The Remarkable Life of Leonard Cohen by Anthony Reynolds

$16.00 NZD

Category: Music | Reading Level: very good

Anthony Reynolds' fascinating and detailed biography draws on scores of new interviews conducted with Cohen's band members past and present, his business associates, editors, friends, fans, producers, colleagues, enemies and peers. As well as their revealing accounts, the author has gained access to h ours of previously unpublished interviews with Cohen as well as video archive recordings from several decades. The book also includes an authoritative summary of every Cohen album, with insights and recollections supplied from the musicians who appeared on the recordings. Gradually, despite Cohen's own good-natured evasiveness over the past 40 years, a surprisingly frank portrait begins to emerge of the legendary figure who commands unparalleled loyalty from his fans and followers, young and old. From the distant days of his penniless beginnings as a much-praised poet in Montreal, through the travels, affairs and religious crisis to his latest tours, Cohen's extraordinary life and body of work is examined as never before. The book includes many previously unpublished photographs. ...Show more

Thomas Bewick: My Life by Thomas Bewick

$14.00 NZD

Category: Artists | Reading Level: very good

Chronicles Volume One by Bob Dylan

$12.00 NZD

Category: Music | Reading Level: very good

The first volume in a series of memoirs by a musical and political icon. Circa 1965, arguably the high point in his creative genius, Bob Dylan writes about the beginning of his music career, his early loves, and offers a very personal, anecdotal view of this time of creativity, innovation and music hist ory. ...Show more

Every Song Ever - Twenty Ways to Listen to Music by Ben Ratliff

$14.00 NZD

Category: Music | Reading Level: very good

From one of America's celebrated critics, the definitive field guide to listening to music in the age of the Cloud. The most significant revolution in the recent history of music has to do with listening: it is now possible to listen to nearly anything at any time, to ignore albums, and to instantly fli t across genres and generations, from 1980s Detroit techno to 1890s Viennese neo-romanticism. Yet music criticism has historically focused on the musician's intent, not the listener's experience. Every Song Ever is therefore the definitive field guide to listening in an age of glorious, overwhelming abundance. By revealing the essential similarities between wildly different kinds of music, Ben Ratliff shows how we listen to music now, and suggests how we can listen better. ...Show more

Japrocksampler: How the Post-War Japanese Blew their minds on Rock 'n' Roll by Julian Cope

$12.00 NZD

Category: Music | Reading Level: very good

Julian Cope, eccentric and visionary rock musician, hip archaeologist and one time frontman of Teardrop Explodes, follows the runaway underground success of his book "Krautrocksampler" with "Japrocksampler", a cult deconstruction of Japanese rock music. "Japrocksampler" reveals what really happened when East met West after World War Two and the mayhem that ensued and is a must for anybody interested in modern music and Japanese culture. It explores the clash between traditional, conservative Japanese values and the wild rock 'n' roll renegades of the 1960s and 70s and tells the tale of the seminal artists in Japanese post-war culture, from itinerant art-house poets to violent refusenik rock groups with a penchant for plane hijacking. The book concludes with enticing reviews of Julian's Top 50 Jap Rock albums. ...Show more

Generation Ecstasy - Into the World of Techno and Rave Culture by Simon Reynolds

$12.00 NZD

Category: Music | Reading Level: good

In Generation Ecstasy, Simon Reynolds takes the reader on a guided tour of this end-of-the-millenium phenomenon, telling the story of rave culture and techno music as an insider who has dosed up and blissed out. A celebration of rave's quest for the perfect beat definitive chronicle of rave culture and electronic dance music. ...Show more

William Morris - A Life for Our Time by Fiona MacCarthy

$30.00 NZD

Category: Artists | Reading Level: good-very good

Winner of the Wolfson History Prize, and described by A.S.Byatt as 'one of the finest biographies ever published', this is Fiona MacCarthy's magisterial biography of William Morris, legendary designer and father of the Victorian Arts and Crafts movement. 'Thrilling, absorbing and majestic.' Independent 'Wonderfully ambitious ... The definitive Morris biography.' Sunday Times 'Delicious and intelligent, full of shining detail and mysteries respected.' Daily Telegraph 'Oh, the careful detail of this marvellous book! . . . A model of scholarly biography'. New Statesman Since his death in 1896, William Morris has been celebrated as a giant of the Victorian era. But his genius was so multifaceted and so profound that its full extent has rarely been grasped. Many people may find it hard to believe that the greatest English designer of his time - possibly of all time - could also be internationally renowned as a founder of the socialist movement, and ranked as a poet with Tennyson and Browning. In her definitive biography - insightful, comprehensive, addictively readable - the award-winning Fiona MacCarthy gives us a richly detailed portrait of Morris's complex character for the first time, shedding light on his immense creative powers as artist and designer of furniture, fabrics, wallpaper, stained glass, tapestry, and books; his role as a poet, novelist and translator; on his psychology and his emotional life; his frenetic activities as polemicist and reformer; and his remarkable circle of friends, literary, artistic and political, including Dante Gabriel Rossetti and Edward Burne-Jones. It is a masterpiece of biographical art. ...Show more

Maori Moko or Tattoo by Pita Graham

$15.00 NZD

Category: Maori & Pacific | Series: Discover New Zealand | Reading Level: very good

Weavers of Song: Polynesian Music & Dance by Mervyn McLean

$120.00 NZD

Category: Maud’s Picks | Reading Level: very good

This book explores, in detail, 20 specific areas of the entire sweep of Polynesian music and dance. It descrives the musical instruments, the uses, performance, composition, teaching and structure of music across the entire region. Accompanied by a music CD sampler.

Te Toi Whakairo The Art of Maori Carving by Sidney Moko Mead

$55.00 NZD

Category: Maori & Pacific | Reading Level: very good

Andris, Where Are You? From Latvia to New Zealand: The Family Story of Andris Apse by Ron Crosby

$20.00 NZD

Category: Biography | Reading Level: very good

Andris, Where Are You? tells the family story of renowned New Zealand photographer Andris Apse, who when middle aged, discovered that his father Voldemars, believed to be dead for 40 years, was still alive in Latvia. Told largely through insightful pre-war diary entries by Voldemars Apse, as well as cor respondence between Voldemars and his wife Kamilla, both before and during the war, this book describes the horrendous effects of war and the Soviet and German occupation on an ordinary rural Latvian family. For years after the war Kamilla and her baby Andris lived in West Germany in a refugee camp, but came to understand that Voldemars had died in the war, or in the Soviet gulag prison camps. Consequently, Kamilla and five-year-old Andris emigrated to New Zealand as refugees. Over time Andris became one of New Zealand’s most successful landscape photographers, and raised his own family. Following the breakdown of the Soviet Union, Kamilla and Andris miraculously discovered that Voldemars was still alive in Latvia. Andris arranged to take Kamilla, who was now in her seventies, back to Latvia. When they reunited in Riga, husband met wife, and son met father for the first time in over 40 years. This story of heart-rending separation and joyful rediscovery will touch a chord with all parents and everyone with a sense of history and the importance of family. Andris’s remarkable tale was first published as a large format photographic book, which was serialised by National Radio, and his life and photography has also featured in a 2010 TVNZ documentary ‘Through My Eyes’. ...Show more

CONFLICT - the insiders' guide to storytelling in factual/reality TV & Film by Robert Thirkell

$15.00 NZD

Category: Film | Series: Professional Media Practice | Reading Level: very good

In this book Robert Thirkell, the international consultant known as 'The TV Troubleshooter' and renowned television producer, sets out a professional toolkit for developing a compelling storyline in factual and reality programmes and films.