The Arts

Linda Collins gets up on a Monday morning, dresses for work, makes coffee and goes into her daughter Victoria's bedroom. Why hasn't Vicky got up yet? It's an important day: the start of the second term of her final year at school. Today she will hear her latest exam results. T...he bedroom is empty. So begins every parent's worst nightmare. Collins, a New Zealand journalist based in Singapore, writes with startling candour about her daughter's suicide: the secrets she kept from her parents, the revelations in the personal journals she left behind, and the struggle of Collins and Malcolm McLeod, Victoria's father, to find answers in the midst of enormous grief. How, they ask themselves, could they have missed the signs? What did the counsellors at Victoria's school know about her state of mind? Did her school friends have any idea how desperate she was? And above all, why would a beautiful, talented, much loved young woman take her own life? Loss Adjustment is a wake-up call. New Zealand has the highest suicide rate for teenagers among the world's wealthy developed countries. Most of those who kill themselves are, like Victoria McLeod, aged 15 to 19. Linda Collins examines the tragedy of teenage suicide from her profoundly personal viewpoint, while Victoria's journals, uncovered after her death, give an incredibly valuable insight into the unseen stresses and anxieties suffered by many teenagers.
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A handsome, landmark book celebrating the work of three of our literary and artistic heavyweights. The complementary work of artist Grahame Sydney, fiction writer Owen Marshall and poet Brian Turner was first brought together in the hugely successful Timeless Land in 1995. Its pa...ges showed their shared, deep connection to Central Otago, to its vast skies, its wide plains punctuated by jagged ranges, its unique colours and its dwarfing effect on the people who pass through it. Twenty-five years later, this lavish new volume from these three long-time friends showcases a rich selection of their subsequent work, including recently written, previously unpublished pieces. Through their own marks about the land and its people, be it in ink or paint, they offer a love song to the South Island, in particular Central Otago.
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Companion volume to The Country Diary of a New Zealand Lady. Written in a style engaging to the general reader, THE COUNTRY CAMERA focuses on definitive aspects of the birds' daily lives and expands on the subject photographically. The images are intimate, captured in a setti...ng privileged by its remoteness and explored with a fascination from which we all benefit. A wealth of knowledge is casually gleaned and artistic appreciation satisfied. On the farm and in the country garden, photographic studies are made of over forty species of bird found in New Zealand, beginning with the rare bittern and ending on the notes of a tui.
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Illustrated travel guide to Australia and New Zealand's Art Deco locations and architectural treasures: monuments, hotels, restaurants, theatres, lidos, bars and cinemas.

From the Academy Award (R)-winning actor, an unconventional memoir filled with raucous stories, outlaw wisdom, and lessons learned the hard way about living with greater satisfaction.