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For anyone who has dreamed of living in the country ... here's the hilarious, heart-warming brutal reality.

Rebecca Hayter was a high-profile yachting journalist based in Auckland when she followed a whim to buy a lifestyle block on the beach at Golden Bay at the top of the South Island - but she didn't know what she didn't know.

Unexpectedly in charge of chickens, sheep and an orchard, Rebecca shamelessly exploited local knowledge as she tackled drought, isolation and the mysteries of her Massey Ferguson 135. As a journalist, she explored local politics and the differences between urban and rural New Zealand. As a daughter, she explored the most complex relationship of her life.

Based on the author's column of the same name (Best Columnist/Blogger in the Media Awards 2020 for North & South magazine), this is a candid, hilarious, heartbreaking and heartwarming story of a woman learning the realities of life on the farm and finding confidence in new skills and in herself.

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A powerful, moving, and darkly-honest memoir

Sue Watson grew up in a perfect, loving nuclear family, a white-picket fence, quarter acre paradise. But all was not quite as it seemed. Sue and her sister were adopted, and one day when Sue as a young woman was studying in Wellington, she received a letter from her birth mother Elizabeth Winters. This began a life-long journey to discover the shadowy truth of her past.

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A South Seas classic since 1966, this is the story of one New Zealander brave enough to do what we have all now and then dreamed of doing - live alone on a desert island

In his youth Tom Neale was an ordinary seaman and for years a shopkeeper among the Cook Islands, but he was in his fifties when he turned his back on society to live alone on the South Pacific atoll of Suvarov (now known as Suwarrow). With him he took nothing but a couple of cats, some bric-a-brac to tie and bolt his meagre dwelling, and the strength of body and mind to survive.

In the six years over which Neale wrote this autobiography there were heroic moments when he battled the elements: the furious hurricane that engulfed the coral islet; five desperate hours in a stormy lagoon with a cripplingly strained back; even a reluctant bit of blood-letting on wild pigs and a mammoth sea turtle.

But along with the toils and perils were years of peace and beauty: building a chicken coop; baking with banana leaves; the delight drawn from a sip of brandy; and taming a wild duck. All of these simple pleasures are a reminder of what we take for granted in our own lives today.

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Full Circle

by Jenny-may Clarkson