Welcome to BWB’s first email newsletter!
I am delighted to attach media releases for the titles to round off the year, accessible using the links below. Please select the titles you might like to review and note that Charlotte Macdonald, Gillian Chaplin, Vincent O’Sullivan and Allan Davidson are available for interview.
It has been a fast-moving year in so many respects. We at Bridget Williams Books have felt the absence of Judith Binney, whose work, friendship and strength has been important to so many.
So it was a pleasure to take through to completion a project we had discussed with her, publishing the books Nga Morehu and Mihaia in new formats, accessible to new generations of readers. Not surprisingly, John Pocock’s magnificent commentary in the London Review of Books located Judith Binney as ‘a major figure in contemporary historiography’ - a view reflected by subsequent coverage in Reviews in History.
Charlotte Macdonald’s new book, Strong, Beautiful and Modern, has been long awaited – and this is a surprising, original, terrific piece of research. An inspired account of the state-sponsored national-fitness campaigns that swept the 'British world' from the late 1930s, this beautifully illustrated work reveals fascinating new threads between fascism, empire, public health, sport and the pursuit of 'the better body'.
This is followed briskly by A Controversial Churchman, essays on George Selwyn and his wife Sarah, an important contribution to writing about church, state and Maori—Pakeha relations in the nineteenth century.
The decision to publish Vincent O’Sullivan’s Long Journey to the Border came from the heart of BWB’s philosophy – this is a superb biography from a fine writer. Publication in this new edition (and shortly as an e-book) marks the centenary of Mulgan's birth.
The New Year will see the launch of BWB's digital publishing programme, ranging from retail e-books (including previously out-of-print titles) through to innovative library and subscription products. Tom Rennie is leading the development of this and BWB is striving to set new standards for serious non-fiction e-books in New Zealand.
The BWB team (Bridget Williams, Tom Rennie, Jo Scully, Philip Rainer, Tui MacDonald, and myself) are hard at work on a number of projects – particularly Tangata Whenua: An Illustrated History due for publication in 2012.
Sarah Rennie, fresh from Little Brown in the UK, has been taking The New Zealand Pregnancy Book into new territory – with www.nzpregnancybook.co.nz about to go live, and a lively publishing plan in hand for next year.
Next year we also look forward to the publication of a history of New Zealand women, a book on nineteenth-century childbirth, essays on New Zealand and ‘the web of empire’, and a powerful, timely study of inequality in New Zealand.
I’m glad to be in touch at this time of year, and wish you a very Merry Christmas and the happiest for New Year.
With warm, good wishes,
Angela Radford