Retail Newsletter
December 2003
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Status updates:
The Aircraft of Air NZ and affiliates since 1940 — due mid-month, $69.95
Wild Knights in No-Man’s Land: The Korean War recalled—due mid-month, $29.95
The New Gobbledygook: A NZ dictionary and handbook—delayed until next February/March. $19.95
Recent New Zealand Books
Why Go to the Riviera: Images of Wellington by Peter Shaw
This high-quality all colour art book illustrates 100 paintings, prints and photographs by well-known and highly ranked New Zealand artists which provide a distinctive record of first-rate art works recording the landscape in Wellington city. The images provide local readers with a shock of recognition and other readers with a valuable record of a place they have visited.
Images range from early historic images to contemporary ones and include some more abstract treatments based on the landscape while not actually illustrating them. The historic images have been chosen for the way in which they cast light on much changed contemporary places.
Accompanied by an introductory text of 2500 words, and each image is interestingly captioned in such a way as to draw attention to the significance of the image. Hardcover, large format, 200 pages on satin paper. $99
The Coal Mines of Puponga by Peter Dyer
Another chapter in NZ’s industrial steam locomotive history involves Puponga, a settlement at the base of Farewell Spit in the South Island. This is a nicely produced coffee-table style pictorial history of the mines, the people who worked there and the narrow gauge steam railway used at the mines to transport the coal away. Landscape A4 format, softcovered, b/w photos plus line drawings of the railway equipment. $49.
Tangiwai: A Christmas Eve tragedy by Graham Stewart
New Zealand’s worst railway accident occured 50 years ago on 24 December 1953. A reworking, with some new illustrations, of the first chapter of Tragedy on the Track. 60 pages, 260 x 190 mm format, softcovered. $24
This guide to the 150 km Otago Central Rail Trail located in Central Otago in the South Island sets out all that you will need to know to ensure your trip along the trail is a successful one. Developed for the use of walkers, cyclists and horse riders, the Trail follows the former railway line that was built through Central Otago in the late 19th century, at a time when bridges and viaducts were constructed from local hand-shaped stone. The guide divides the trail into 12 easy sections. It gives details of the history of the railway line, the Hyde train wreck, wildflowers, birds and animals seen along the way, plus off the beaten track places to visit. It also includes details of accommodation, vineyards and other places on the trail. 138 x 212 mm format, 96 pages + 16 pages of colour, 20 black and white photographs, 36 colour photographs, maps $24
Holdens on a Plate
Holden owners are as meticulous about choosing plates for their cars as they are about choosing the cars themselves. In Holdens on A Plate, check out the clever, the canny and the cool ways Holden owners extend and reflect the personalities of their much-loved vehicles. This book includes the funny, the brazen, the clever and the wondrous ways people mark their cars as uniquely their own. Landscape format 187 x 245 mm, 96 pages, paperback, colour throughout. $24
Tiger Moths and Butterflies
With the Airforce in War and Peace is the fascinating story of a schoolboy and his contemporaries during WWII. In 1942, Peter Norman and his friends were excited at the thought of escaping boyhood and getting into uniform to serve their country in the war. Desperate to take part in the action, they enlisted in the New Zealand Air Force, where unlike the Army, they would not need to wait until turning twenty-one before being sent overseas. In this beautifully written account, the reader is given an insight into the feelings of trepidation of a first solo flight in a Tiger Moth and the thrill of accomplishment. The book covers the period of training, both in New Zealand and in Canada, voyages in US troop ships across the Pacific, the exciting conversion to modern fighter aircraft, the companionship of a squadron and the inevitable loss of friends.
Tiger Moths and Butterflies is a fully illustrated book with a wealth of photographs both private and official. It includes operating characteristics of four well-known wartime aircraft and how it felt to fly them. $29
Paste Up: A Century of NZ Poster Art
The first comprehensive study of the New Zealand poster. It chronicles more than one hundred years of history of an independent art form. The eleven pictorial sections, divided according to subject, include works by well-known painters and commercial artists as well as outsiders and forgotten artists.
The range of posters depicted offers the reader artistic discoveries, as well as an entertaining insight into the everyday life of the twentieth century. There is nothing like poster art for making comparisons between past and present. An introductory text gives a review of New Zealand poster history since 1900. The book also includes an index of all artists and posters covered. This book is intended as a reference for art and design students, design professionals, educators and social historians, as well as the general reader. Softcover, $39
Tractors in New Zealand by Tim Chadwick
Over 200 captioned photos of tractors used in NZ, past and present, a quarter of them in colour. 64 pages in A4 landscape format, softovered. $24
Al Deere : The Authorised Biography.
