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Paul Diamond is a long-time fan of Lloyd Homer’s photography.
Broadcaster, curator and writer Paul Diamond (Ngāti Hauā, Te Rarawa, Ngāpuhi) is a finalist in the 2023 Ockham New Zealand Book Awards General Non-Fiction category for his biography Downfall: The destruction of Charles Mackay (Massey University Press).
Historian Danny Keenan’s new book, The Fate of the Land Ko Ngā Ākinga a ngā Rangatira, shines a light on the period following the Land Wars, when Māori lost huge areas of land through confiscation, but more land was sold (often against Māori wishes) between 1890-1920. Keenan examines how Sir James Carroll and other Māori inside and outside the Liberal government (between 1891-1912) responded to the insatiable Settler desire for land.
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I am a long-time fan of Lloyd Homer’s stunning aerial photography, which features in Mountains, Volcanoes, Coasts and Caves: Origins of Aotearoa New Zealand’s Natural Wonders, by Bruce W. Hayward, alongside new photography by Alastair Jamieson. The images illuminate Hayward’s pick of this country’s hundred natural features. Hayward explains how the landscapes were formed over millions of years. The book provides fresh perspectives on familiar places, such as my Wellington hometown, as well as sites which can only be seen from the air, like the Devil’s Dining Table, Matiri Range north of Murchison.
At this year’s Samesame But Different LGBTQIA+ Writers Festival, the 13th Poet Laureate Chris Tse was the honoured writer. I remember reading Tse’s 2014 book, How to Be Dead in a Year of Snakes, a powerful response to the 1905 murder of Cantonese goldminer Joe Kum Yung in Wellington. I’m reading the rest of Tse’s trilogy, starting with He’s So MASC from 2018. Tse takes the reader into places which may sometimes be unfamiliar, but which are relatable. There is always a sense of urgency, about why each poem and poetry itself, matters.