Black Barn: portrait of a place by Gregory O'Brien and Jenny Bornholdt (authors); Brian Culy (photographer)

$85.00 NZD

Category: Coffee Table

Meandering across the foothills of Te Mata Peak and through the Tuki Tuki Valley, Black Barn Vineyards has become one of Hawke's Bay's most popular attractions. Its evolution over the past 20 years is a story of enterprise and creativity - from a single cottage into a wine, food and luxury accommodation destination. Owners Kim Thorp and Andy Coltart envisioned not just a vineyard but a unique environment that would entice people to stay. With a collection of stylish yet low-key retreats, Black Barn is one of the most sought-after getaways in the region, while the vineyard, bistro, growers' market and outdoor amphitheater are a drawcard for locals and tourists alike.Black Barn- portrait of a place is a fitting tribute to a Hawke's Bay landmark. Lavishly photographed by Brian Culy, with text and poetry contributed by Gregory O'Brien and Jenny Bornholdt, and recipes from the Black Barn Bistro menu, it's the next best thing to being there yourself. ...Show more

Topdressing Daze

$33.00 NZD

Category: Coffee Table

Life on Muzzle: Three Generations on New Zealand's Most Remote Station by Fiona Redfern

$45.00 NZD

Category: Coffee Table

Remote Muzzle Station in southern Marlborough has captured the hearts and minds of generations, including Fiona Redfern and her parents before her. Fiona grew up and thrived in the splendid isolation, and wouldn't have it any other way. Now Fiona and her husband Guy are running the station and raising t heir two small children in this wonderful but challenging environment. As the crow flies, Muzzle Station is not too far from Kaikoura. But it's not easy to get there. First, the truck - and it has to be a truck - must make it across the Clarence River. If the river is swollen or in flood, there will be no journey. Once safely across, there are more than 25 smaller river crossings and a 1370-metre-high mountain range to get across. If all goes well it takes three hours to make the drive, but it is often blocked with rockfalls and slips, not to mention snow, or rain that turns the track's clay surface to mud, rendering it completely undriveable. There is another option. On a good day, it's just a 15-minute flight by Cessna 180 four-seater aircraft to Kaikoura. But good days are not always easy to come by in this part of the country, especially when they are needed! This is the story of family life on New Zealand's remotest station, and what it's like to live and work in what is literally the back of beyond. ...Show more

Kereru Station: Two Sisters' Legacy by Mary Shanahan

$65.00 NZD

Category: Coffee Table

When two well-heeled sisters purchased the sprawling Kereru Station, old school farmers must have shook their heads in bemused dismay. The property was in serious decline. Fences had collapsed, paddocks were reverting to rabbit-infested scrub and the once handsome homestead was being used to store hay a nd house calves. Gwen Malden and Ruth Nelson were eccentric, artistic women but, like their grandfather, they were also savvy. In 1857, the 20-year-old James Nelson Williams had borrowed the wherewithal to established Kereru as one of Hawke's Bay's earliest sheep runs. Both generations adopted a similar approach to the farm, employing able managers to shape profit-making enterprises. Quirky and creative, sisters Ruth Nelson and Gwen Malden purchased the rundown Kereru Station in the aftermath of Wold War II. Reviving the sprawling sheep station's fortunes, these visionary women channelled its profits into their favoured causes. Ruth, with her lifelong friend Edna Burbury, founded and supported Hawke's Bay's Rudolf Steiner school while Gwen, a gifted painter, buoyed up the arts and charities dear to her heart. Enriching this history are the stories told by those who have lived and worked on the historic station, battling wind, drought, pests and floods while never failing to be seduced by the spectacular beauty of its landscape. ...Show more

