Special launch of Charlie on NZ Bookshop Day

Special launch of Charlie on NZ Bookshop Day at Carson's Bookshop in Thames, Saturday 28th October at 11am. Meet the authors, Dawn McMilland and Ross Kinnaird, dress up your dog and bring it along to win a prize, and watch Ross draw cartoons live!

Saturday 28th October at 11am

Carson's Bookshop, 600 Pollen Street

Thames, New Zealand

The meaning of Kaitangata, from A.W. Reed’s classic Māori Place Names

The South Otago town of Kaitangata has been in the news of late after a massive global response to its efforts to attract new residents with an offer of cheap housing, plentiful jobs and a friendly community. 

What about its name? In a literal translation 'kai' means food and 'tangata' means people, so an origin that has to do with cannibalism is likely. One version is that after a battle fought over eeling rights in the vicinity, the chief Mokomoko was killed an eaten by the victors. A more savoury (if that's the right word) explanation is that it was named after an ancestor who travelled on the Arai-te-uru canoe. 

Discover the Māori names and their meaning in the fully revised edition of A.W. Reed’s classic Māori Place Names.

From the book Māori Place Names: the meaning of Whangaparāoa and Whāngārei

Whales were an important resource to pre-European Māori, and that’s reflected in several well-known names.

Whangaparāoa, the peninsula north of Auckland city, means Bay or harbour of sperm whales; whanga (harbour); parāoa (sperm whale).

Among the many explanations for the name Whāngārei is that it’s a shortened form of Whāngārei-terenga-parāoa: whanga (harbour); rei (rushing); terenga (place of swimming); parāoa (sperm whale).

Find these and many more definitions in Māori Place Names. For more about the book go to https://www.oratia.co.nz/product/maori-place-names/

A.W. Reed, author of Māori Place Names

A.W. Reed, author of Māori Place Names, played upon his surname when designing the logo for his publishing company, A.H. & A.W. Reed. The logo features the raupō, New Zealand’s native reed.

Raupō is also a place name – there are settlements of this name near Ruawai in Northland and inland from Greymouth – and the definition is included in the fourth edition. Revising editor Peter Dowling was himself a former publishing manager at Reed Publishing.

The late A.W. Reed

‪‎Māori Language Week‬ /‎Te Wiki o te Reo Māori‬ - Māori word of the day: te

The word te stands as a separate part of many place names – think Te Aroha, Te Kauwhata or Te Waipounamu. That’s no surprise when you understand that it means ‘the’ in Māori. So:

Te Aroha – ‘The love’, referring to the emotion felt here by the early traveller Kahumatamomoe

Te Mata – ‘The headland’

Te Waipounamu – ‘The greenstone waters’, the Māori name for the South Island

[IMAGE – Te Waipounamu]

Te Waipounamu, from the map featured in Māori Place Names

The fourth edition of Māori Place Names is out in good bookstores today

 

The book contains a list of words that commonly form part of Māori place names – among them manga, which means ‘stream, creek’.

Manga is found in names all over the country. One combination is Mangaweka, a place just south of Taihape. The weka is the New Zealand wood-hen – so Mangaweka means ‘Creek of the wood hens’.

This and other illustrations by celebrated artist James Berry featured in the early editions of the book, and have been brought back for the 2016 edition.

Māori Place Names marking Māori Language Week

Māori Language Week/Te Wiki o te Reo Māori is underway – and Oratia Books is marking the week by publishing the fully revised edition of A.W. Reed’s classic Māori Place Names tomorrow.

This fourth edition gives meanings and origins of over 2300 of the most important and widespread Māori names.

Each day this week we’ll explain one name or feature. Today’s is one of the most common – Wainui.

Wai means water; nui means big. So Wainui means ‘Big river, bay or expanse of water’.

László Krasznahorkai wins Man Booker International Prize

Congratulations to Hungarian novelist László Krasznahorkai on his receipt of this year's Man Booker International Prize.

Alessandra and I had the pleasure of meeting Lászlo at his home outside Budapest some years back. He's a kind and warm man. His books are dark yet funny, massively imaginative, and challenge the novelistic form - The Melancholoy of Resistance is a favourite.

Read more about the Man Booker International  Prize winner here.


Peter Dowling
Publisher, Libro International

Gallipoli The New Zealand Story, by Christopher Pugsley

M E D I A    R E L E A S E

Frankfurt, Germany

9 October 2014

Gallipoli

The New Zealand Story

Christopher Pugsley

Classic account of Gallipoli campaign published in new NZ and UK editions today

Gallipoli: The New Zealand Story is out today in a revised edition in New Zealand, and in a separate UK edition from leading military history publisher Frontline Books.

The book is also being showcased this week at the Frankfurt Book Fair, the world’s premier publishing event.

Charles Hewitt, Managing Director, of Frontline Books joined with Libro International’s Peter Dowling at Frankfurt to toast the new book.  

“We recognise Gallipoli as one of the essential accounts of this campaign and are receiving an enthusiastic response from booksellers in the UK,” Hewitt said.

