Passages by Linda Trubridge

$40.00 NZD

Category: Biography/Memoir

Dead People I have Known by Shayne Carter

$40.00 NZD

Category: Biography/Memoir

In Dead People I Have Known, the legendary New Zealand musician Shayne Carter tells the story of a life in music, taking us deep behind the scenes and songs of his riotous teenage bands Bored Games and the Doublehappys and his best-known bands Straitjacket Fits and Dimmer. He traces an intimate history of the Dunedin Sound that distinctive jangly indie sound that emerged in the seventies, heavily influenced by punk and the record label Flying Nun. As well as the pop culture of the seventies, eighties and nineties, Carter writes candidly of the bleak and violent aspects of Dunedin, the city where he grew up and would later return. His childhood was shaped by violence and addiction, as well as love and music. Alongside the fellow musicians, friends and family who appear so vividly here, this book is peopled by neighbours, kids at school, people on the street, and the other passing characters who have stayed on in his memory. We also learn of the other major force in Carter's life: sport. Harness racing, wrestling, basketball and football have provided him with a similar solace, even escape, as music. Dead People I Have Known is a frank, moving, often incredibly funny autobiography; the story of making a life as a musician over the last forty years in New Zealand, and a work of art in its own right. ...Show more

Being John Lennon by Ray Connolly

$38.00 NZD

Category: Biography/Memoir

John Lennon was a rock star, a school clown, a writer, a wit, an iconoclast, a sometime peace activist and finally an eccentric millionaire. He was also a Beatle - his plain-speaking and impudent rejection of authority catching, and eloquently articulating, the group's moment in history. Chronicling a t roubled life, from that of the cast-aside child of a broken wartime marriage to his murder by a deranged fan, Being John Lennon analyses the contradictions in the singer-songwriter's creative and destructive personality. A leader who could be easily led, he was often generous and often funny, but sometimes scathingly cruel. As a journalist, author Ray Connolly had a close working relationship with Lennon, and the entire Beatles coterie. In this biography he unsparingly reassesses the chameleon nature of the perpetually dissatisfied star who just couldn't stop reinventing himself. Drawing on many interviews and conversations with Lennon, his first wife Cynthia and second Yoko Ono, as well as his girlfriend May Pang and song-writing partner Paul McCartney, this complex portrait is a revealing insight into a restless man whose emotional turbulence governed his life and talent. ...Show more

Andris, Where Are You? From Latvia to New Zealand: The Family Story of Andris Apse by Ron Crosby

$20.00 NZD

Category: Biography/Memoir

Andris, Where Are You? tells the family story of renowned New Zealand photographer Andris Apse, who when middle aged, discovered that his father Voldemars, believed to be dead for 40 years, was still alive in Latvia. Told largely through insightful pre-war diary entries by Voldemars Apse, as well as cor respondence between Voldemars and his wife Kamilla, both before and during the war, this book describes the horrendous effects of war and the Soviet and German occupation on an ordinary rural Latvian family. For years after the war Kamilla and her baby Andris lived in West Germany in a refugee camp, but came to understand that Voldemars had died in the war, or in the Soviet gulag prison camps. Consequently, Kamilla and five-year-old Andris emigrated to New Zealand as refugees. Over time Andris became one of New Zealand’s most successful landscape photographers, and raised his own family. Following the breakdown of the Soviet Union, Kamilla and Andris miraculously discovered that Voldemars was still alive in Latvia. Andris arranged to take Kamilla, who was now in her seventies, back to Latvia. When they reunited in Riga, husband met wife, and son met father for the first time in over 40 years. This story of heart-rending separation and joyful rediscovery will touch a chord with all parents and everyone with a sense of history and the importance of family. Andris’s remarkable tale was first published as a large format photographic book, which was serialised by National Radio, and his life and photography has also featured in a 2010 TVNZ documentary ‘Through My Eyes’. ...Show more

Peter and Me: When a love story becomes a carer's anguish by Helen Ritchie

$33.00 NZD

Category: Biography/Memoir

When a love story becomes a carer’s anguish They first met when Helene was 18 years old. Together for nearly 40 years, this is the story of their relationship through Peter’s intense last four years involving 24/7 care, the impact of a horrible illness and a shameful and ad hoc health system . It aims to give a voice to isolated and exploited carers, especially those in private homes, and to expose fundamental issues about humanity and failed systems. It calls for and it calls a Royal Commission inquiry and a ‘bipartisan’ Parliamentary response to produce viable solutions. ...Show more