After joining the RAF in 1937, NZer Al Deer was in the thick of the action right from the start of the war—his absorbing experiences included Dunkirk, the Battle of Britain, commanding RAF Kenley the 145 Wing in France. If it can be said he had a ‘good war’ he enjoyed an even better peace; including commander of North Weald and Aide-de-Camp to the Queen. Includes a 20-page section of photos, appendices and original documentary material - a must for military aviation enthusiasts. $59
Recent Overseas Books
Svenska lok och motorvagnar 2003 / Swedish Locomotives and Railcars 2003
Just released: the fourteenth edition of the handbook of Swedish motive power. All lists and information (in easy to follow tabular form) is updated to the present, with 321 new all-colour photographs. 288 pages in A5 landscape format, hardcover. $90
Svenska Motorvagnsklubben 25 år 1978-2003 / Swedish Railcar Club - 25 years 1978-2003
Chronicle of the activities of the Swedish railcar club during its first quarter century with lots of nice photos of Swedish railcars. 56 pages in A4 format, 79 photographs, mostly in colour, A4 portrait format, softcover. $25
Malmbana: The Iron Ore Railway under the midnight sun
Lavish colour pictorial about the Swedish Iron ore line Luleå-Kiruna to Narvik in Norway. The first 50 pages are devoted to the history of the line, its locomotives and ore cars, the remainder to excellent photographs of trains in the grand scenery, 112 pages A4 landscape format, hardcover, cased. $85
A wealth of fine older colour photographs of trains inaction on mainline and branchline railways in this small but picturesque country comprising many islands. The text covers the post WWII period — the author has followed the Danish railway scene as a journalist for 30 years and is very critical about missed opportunities and costly mismanagement. 144 pages in 190 x 270 mm portrait format, hardcover. $75
Diesels and Electrics Volume 1 As earlier generations of diesel and electric traction have been superseded around the world they have slipped out of use with little attention while steam has been chased till it disappears. Among these diesels and electrics are early British exports and some classics developed in Europe and America, as well as other little-known but fascinating pioneers of ‘modern’ traction - not that there’s much ‘modern’ about the traction in this publication!
Some well-known authors have contributed to this edition, their photos supplemented by reader’s pictures, giving a wide selection of diesel and electric subjects on gauges broad, standard and narrow. A worldwide view of railways. Softback, colour cover, 80 pages, including 16 pages of full colour, 37 colour photographs, 66 black & white photographs, 35 locomotive diagrams. $49
Schmalspur-Romantik in Osteuropa/ Narrow Gauge Romantic in Eastern Europe: From the Baltic to Bulgaria. A lovely album of first class colour photographs of narrow gauge lines in Eastern Europe since 1988 with informative captions. Maps and lists of the lines, including industrial and peat operations with tracks outside the works area, and showing their present status, increases the reference value. The tables list 4 lines in Estonia, 13 in Latvia, 6 in Lithuania, 47 in Poland, 4 in Czechia, 7 in Slovakia, 26 in Hungary, 36 in Romania, 3 in Bulgaria and 36 in Ukraine. 144 pages in A4 landscape format, hardcover. $75
The Railways of Romania by Chris Bailey
Both a overview and detailed history of locos and railways in Romania. Most emphasis is on steam locos but diesels and electrics are also covered. 107 pages 210 x 280 mm, richly illustrated in b/w and colour. $69
Forestry Railways in Hungary
The forestry industry in Hungary has been served by many narrow gauge railways, a number of which still remain in existence, some of them still hauling timber. The book gives a general history of these railways, brought up to date with a look at the current situation. A chapter on motive power profiles today’s two main classes of narrow gauge diesel, the C50 and Mk48, with other classes described & illustrated in the chapters covering the lines on which they operate.
64 known forestry railways are listed together with basic tabulated information, and referenced to a map of Hungary. The story of the twelve lines still in operation is told in more detail, including an outline of their development from their construction by aristocratic landowners, through the Communist times to the present. Each chapter is accompanied by a map, and details of motive power, rolling stock, and traffic. In addition to the author’s photos some rare illustrations of working steam have been provided by László Mohay and the Közlekedési Museum, and in writing this book the author consulted primary sources and the local railwaymen in Hungary.
