Well-known Lyttelton author and humorist Joe Bennett scooped the grand prize at the seventh annual Whitcoulls Travcom Travel Book of the Year Award for Where Underpants Come From.

The Whitcoulls Travcom Travel Book of the Year Award judges Karen Goa and Owen Scott noted they “enjoyed reading the twelve diverse entries immensely and commented that the impressively high standard this year made for a tightly contested shortlist”.

The awards were presented at a gala dinner held at the Heritage Auckland Grand Tearoom on Tuesday 31 March 2009. The Whitcoulls Travcom Travel Book of the Year Award is presented for the best original book of creative travel writing about any country, including New Zealand, and is run by Travcom (NZ Travel Communicators), whose aim is to encourage and improve travel writing.

Bennett was awarded $2,000 cash plus $500 worth of book vouchers from Whitcoulls.

The judges also awarded a Highly Commended Certificate to Roads Less Travelled, Twenty Years of Exploration with New Zealand Geographic by NZ Geographic's ex-editor Kennedy Warne (Penguin Group NZ Ltd; 2008). The judges said “Roads Less Travelled gently captivates the reader from page one. Lucid and lyrical, the book reflects Kennedy Warne’s love and respect for New Zealand’s wild landscapes and creatures”.
Information edited from:
http://www.travelcommunicators.co.nz/

WHERE UNDERPANTS COME FROM by Joe Bennett
First published in May, 2008 (trade-paperback $32.99).
Penguin Group (NZ) will release the paper-back edition, due for publication in June; RRP $28.

A wonderfully funny and insightful look at the new China, the factory of the world — tracing an ordinary pair of underpants from their purchase in New Zealand back to where they were made.

When Joe Bennett bought a five-pack of 'Made in China' underpants in his local New Zealand Warehouse for $8.59, he wondered who on earth could be making any money, let alone profit, from the exchange. How many processes and middlemen are involved? Where and how are the pants made? And who decides on the absorbent qualities of the gusset? 'Where Underpants Come From' tells you all you need to know. In fact, probably more about this mystery of global commerce.

ROADS LESS TRAVELLED by Kennedy Warne
Few people have had the opportunity to experience the breadth of New Zealand’s geography, nature and culture as Kennedy Warne, the founding editor of New Zealand Geographic magazine, has done. For the past two decades, he has traversed the country, researching the hundreds of stories that filled the magazine’s pages during his 15 years as editor, and subsequently writing many of his own stories as a freelance.
Roads Less Travelled brings together photographs, stories and reflections from those journeys, which have taken the former Auckland scientist, schoolteacher and newspaperman from the subantarctic to the Kermadec Islands and beyond, to the northernmost tip of New Zealand’s last Pacific protectorate, Tokelau.
In his own words and photographs, Warne introduces his readers to a cast of memorable characters, unique places and remarkable creatures. From the underwater depths of Fiordland to the alpine meadows of the Volcanic Plateau, Roads Less Travelled is both inspirational and eclectic, based on one man’s journey of geographical discovery.

Kennedy Warne earned a master’s degree in classifying marine sponges before abandoning science to take up a career in print media, working as a copywriter, editor, photographer, designer and production manager. Then science came back into the picture, and from 1988 to 2004 he lived and breathed New Zealand Geographic magazine. After stepping down as editor he became a freelance writer and photographer, and now writes on a regular basis for National Geographic (assignments have included diving with sharks in South Africa, crocodiles in the Okavango Delta and harp seals under the sea ice in the Gulf of St Lawrence), Smithsonian, Canadian Geographic and GEO France, as well as continuing to contribute to the magazine that started his geographical journey.

Published by Penguin Group (NZ); RRP 50.00; available now.