The Bletchley Girls: War, Secrecy, Love and Loss. The Women of Bletchley Park Tell Their Story by Tessa Dunlop

$15.00 NZD

Category: Contemporary Non-Fiction | Reading Level: very good

The woman of Bletchley Park have a unique story to tell. Although critical to the success of the project to break the German and Japanese codes in the Second World War, their contribution has been consistently overlooked and undervalued. Through unprecedented access to surviving veterans, this boo revea ls how life at 'The Park' and its outstations was far removed from the glamorous existence usually portrayed. The women speak vividly of their lives in the 1930s, why they were selected to work in Britain's most secret organisation, and the challenges of re-entry into civilian life. Forbidden to talk about their vital war work, they often found it hard to adjust to the expectations of both their immediate families and society as whole. By spending time with these fascinating female secret-keepers who are still alive today, Tessa Dunlop captures their extraordinary journeys into an adult world of war, secrecy, love and loss. Through the voices of the women themselves, this is a portrait of life at Bletchley Park beyond the celebrated code-breakers. The Bletchley Girls is the story of the women behind Britain's ability to consistently outsmart the enemy. ...Show more

Events in the Life of Phillip Tapsell

$45.00 NZD

Category: World Biography & Memoirs

What You Made of It: A Memoir 1987-2020 by CK Stead

$50.00 NZD

Category: Contemporary Non-Fiction

The third and final volume of C. K. Stead’s memoirs, from leaving the University of Auckland to write full-time until today. ‘These are my encounters and engagements with the world of books and writers, and of teaching and writing about them,’ C. K. Stead writes in this third and final volume of his mem oirs. Having left the university to write full-time at the end of volume two, Stead throws himself into his work. In novels like Sister Hollywood and My Name Was Judas, criticism in the London Review of Books and the Financial Times, poetry and memoir, Stead establishes his international reputation as novelist, poet and critic. It is also a period when Stead’s fearless lucidity on matters literary and political embroil him in argument – from The Bone People to the meaning of the Treaty to the controversy over a London writer’s flat. What was it like to be Allen Curnow’s designated ‘Critic across the Crescent’; or alternatively to be labelled ‘the Tonya Harding of NZ Lit’? How did poems emerge from time and place, sometimes as naturally as ‘leaves to a tree’, sometimes effortfully? And how did novels about individual men and women retell stories of war (World War II, Yugoslavia, Iraq) and peace? Covering Stead’s travels from Los Angeles to Liguria, Croatia and Crete to Caracas and Colombia, as New Zealand poet laureate and Kohi swimmer, What You Made of It takes us deep inside the mind and experience of one of our major writers – and all in Stead’s famously lucid ‘story-telling’ prose. ...Show more

Memories of New Zealand by Edwin Hodder

$195.00 NZD

Category: NZ Biography & Memoirs

Windsor Diaries: A Childhood with the Princesses by Alathea Fitzalan Howard

$27.99 NZD

Category: Contemporary Non-Fiction

**SPECTATOR BOOKS OF THE YEAR 2020** **TIMES BOOKS OF THE YEAR 2020** **SUNDAY EXPRESS BOOKS OF THE YEAR 2020****A DAILY MAIL CHRISTMAS BOOKS PICK** 'A must if you love The Crown' Good Housekeeping 'For a glimpse into the lives of the young princesses these diaries are riveting' Daily Mail, Christm as Books 2020 'A wonderful book' A. N. Wilson, Spectator, Books of the Year 2020 'A new perspective on "Lilibet" as she fell for her future husband' Sunday Express, Books of the Year 2020 'Funny, astute, poignant and historically fascinating' The Times 'A compelling and revealing insight into the teenage life of the then Princess Elizabeth and her sister Princess Margaret' Richard Kay, Daily Mail 'I loved reading this, so reminiscent of my own childhood' Anne Glenconner, author of Lady in Waiting 'Fascinating insight into Elizabeth as a teenager' OK! Magazine ************************ The Windsor Diaries are the never-before-seen diaries of Alathea Fitzalan Howard, who lived alongside the young Princesses Elizabeth and Margaret at Windsor Castle during the Second World War. Alathea's home life was an unhappy one. Her parents had separated and so during the war she was sent to live with her grandfather, Viscount Fitzalan of Derwent, at Cumberland Lodge in Windsor Great Park. There Alathea found the affection and harmony she craved as she became a close friend of the two princesses, visiting them often at Windsor Castle, enjoying parties, balls, cinema evenings, picnics and celebrations with the Royal Family and other members of the Court. Alathea's diary became her constant companion during these years as day by day she recorded every intimate detail of life with the young Princesses, often with their governess Crawfie, or with the King and Queen. Written from the ages of sixteen to twenty-two, she captures the tight-knit, happy bonds between the Royal Family, as well as the aspirations and anxieties, sometimes extreme, of her own teenage mind. These unique diaries give us a bird's eye view of Royal wartime life with all of Alathea's honest, yet affectionate judgments and observations - as well as a candid and vivid portrait of the young Princess Elizabeth, known to Alathea as 'Lilibet', a warm, self-contained girl, already falling for her handsome prince Philip, and facing her ultimate destiny: the Crown. ...Show more