72 pages 215 x 275 mm, 75 b/w photos, 8 colour photos, 13 maps 5 diagrams, 100% narrow gauge! $29
Schmalspurbahnen in Griechenland / Narrow Gauge Railways in Greece
The narrow gauge railways of the Peloponnes and Thrakia and their history. Details of the lines as well as of the locomotives and rolling stock. German text with summary in English. 272 pages in 140 x 210 mm format, numerous photographs in colour and b&w, diagrams, hardcover. $79
35 Years of NIR (Northern Ireland Railways) 1967-2002
Chronicle of Northern Ireland’s railways since 1967, with detailed lists of locos and wagons/cars plus maps and 160 colour photos. 160 pages in 180 x 230 mm format. Softcover. $65.
Ireland in the 20th Century
Ireland entered the twentieth century savaged by poverty and memories of the famine but inspired by the Celtic Dawn, a remarkable cultural renaissance led by Yeats, Synge and Lady Gregory. She left it in the era of the Celtic Tiger, with unparalleled prosperity and a new, confident, outward-looking view of herself and the world - although this prosperity and self-confidence is now giving way to uncertainty. In the intervening hundred years Ireland has experienced more ‘history’ than almost any other country: beginning under the British crown, she was racked by revolution, the Anglo-Irish war, partition and civil conflict. Led by towering figures such as Michael Collins and De Valkera, she has suffered terrible hardships and disputes but has nevertheless provided brilliant cultural and literary examples and is now a country of importance in the wider international community, providing leadership in a variety of moral and development issues. In this readable and authoritative study, Ireland’s bestselling popular historian tells the extraordinary story of how contemporary Ireland came into existence. Covering both South and North and dealing with social and cultural history as well as political, this will surely become a definitive single-volume account of the making of modern Ireland. Hardcover $79
London Illustrated.
A lavish, large format picture book about London, with Peter Ackroyd’s inimitable text and captions.
Divided into three parts:
1) Fire and Destiny London as metropolis; maps and ‘layering’ and ‘continuities’ (the same street through the ages); Roman London; the Great Fire of 1666 and the Blitz of 1940.
2) Crowded London Begins with over-crowding of the city in Elizabethan times; spectacle in the streets (street sellers, street theatre, street fairs, prostitutes etc); the London mob (the Gordon riots, Notting Hill 20th century riots)
3) Water and darkness London as centre of 19th century empire; the Thames; the urban poor; the homeless; sewage; the building of the underground; the lost rivers (the river Fleet etc) ; the blackout of the 2nd World War; London fog. Hardcover, 260 pages. $85
1421: The year China discovered the World
On 8 March 1421, the largest fleet the world had ever seen set sail from China. The ships, some nearly five hundred feet long, were under the command of Emperor Zhu Di’s loyal eunuch admirals. Their mission was ‘to proceed all the way to the end of the earth to collect tribute from the barbarians beyond the seas’ and unite the world in Confucian harmony. Their journey would last for over two years and take them around the globe.
But by the time the fleet returned home, Zhu Di had lost control and China was beginning its long, self-imposed isolation from the world it had so recently embraced. And so these great ships rotted at their moorings and the records of their extraordinary journey were destroyed. And with them, the knowledge that the Chinese had circumnavigated the globe a century before Magellan, reached America seventy years before Columbus, and Australia three hundred and fifty years before Cook...
The result of over fifteen years research, this book is Gavin Menzies’ enthralling account of the voyage of the emperor’s fleet, the remarkable discoveries he made and the incontrovertible evidence to support them: ancient maps, precise navigational knowledge, astronomy and the surviving accounts of Chinese explorers and the later European navigators as well as the artefacts the fleet left in its wake — from sunken junks to the ornate votive offerings left by the Chinese sailors wherever they landed, giving thanks to Shao Lin, goddess of the sea.
