Biography/Memoir > NZ Biography/Memoir

Aged nine and shattered by the death of his Father, the author takes his readers through the inner processing of that dreadful situation, and his eventual recovery, before embarking on a career as a soldier in the New Zealand Army aged merely fifteen years old. Side-by-side with several hundred other boy cadets in the ranks of this elite unit, at the army's Regular Force Cadet School which was based at a remote,stark army camp, he dreamed of becoming a proud figure in uniform, strong fit and brave. Stunningly, from the very first ... read more

Dame Alison Holst holds more titles than her damehood suggests: she's been invariably described as 'Mother of the Nation', 'Queen of the Kitchen' and 'a groundbreaker in the culinary world'. In the sixties, Dame Alison singlehandedly changed the way women prepared food for their families with her legendary television programme 'Here's How'. She went on to become a prodigious fund-raiser for Plunkett, the chocolate-coated voice of radio, author of a hundred bestselling cookbooks, a successful business brand, as well as our favourit... read more

In the 1930s the New Zealander Jack Lovelock was one of the world's best-known athletes. In 1933 he broke the world record for the mile. At the 1936 Berlin Olympic Games he won a gold medal and broke the world record for the 1500 metres. When he retired, a leading sports writer lamented the end of a golden age of mile racing. Throughout his running career Lovelock kept journals and diaries. While much has been written about Lovelock, until now his journals and diaries have never been published. As If Running on Air reproduces his j... read more

This fascinating memoir follows on from the bestselling biography Rhythm and Swing, recounting the last few years of Sir Richard Hadlee's cricketing career before describing the tumultuous period in his life that followed his retirement. Sir Richard describes how his life was suddenly shattered as he experienced a debilitating heart attack that led to major surgery, and shortly afterwards his marriage of twenty-two years came to a painful end. Despite these challenges Sir Richard picked up the pieces and created a new life, first a... read more

Janice Marriott and Virginia Pawsey, who went to Gisborne Girls’ High together, met again after thirty years at a school reunion. They rekindled their friendship and began writing, discovering in the process a shared passion for gardening – despite their having created two very different gardens. Janice lives in central Wellington where her riotously colourful mix of flowers, fruit and vegetables surround her tiny house in the midst of the CBD. Virginia helps run a South Island high country farm and her garden has to f... read more

A warm, welcoming feast of a book celebrating food and the power of sustaining friendship.

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In 1984, celebrated painter Colin McCahon went missing for 24 hours in Sydney. On the way to a major exhibition opening, McCahon went in one door of the Botanical Garden toilets and slipped out the other side. He was discovered by police the next day in Centennial Park, far across Sydney, with no identification and no memory of who he was or where he had been. By all accounts McCahon was never quite the same from this night until his death three years later.
In this work of creative non-fiction, Martin Edmond illuminates the ... read more

Samuel Austin's military career began with the British army and ended with the Wanganui Native Contingent in their campaign to capture Te Kooti in 1870. Drawn extensively from Austin's own diary, this is the story of his adventurous life as a soldier, settler, and family man. From his childhood in Ireland and service with the 65th Regiment, it vividly details the extensive action he took part in during the turbulent years of the New Zealand Wars, and his later life as a colonist in the growing town of Wanganui.

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Since his tragic early death from cancer in 1995, John Britten has deservedly taken his place as an original New Zealand hero. He was the man who, with a small dedicated team in Christchurch, designed and built from scratch the extraordinary Britten V-twin motorcycle. For a time this beautiful, revolutionary machine was probably the fastest four-stroke bike in the world, a motorcycle that could wheel stand at 150 miles per hour simply by opening up the throttle.After five years of research, Tim Hanna has finally been able to give d... read more

Graeme Sinclair producer, writer and star of the ever popular Gone Fishin' writes candidly about his life and career. While many of his younger fans have only ever known him in a wheelchair, for the first 40 years of his eventful life he had the full use of his legs. Struck down with MS unexpectedly in his forties instead of allowing his misfortune to dominate his life, he carried on as normal, only now on wheels. This presented some interesting challenges, filming and travelling to make the TV show. A hero to his younger viewers t... read more

John Mulgan was part of a gifted yet uneasy group of young New Zealanders who madetheir mark between the wars – men such as Ian Milner, James Bertram, Dan Davin and Geoffrey Cox. An Oxford graduate, he worked as a publisher at Oxford University Press before leaving for the front in World War Two.Fascinated but sometimes troubled by his home country, Mulgan saw New Zealandas a place of challenge and austere demands, a land that produced men more practicalthan cultivated. In his famous novel Man Alone, he depicted it as a tough... read more

'There is no place in normal New Zealand society for the man who is different', wrote William Harrison (Bill) Pearson. One of New Zealand's most distinguished fiction writers and sharpest critics, Pearson's life was also fraught with contradiction and secrecy, largely because of his homosexuality. Born in Greymouth in 1922, he grew up in a society dominated by a rugged ideal of New Zealand manhood; not an easy childhood or adolescence for an unusually sensitive boy who preferred intellectual pursuits to sports. He went to universit... read more

In 1962 a young New Zealander left home for a one year trip to Europe. He returned some 20 years later with a wife, four children and the internationally renowned tour company - Contiki Holidays.Written by the founder of Contiki, Only Two Seats Left is the incredible story of how a simple idea with a starting capital of just 25 pounds became a worldwide travel company with an internationally recognised iconic' brand name.To date over two million young people have had the Contiki Challenge. Only Two Seats Left is one of Australasia/... read more

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Imagine sharing a portable toilet with your neighbours for months on end, showering in a shipping container in the fire station car park, or travelling for three hours a day on six different buses to get to and from school. Such was life in post-quake Christchurch for Amanda Cropp and her family. On September 4, 2010 New Zealand's second largest city was rocked by the first of three major earthquakes that between them killed 182 people, damaged 100,000 homes and devastated the central business district. Journalist Amanda Cropp, a l... read more

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'The Life and Times of James Walter Chapman-Taylor' enables us to enter into the life and times of a man, a family, a society, and ways of thinking and acting different to, yet not so distant from, our own. We enter the world of an architect, who is also an artist; builder, craftsman; a theosophist, an astrologer, a photographer, a furniture maker. We are presented with the life story of a complex and talented man, a man who influenced the lives of others, and was influenced by particular beliefs, both religious and artistic. To e... read more