Gloucester Crescent: Me, My Dad and Other Grown-Ups by William Miller

$33.00 NZD

Category: Biography/Memoir

Gloucester Crescent is a curving, leafy street, tucked between Camden Town and Primrose Hill, filled with the sound of clacking typewriters and children playing. It's unremarkable in many ways, unless you notice the lady in the van outside one house, and the familiar-looking residents crossing the road ...Written through the eyes of a growing child, this is the story of a very particular family and their circle of brilliant, idealistic and intellectual friends in London in the 60s, 70s and 80s. We follow William through the ups and downs of childhood, as he explores the back gardens and homes of his famous neighbours, attends dramatic rehearsals with his dad Jonathan Miller, fails exams and is bullied at school, gets drugs from the philosopher A. J. Ayer's wife, and tries to watch the moon landing with Alan Bennett and a room full of writers. Hilarious, and at times heart-breaking, this is also about how we grow up and move on - and what happens when we come back. Not only a picture of an extraordinary time in Britain's cultural history - and a hitherto unseen portrait of some of the brightest minds of a generation - this book tells the funny, tender and moving story of a young boy trying to find his own identity. ...Show more

Every Tool's a Hammer: Life Is What You Make It by Adam Savage

$38.00 NZD

Category: Biography/Memoir

'Adam has drawn for us an imperative how-to for creativity... I am aware of no human outside of fiction more qualified to pen this rousing paean to making. I adore this book,' Nick Offerman, star of Parks and Recreation MythBusters' Adam Savage - Discovery Channel star and one of the most beloved figures in science and tech - shares his golden rules of creativity, from finding inspiration to following through and successfully turning your idea into reality.  Adam Savage is a maker. From Chewbacca's bandolier to a thousand-shot Nerf gun, he has built thousands of spectacular projects as a special effects artist and the co-host of MythBusters. Adam is also an educator, passionate about instilling the principles of making in the next generation of inventors and inspiring them to turn their curiosity into creation. In this practical and passionate guide, Adam weaves together vivid personal stories, original sketches and photographs from some of his most memorable projects, and interviews with many of his iconic and visionary friends in the arts and sciences - including Pixar director Andrew Stanton, Nick Offerman, Oscar-winner Guillermo Del Toro and artist Tom Sachs - to demonstrate the many lessons he has picked up from a lifetime of making. Things like: don't wait until everything is perfect - in your workshop or in your life - to begin. Plan with pencil and paper. Sweep up every day. Learn from doing. Share your toys. There is an exact tool for every task (Adam probably has four of them in his wondrous shop), but if you need to pound in a nail and all you have handy is a skill saw - hammer away. The most important thing, always, is just that you make something. Every Tool's a Hammer is sure to guide and inspire you to build, make, invent, explore and, most of all, enjoy the thrills of being a creator. ...Show more

Chasing the Rose: An Adventure in the Venetian Countryside by Andrea Di Robilant

$37.00 NZD

Category: Biography/Memoir

From the author of the best-selling "A Venetian Affair," here is the charming chronicle of his search for the identity of a mysterious old rose. Andrea di Robilant's tale takes us back to the time of Josephine Bonaparte, as well as into some of the most delightful rose gardens in Italy today, brought to colorful life on the page in the watercolors of artist Nina Fuga. In his 2008 biography of the Venetian lady Lucia Mocenigo (his great-great-great-great- grandmother), di Robilant described a pink rose that grows wild on the family's former country estate, mentioning its light peach-and-raspberry scent. This passing detail led to an invitation for an audience with a local rose doyenne, Eleonora Garlant. She and other experts wondered if di Robilant's unnamed rose could possibly be one of the long-lost China varieties that nineteenth-century European growers had cultivated but which have since disappeared. On the hunt for the identity of his anonymous yet quietly distinctive rose, Di Robilant finds himself captivated by roseophiles through time--from Lucia and her friend Josephine Bonaparte to the gifted Eleonora, whose garden of nearly fifteen hundred varieties of old roses is one of the most significant in Europe--and by the roses themselves, each of which has a tale to tell. What starts out as a lighthearted quest becomes a meaningful journey as di Robilant contemplates the enduring beauty of what is passed down to us in a rose, through both the generosity of nature and the cultivating hand of human beings, who for centuries have embraced and extended the life of this mysterious flower. ...Show more

