Dining Out: A History of the Restaurant in New Zealand

As we publishers work out how to reach new readers in a world of netbooks and notebooks, e-books and iPads, it’s easy to forget some of the basic things that books are meant to do. Books tell stories. Stories told from a distinct point of view, stories that haven’t been told before, stories that re-create experience, stories that define cultures. In 2010 at Auckland University Press we have some great stories to tell about our lives here in Aotearoa New Zealand.

Some stories are personal. The smell of macrocarpas and the sound of his mother’s piano down the hall as C K Stead grows up in the shadow of Mt Eden; the rush of events facing Reserve Bank Governor Alan Bollard during the global financial crisis; the conflicted feelings of Bill Pearson growing up gay in 1930s Greymouth; Paula Green’s poems recounting a battle with illness; the ways and words of mystic hipster David Mitchell.

Some stories are cultural. The gesture and phrase that Poia Rewi finds in whāikorero, the world of Māori oratory; the poems of Polynesia collected by Albert Wendt, Robert Sullivan and Reina Whaitiri; the merging of indigenous and imported ideas in the first Māori churches analysed by Richard Sundt; the tuamaka, the rope, holding our cultures together that Joan Metge untwists; the noise, sweat and smells of the shearing shed that Hazel Riseborough opens the door to; and the long history of Māori and Pākehā from Tasman to today brought together in one volume by Vincent O’Malley, Wally Penetito and Bruce Stirling.

Some stories recreate whole worlds of experience. Chris Bourke blasts us with the jiving rhythms coming out of a Timaru dance hall; Perrin Rowland introduces us to the silver service at K Road’s Hi Diddle Griddle; Gordon Brown gives us a glimpse into Colin McCahon’s studio; and Julia Gatley shows how a cow shed down the road could inspire the Group Architects.

And some stories lead us to places we hadn’t imagined. Sarah Broom chasing tigers on the Awhitu Peninsula; Murray Edmond biking narrow roads in Poland; Paul Millar heading back to Baxter’s Jerusalem; Lynn Jenner casting the pink light of inquiry on Mansfield, Houdini and Mata Hari.

We invite you all to read some great New Zealand stories.