After escaping from the Norfolk Island penal colony on a whaling ship, Bloodworth and his three fellow convicts are left on a remote southern island by a captain who promises to pick them up in a year's time.It will be many years before they see another ship.Durign that time four men, with nothing in common but a desire to escape and a need to survive, live together in cramped and freezing isolation. Slangam believes hard work will see them though, Toper puts his faith in the divine, Gargantua leans on his learning and Bloodworth watched – both his fellow felons and the inhospitable environment.Based on the true story of four convicts who spent more than nine years on the Snares Islands in the early years of the nineteenth century, Charlotte Randall's latest novel is a riveting, intelligent and powerful work of fiction.

    Later that day two ashen men stumbled from the entrance. Twenty-nine men remained unaccounted for. Initial probes revealed fatally high methane levels in the mine – conditions deemed unsurvivable for the trapped men. But it was only after a second blast five days later that all hope was extinguished.Tragedy at Pike River Mine is a dramatic, superbly researched and page-turning account of a disaster that should never have happened, of the dramatic political and legal fallout, and the effect on the small West Coast community. It reveals an appalling string of mistakes, from consent being given for the mine in the first place, to lack of proper monitoring equipment, pressure to ignore safety requirements, and effectively only a single exit. It puts a human face on the people who suffered, and provides penetrating insight on who's to blame.This is an essential read for everyone who cares about the future of New Zealand and our values as a nation. Rebecca Macfie's writing on Pike River has been hailed for its veracity, perspicacity and powerful human interest.

    We drifted through neighbourhoods in small packs, clinging to each other, all but alone. Our parents had given up. Packed their photos and furniture and moved to the forest to live simpler lives. But we stayed because there was nowhere else to go. We sold everything for rent — time, dignity, self-respect. Beneath the shiny new paint jobs and streets paved with debt lay our home."Stuck in a dead-end office job, Zlata hopes for a record deal so she can escape Auckland city. Then at party she meets Hamish, a graffiti artist and part-time drug dealer. Each has their own ideas about the other’s life, and surrounded by a makeshift family of friends and ex-lovers, their dreams of music, art and travel take shape.But as quickly as things come together, they can be torn apart — unravelling relationships and lives.

    Set against the rugged beauty of the New Zealand back country, this is the tale of a young man's introduction to the art of deer culling and follows the exploits of a good keen man as he learns the skills necessary to become a good bushman.

    Stories deal with dreams, a woman who accidently injures her son, sheep herders, whales, violence, and family life.

    She is joining her husband there, a reunion that is far from warm, but this remote place is to mark Alice's long and steady growth towards shared love, a new awareness of life and a sense of personal liberation. First published in New York in 1920, this is the first New Zealand novel to confront convincingly many of the twentieth century's major political, religious, moral and social issues - most significantly women's rights. Daring for its time in its exploration of sexual, emotional and intellectual freedom, the New Zealand Herald found the ending 'too early for good public morality'. It is the most celebrated of Jane Mander's six novels, and is believed by many to be the inspiration of Jane Campion's film The Piano.

    Born in Wellington, New Zealand in 1888, she came to London in 1903 to attend Queen's College and returned permanently in 1908. her first book of stories, 'In a German Pension', appeared in 1911, and she went on to write and publish an extraordinary body of work. This edition of The Collected Stories brings together all of the stories that Mansfield had written up until her death in January of 1923. With an introduction and head-notes, this volume allows the reader to become familiar with the complete range of Mansfield's work from the early, satirical stories set in Bavaria, through the luminous recollections of her childhood in New Zealand, and through the mature, deeply felt stories of her last years. Admired by Virginia Woolf in her lifetime and by many writers since her death, Katherine Mansfield is one of the great literary artists of the twentieth century.

