Press Release

The baking bible Ladies, A Plate continued its success when it picked up the supreme Nielsen Award for Best Book at last night’s PANZ Book Design Awards. Designed by Alan Deare from Inhouse Design, it also won the Best Illustrated category of the awards. ‘It isn’t particularly flashy, nor particularly “designer”. It is just right, and a deserved winner,’ said Peter Gilderdale, the 2009 Convenor of Judges. He described Ladies, A Plate as a beautiful cookbook that also invites easy and continual use, and stressed that ‘the cover is a superb evocation of the tradition of home baking, yet … it turns the nostalgia crisp and contemporary’.

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Special Forces Heroes
 by Michael Ashcroft (foreword by Andy McNab)

Headline Review 2009
 Reviewed by SARAH CHANDLER

While Michael (Lord) Ashcroft’s book focuses solely on the daring deeds of about forty British special forces personnel, it will perhaps be of interest to some New Zealanders in view of NZ SAS Corporal Willie Apiata’s Victoria Cross award in 2007 and John Key’s recent confirmation that 70 NZ SAS troops will deploy to Afghanistan over the next 18 months. Consonant with standard practice, Key has made no comment on the operational aspects of the SAS deployment, and while recent books such as Apiata’s biography and Ron Crosby’s NZSAS: The first fifty years have shed some light on the activities of the special air service, an air of intrigue will no doubt continue to surround the workings of these elite forces.

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Press Release

The Word Witch
The Magical Verse of Margaret Mahy

Edited by Tessa Duder, illustrated by David Elliot

NZRRP $44.99 | NZ RELEASE DATE 1 OCTOBER 2009 | HARPERCOLLINS PUBLISHERS NZ

Finally, Margaret Mahy’s much-loved poems and stories in rhyme have been collected together by her biographer, Tessa Duder, for the first time ever in the wonderful new book, The World Witch: The Magical Verse of Margaret Mahy.

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