Press Release – Oratia Books
Respected former journalist, writer and publisher Gordon Ell passed away in Auckland last week, but not before he saw early copies of his most recent book, edited with daughter Sarah Ell.
Gordon Ell
First Encounters: New Zealand 1642–1840 builds on the Ell’s impressive legacy of New Zealand books (Gordon authored over 30) and is the fourth in Oratia’s growing NZ Series, which introduces New Zealand society, history, science and geography to general readers and students.
Launched this week, their latest collaboration samples some of the amazing first impressions that Europeans formed when they landed in Aotearoa. They had no idea what they would find, and their journals are filled with wonder, curiosity and inevitable misunderstandings.
Thursday, 8 April 2021, 12:28 pm
Respected former journalist, writer and publisher Gordon
Ell passed away in Auckland last week, but not before he saw
early copies of his most recent book, edited with daughter
Sarah Ell.
Gordon Ell
First
Encounters: New Zealand 1642–1840 builds on the
Ell’s impressive legacy of New Zealand books (Gordon
authored over 30) and is the fourth in Oratia’s growing NZ
Series, which introduces New Zealand society, history,
science and geography to general readers and
students.
Launched this week, their latest
collaboration samples some of the amazing first impressions
that Europeans formed when they landed in Aotearoa. They had
LINE OF DUTY (TVNZ ONDEMAND) Newbies to
this much-loved British police procedural (now in its sixth season) may find it takes a little while to learn the lingo, but persevere, and you’ll find cracking drama amongst the seemingly scrupulous attention to detail. These are stories where often the crime comes secondary to the law enforcers’ conduct or potential corruption and where you’ll find your impressions of guilt and innocence change many times over the course of a series. Even before the end of episode one, there’s enough doubt, suspicion and potential bias laid before the audience to leave you hopelessly addicted and hanging out for the next installment to drop.
CALLS (APPLE TV+) Based on a French show of the same name, this nine-part series of short episodes, chronicles, via a series of interconnected phone conversations, the mysterious story of a group of strangers whose lives are thrown into disarray in the lead-up to an apocalyptic event. Among those lending their vocals are Danny Huston, Jennifer Tilly, Karen Gillan, Lily Collins, Pedro Pascal, Aubrey Plaza and Rosario Dawson.
Calls works in part because it represents a change of pace, built around the notion that the horrors conjured by our imagination often surpass anything that millions of dollars in special effects can visualise,” wrote
Irish-Maori meld forged in shared colonial history
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People of Māori-Irish descent will be celebrating St Patrick’s Day today - and there are more of them than you may think.
Historian Vincent O’Malley says Irish have been settling in Aotearoa since the first convicts skipped from Australia in the early 1800s.
While the company settlements like Wellington, Christchurch and Dunedin tried to exclude Irish Catholics, they later relented to bring in servants and labourers - and then the gold rushes of the 1860s opened the floodgates.
So too did the New Zealand Wars, with up to two third of the rank and file in the Imperial regiments being Irish, and many taking their discharge in this country and then marrying Maori women from the tribes they had been fighting.