Steve Brawnius

That's got an X factor.

There's a very credible book, a survey of photographs by a guy called Mark Adams.

And the fourth book is Garrison World, which is a major history.

It covers the 1840 to 1870 period in New Zealand and the military troops who were coming here and the lives of the people and the people who they were with.

Like, you know, every few pages there's a sort of

Lovely story about someone who lived and died here.

There's one story in particular I found quite heartbreaking because it's so brief.

All it is is a story about a soldier's wife.

He kind of dobbed her in, his own wife, to the authorities for being, I think the phrase was, incurably drunk.

She, oh, this will wipe the smile off your face.

She fell in a well and drowned.

Poor woman, I know, right?

Yeah, there you are laughing.

Yeah, I take that back.

Manically and ruthlessly.

So there's things about these, you know, that's a good sort of facet about these picture books is that they're not just there to look at.

They have, you know, good stories to tell.

Really good text.

The book on native flowers is a joy to actually read because of the botanical information and so forth.

So, yeah, it's not just pictures.