Neville Peat is an award-winning writer and photographer specialising in the genres of geography, biography, history and the natural environment. His books on Aotearoa New Zealand range from Antarctica to tropical Tokelau.
In 2007, Neville was awarded New Zealand’s largest literary prize, the Creative New Zealand Michael King Writers’ Fellowship, to research and write the story of the Tasman Sea. In 2016, he received the Copyright New Zealand Writers’ Award to investigate the ‘creeping tsunami’ that is causing erosion and flooding on many parts of the coastline as a result of global warming, sea-level rise and more intense storms. In the 2018 New Year Honours, he was made a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit (MNZM) for services to conservation.
Potton&Burton, November 2022
"Islands offer a clear view of the ocean horizon, they set you up to see the curvature of the Earth, and may awaken something profoundly deep in you."
Join writer Neville Peat on a unique journey through islands ranging from the tropics to Antarctic ice – islands that contribute to the character of Aotearoa New Zealand, its geography, its nature and its human stories. These are islands that invite us to view the global challenges of our age in new ways, with new insights.
Regard these islands as a lens offering insights into nationality, their stories a narrative of place and belonging, of what makes our relatively young nation, diverse, characterful, innovative, resourceful.
Price: $40
Whenua Hou/Codfish Island in Foveaux Strait, best known as a kākāpō sanctuary, has a greater claim to fame – as the foothold of bicultural Aotearoa New Zealand. From the early 1800s, European sealers and Maori women were raising families here. This book describes first contact, colonisation, sealing, farming, nature conservation, modern archaeology and the island’s status as an ancestral homeland.
“. . .Whenua Hou’s contribution to the bicultural history of Aotearoa New Zealand is unique . . . New Zealand’s first planned mixed-race settlement.”
Price: $25 plus P&P. Orders by email: whenuahoubook@gmail.com
The first New Zealand book for a general audience about adapting to the impact of climate change on the coastlines of New Zealand and island nations of the South Pacific.
New Zealand has been found wanting on both coastal hazard preparedness and greenhouse gas mitigation – a case of too little, too slow, too inclined to leave it to the next generation . . .
Low-lying coast is a chronically grim frontline of climate change, socially and economically, and the frontline with the most to lose . . .
Whereas prior generations were unaware of climate change, future generations will be powerless to stop it . . .
NZ$38.00 .
Neville Peat
WORDS & IMAGES