    Summer has come, and those who can have left the bay for the allure of the far away city. Among them is Harry's mother, who has left behind a case of homemade ginger beer and a vague promise of return.Harry and Cal are too busy enjoying their holidays, playing in the caves and the old abandoned slaughterhouse, to be too concerned with her absence. When their older cousin-the beautiful, sophisticated Caroline-comes from the city to stay with the Bairds, Harry is besotted. With their friend Dibs Kelly, the boys and Caroline spend the long summer days exploring the bay and playing games.But Harry is very protective of Caroline and jealous of the attention she receives from other men. And what looked to be a pleasurable summer is overshadowed by certain 'accidents' in the old slaughterhouse and a general air of suspicion and distrust.There was a simple country boy who lived on the edge of the world, and his name was Harry Baird. That is not the whole story.First published in 1968, Sydney Bridge Upside Down has long been considered a New Zealand literary masterpiece. Published now for the first time in Australia, this brilliant tale, told in an entirely distinctive voice, deserves a place on the bookshelf alongside period classics like Wake in Fright and My Brother Jack.

    Since childhood, Knecht has been consumed with mastering the Glass Bead Game, which requires a synthesis of aesthetics and philosophy, which he achieves in adulthood, becoming a Magister Ludi (Master of the Game).

    Scrupulously following the fluidity and breathlessness of the sparsely punctuated original manuscript, Mark Harman’s new translation reveals levels of comedy, energy, and visual power, previously unknown to English language readers.

    . .] leaving surrealist art installations all over the house— a tiny cow in a teapot in a hat on the doorstep, of course! A stuffed crocodile in a silk camisole perched beside a woollen chick in a beanie on the bread-bin, why not!'Just as they are despairing about being able to conceive another child, Jason comes into their family. He arrives under fraught circumstances, but might just make a perfect sibling for Billy. Jason is a ‘ lovely, poor, sad, unfortunate, ordinary, annoying, delightful nuisance of a ratbag of a hoot of a kid ' and the boys grow close over the ensuing years. But after a terrible accident, Billy turns into a bird. He utterly believes it: and as his behaviour becomes increasingly worrying, Liam and Iris must find a way to stop their family flying apart.When extracts of Billy Bird won the NZSA/Philip and Dianne Beatson Fellowship, the judges said the project was ‘inventive, joyful and beautifully written'. Ripe with playfulness, yet also unforgettably poignant, this novel will unstitch — and then mend — your heart several times over.

    When news spreads of a high school teacher's relationship with his underage student, participants and observers alike soon take part in an elaborate show of concern and dismay. But beneath the surface of the teenage girls' display, there simmers a new awareness of their own power. They obsessively examine the details of the affair with the curiosity, jealousy, and approbation native to any adolescent girl, under the watchful eye of their stern and enigmatic saxophone teacher, whose focus may not be as strictly on their upcoming recital as she implies.

    Neddy can't protect her from the men in town, but can he protect her from the killer on the loose?Part boys' own adventure, part small-town comedy and part horrifying thriller, The Scarecrow is of its own kind, an unexpected and irresistible masterpiece.'One of the most unusual and original novels published in this country for many a long day' - Sydney Morning Herald.

    Auē can be heard in the sound of the sea he loves and hates, and in the music he draws out of the guitar that was his father’s. It spills out of the gang violence that killed his father and sent his mother into hiding, and the shame he feels about abandoning his eight-year-old brother to a violent home.But Ārama is braver than he looks, and he has a friend and his friend has a dog, and the three of them together might just be strong enough to turn back the tide of sorrow. As long as there’s aroha to give and stories to tell and a good supply of plasters.Here is a novel that is both raw and sublime, a compelling new voice in New Zealand fiction. Haere mai, Becky Manawatu.

    This remarkable, award-winning novel is both a tribute to some of the world's first sporting celebrities and an investigation into the curious workings of fame.Not just a book for lovers of sport, The Book of Fame is essentially a story about friendship and loyalty, and about a group of astonishing young men at the peak of their abilities.From the Trade Paperback edition.