What Does the Sea Sound Like?: Memoirs of a Coda (Child of Deaf Adults) by Evie Mahoney

$30.00 NZD

Category: Biography/Memoir

Evie Mahoney is a CODA, a Child Of Deaf Adults, raised in Auckland, New Zealand. She is the eldest of six hearing children. Being first born her early life was mainly in a deaf environment and she was sensitive to how hearing people outside that environment reacted to her family. She lived on the edge b etween the two cultures and naturally slipped into the role of interpreter, from a young age, ensuring the Deaf and Hearing understood each other when communicating. While she learnt the values of her deaf parents with their perception of the mainstream hearing world, she also learnt the different values of the hearing world that she belonged to. Six decades later Evie is happy to have been raised by inspiring parents and enjoys the special dimension the deaf culture has given her. She has seen communication become easier for the Deaf with New Zealand Sign Language now being an official language and becoming a more accepted form of communication. Modern technology is also providing visual communication options for the Deaf. Nevertheless, Evie sees attitudes of the Hearing towards the Deaf still having a long way to go. ...Show more

Crossing the Floor: The Story of Tariana Turia by Helen Leahy

$45.00 NZD

Category: Biography/Memoir | Reading Level: Very Good

"This biography of Tariana Turia sees family members, iwi leaders, social justice advocates and politicians share their experiences of this remarkable woman. While parliament was not originally part of her life plan, Tariana Turia was involved in many community initiatives. A turning point came in 1995, when Tariana's leadership was evident in the reoccupation of Pakaitore. Here was a woman with the courage to care, the determination to speak up and a deep commitment to whānau. Inevitably, she was invited to stand in the 1996 general election. In her eighteen years as an MP, she advanced thinking in the disability area, advocated for tobacco reform and spoke out about sexual abuse, violence and racism. She also led the Whānau Ora initiative. In 2004, she crossed the floor, leading to the birth of the Māori Party"--Publisher information. ...Show more

Elisabeth's Lists - A Life Between Lines by Lulah Ellender

$25.00 NZD

Category: Biography/Memoir

Many years after the death of her grandmother, Lulah Ellender inherited a curious object - a book of handwritten lists.On the face of it, Elisabeth's lists seemed rather ordinary - shopping lists, items to be packed for a foreign trip, a tally of the eggs laid by her hens. But from these everyday fragme nts, Lulah began to weave together the extraordinary life of the grandmother she never knew - a life lived in the most rarefied and glamorous of circles, from Elisabeth's early years as an ambassador's daughter in 1930s China, to her marriage to a British diplomat and postings in Madrid under Franco's regime, post-war Beirut, Rio de Janeiro and Paris. But it was also a life of stark contrasts - between the opulent excess of embassy banquets and the deprivations of wartime rationing in England, between the unfailing charm she displayed in public and the dark depressions that blanketed her in private, between her great appetite for life and her sudden, early death.Throughout Elisabeth's adult life, the lists were a source of structure and comfort. And now, as Lulah learns that she is losing her own mother, she finds herself turning to her grandmother's life, and to her much-travelled book of lists, in search of meaning and solace.Elisabeth's Lists is both a vivid memoir and a moving study of the familial threads that binds us, even beyond death. ...Show more

These Two Hands : A Memoir by Renee

$38.00 NZD

Category: Biography/Memoir

Renee was born grumpy (Ngati Kahungunu/Scot) and nothing has changed. She is an avid and faithful reader, who enjoys cooking and gardening. Everyone, she says, should grow leafy greens. Renee always thought she would die at forty-two but for some reason this didn't happen. She considers herself very luc ky to still have most of her marbles, and credits reading, writing, walking and teaching for this. She has written eight novels and eighteen plays, among which Wednesday To Come is probably her most loved work. Iris: I remember when Dad died we stayed up all night. About one in the morning Mum made scones. Crazy the things you do. Ted: Like singing round a coffin? Iris: Hang around Ted - that's just the start. Renee lives in Otaki and teaches her Your Life, Your Story and her Poem a Week workshops there. This is just one version of her life, her story, told in patches, like a quilt. ...Show more