rogers and Tony Simpson. The judges were very impressed with the standard of entries in this category, and enjoyed seeing what seems to be an increasing focus on a very wide selection of books, including more reviews of a cross section of New Zealand titles.
Finalists for the Best Review Page or Programme Award are The New Zealand Herald’s Canvas magazine, North & South and New Zealand Books. Todd and Ahradsen felt that most editors of review pages do know their audiences and again, a wide selection of books are being reviewed across the country, in a wide variety of publications.
The principal sponsors of the Montana New Zealand Book Awards are Montana wines and Creative New Zealand. The awards are managed by Booksellers New Zealand and supported by Book Publishers Association of New Zealand, the New Zealand Society of Authors and Book Tokens (NZ) Ltd.
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