Flying Kiwis: A History of the OE, by Jude Wilson (Otago University Press, RRP $45): Going on the big OE is something of a rite of passage for many young Kiwis, so it should come as no surprise that there…
Category: General non-fiction
Shame on the high seas
The Catch, by Michael Field (Awa Press $40): The tagline on this book is “How fishing companies reinvented slavery and plunder the oceans”, and that’s exactly what it’s about. Michael Field has done an outstanding job outlining the disgraceful state…
The summer that changed the world
One Summer: America, 1927, by Bill Bryson (Doubleday, RRP $55): British author Bill Bryson has come up with an interesting concept for this fact-packed trip back in time, telling the story of one summer in the history of America that…
Gangland killings a shock
The Bassett Road Machine-Gun Murders, by Scott Bainbridge ($37 Allen & Unwin): This book was published to mark the 50th anniversary of a shocking crime that drew a line in New Zealand’s criminal history and heralded a more sinister era.…
Will we pay the price?
Farmageddon: The True Cost of Cheap Meat, by Philip Lymbery with Isabel Oakeshott (Bloomsbury, RRP $37): It’s so easy to feel a disconnect between the vacuum packed offerings in the meat aisle at your local supermarket and the origins of that…
State’s failure of care a sad tale
In the Hands of Strangers: A New Zealand Childhood Stolen, by Beverly Wardle-Jackson (Penguin, RRP $38): When the State steps in to take over the care of a child when families are unable to, those children should be safe. Unfortunately,…
Dreaming of the impossible
100 Things You Will Never Do, by Daniel Smith (Quercus, RRP $40): I refuse to set myself a bucket list and believe the phrase should be eradicated from our language, but must admit I did enjoy this trip through what…
Tackling gender debate with lots of humour
Are Men Obsolete: You Decide, edited by Rudyard Griffiths (Ebury Press, RRP $20): This little book takes on the gender debate with four talented feminist writers and critics taking a crack at the argument both for and against those hairy…
Harrowing accounts reveal disaster details
Fukushima: Japan’s Tsunami and the Inside Story of the Nuclear Meltdowns, by Mark Willacy (Macmillan, RRP $40): Three years ago, and just a couple of weeks after the deadly Canterbury quake, Japan was also hit by a big quake. While…
Celebrating the wonder of ‘show day’
One Hundred Summers, by John Cutt (Winton A & P Association, RRP $45): In what is a deceptively compact little book, former Southland Times farming reporter John Cutt packed in a wealth of history and information that covers 100 years…