Huts: Untold Stories from Back-country New Zealand by Mark Pickering

$50.00 NZD

Category: Coffee Table

Huts is a celebration of the endurance of New Zealand's back-country huts and the men who built and lived in them. It is a fascinating look at the place of these iconic dwellings in New Zealand’s social and mountain history. There are over 1500 huts in New Zealand – an extraordinarily large number. Mark Pickering focuses on 15 historic huts, but many others besides are referred to. Most of the huts still do the job they were built for, whether it’s a pit-sawn deer cullers’ hut in Urewera National Park or a tiny skiers’ shack in the Craigieburn Range. If huts could talk they could in fact tell the whole history of the back country. Beatifully written, lavishly illustrated – this book is a must-have for outdoor enthusiasts, trampers or anyone interested in New Zealand's early history. ...Show more

In the Victorian Style by Randolph Delehanty

$60.00 NZD

Category: Coffee Table

Traces the development of Victorian architecture, as well as the history of the city's street plan development, building trends, and parks. This book also offers a tour of the traditional Victorian interior. It is useful for tourists and Victorian lovers, as well as architects, designers, and decorators . ...Show more

Flowers at Home by Sandra Kaminski; Geoff Hedley (Photographer)

$50.00 NZD

Category: Coffee Table

Using cut flowers and an imaginative range of accessories, well-known Auckland-based stylist Sandra Kaminski shows in Flowers at Home how to transform a room or setting to reflect the mood you want. It could be as simple as a few hand-picked blooms on the dinner table, a subtle arrangement of delicately tinted roses or an extravaganza of riotous colour - it's all about knowing how to present them to best effect. Whatever your preferred style, you will find endless inspiration in this glorious collection of opulent floral images based on the four seasons. Sandra's early career focused on fashion merchandising, but her discerning eye for colour, design and texture together with her talent for creating beautiful settings with everyday items established a loyal fan base during her nine years as a stylist with New Zealand House and Garden magazine. Her work has been featured in numerous magazines throughout Europe, UK, US and Australia and her first book, Living Life Beautifully published by Penguin Books in 2006, sold in both Australia and New Zealand. Examples of photographer Geoff Hedley's work can be seen in many magazines. He specialises in commercial and advertising work. Earlier this year his work featured in the Auckland Fringe Festival of Photography. ...Show more

Charles Latham's Gardens of Italy: From the Archives of "Country Life" by Helena Attlee

$60.00 NZD

Category: Coffee Table

In the spring of 1903, Country Life's first staff photographer, Charles Latham, set off from London's Victoria station with his large-format camera and several boxes of fragile glass negatives bound for Rome. He spent the months that followed photographing some of Italy's finest historic gardens. In all , Latham photographed thirty-seven gardens, and his powerfully evocative pictures were published by Country Life in 1905 in two volumes under the title of The Gardens of Italy, with a text by the well known contemporary garden writer, Evelyn March Phillipps. Latham's photographs were immediately acclaimed and the images are characteristic of his work in their exceptional clarity. As a result of the political turmoil that overtook Italy in the nineteenth century, many of the gardens had already fallen into a state of picturesque decrepitude; others, around Florence, had been taken over by English and American expatriates and were in the process of restoration. But even though some of the aristocratic owners and their gardeners might have gone, the elaborate architecture, statuary and ingenious waterworks which Renaissance designers so admired remained largely intact and were brilliantly captured in all their faded magnificence by Latham's camera. Today, many of these gardens have vanished, destroyed by social upheaval and war, though a few were painstakingly restored in the post-war years. Charles Latham's outstanding compositions bear testament to the rich heritage of some of Italy's great gardens in the golden age just before the First World War. The 200 superbly reproduced photographs are accompanied by Helena Attlee's incisive commentary on twenty-one of these magnificent Renaissance and Baroque gardens. Helena Attlee has made Italy and its gardens her special subject for over twenty years. A leading authority on garden history, she writes for a range of journals and magazines, lectures widely, and leads specialist tours to Italy, France and Portugal. She is the author of several books, including Italian Gardens, A Cultural History (2006). ...Show more

