Give the gift of exquisite reading this festive season. Photo / 123RF
Looking for present ideas this Christmas? Why not give the gift of exquisite reading this festive season. Here's some of the top suggestions from Canvas.
by David Ballantyne
(Text, $18)
The story behind the great New Zealand novel Sydney Bridge Upside Down is almost as engrossing and tragic as the book itself. Author David Ballantyne, acclaimed by Frank Sargeson at 19, wrote his first novel, The Cunninghams, at 24, making the "and bear in mind" list of the New York Times Book Review. Sargeson wrote of him, "One of our great hopes and God bless him and save him — particularly from journalists and journalism." But he spent almost his entire career as a journalist and, in spite of being one of this country's greatest-ever writers, his career never reached the heights of some less-talented contemporaries. After the publication of Sydney Bridge Upside Down, he collapsed into alcoholism for a decade. From 1981, the book, among this country's greatest novels, was out of print for nearly 30 years. Its resurrection to universal acclaim in 2010, 25 years after his death, was both vindication and warning to anyone thinking that genius leads to success. Sydney Bridge Upside Down is dark, funny, mysterious, compelling, gripping, revealing of a particularly New Zealand sensibility. I acknowledge I'm late to the party, but so was most of the rest of the country. This Christmas, I'll be inviting everyone else.
- Greg Bruce
by Stacey Morrison and Jeremy Sherlock
(Penguin, $45)
One of the greatest publishing success stories of the last decade has been Scotty and Stacey Morrison's mega-selling series of books teaching the country to speak te reo Māori. The unsung hero behind the books is publisher Jeremy Sherlock (Tainui, Ngāti Awa), formerly of Penguin Random House, who approached Scotty to write his first book and has overseen the production of every one since. Now, Sherlock has come out from behind his desk and gone behind another desk, at which he has co-written, with Stacey, this beautiful hardback, telling the stories of people they almost never got to read when they were growing up here in the 80s and 90s - people like them. The stories are concise, compelling, important and often revelatory, especially to those who grew up outside te ao Māori. Just as great are the brilliant, revealing and often wildly creative illustrations by the 12 Māori illustrators who worked on the book. Give it to people you care about because it's brilliant, or because it's beautiful, or because it's important, but do give it.
- Greg Bruce
by Clare Reilly
(Exisle Publishing, $55)
New Zealand artist Clare Reilly describes the presence of birds in her paintings as "small messages of calm". Even when they're depicted in flight, there's a stillness to her works and a sense of serenity in the landscape that feels exactly what we need right now, when the world seems so full of chaos and ugliness.
Her paintings – familiar to many from a popular line of calendars and greeting cards – are beautifully reproduced here with a richness of colour that captures the clear light of a New Zealand summer. Equally engaging is her account of a life lived with an artist's eye for detail, from her involvement in the conservation movement to the devastating loss of her husband and fellow painter Max Podstolski to a brain tumour.
Eye of the Calm was the title of a 2009 exhibition, a phrase Reilly created as an expression of her life's work. "There is an utter, utter joy and pleasure working with paint that fulfils me tremendously," she writes. "I feel like I'm flying."
- Joanna Wane
by Gavin Bishop
(Penguin Random House, $40)
This engaging super-sized hardback is destined for my nieces in the UK, alongside the Kiwi lollies I always send over for Christmas. Unless I can't bear to part with it. Gavin Bishop (Ngāti Pūkeko, Ngāti Awa, Ngāti Mahuta, Tainui) is an absolute legend and remains at the peak of his powers after a 40-year career in writing and illustrating children's books.
Atua (which loosely translates as a supernatural deity or ancestor) retells Aotearoa's origin story from Te Kore (nothing) to the birthing of the world and the antics of the gods that followed. Bishop uses lively, colloquial language. Demigod Māui-pōtiki is described as a brainy flibbertigibbet who rarely sat still because his head was so full of schemes. "He may have been the first in the world with ADHD."
Snippets of information– the phases of the moon, brief explanations of cultural practices and concepts – are scattered throughout. But for me, Bishop's gorgeous illustrations are the true heroes here, with a dreamy quality that breathes fresh life into stories that deserve this retelling on such a grand stage.
- Joanna Wane
edited by Gaylene Preston and Tim Wong
(VUP, $50)
The year is 1990 and I am attending my very first Wellington Film Festival at the Embassy Theatre. My mother is my plus one for the premiere of An Angel at My Table (which would make a star of Kerry Fox as Janet Frame), directed by Jane Campion. That was the beginning of an essential winter ritual in the Capital and The Gosden Years: A New Zealand Film Festival Legacy is a magnificent tribute to the late Bill Gosden, who helmed New Zealand's leading cinema event for four decades. Gosden wrote astute and exquisite film notes for each festival programme - small works of art in themselves. Quite apart from his brilliant film curation, his notes tapped into what the audience might expect. On Campion's Angel: "Like all her work and much of Frame's. Angel is characterised by arresting perceptions of the absurd and the beautiful and the ordinary." At that same festival in 1990 was Sweetie, also by Campion; Chocolat, directed by Claire Denis; and Mana Waka, directed by Merata Mita. It is impossible to measure his massive and important impact on film in Aotearoa, but this book is a superb record of film, shifts and developments in technology, society and politics - with film posters you want to hang on your wall.
- Sarah Daniell
edited by Michael Keith and Chris Szekely
(Massey University Press, $60)
A handwritten account of Hēni Pore's experience of the New Zealand Wars; Katherine Mansfield's typewriter; an anti-nuclear poster depicting David Lange singing in the shower; a Covid QR code signed by director general of health Dr Ashley Bloomfield.
Te Kupenga 101, featuring curated treasures from the Alexander Turnbull Library accompanied by insightful essays, deftly takes the reader through a nuanced and revealing history of Aotearoa. It's the kind of history we need to be teaching our children - accessible, exciting, colourful and tragic - and, for that reason, I say make this beautiful book the gift you share with family this Christmas.
Everyone will have their favourite entries, the ones that spark that feeling of belonging, pride and responsibility. Mine is a portrait of my ancestor, Maraea Mōrete, who went to the Native Land Court to protect family land and whose autobiography is also held by the Alexander Turnbull Library.
-Eleanor Black
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