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New Zealand Biography, Autobiography & Memoir
 
Catalogue |  Rep List |  Back List  Showing 1 - 15 of 460 results
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ISBN / ISSN:
9781877517051

Backroads : Charting a Poet's life order quantity
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NZ$ 50.00 each
Hardback
Author: Sam Hunt
Published by: Craig Potton Publishing
Sam Hunt's life as a poet and performer has always strayed far off the straight and narrow, more akin to following a series of winding backroads that have led to places and people away from the mainstream. As a child, Hunt was surrounded by 'a lot of words, a lot of poems,' and from the age of eight, he knew he wanted to live the life of a poet. His parents and grandparents were his earliest influences, and later it was the likes of W. B. Yeats, Pablo Neruda and Dylan Thomas; while within New Zealand, Alistair Campbell, James K. Baxter and Denis Glover, among others, inspired and nurtured him. Backroads is a memoir, a series of reflections by Sam Hunt on his life as a poet. He talks about inspiration and its unwelcome antagonist, drying up; the importance of performing, of 'saying poems out loud'; his good friends, like artist Robin White and his faithful canine companion Minstrel; his early publishing ventures and his experiences with ... more

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ISBN / ISSN:
9780473163327

Beyond Cook's Gardens : A Writer's Journey order quantity
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NZ$ 30.00 each
Paperback
Author: Norman Harris
Published by: Last Side Publishing
The journey started on a fabulous night at Cook's Garden, Wanganui, where a youthful Norman Harris from the New Zealand Herald was the only national media witness to Peter Snell's world-record mile.
That launched a wave of exciting writing, typically described by reviewers as "fresh" or "vivid".
Abroad, the young journalist was acclaimed for "perhaps the finest writing on athletics in the English language".
But Beyond Cook's Gardens goes beyong athletics. Along the journey we meet some surprising characters - from Jack Nicklaus to Kiri Te Kanawa, from Glenn Turner to Benjamin Britten. We learn of threats and blackmail by sports officials in New Zealand; and assualt by a notorious All Black; a cloak-and-dagger encounter in Moscow; and the coining of a brand new word, Jogger.

Through many years in the UK, the writer remained close to New Zealand sport, and recently produced 'Scottie', an acclaimed drama about a ... more

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ISBN / ISSN:
9781869792947

Bird on a Wire : The Inside Story From A Straight Talking CEO order quantity
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NZ$ 40.00 each
Paperback
Author: Theresa Gattung
Published by: Vintage New Zealand
No woman has ever risen as far in the corporate world as former Telecom CEO Theresa Gattung. Her appointment, at such a young age and from the marking ranks, astounded the country, and her leadership of the big telco that Kiwis love to hate was never far from the headlines.

This no-holds-barred memoir tells of her ambition, her determination, and her rise to business power. It tells of the highs of running a vitally important company such as Telecom and also the lows, as the company struggled with the Australian AAPT acquisition, shareholder pressure, antagonism from the government, battles with its telco competitors and changing technology. After seven years she felt she'd given her all.
The personal toll of those tough years at the top had been significant and Gattung is frank about how she had to rebuild her life with a clear focus. First with her chic Californian fashion store showcasing New Zealand fashion, and now with her ... more


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ISBN / ISSN:
9780908714100

Mungo Park's Trunk : A journey - Scotland to New Zealand order quantity
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NZ$ 50.00 each
Paperback
Author: Nola Easdale
Published by: Te Waihora Press
The surveyor Robert Park arrived in New Zealand in 1839. He became a notable figure in New Zealand's public life and has an important place in the history of surveying in New Zealand and a place in the history of New Zealand art.
He also fathered three families. In Mungo Park's Trunk, Nola Easdale teases apart the complexities of Robert Park's personal life and traces the histories of his children and their children in turn. In the course of doing so she also solves the puzzle of how a trunk that once belonged to the great Scottish West African explorer, Mungo Park, ended up in the possession of a Maori family in Petone, New Zealand.
This is a fascinating history of a complex family that casts revealing light on many curious aspects of New Zealand's 19th and 20th century history.

