Recommended Reading

For those who wish to know more about New Zealand in general, there are a couple of websites that list the kind of facts and figures that help form a picture of the country.

There's the CIA's entry about New Zealand in their World Factbook. It's reassuring to note that the CIA finds little to criticise about New Zealand, at least in this resume.

Here's a good page that gives New Zealand's history and population in brief. It has a small map but also shows where NZ is on the planet. It mentions LOTR in the first paragraph too.

For a more leisurely exploration of the country from your armchair, you might like to investigate the novels of Witi Ihimaera (who wrote The Whale Rider,) Patricia Grace, Keri Hulme (whose Bone People won the Booker Prize), Janet Frame (An Angel at my Table) and Maurice Gee. Also the short stories of Katherine Mansfield, CK Stead, New Zealand's most famous poet is James K. Baxter; also Hone Tuwhare and Bill Manhire would make a good further reading in poetry.