New Zealand on the Move : 100 Kiwi Transport Icons by Matthew Wright

$50.00 NZD

Category: Coffee Table

As this country developed from 1840 on, transport was the key to opening up areas for farming, forestry and manufacturing. The trains, ships, cars, planes, motorbikes and trucks that we used on to get places and make us more efficient were so relied upon that they have become part of our DNA. In this li vely, well researched and affectionate survey of 100 'vehicles' of all descriptions, historian Matthew Wright takes us on a trip down memory lane, reacquainting us with the way we used to get around. The book features both New Zealand innovations and inventions and significant international brands/events/developments that affected this country. The text follows the winning formula of Wrights' earlier book Big Ideas: 100 Wonders of New Zealand Engineering, with around 500 words per topic, large images, and a chronological/countdown format. ...Show more

This Old Harley by Michael Dregni

$35.00 NZD

Category: Coffee Table

A roll down memory lane is a lot better on the back of a Harley. We all have "firsts" in our lives-our nervous first date, our euphoric first rock concert-and most of us who have motorcycling in our blood remember the first time we saw a Harley-Davidson. Harleys have a way of catching the eye, that extr a something that sets them apart as the proudest, baddest, best-built machines around. There's no denying the fact that Harley-Davidsons are more than just motorcycles; since its founding in 1903, the make has become an American icon revered around the globe. In This Old Harley, editor Michael Dregni compiles the stories, tall tales, essays, and reminiscences of some of the biking world's most respected characters. Featured here are the words of the late daredevil Evel Knievel, custom bike-builder extraordinaire Arlen Ness, renowned motorcycle journalists Peter Egan and Allan Girdler, and many others-including Harley-Davidson historian Martin Jack Rosenblum and several ordinary folks with a love for Harleys and a good yarn to tell. Fully illustrated with special artwork (including historic and contemporary photos, posters, illustrations, old postcards, and more), the book tells the entire story of our fascination with these incredible bikes. So whether you're still in awe of the first Harley-Davidson you ever saw, still riding and wrenching on Harleys as a diehard fan, or only just dreaming of Harleys for the first time, This Old Harley offers a tribute to the bike that stands alone in American motorcycling history, told exclusively by those with Harley in their hearts. ...Show more

A Place For The Heart by Petra Carey

$60.00 NZD

Category: Coffee Table

Dave Comer was a highly respected and reknown photographer and film location scout, popularly known as `The man who found Middle Earth¿ for his central role in finding what are now the world famous locations for The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit films. He lived much of his life in and around Fiordlan d, New Zealand, photographing the region from the 1970s until he died in late 2014. A Place for the Heart presents some of his most beautiful and compelling images, alongside the story of Dave¿s life and work ¿ from the early years jetboating in the Hollyford Valley, to his involvement in the helicopter venison industry, to over thirty years in the international film industry. Above all, A Place for the Heart tells of Dave¿s deep understanding and love of Fiordland. Written by his wife Peta Carey, the narrative follows not only Dave¿s life, but her own journey in making sense of his legacy. A Place for the Heart is told through stories, letters and magnificent photography, and with a foreword by Sir Peter Jackson, offers a moving insight into one man¿s lifelong connection and understanding of the New Zealand wilderness. ...Show more

Post Marks: The Way We Were - Early New Zealand Postcards, 1897-1922 by Leo Haks

$70.00 NZD

Category: Coffee Table

Post Marks: The Way We Were - Early New Zealand Postcards, 1897-1922 reveals the pioneer roots of New Zealand culture, the importance society placed on industry and infrastructure and the rapidly changing shape of our landscapes. Collectively, the postcards present an informal, personal and often humoro us illustration of the way we were - tokens of a visit, well wishes from family or missives of romance. Post Marks includes reproductions of more than 500 New Zealand postcards, many of them so rare they may be the only surviving examples of this early and formative period of the nation's history. Drawn to the tactile and ubiquitous nature of the postcard which had developed parallel with photography in the 1860s, Haks ferociously gathered and refined a large collection of early New Zealand cards that in the book has been complimented by the involvement of other collectors, providing a stimulating introduction to the depth and richness of this historical period. Images have been broadly arranged in four sections: The Way We Were, The Great Outdoors, The Fat of The Land and The Building of A Nation. Post Marks will have wide appeal because it offers a rare sampling of images that record New Zealand's economic and social history from a period now beyond the living memory of most New Zealanders. ...Show more