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ISBN / ISSN:
9781869792077

The World's Fastest Indian : Burt Munro - a Scrapbook of His Life order quantity
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NZ$ 50.00 each
Paperback
Author: Roger Donaldson
Published by: Random House New Zealand Ltd
This book reveals the real Burt Munro - the man behind the movie. Roger Donaldson has been studying Burt Munro for many years. He made a documentary on him back in 1971, called Offerings to the God of Speed, as well as the 2005 international hit movie The World's Fastest Indian. During research for both films, he collected lots of material which has never been published, and Burt's son also released Munro family scrapbooks to Roger, allowing them to be published here for the first time. In preparation for the doco Roger interviewed Burt and also taped Burt chatting to several of his cronies and coworkers. These tapes have been transcribed for this book, presenting the real Burt Munro in his own words.
The book includes a bonus DVD with 2 hours of special features including the God of Speed documentary.

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ISBN / ISSN:
9781741759075

Cleo : How An Uppity Cat Helped Heal a Family order quantity
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NZ$ 35.00 each
Paperback
Author: Helen Brown
Published by: Allen & Unwin
Helen Brown wasn't a cat person, but her nine-year-old son Sam was. Helen's heart melted as Sam held one of the kittens in his and the deal was done - the kitten would be delivered when she was big enough to leave her mother. A week later, Sam was dead. Not long after, a little black kitten was delivered to the grieving family.
This is the story of how a small black feline helped mend a family's broken hearts by sheer force of her cat personality.
It is a warm and often funny book about love, loss and redemption.

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ISBN / ISSN:
9780143202851

One Good Run : The legend of Burt Munro order quantity
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NZ$ 30.00 each
Paperback
Author: Tim Hanna
Published by: Penguin Books (N.Z.) Ltd.
The amazing story of Kiwi motorcycling legend, backyard engineering genius and land-speed record holder Burt Munro. Munro was the archetypal eccentric, 'number-eight-wire' Kiwi inventor. He took an original Indian motorbike and modified it in his Christchurch shed so that it was capable of extreme speeds. With this bike he broke several international speed records at the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah in 1967 (he was clocked on several occasions at over 200mph). From small town Invercargill in the 1920s to heroic deeds in the USA, Munro was still inventing (and planning another 'assault on the salt') up until his death in 1978. This is very much a true-life 'little guy beats the odds' story; Munro still holds several records in the US - as a mark of respect the category he raced in was 'frozen' for all time.

First published 2005.

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ISBN / ISSN:
9780986451911

Cockney Kid : the making of an unconventional psychologist order quantity
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NZ$ 45.00 each
Paperback
Author: Tony Taylor
Published by: Silver Owl Press
The renaissance man of New Zealand pschology was how colleague Jules Older characterized Professor Tony Taylor of Victoria University in Wellington, in the NZ Listener. The accolade reflects the astonishing range of internationally acclaimed original research Professor Taylor has published in 290 academic papers on subjects as eclectic as the differences between male and female prison tattoos, Antarctic stress, wind phobia,adolescent hysteria induced by The Beatles. Tony Taylor was the first professor of clinical psychology in the British Commonwealth -not bad for a poor kid who grew up between the world wars mired without prospects in London's Docklands.
These memoirs demonstrate how he did it from cockney kid and wartime naval service to his present eminence helping the most destructive and stressed people in our community cope better with their lives.

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ISBN / ISSN:
9780473156114

The Chocolate Seller On Broadway and His Kids order quantity
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NZ$ 30.00 each
Paperback
Author: Chris Grantham
Published by: Chris Grantham publishing
The one and a half square meters of footpath space on Broadway, Newmarket, Auckland from which Mark Grantham sells his chocolate bars for charity has to be one of the smallest retail sites in New Zealand. One regular customer jokingly refers to it as Mark's 'office', because it is where Mark - severly disabled with cerebral palsy since birth - has plied his trade for the last seventeen years.
For 20 years now, Chris Grantham has been Mark's chocolate admin man. For 33 years he has also doubled as his father and therefore knows him rather well! Mark's is quite a story - and there's much, much more to it than chocolate - taste and you'll see.

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ISBN / ISSN:
9780473156701

The Gold Baron : Central Otago's mining entrepreneur order quantity
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NZ$ 40.00 each
Paperback
Author: John McCraw
Published by: Central Stories
This is the story of John Ewing, gold mining entrepreneur and at one time in the 1890s, New Zealand’s wealthiest person.
Ewing was a gold mining leader who introduced many technological advances onto the Otago goldfields that greatly extended the life of gold mining in that province. The sluicing elevator was one such innovation that he brought from the United States and put into use in several places across Otago including St Bathans where he mostly resided. As government advisor on gold mining he was highly influential, and at his peak had mining interests spread across southern New Zealand in many companies and ventures.
Unfortunately, as gold became harder to mine economically, and banks were under financial pressure, he had extended himself too far and was declared bankrupt. From this set-back he never recovered although he fought hard to clear his name and strike it rich one more time.
McCraw’s book brings this unsung ... more

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ISBN / ISSN:
9780864736031

The Double Rainbow : James K. Baxter, Ngati Hau and the Jerusalem Commune order quantity
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NZ$ 40.00 each
Paperback
Author: John Newton
Published by: Victoria University Press
'When Maori and Pakeha do these things together the double rainbow begins to shine.'