Already hailed as a classic, this is the story of an extraordinary journey of discovery that not only radically alters our understanding of world exploration but also rewrites history itself. Softcover. $27
Russian Railway Atlas
Includes countries formerly part of the Soviet Union. Very detailed, up to 2002. 256 colour pages in 280 x 170 mm format, hardcover. (place names are in Cyrillic typeface). $79
Behind the Lines: The oral history of special operations in World War II
Trained in the black arts of warfare - subtofuge, subversion, espionage, guerrilla tactics and undermining enemy morale by the distribution of insidious propaganda - theirs’ was a war fought in the shadows. Their activities extended to every theatre of operations: in occupied France, equipped with false identities, they played a deadly game of cat and mouse with the Gestapo; in the Balkans they discovered that the fiery politics of the region were as dangerous as the enemy; in the Burmese jungle, in some of the worst combat conditions of the war, they led native marauders in surprise attacked against the Japanese. From Britain they were supported by a team of back-room boffins who produced expertly forged documents and dreamed up ingenious devices like exploding rats and invisible ink.
The special agents of World War II really were a breed apart. This is their extraordinary story, in their own words. Softcover. $30
CIA: Secrets of the Company
An updated to 2003 edition of the book from 1999. Since WWII, the Central Intelligence Agency has toppled foreign governments, tortured and assassinated opponents, trafficed in narcotics, and even attempted mind control and brainwashing on US citizens. In this book the author attempts to tell, in simple terms, both the secrets and the legends, along with a hundred or more illustrations including replicas of genuine documents. 304 illustrated pages in 180 x 180 mm, softcover. $39.
Intelligence in War: Knowledge of the enemy from Napolean to Al Quaeda by John Keegan
‘No war can be conducted successfully without early and good intelligence,’ wrote Marlborough, and from the earliest times commanders have sought knowledge of the enemy, his strengths and weaknesses, his dispositions and intentions. But how much effect, in the ‘real time’ of a battle or a campaign, can this knowledge have?
In this magisterial new study, which will fascinate readers of both military and more general history, the author of ‘A History of Warfare’ goes to the heart of a series of important conflicts to develop a powerful argument about intelligence in war. From the Napoleonic Wars to the sophisticated electronic warfare of the 21st century, John Keegan finds linking themes which lead to a compelling conclusion. His narrative sweep is enthralling, whether portraying the dilemmas of Nelson seeking Napoleon’s fleet, Stonewall Jackson in the American Civil War, Bletchley as it seeks to crack Ultra during the Battle of the Atlantic, or the polymorphous intelligence issues of the contemporary flight against terrorism. Hardcover. $79
The Cage
Tom ‘Bud’ Abraham was one of the very few Englishmen to serve in Vietnam. As an officer in the 1st Cavalry Division during 1967/8, he saw combat in some of the fiercest encounters of the war. His gallantry earned him a chestful of medals, including the Silver Star, one of the highest decorations awarded by the American Army.
During the Tet offensive, Tom was captured by the Vietcong. The suffering he endured during his interrogation and torture tested him to the limits, and yet his daring escape into the surrounding jungle was the beginning of a new ordeal. His struggle to survive, naked and alone, would drag him down to the level of a primitive beast.
After he returned to England from Vietnam, Tom made a new life. He married, became a father, and started a successful career in business. It seemed that he had forgotten the nightmare of the past. But more than thirty years later, a trivial encounter with the police began a catastrophic chain of events. He lost everything — his family, his home, his self-respect. It became all to obvious that the psychological and emotional wounds he received in Vietnam were still festering.
In trying to rebuild his life, Tom had once more to confront those traumatic memories that he had buried so deep. If he were to have any chance of a future, he would have to relive the past. His terrifying yet inspiring journey is the story of this book Softcover. $24
The Second Oldest Profession
In 1909, the business of spying was hoisted from the domain of a few European decadents to the highest reaches of the British government with the formation of Britain’s SIS. Acting in response to a totally fraudulent fear — the German spy scare that preceded WWI — the British soon had a lot of company as Germany, Russia, France and other powers, large and small, joined the mad rush towards information and espionage. Not far behind came the biggest of them all, first with the OSS and then with the CIA fuelled by paranoia and by more money than any new bureaucracy had ever seen. “Bigger than State by ’48,” was the CIA’s slogan on its founding in 1947. And it was.
