Danny Knudson is a name well known in Otago education and he is also an accomplished writer on educational subjects.
Recently received is NZEI Otago, his history of the Otago branch of the New Zealand Educational Institute, covering a period from 1848, when the region's first teachers arrived, to 2008.
It is much more than a historical record of a professional organisation, however, being a very deeply researched history of teaching and teaching administration in the province.
Extensively illustrated, with many appendices, an index, bibliography and chronology.
• Local historians fossicking in the minutiae of life do a great service for readers and John Foley's account of Waimate's St Patrick's Basilica, Of Grace and Majesty ($20 to the St Patrick's Restoration Trust), is just such an example.
It's a modest book, modestly produced but well illustrated and replete with details.
The church was one of F. W. Petre's finest, and now at just over 100 years of service to the community, needs help to maintain its legacy.
Foley's book is a means of achieving it.
• Corran Perry Ashworth was a member of a well-known Alexandra family when World War 2 began.
He became a pilot after joining the RNZAF in 1941, took part in some of the worst of the early fighting, including providing cover for the Dieppe Raid in 1942, then saw service in North Africa before returning to the United Kingdom in time for the Normandy landings.
He was killed in action over Normandy in August 1944, flying a Mustang.
He was only 22.
His brother Vince Ashworth's memoir, For Our Tomorrow He Gave His Today, is an account of his life in Central Otago, and his active service.
Profusely illustrated and detailed, it includes the discovery 61 years after his death of the place where Corran's plane landed, and the creation of a memorial to him nearby.
• Rails to Roxburgh (The Molyneux Press Ltd, pbk) has been a labour of devotion by W. J. (Bill) Cowan, and it shows.
This is the story - in incredible detail - of the Roxburgh branch of the Lawrence railway which operated from 1928 for 40 years before finally ceasing after a lingering death from road competition.
Like so many similar lines it was expensively built after years of agitation by farmers and other businessmen, operating successfully only relatively briefly before finally being used only occasionally for excursions.
Cowan's substantial book, in large paperback format, is profusely illustrated, with a narrative heavily reliant on factual material; appendices and an index add to its authority.
Rail enthusiasts will savour it.
