Van Eyck
The Age of Van Eyck: The Mediterranean World and Early Netherlandish Painting 1430-1530
Till-Holder Borchert
The art of Jan van Eyck, Rogier van der Weyden, Hugo van der Goes, Hans Memling, Jan Provoost and Jean Hey (to name but a few) flowered in the period 1430 to 1530 and their influence spread far and wide, well beyond the Netherlands into France, Portugal, and Spain.
This lavishly illustrated book contains essays by world renowned experts and explores the artistic, cultural and political relationships between the Netherlands and the Mediterranean. Many of the finest works of the European Renaissance are reproduced here.
Hone Tuwhare
Hone Tuwhare
I think Hone Tuwhare's poetry is accessible to those who don't normally have any interested in verse. I think his style is so varied that it can appeal to everyone. He can be rude and colloquial, learned and lofty, romantic and prosaic. Just have a look at these two and then buy the book.
New Zealand Rugby Union
What's in a game?
Apartheid would smell as sweet
If Rugby be they name.
English Lesson
The naked family came into the room
The naked family comes into the room
The naked family has come into the room
The naked family will be coming into the room
O Christ, what a mess: the naked family with halos
and donkey and all - and with a shitty-arsed baby
who needed wiping - is coming into the room again
from the patio.
They would not of come into the room again
if my master, the Master Painter Giotto, had not of
let them in to sit for him - without the donkey
William Blake
by David Bindman with Deirdre Toomey
This fantastic book contains all of Blake's printed designs and the main variations thereof. It covers his work from the time of his apprenticeship up to his final works.
It is a pretty exhaustive study and traces his skill and genius from start to finish. There is an annotated catalogue and notes to each plate. There is also discussion of Blake's various methods such as engraving, colour-printing, intaglio- and relief-etching and how he developed and used them.
Most of the illustrations are printed to the actual size of Blake's plates. Where that isn't possible because the originals were too large, a full-size detail is included.
This is the book for anyone you know who is a fan of William Blake's art.
Knitting and Tatting
When I mention knitting or tatting, I expect your minds turn to babies' bonnets, children's jumpers, gloves and mittens, scarves, woollen jerseys for winter and the like; but this is not knitting as you know it.
Radical Lace and Subversive Knitting
by David Revere McFadden with Jennifer Scanlan and Jennifer Edwards
This was an exhibition of work at the Museum of Arts and Design by a group of contemporary international artists who use fibre in a variety of innovative ways. You can see traditional knitting and lacemaking techniques used with unexpected materials and/or in surprising ways.
Radical Lace & Subversive Knitting features an article on each of the 27 artists represented here alongside lovely photographs of the works they had in the exhibition. Broaden your horizons and have a read of this interesting book: it is a great introduction to the use of materials in the visual arts and how the boundaries of art, craft and design have pretty much dissolved.
Pacific Island Art
Eric Kjellgren
This extensively illustrated book provides a glimpse of the art from New Guinea, Australia, Melanesia, Micronesia, Polynesia and island Southeast Asia held in the collections at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. The people of Oceania have developed a huge array of distinct artistic traditions.
Feast your eyes on masks, tattoos, paintings, weaving, carvings, cooking implements, religious symbols, tools, weapons, statues, clothing and headresses. The variety is endless and pervades almost every aspect of daily life in the Pacific..
Oceanic art has had an influence on artists such as Gaugin and Picasso.
Fishing
All good fishermen stay young until they die, for fishing is the only dream of youth that doth not grow stale with age.
You can always tell a fisherman,but you can't tell him much.
There is no use in your walking five miles to fish when you can depend on being just as unsuccessful near home.
The charm of fishing is that it is the pursuit of what is elusive but attainable, a perpetual series of occasions for hope.
I never lost a little fish - yes, I am free to say It always was the biggest fish I caught that got away.
Wit and Wisdom of Fishing: Funny Lines and Fishy Advice
Louis Bignami, Robert Jones, William Rooney, Joel Vance (Contributors)
Niue
Before heading off for a holiday on the island of Niue, a bit of background reading wouldn't go amiss; particularly since many people have only barely heard of Niue.
Niue 1774-1974: 200 Years of Contact and Change
by Margaret Pointer
It is a tiny island in the south Pacific. Unlike many oft photographed Pacific islands, it is not surrounded by white sandy beaches or coral reefs but by towering cliffs battered constantly by the ocean.
Despite its relative isolation and distance from the main shipping routes, the island has a long and rich history of contact with the outside world. Captain Cook visited the island briefly in 1774 and he was followed by a parade of whalers, sealers, traders and missionaries.
However, if you are off to Niue for a week's holiday (flights once a week from New Zealand to Niue so unless you're sailing, you'll have to go for a week), you may prefer a book on the flora and fauna of the island, or a Niuean-English dictionary, or a book on the geology. Just pop in and see what we've got to offer.
Amazing Survival Story
The Boat
by Walter Gibson
This book tells the story of one of the most astonishing instances of human endurance and what must be one of the most terrifying episodes in maritime history.
Just after the fall of Singapore in 1942, a Dutch ship the Rooseboom sailed from Padang with 500 evacuees, mostly British civilians and soldiers. She was torpedoed in the dead of night on the way to Ceylon and sank within a few minutes.
Only one lifeboat floated and 135 people crowded into it with only enough room to stand upright. They were adrift with almost no food or water for 28 days until it washed up on the shores of an island off Sumatra. Only four were still alive. One of them is the author of this book and he recounts his miraculous survival and the journey of horror, heroism, tragedy, murder, and treachery.
