Author: Gregory Hill Publisher: Exisle Publishing

89 days of travel, 33 trains, 19 countries … read an extract from the Central Russian segment of Gregory Hill’s epic rail journey.

Released: 1 May 2024

Author: Miriam Sharland Publisher: Otago University Press

In early 2020 Sharland was nearing the end of a 17-year adventure in Aotearoa. A desire to return to family and the familiar was pulling her back to her homeland, England. When Covid put an end to her travel plans, she found herself facing isolation in Manawatu instead.

Released: 22 April 2024

Author: Pippa Latour with Jude Dobson Publisher: Allen and Unwin

This is the astounding true story of one of the last female special operations agents in France to get out alive after its liberation in WWII.
Born in 1921, Pippa Latour became a covert special operations agent who parachuted into a field in Nazi-occupied Normandy.

Released: 23 April 2024

Author: Ngāhuia te Awekōtuku Publisher: HarperCollins New Zealand

‘In the 1950s, a young Ngahuia is fostered by a family who believe in hard work and community. Although close to her kuia, she craves more: she wants higher education and refined living. But whanau dismiss her dreams. To them, she is just a show-off, always getting into trouble, talking back and running away…’

Released: 17 April

Author: Madeleine and Rosie Redding Publisher: Mary Egan Publishing

‘Rosie is a shy young teenager when she starts experimenting with alcohol. When Rosie's parents finally realise that their beloved daughter is having problems with her drinking, Rosie is firmly in the grip of alcoholism…’

Released: 11 March

Author: Anna Crighton. Publisher: Canterbury University Press

For decades, whenever a heritage building in Christchurch has been under threat, one woman has consistently defended this city’s architecture and history against shortsightedness and the threat of bulldozers – Dame Anna Crighton. This abridged extract from Chapter 17 of Still Standing chronicles Crighton’s personal experiences in the February 2011 earthquake and the rebuild of heritage treasure, the Isaac Theatre Royal.

Released: 1 February

Author: Lynn Davidson . Publisher: Te Herenga Waka Press

Do You Still Have Time for Chaos? tells the story of poet and teacher Lynn Davidson’s late-life decision to leave Aotearoa New Zealand, with scant resources, to build a life in Scotland. In 2020, in the frightening quiet of a Covid-emptied Edinburgh, she begins her memoir; temporarily at home at the Randell Cottage residency in Wellington, she completes it.

Read ‘My last night in Edinborough’ extracted from Do You Still Have Time for Chaos?

Released: 8 February

‘My heart swelled with gratitude at how this little child continued to walk with me through such tough terrain without complaining or questioning what on earth we were doing this for.’

Read an extract from Adventures with Emilie by Victoria Bruce.

Released August 2023

Author: Rebecca Priestley. Reviewer: Sam Finnemore.

Priestley’s new memoir explores the complications of living in a world under threat across two parallel timelines. Her primary, present-tense narrative is a road trip down the South Island West Coast in the company of her lifelong friend Maz in the winter of 2021 – almost a whistlestop tour of various aspects of climate crisis … Interleaved with the weeklong road trip, in the past tense, are the experiences of teenaged Rebecca and Maz in the 1980s...’

October 2023 release

Kaituhi: Dr Emma Espiner. Nā Hineko Kingi i arotake.

‘Mā te wairua whakakatakata o Espiner e kaingākautia ai te kōrero nei …’

‘Espiner's dark humour keeps it interesting…’

Kaituhi: Carl Hayman; Dylan Cleaver. Nā Michael Burgess i arotake.

‘Kāore a Hayman e pupuri, engari kē ia ka tuku ia i tana katoa.’

’Hayman spares nothing and gives everything.’