Montana book awards finalists named

Twenty-six titles were today named as finalists for this year's Montana New Zealand Book Awards.

The finalists were chosen from 188 submissions across eight categories of New Zealand books published in 2003.

Michael King, who died with his wife in a car crash earlier this year, was nominated for The Penguin History of New Zealand in the history section. He had previously won the Montana Medal for non-fiction.

Maurice Gee, who has won the Montana fiction award four times, was nominated in that category for The Scornful Moon.

"The competition for front runners was particularly strong in the fiction and poetry categories with the list of entrants looking uncannily like a 'who's who' of New Zealand literature but with some very good new and developing writers also in evidence," convenor of judges, Tony Simpson said.

Joining him on the judging panel are the academic and J K Baxter expert Paul Millar, and poet Anne French.

The Deutz Medal for Fiction and the Montana Medal for Non Fiction, and the category and the Readers' Choice Award winners, will be announced at the Montana New Zealand Book Awards ceremony on the evening of Monday 26 July 2004.

The finalists for the Montana New Zealand Book Awards 2004 are:

Fiction

Hummingbird by James George (Huia Publishers)

Iridescence by Peter Wells (Vintage)

The Scornful Moon by Maurice Gee (Penguin Books)

The Sea Between Us by Elizabeth Smither (Penguin Books)

Slow Water by Annamarie Jagose (Victoria University Press)

Poetry

The Adulterer's Bible by Cliff Fell (Victoria University Press)

The Ballad of Fifty-one by Bill Sewell (Headworx)

Sing-song by Anne Kennedy (Auckland University Press)

Biography

Long Journey to the Border: A Life of John Mulgan by Vincent O'Sullivan (Penguin Books)

Mason: The Life of R A K Mason by Rachel Barrowman (Victoria University Press)

An Unsettled Spirit: The Life & Frontier Fiction of Edith Lyttleton (G B Lancaster) by Terry Sturm (Auckland University Press)

History

Leisure and Pleasure: Reshaping and Revealing the New Zealand Body 1900 - 1960 by Caroline Daley (Auckland University Press)

The Penguin History of New Zealand by Michael King (Penguin Books)

The Trial of the Cannibal Dog: Captain Cook in the South Seas by Anne Salmond (Allen Lane/Penguin Books)

Reference & Anthology

Robert Louis Stevenson: His Best Pacific Writings edited by Roger Robinson (Streamline Creative)

Seven New Zealand Novellas edited by Peter Simpson (Reed Publishing)

Whetu Moana: Contemporary Polynesian Poems in English edited by Albert Wendt, Reina Whaitiri and Robert Sullivan (Auckland University Press)

Lifestyle & Contemporary Culture

Classic Fly Fishing in New Zealand Rivers written by John Kent, illustrated by David Hallett (Craig Potton Publishing)

Cooking to Impress - Without Stress by Annabel Langbein (Annabel Langbein Books)

Ready to Fly: The Story of New Zealand Rock Music by David Eggleton (Craig Potton Publishing)

Environment

Birds of Aotearoa: A Natural and Cultural History by Margaret Orbell (Reed Publishing)

Deep New Zealand: Blue Water, Black Abyss by Peter Batson (Canterbury University Press)

The Living Reef: The Ecology of New Zealand's Rocky Reefs edited by Neil Andrew & Malcolm Francis (Craig Potton Publishing)

Illustrative

Central by Arno Gasteiger (Viking)

Paste Up: A Century of New Zealand Poster Art by Hamish Thompson (Godwit)

Why go to the Riviera: Images of Wellington by Peter Shaw (Godwit)

- NZPA