Fully revised and with many new photos, Gallipoli is a brilliant and moving account of this defining campaign of the First World War, told through the eyes of those who fought and died in the unsuccessful effort to seize the Dardanelles from Turkey.

Release Date: 9 October 2014  |  ISBN: 978-1-877514-64-7  |  RRP $49.99

Paperback with flaps, 240 x 170 mm, 400 pages b&w

To arrange an interview with Chris, images or a review copy, contact:

Peter Dowling   027 614 8993 or peter@oratiamedia.com

Libro International, a division of Oratia Media

www.librointernational.com   |    www.oratiamedia.com

The Last Maopo on TVNZ Marae

Click here to learn the story of The Last Maopo told by author Tania Simpson on TVNZ's Marae. The book will be officially launched this Friday, Anzac Day.

I Need a New Bum! continues its bestselling run

Dawn McMillan and Ross Kinnaird continue to reach hundreds of Kiwi kids with I Need a New Bum!, which is at number 2 on Whitcoulls Top 5 NZ Picture Books. http://www.whitcoulls.co.nz/books/general/505373/#stock_status=InStock%7CPreOrder (Click n.2)

Congrats to this great author-illustrator team and thanks to Whitcoulls for doing such a great job selling our book. 

Holy Socks is here!

Holy Socks

Dawn McMillan & Philip Webb

Christmas classic from the author of 2012 best-seller I need a new Bum!

‘One Christmas Eve, some years ago, a ginger kitten wandered along a street on the far side of town. He was hungry, and cold and wet.’

.

Bertie McGinty finds the kitten and christens him Holy Socks. Soon the pair is inseparable. Even after Bertie’s death, Holy Socks sticks by his master and takes up home in the church near his grave. 

Captivated by Holy Socks as she sits in church, young Christie calls out, ‘Can I keep the cat?’ Father John, by way of answer, tells everyone the story of Holy Socks.

This heart-warming tale from Thames-based Dawn McMillan, with beautiful illustrations by Wellington artist Philip Webb, is set to be an instant Christmas classic.

Dawn is available for interviews and will be appearing in the following bookshops:

2 November – Bookshop and Resource Room, Pt. Chevalier, 10 a.m.

         – Next Page Please!, Takapuna, 2 p.m.

7 November – Kids Book Fair, Takapuna

16 November – Carsons Bookshop, Thames, 3 p.m.

23 November – Browns Bay Library, 10:30 a.m.

28 November – Books for Kids, Hamilton, 10 a.m.

Release Date:  24 October 2013  | ISBN: 978-1-877514-59-3 | RRP $19.99

Paperback, 230 x 215 mm, 32 pages colour

To arrange an interview with Dawn, images or a review copy, contact:

Isabell Zitzelsberger, Marketing Specialist 

022 156 7470 or isabell@oratiamedia.com

Libro International, a division of Oratia Media

www.librointernational.com   |    www.oratiamedia.com

Pā Henare Tate receives Māori Book Award

With great pleasure we can announce that Pā Henare Tate’s He Puna Iti i te Ao Mārama, published by Libro International last November, has won the Te Kōrero Pono/Non-fiction category in the Ngā Kupu Ora Aotearoa Māori Book Awards.

The awards, administered by Massey University, will be granted in a ceremony at Te Wharewaka o Poneke function centre in Wellington on 7 November.

Identified in five categories – biography, fiction, non-fiction, te reo Māori and a special award – the winners were selected from books published between August 2012 and July this year.

Chair of the three-member judging panel and Massey University senior lecturer, Dr Spencer Lilley said the awards are held to address the dearth of Māori literature for adults.

“The awards were created as a result of other major book awards consistently failing to acknowledge Māori authors. The Awards also foster Māori literary excellence, authorship and scholarship in te reo Māori,” he said.

Pā Henare’s work, which is subtitled A Little Spring in the World of Light, was described by the judges as a compelling description of the role that Māori tikanga (protocols) and kaupapa (methodologies) play in the construction of a Māori Christian theological framework.

“This scholarly text joins other seminal works on tikanga Māori by Barlow (Tikanga Whakaaro: key concepts in tikanga Māori) and Mead (Tikanga Māori: living by Māori values),” the judges said.

Our hearty congratulations to Pā Henare for this much deserved recognition.

http://www.massey.ac.nz/massey/maori/maori_book_awards/2013-awards/2013-awards_home.cfm

Pā Henare Tate (Ngāti Manawa, Te Rarawa) was formerly a lecturer at the Auckland Catholic Institute of Theology, and the University of Auckland School of Theology. A recognised specialist in Māori spirituality, he now lives lives in Motuti, in northern Hokianga.  

He Puna Iti i Te Ao Mārama: A Little Spring in the World of Light

Pā Henare Tate

978-1-877514-54-8

240 x 160 mm portrait, PB, 320 pp

$75 

Dawn McMillan and Ross Kinnaird star in Whitcoulls Top 50

I Need a New Bum ranks 18th in the top 50 children's books sold at Whitcoulls

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/books/news/article.cfm?c_id=134&objectid=11128575