Now intelligence is a very big business with a very rich history, told here with a depth and verve never before brought to the subject by a master historian. All of the legends and their immensely readable stories are here - Sorge, Donovan, Philby, Mata Hari, Golitsyn, Andleton,Penovsky - and behind them the large question: did the actions of these spies and their masters make any difference at all in the course of history? Softcover. $45
Voices in the Air
A unique and enthralling anthology compiled by WWII flying ace, Laddie Lucas, Voices in the Air’ tells the story of the air battles of the Second World War in the voices of those who took part. Drawn largely in the writings of the combatants themselves from all sides of the conflict, this book offers a vivid and highly individual account of the great aerial campaigns of WWII. From a thrilling account of the first sustained dogfight between Spitfire and Messerschmitt in 1940, to an eighteen-year-old Japanese suicide pilot’s last letter home and the Luftwaffe leaders’ analysis of ‘what went wrong’ after the Battle of Britain, the book dramatically deals with every aspect of the war. Full of stories of astonishing escapades, incredible bravery, dogged persistence and moving feats of arms, this book honours both the sung and unsung heroes of the war. Softcover. $27
Wild About Flying
The story of flight, from the late 1800s, when men like Otto Lilienthal were hurling themselves off cliff-tops strapped into flimsy gliders, to the modern day, with John Glenn circling the earth in the Space Shuttle at age 77. In this unique book, the story is told through the men and women who were there: the aviators, navigators, fighter-pilots, designers, engineers, and test-pilots who changed the world forever.
Here are the dramatic stories that are not generally known - the stories of the daring Harry Hawker, who attempted to fly the Atlantic, the fighter pilot John Cunningham, the pioneer flyer Francis Chichester, and long-distance pilot Bert Hinkler. Also featured are the famous figures such as the Wright Brothers, Richard Pearse, Charles Lindbergh, Howard Hughes, Jean Batten and Charles Kingsford Smith. Crisp, lively biographies of these and many other key individuals and their true-life adventures bring the age of flight to life. The contributions of these people turned the pioneering flights by Richard Pearse in South Canterbury, NZ and the Wright brothers at Kitty Hawk, USA in 1903 into the reality of aviation as we know it today.
Over 200 superb colour paintings capture the key elements of the story of flight, the historic moments and events. The paintings of the aircraft are technically correct in all details. Colour portraits of over 70 individuals are also featured. Archival photographs accompany all the stories.
The book also features two illustrated timelines: one of the people, and another of the aircraft depicted, including their technical specifications. Hardcover. 240 pages. $45
Internationale Tog via Øresund / International Trains via Øresund
History of the train services across the Sound between Denmark and Sweden and the coaching stock used since 1892. The two train ferry routes were an important link in the train services between Sweden and the Continent from 1892 until they were replaced by the Øresund bridge 108 years later. At 2,115 km, the “Lapplandspilen” Copenhagen–Narvik was the longest run. This book details the train routes, compositions and coach types used. It is illustrated by a large number of photographs, many of them in colour, and line drawings of the rolling stock in service over the years. 96 pages 17x25 cm, hardback, 240 photographs and line drawings. $69
Les travailleurs de l’aube / The Workers of the Dawn
A voyage in a Paris which is awaking, bathed in the noise of motors of sanitation trucks, described with passion and precision. A ballade full of charm of the post war years. 144 pages in format 240 x 310 mm, hardcover $59.
Trains de Caractère / Trains of Character
On the rails of tourist lines, detouring along secondary lines, this presents the history of character trains in France which allow one to discover the country in a different way. 192 pages 240 x 310 mm, hardcover. $59
Autobus de Paris / Buses of Paris
From the hippomobile to the diesel bus, this is the complete precise and illustrated history of every model that has seen use in Paris over the course of the 20th century. 176 pages in 240 x 310 mm format. Hardcover. $59
Trains de légende en Europe / Trains of Legend in Europe
Travel in the finest of restaurants, experience the emotions of the landscapes, the refinement of the vehicles, thanks to a richly illustrated text. 208 pages in 240 x 310 mm format, hardcover. $59
Camions de France / Trucks of France
This book relates the history of all the marques of French trucks and buses from 1945-1965 in 3 volumes. Volume 1: 296 pages 240x310 mm, hardcover $89. Volume 3: 320 pages. $89
Citroën, les années C4-C6
The historic C4-C6, model of Citroën, carries the initials of its conceiver. This work is testimony to the splendour years 1928-1932. 240 x 310 mm hardcovered. 320 pages, $89.
