Bøger udgivet af Otago University Press

Writing from the eighth and ninth decades of his life, Alan Roddicks third collection of poetry, Next, examines the past, observes the present and speculates on the future. Anchored in the action of daily life whether it be a ride in a mirrored elevator or a roadside conversation with a friend his poems speak of migration, family, friendship, aging and mortality. Next is marked by a rare blend of uncompromising vision and deep compassion. Here is poetry that delights in warmth, humour, wit and grace, that revels in the beauty of the world, that insists on anticrepuscular rays at twilight even as its asking the niggling question: Tomorrow, though''?

"Come Back to Mona Vale is a beautifully written, compelling narrative/memoir that sets about unravelling the mysteries and anomalies behind the public history of a wealthy Christchurch business family in the first half of the 20th century. The author-as narrator gradually becomes aware that his family heritage isn't necessarily the norm, nor what he expected. He realises that family members don't speak to each other about the most private events. The story unfolds like a crime or detective tale, and also delves into the history of the Canterbury settlement, contrasting Christchurch's public values, aspirations and beauty with its murkier private behaviour. And yet the story is told with a graceful touch and an eye for the vivid, comic and telling detail. Alexander McKinnon's exploration of his family's past is the record of a beautiful and grand (yet gradually crumbling) manor interwoven with social history - with a sense of the Gothic, of obsession, and of a tight-knit circle where secrets wreak a terrible climax leading to a form of inter-generational haunting"--Publisher's website.

If you've ever walked along a beach or rocky shore and peered, poked or wondered at the things cast upon it by the waves, this book is for you. Sea foam, ambergris, giant squid, stranded whales, seaweed, shells, plastic, dead birds, shoes and pieces of planes or rockets ... Beaches are our windows to the ocean, and the objects we find on them tell stories about life, death and dynamic processes in the sea. Beachcombing looks at waves and tides, the connectivity of Southern Hemisphere coastlines, and the life cycles of marine plants and animals. It will help you understand the objects and organisms you find on beaches, and the intriguing reasons they have come to be there.

New Zealand author James Courage was born in Christchurch in 1903, and he became aware of his homosexuality during his adolescent years. He moved to London in 1927 and began writing novels, plays, poems and short stories. He was much more sexually open than most of his homosexual writer contemporaries Frank Sargeson, Eric McCormick, Charles Brasch and Bill Pearson. A Way of Love, published in 1959, was the first gay novel written by a New Zealander, and some of his other seven novels (including Fires in the Distance and The Call Home) contain queer characters.

Dan Davin, one of New Zealand's acknowledged masters of the short story, was born in Invercargill in 1913. The Gorse Blooms Pale gathers together twenty-six stories and a selection of poems reflecting his experiences while growing up in an Irish–New Zealand family in Southland. Comic, haunting, poetic, profound, and lyrical, the stories have a regional flavour quite unlike any other body of work in New Zealand literature. They insightfully capture the character of a close-knit rural community and its post-British social relationships and tribulations, with a flair equal to such other New Zealand writers as Sargeson, Frame, Middleton, or Marshall. The Gorse Blooms Pale is a rare treasure in the landscape of twentieth-century New Zealand literature.

In 1877, Kate Edger became the first woman to graduate from a New Zealand university. The New Zealand Herald enthusiastically hailed her achievement as the first rays of the rising sun of female intellectual advancement. Edger went on to become a pioneer of womens education in New Zealand. She also worked tirelessly to mitigate violence against women and children and to fortify their rights through progressive legislation. She campaigned for womens suffrage and played a prominent role in the Womens Christian Temperance Union and in Wellingtons Society for the Protection of Women and Children. Later in life she advocated international diplomacy and co-operation through her work for the League of Nations Union. Diana Morrow tells the story of this remarkable New Zealand womans life and, in the process, provides valuable insights into the role of women social reformers in our history and Edgers place within a distinctive strand of Christian feminism.

"We Will Not Cease is the unflinching account of New Zealander Archibald Baxter's brutal treatment as a conscientious objector during World War I.In 1915, when Baxter was 33, he was arrested, sent to prison, then shipped under guard to Europe where he was forced to the front line against his will. Punished to the limits of his physical and mental endurance, Baxter was stripped of all dignity, beaten, starved and left for dead by the New Zealand military. In the final attempt to discredit him authorities consigned him to a mental institution, an experience that would haunt him for the rest of his life.Long regarded as a classic, We Will Not Cease is as relevant now as when it was first published in 1939. This revised edition has a new foreword by Kevin Clements (foundation director of the National Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies), a brand new cover, and a full index"--Publisher's website.