Season's greetings from Oratia

A very Merry Christmas and Happy 2021 to all!

Meri Kirihimete me Ngā Mihi o te Tau 2021 ki a koutou katoa!

Wishing all our valued readers, customers, booksellers, authors, illustrators, editors, designers, sales reps, printers, suppliers, friends and colleagues a restorative and happy break over the coming two weeks. 

The Oratia office will be closed from midday Wednesday 24 December until Tuesday 5 January. We look forward to what 2021 brings. 

Book Giveaway on Kidspot New Zealand!

There is a wonderful book giveaway on Facebook right now: WIN 1 of 3 Dawn McMillan packs for your kids this Christmas. They will love you for it!

Dawn McMillan’s bestselling I Need a New Bum! has made her one of Aotearoa’s most popular children’s authors. But there are plenty of other delightful picture books in her library, including these new ones!

Check out what’s in these prize packs from

Oratia

books:

Sir Singlet – an hilarious tale of a knight who’d rather design underwear than fight the enemy https://bit.ly/3gIvQ1r

There’s a Tui in our Teapot / He Tūī kei rō Tīpāta – Tui and his avian friends get up to all kinds of hijinks in the family kitchen https://bit.ly/39YUkSy

There’s a Weta on my Sweater / He Wētā kei runga i tōku Paraka – chaos ensues when weta and friends want to come along to school with the kids https://bit.ly/2VVuoz4

See more https://www.oratia.co.nz/

TO ENTER go to this link and follow instructions.

Time to move on for South Island sales rep Jeremy Bliss

Colleagues and friends gathered in Christchurch last week for the retirement party of Jeremy Bliss, one of the true sales personalities of the industry, who has been Oratia's South Island sales representative for the past four years. 

Guests at the event on Friday 4 December calculated that the group represented some 925 years of service to bookselling and publishing. 

Jeremy Bliss (centre) with long-term colleagues and fellow Oratia Books reps Dennis Morgan (left) and Gary Shannon (right)

Jeremy himself started his book career in the Oxford University Press warehouse 43 years ago, before taking to the road as a sales rep for them. 

Stints with Beckett Books and Hodder Moa Stoughton (as sales manager) followed and in recent years he’s handled South Island sales for Oratia, Blue Duck, Halcyon, Neil Hyndman, Thames and Hudson and others. 

Jeremy (centre, with cap) surrounded by colleagues, family and friends

There was many a memory and escapade shared at the lively event, for which guests had travelled from as far afield as Nelson, Motueka and Auckland (notably our sales & marketing consultant Belinda Cooke).

Our sincere thanks to Jeremy for his able representation of the Oratia Books list in the South Island, and best wishes for retirement. 

 

Whāriki features in NZIER Summer Reading List for Prime Minister

The New Zealand Institute of Economic Research (NZIER) has celebrated the launch of its 2020 Prime Minister's Summer Reading List with an event at Unity Books, Wellington, yesterday evening. 

One of the eight books listed is Merata Kawharu and Paul Tapsell's thought-provoking Whāriki: The growth of Māori community entrepreneurship, published by Oratia Books in November last year.

The NZIER puts together the list to recommend books that can be enjoyed by the Prime Minister, her advisors, and any readers interested in economics and public policy.

Based on a five-year research project that blended on-the-ground interviews with scholarly analysis, Whāriki explores how kin-based business ventures created by Māori have promoted social, economic and environmental wellbeing.   

Its core is eight case studies — some arising from iwi-driven ideas, some ideas from marae-based whanau — that explore the successes, the failures, the learnings and the futures of these opportunities for Māori. 

Dr Merata Kawharu

Dr Paul Tapsell

Whāriki: The growth of Māori community entrepreneurship

  |  ISBN: 978-0-947506-63-6 |  RRP $39.99

Paperback with flaps, 234 x 153 mm portrait, 200 pages