The Lost Cafe Schindler by Meriel Schindler

$37.99 NZD

Category: Contemporary Non-Fiction

Kurt Schindler was an impossible man. His daughter Meriel spent her adult life trying to keep him at bay. Kurt had made extravagant claims about their family history. Were they really related to Franz Kafka and Oscar Schindler, of Schindler's List fame? Or Hitler's Jewish doctor - Dr Bloch? What really happened on Kristallnacht, the night that Nazis beat Kurt's father half to death and ransacked the family home? When Kurt died in 2017, Meriel felt compelled to resolve her mixed feelings about him, and to solve the mysteries he had left behind. Starting with photos and papers found in Kurt's isolated cottage, Meriel embarked on a journey of discovery taking her to Austria, Italy and the USA. She reconnected family members scattered by feuding and war. She pieced together an extraordinary story taking in two centuries, two world wars and a family business: the famous Cafe Schindler. Launched in 1922 as an antidote to the horrors of the First World War, this grand cafe became the whirling social centre of Innsbruck. And then the Nazis arrived. Through the story of the Cafe Schindler and the threads that spool out from it, this moving book weaves together memoir, family history and an untold story of the Jews of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. It explores the restorative power of writing, and offers readers a profound reflection on memory, truth, trauma and the importance of cake. ...Show more

The Story of Suzanne Aubert by Munro, Jessie

$47.50 NZD

Category: NZ Biography & Memoirs

Originally published 1996. This beautifully written story of a radical nun who founded a religious congregation sold thousands of copies when it won the Book of the Year award in the Montana Book Awards in 1997. Unusually, it simultaneously won the E. H. McCormick Award for the best first hook of non—fi ction. Suzanne Aubert grew up in a French provincial family in the mid-nineteenth century. Lyon’s Catholic missionary spirit brought her to live with Maori girls in war-anxious 186Os Auckland. She nursed Maori and Pakeha in Hawke’s Bay as the settler population swelled in the 1870s. In the 1880s and 1890s, living up the Whanganui River at Jerusalem, she set up New Zealand’s home-grown Catholic congregation, published a significant Maori text, broke in a hill farm, manufactured medicines, and gathered babies and children through the family—fracturing years of economic depression. The turn of the century sent her windswept skirts through the streets of the capital city. There she would he a constant sign of political commitment and caring for people ‘of all creeds and none’ until she died in 1926. ...Show more

Charles Darwin by Anita Croy

$24.99 NZD

Category: World Biography & Memoirs | Series: Scientists Who Changed the World Ser.

"Animals that are better adapted to their environment tend to survive and have more offspring." He named this idea natural selection. This fascinating biography details the life and achievements of Charles Darwin, a scientist who made significant contributions to the field of natural history. Darwin's g roundbreaking Theory of Evolution changed the world's understanding of how animal species grow and change over generations. ...Show more

Sir Isaac Newton by Anita Croy

$24.99 NZD

Category: World Biography & Memoirs | Series: Scientists Who Changed the World Ser.

"If I have seen further than others, it is by standing upon the shoulders of giants." This fascinating biography details the life and achievements of Sir Isaac Newton, a scientist and mathematician who made significant contributions to the field of physics. Newton's groundbreaking theory of gravity and the Laws of Motion proved a great leap forward in science and changed the world's understanding of the forces at work on Earth and in space. ...Show more

Rachel Carson (Scientists Who Changed the World) by Anita Croy

$24.99 NZD

Category: World Biography & Memoirs | Series: Scientists Who Changed the World

Raised in rural Pennsylvania, Rachel Carson was a pioneer in combining the disciplines of the arts and science, specifically writing and biology. She is famous for alerting the world to the danger of pesticides and other manmade farming chemicals through her writings, including her bestselling book, Sil ent Spring. Find out about how Carson saved the world from an environmental disaster in this informative, fun-filled biography for younger readers. She loved the natural world and thought it could give us a wealth of knowledge. With colourful illustrations, varied page layouts and quirky design, this book will captivate and enthral any child with an interest in the environment, and may even inspire this interest in those who haven't yet appreciated nature's wonders. Learn what the work of brilliant scientist Rachel Carson can tell us about life and society. From writing about the ocean like a poet, to exposing the danger of pesticides to the world, Carson led an extraordinary life. Discover more about the world we live in by reading her fascinating story! ...Show more

Tales of a Pioneer: Episodes in the Life of Alfred Saunders

$125.00 NZD

Category: NZ Biography & Memoirs

In the Land of the Cyclops Essays 1996-2013 by Karl Ove Knausgaard; Martin Aitken (Translator)

$48.00 NZD

Category: Contemporary Non-Fiction

Karl Ove Knausgaard's My Struggle series broke new ground in fiction. In the Land of the Cyclops is his first collection of full-length essays to be published in English, and these brilliant and wide-ranging pieces meditate on themes familiar from his fiction. Collected here is a selection of his writin g on everything from his intense and intensely personal readings of literature, philosophy and art, to the limits on privacy, how we view ourselves and the world, and how our daily and creative lives intertwine. ...Show more