Le catalogue Citroën, 1918-1960
All the models of Citroen in chronological order from 1918 to 1960 inclusive. Types, series, characteristics and chassis are detailed. 400 pages, 240x 310 mm format, hardcovered. $99
Hitler and the Power of Aesthetics
Hitler’s aim was the Aryan super-state, but it was to be expressed as much in Nazi art as in politics. Culture was not only the end, to which power should aspire, but the means of achieving it. This reassessment of Hitler’s aims and motivations examines his perverse obsessions and shows his artistry - expressed in spectacles, festivities, parades, rallies and political dramas, as well as in architecture, painting and music - destroyed any sense of individuality and linked the German people with his own drives. In a wide ranging argument which covers topics as varied as Wagner’s operas and the German Autobahn system, Spotts provides a key to the understanding of the Third Reich which has hitherto been missing. Softcover, 512 pages, $45
A Time to Die: The Kursk Disaster
At 10.30am on Saturday August 12, 2000, two massive explosions in rapid succession shook the icy Arctic waters of the Barents Sea. The Kursk, one of the largest and most technologically advanced nuclear subs in the world, carrying a crew of 118 Russian sailors, had suffered a major, unexplained accident, and rapidly crashed to the ocean floor. Most of us can still remember how news of this terrible accident was reported around the world, and the agonising tension of the days when the doomed crew waited for rescue, the Russians seemed to turn away all international offers to help, until it was too late.
Robert Moore, the former Moscow Correspondent of ITN, and now their Foreign Affairs editor, has written a thrilling and authoritative investigative book on this tragedy. He has talked to everyone from the families of the crew, the Russian officials, the international rescue teams and the US submarine crews who were monitoring the Kursk’s movements. This book not only recreates the tragic and terrifying final moments of the submarine and its crew, but also explores the events leading up to it and the political, social and environmental issued raised by the catastrophe.
But above all, this is a human story, how the Kursk’s crew was doomed, how their surviving families fought to learn the truth about their fate, about the British civilian North Sea divers who tried to assist in the rescue mission; told in a narrative with all the excitement, immediacy and emotional intensity, of bestsellers such as A Perfect Storm and Black Hawk Down. 320 pages, softcover $26
Stations Guide: Intermodal travel centres
A study of Swedish railway stations (and some other EuropeaN) in the 19th and 20th centuries described with the help of 250 colour photos. Includes English text. 160 pages, map. $69
The Way of A Ship: A Square Rigger Voyage in the Last Days of Sail
Benjamin Lundy crossed oceans under sail in the late nineteenth century and over one hundred years later Derek Lundy, his great-great nephew, re-created that journey. In The Way of a Ship he places Benjamin on board the Beara Head with a community of fellow seamen as they perform the exhausting and dangerous work of sailing a square-rigger across the Atlantic and round Cape Horn.
Fed on a diet of pea soup, gristly sat horse, rock hard weevil-infested biscuits and just enough lemon juice to keep scurvy at bay, the seamen were dangerously malnourished and sleep-deprived. But their instinct was to give their all through the battering, screaming winds. The equation was simple: they would survive if the ship survived and so they fought to save the ship. 464 pages, softcover, $27
Until the Sea Shall Free Them
In 1983, the freighter Marine Electric ran into a violent storm off the Eastern Seaboard of the United States. Despite Force 10 conditions and fifty feet waves the crew were unconcerned: the ship had survived worse. But something was wrong, the ship was beginning to break up under them; gradually it began to go down by the head, then to capsize. Within two hours the crew were in the water in a desperate struggle for their lives. Their plight sparked one of the most dramatic air-sea rescues in maritime history. Only three of the 34 crew survived the night. The ship had sunk due to a serious structural defect. The chief mate Bob Cusick discovered that the owners had lost several other ships in similar circumstances to the Marine Electric, but the sinkings had been covered up. He decided to go after the company and they in turn rounded on him, the sole surviving officer. What follows is an epic and epochal court case that left none of the participants unscarred. 368 pages, soft cover. $27
Journal 1935-44 by Mihail Sebastian
The diary of Anne Frank has become one of the great books of the 20th century and this deserves to be on the same shelf. The diary of a Rumanian Jewish writer who lived in Bucharest throughout the thirties and the war, it records Mihail Sebastian’s increasing experience of anti-semitism, the increasing restrictions on his freedom, his increasing alienation from his Aryan friends as they compromise with Rumania’s fascist regime, as well as his love of music, reading and books.. The obvious comparison is with Victor Klemperer’s diary, published recently in two volumes by Weidenfeld, another diary of a Jew who survived the war and escaped the camps, but Sebastian is by far the better writer and by far the more interesting person. 648 pages, hardcover with jacket $69
