Mutzig the Clown Cat


Book Description

Eccentric and charming, Mutzig the Clown Cat is the first ever book by Peter Wells. In 1981 he made 30 copies of this book by hand to celebrate a stray cat that wandered into his life and took over his heart. A small art book, tactile and inviting, with drawings by the author.




Pussweek


Book Description

Pussweek is a magazine-style book written by cats, for cats. This means STRICTLY NO HUMANS ALLOWED, so if you have opposable thumbs just get out of here right meow! Pussweek Issue One covers important issues such as catnip addiction, litter, sleep, scratching post selection, plus competitions, advice, quizzes and much more.




Family Instructions Upon Release


Book Description

'I have no words.' This is so often our response to grief and loss, when dealing with it ourselves or consoling others. Elizabeth's father took his own life in 2012. Unable to find words of her own to write about what had happened, Elizabeth took them instead from the 2006 Penguin Classics edition of 'Twelve Angry Men', a play she and her father attended together when Elizabeth was a teenager, and combined these with the New Zealand Government's `Fact Sheet 4 - Suicide and Self-Harm'. Armed with this limited dictionary, she was able to write poems that are by turns mournful, angry and searching. The cumulative effect is surprising in its narrative drive and cathartic power.




Shakspere's Werke


Book Description




No Second Place Winner


Book Description

Discusses grips, calibers, loads, and the care and fitting of a holster, and looks at the keys to the fast draw and successful gunfighting




Mixed Dates


Book Description




Dear Oliver


Book Description

When writer and historian Peter Wells found a cache of family letters amongst his elderly mother's effects, he realised that he had the means of retracing the history of a not-untypical family swept out to New Zealand during the great nineteenth-century human diaspora from Britain. His family experienced the war against Te Kooti, the Boer War, the Napier earthquake of 1931 and the Depression. They rose from servant status to the comforts of the middle class. There was army desertion, suicide, adultery, AIDS, secrets and lies. There was also success, prosperity and social status. In digging deep into their stories, examining letters from the past and writing a letter to the future, Peter Wells constructs a novel and striking way to view the history of Pakeha New Zealanders.




The Hungry Heart


Book Description

Shortlisted for the NZ Post Award this fascinating, innovative biography is of a true original and significant figure in NZ's early colonisation. "I love doubters: of a truly honest doubter I have great hope." Printer, botanist and missionary, William Colenso was a nineteenth-century maverick, a true original. He protested at the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi, arguing that Maori did not fully understand its implications. He became a troubled conscience during the white-hot period of colonisation, maintaining his dissident voice throughout his career. Peter Wells refreshes our vision of this awkward, highly talented man, who lost his family after the church expelled him for fathering a child by a Maori woman. Rejected by church, family and friends, Colenso made botany his home and lovingly described the plants of New Zealand. At the same time he wrote a series of remarkable pamphlets that open up our past. 'I write for future generations,' he noted in 1881. The time has come to welcome Colenso back.




Journey to a Hanging


Book Description

Part history, part biography, part social commentary, this fascinating book is about infamous events that shook New Zealand to its core. In 1865, Rev Carl Sylvius Volkner was hanged, his head cut off, his eyes eaten and his blood drunk from his church chalice. One name – Kereopa Te Rau (Kaiwhatu: The Eye-eater) – became synonymous with the murder. In 1871 he was captured, tried and sentenced to death. But then something remarkable happened. Sister Aubert and William Colenso — two of the greatest minds in colonial New Zealand — came to his defence. Regardless, Kereopa Te Rau was hanged in Napier Prison. But even a century and a half later, the events have not been laid to rest. Questions continue to emerge: Was it just? Was it right? Was Kereopa Te Rau even behind the murder? And who was Volkner – was he a spy or an innocent? In a personal quest, author Peter Wells travels back into an antipodean heart of darkness and illuminates how we try to make sense of the past, how we heal, remember - and forget.




Boy Overboard


Book Description

An achingly insightful coming-of-age novel about discovering sexuality and selfhood. Hungry Creek runs out over mudflats and curves around to a tidal beach. Hungry Creek is where everything is put that nobody wants: a dump, a zoo, a loony bin. It is also a magical place. 'I'm two bits of mismatched bikini. M doesn't seem to belong to E . . .' Jamie is eleven, on the threshold of discovery. But he can't find the map that will explain where he fits in or who he is. His parents are away and he is staying with family friends. The sea is rising towards high tide, and he is a boy overboard.