The past is our country
A lay person’s guide to the New Zealand Wars is powerful and easily digestible.
The trouble with history is that there’s so much of it. Gordon McLauchlan resolves the problem by mastering the art of delivering the past with broad brushstrokes rather than delivering a literary canvas filled with tiny detail.
A SHORT HISTORY OF THE NEW ZEALAND WARS (David Bateman, $29.99)
perfectly illustrates his technique of providing a powerfully written but easily digestible account of a 19th-century conflict between imperial British politics and a people who sought to retain their land and culture.
The events and personalities of a long, brutal war have been dissected and analysed before, but in his new book, McLauchlan attempts to present history for the lay reader, stripping away the extraneous and focusing on the general sweep of events that engulfed the fledgling colony. It’s far from a pleasant story, but it is one that remains essential to understanding who and what 21stcentury New Zealanders are. The South Island high country gets another volume of its pioneering history in JOHN AND CHARLES ENYS: CASTLE HILL RUNHOLDERS 1864-1891 (Wily Books, $49.99) by Jenny Abrahamson. The book is one of the mind and heart – Abrahamson has a deep personal affection for this area of inland Canterbury.
She now turns to the lives and times of two adventurous and energetic young Cornishmen who arrived in the 1860s to farm sheep among the peaks and epic limestone outcrops of what came to be known as Castle Hill.
Charles (1840-91) and John (18371912) live on in a flow of vivid letters, enhanced by John’s fascination with natural history and Charles’s accomplished watercolours. Despite the demands of establishing a sheep station,
He strips away the extraneous and focuses on the general sweep of events that engulfed the fledgling colony.
the Enys brothers found time to explore the rugged country while contributing to Canterbury’s development. Abrahamson provides a vivid celebration of two remarkable Victorians who deserve to be better known.
Always wanted to know about ratchet swells, rollschwellers and trumpets en chamade, but been afraid to ask? Worry not. Jenny
Setchell is at hand to take you on an engrossing journey through the fascinating world of the king of instruments. Her book ORGANS & ORGANISTS: THEIR INSIDE
STORIES (Musikverlag/Bonn, $39.95) reveals all. With the goal of demystifying the genuinely ecumenical world of the organ and organists, the wife of well-known organist Martin Setchell obviously knows her subject from introit to offertory – and beyond.
The technology behind this ancient but timeless instrument is absorbing, and the beauty and artistry of the organ emerge in the book’s opulent illustrations. The mood may be whimsical and humorous, but the knowledge and enthusiasm that underpin it sweep the text along. Glorious stuff from the pen of a skilled registrant (assistant).