Monthly Archives: September 2011

An historic publishing event! Endorsed by the Louvre and for the very first time ever, every painting from the world’s most popular and renowned museum is available in one stunning book. All 2,954 paintings on display in the permanent painting collection of the Louvre are presented in full colour in this striking slip-cased book. Comes with a, supportive DVD-ROM. This book is organized and divided into the four main painting collections of the Louvre: the Italian School, the Northern School, the Spanish School, and the French School. Artists and paintings are featured chronologically by the artist’s date of birth. Four hundred of the most iconic and significant paintings are highlighted with 300-word discussions by art historians Anja Grebe and Vincent Pomarede on the key attributes of the work, what to look for when viewing the painting, the artist’s inspirations and techniques, biographical information on the artist, the artist’s impact on art history, and more. All 2,954 paintings are fully annotated with the name of the painting and artist, the date of the work, the birth and death dates of the artist, the medium that was used, the size of the painting, the Louvre catalogue number, and the room in the Louvre in which the painting is found. The design of the work enables the reader to carefully examine and enjoy the 400 featured paintings and browse through the remainder of the entire collection of 2,954 paintings, which appear six, nine, or twelve to a page. The DVD-ROM is easily browsable by artist, date, school, art historical genre, or by location in the Louvre. This last feature allows readers to tour the Louvre and its contents, room-by-room, as if they were actually walking through the building. $129.99

Prizes: Winner of New Zealand Post Book Awards: Fiction 2011. $39.99

‘I suddenly found myself in front of a scene of such beauty that it took my breath away …’ As a boy in the late 1930s, young Boden’s life is changed for ever the day his neighbour Dudley drives him over the mountains into the vast snow-covered plains of the Mackenzie Country. He realises he will never be the same again. Years later, the 20-year-old Boden, now a university student, helps build an alpine hut high up on the eastern slopes of Mount Cook. Living in snow caves while the hut is built, Boden forms important relationships with members of his working party, most notably with Walter, a conscientious objector from the Second World War. Real historical characters (such as Edmund Hillary and literary editor Charles Brasch) make appearances in the novel. This is powerful new territory for Laurence Fearnley and marks her emergence into the very front rank of New Zealand fiction writing. The Hut Builder is without question her best novel yet, combining her proven story-telling skills with her passionate love of the mountains, the wilderness and the sky.

Seeing Geoffrey Rush play his father Harold in Swimming Upstream, written and co-produced by his brother Tony, was the catalyst for John Fingleton to uncover the story no one had told, of what made his father the man he was. Nothing could have prepared him for what he discovered. By the age of eleven when Harold was not out desperately foraging for food for himself and his sisters he was trying to avoid the regular beatings doled out by his drunken and abusive mother Maggie – until he was forcibly removed to a state orphanage. The treatment he endured there and from Maggie haunted him forever. From abused child to rebellious orphan, larrikin street fighter to gifted sportsman, prisoner to alcoholic, from unlikely role model to a group of strret kids to murder suspect and finally a man transformed by the love of a strong woman, determined his children would have the opportunities he never had, Harold Fingleton’s heartbreaking and powerful story will stay with you long after the last page. $36.99