In 1969, New Zealand's best-known poet, James K. Baxter, moved to Jerusalem on the Whanganui River and established an intentional community under the mana of the local hapu, Ngati Hau. The Jerusalem commune proved a magnet for disaffected and damaged young people.

As the setting for Baxter's celebrated late works, Jerusalem Sonnets, Jerusalem Daybook and Autumn Testament, it quickly became the country's most famous hippie community, as well as a media byword for the idealism and excess of the emerging youth culture. But what was life really like at Jerusalem, beyond the popular stereotypes? And what did it mean, for Ngati Hau, to be deluged with long-haired strangers and with the media attention which followed them?
Here, for the first time, events are reconstructed from the point of view of James K. ... more

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ISBN / ISSN:
9780143019749

One Good Run : the Legend of Burt Munro order quantity
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NZ$ 35.00 each
Paperback
Author: Tim Hanna
Published by: Penguin Books (N.Z.) Ltd.
This edition is out of print. See 9780143202851

All Burt Munro ever wanted was one perfect run on his highly modified Indian Scout motorcycle - to see how fast it would really go. In a tiny home workshop in New Zealand, with the barest of tools but a native engineering genius, he constantly rebuilt and modified a unique speed machine, bought brand new in 1920 for $50. After running out of challenges at home and already aged in his sixties, Burt took his 'Munro Special' to the famous Bonneville salt flats in Utah where he became a legend who is remembered to this day. The life story of Burt Munro is one of triumph over limitation, achievement against all odds. Brave, funny, gritty and brilliant, he was quite literally one of the original speed freaks, whose exploits have now inspired the hit movie The World's Fastest Indian starring Sir Anthony Hopkins.
First published November 2005.

 
ISBN / ISSN:
9780958289825

Heaps More Grady's People order quantity
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NZ$ 40.00 each
Paperback
Author: Don Grady
Published by: Nikau Press
This is the fourth installment of "Grady's People."
First published October 2009

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ISBN / ISSN:
9781869620868

Last True Explorer : Into darkest New Guinea order quantity
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NZ$ 40.00 each
Paperback
Author: Philip Temple
Published by: Random House New Zealand Ltd
  • Longlist, Montana New Zealand Book Awards, 2003 (Non-Fiction: Lifestyle & Contemporary Culture Section)


  • The age of exploration came to an end in the 1960s, when the solar topee, compass and trouble-with-the-natives gave way to satellite surveillance and helicopters. Philip Temple was one of the last true explorers. In 1962, at the age of 23, he went to New Guinea with Heinrich Harrer (author of Seven Years in Tibet, The White Spider) to conquer the highest mountain in the Pacific.

    Having climbed all the glaciated summits of the Dolomite-like Cartensz Pyramide in West New Guinea (Irian Jaya), they then travelled literally into the stone age to witness the manufacture of stone tools in a corner of the northern highlands never before visited by Europeans. Unable until now to write about his experiences with Harrer in New Guinea because of contractual restrictions, Temple is now free to return to the unsurpassed experiences ... more

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    ISBN / ISSN:
    9781877460418

    Gods and Little Fishes : A Boy and a beach order quantity
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    NZ$ 40.00 each
    Paperback
    Author: Bruce Ansley
    Published by: Longacre Press
    ‘I’m a Brighton boy, and no expatriate is neutral. We have it branded on our psyches.
    The place turns on like a refrigerator light when we open the door on our memory. …’ Bruce Ansley
    When you walk along the pier under the huge blue sky and with clean surf on either side, you can easily think that New Brighton is the loveliest place in the world. This was once New Zealand’s most bustling township, however it became a parable of New Zealand when the revolution of the eighties and nineties derailed it.
    New Brighton’s youth grew up in happy anarchy beside its great, glorious beach.
    In Gods and Little Fishes, Bruce Ansley gives us immediate entry into one such rich, well-lived boyhood and family life. He both captures the freedoms of a childhood many would envy now, and offers a perceptive adult sensibility charged with a partisan view.
    Not only a marvellous memoir, this is also a superb portrait of a seaside town set in the second ... more

     
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