1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die by Steven Jay Schneider
Welcome to the movies you must see before you die – or at least before you succumb. Simply the best of the best. 1001 Movies is the definitive guide of movie greatness, celebrating the best of the best in nearly a century of film. It features all the movies one should see before it’s too late, from the masterpieces that you missed first time around, to the classics that you will want to see again and again. Packed with vital statistics, and a few facts that may surprise you, this is a collector’s must for the bookshelf as well as an entertaining read. Structured in chronological order and referenced by a genre index to musicals, thrillers, Westerns, science-fiction, comedy, war, horror, epics, film noir, art-house, romance, and social drama. Paperback with flaps, 960 pages, 210 x 160 mm, 800 illustrations, full colour. $49
Recent DVD releases
American railways—
Union Pacific’s Last Steam Giants + Heavy Freight
Steam action with Big Boys and Challenger footage from 1958 and 1990. 75 minutes. $69
Rio Grande Rotary Spectacular
Steam snowplow action on the Cumbres & Toltec Scenic RR in 1993. 90 minutes $69
Fifties Express - Seven types of massive articulated steam trains on: Central Vermont; WM; Virginian; Pennsylvania Railroad Horsehoe curve; NTC; Nickel Plate; Boston & Maine; New Haven; Duluth Miassabe & Iron Range; Milwaukee Road (electrics). 50 min. $65
Colorado & Southern Narrow Gauge. Scenes from the 1940s plus current footage of the rebuilt Georgetown Loop, plus last remnant of South Park line Leadville to Climax. 55 min. 69
Union Pacific Big Boy Collection. The biggest American steam locomotives of which only 25 were built, numbered 4000-4024 and all are on this DVD in the most incredible displays of steam power! From 35mm movie film taken in 1953. 95 minutes, colour. $99
Other—
11.09.01 Eleven points of view on the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on NY and Washington, each 11 min, 9 seconds and 1 frame in length. 130 min. $29
MegaTrucks From the uses of trucks to the thrills and spills of truck racing. 52 min. $20
Book Reviews
Rails across New Zealand by Matthew Wright; Published by Whitcoulls, 144 pages in A4 portrait format, softcover. RRP $24.99
Rails that Built a Nation: An encyclopaedia of New Zealand Railways by Robin Bromby; Published by Grantham House. 160 pages in 260 x 190 mm format, softcover. RRP $39.95
No doubt prompted by the popularity of The Railways of New Zealand: A journey through history come two similar if much less substantial books, the first from general author-for-hire Matthew Wright, and the second from the co-founder of Southern Press, Robin Bromby, since 1975 a resident of Australia. Both books consist of miscellaneous facts and figures about the history of NZR organised under a variety of topics.
The Matthew Wright book is mostly pictorial with nearly all illustrations taken from the public collections. Although many have been published before, the selection as a whole is rather good, plus most photos have been well reproduced in generous proportions. It is just a shame the cover is unappealing.
No doubt in keeping with the journalists’ adage, “when in doubt, leave out” the amount of information offered in the captions generally is fairly limited and few locomotives are identified, but even so there are places where the enthusiast reader will be mystified, such as the reference to streamlining on the original Johnsonville line EMU sets (page 79) or to the Blue Streak railcars being used in both islands (page 114).
According to the cover blurb, the Robin Bromby book is the “Bible of Railways … an indispensable reference work for all those interested in New Zealand history “ and “… the story of rail, the trains and the people has been told in many parts and many ways, but now for the first time, this story is presented in one volume”.
However, the size of the book alone belies these effusive claims. It’s apparent that it has been produced to a very limited budget on the part of the publisher. What you get is 95 pages of brief histories about the country’s public railway lines, organised on a region by region basis a la The Railways of New Zealand, while the rest consists of notes under a variety of headings, the extent of which ranges from just adequate to hardly scratching the surface. For example, NZR’s steam locomotive history is summed up in about 250 words. There are several deficiencies and problems with the text, too numerous to list here, and as well as intentional omissions, there seem to be places where text has been accidentally omitted, such as in the section on electrification over pages 136-137. The majority of the 122 black and white photos accompanying the text are new to this reviewer, but many have been given mingy proportions and/or unsympathetic cropping, and/or are reduced to “Wheetbix card” size as is typical of this publisher’s recent books.
Overall it comes across as a rather anaemic effort; dropping the grandiose pretensions and using the space to do justice to the photos would have been a more worthy use of paper. —GBC
