Natural New Zealand -
The landscapes, animals and plants of Aotearoa
Shaun Barnett
Craig Potton Publishing - $29.99

Published as a comprehensively revised version of Shaun’s earlier book by the same name, this new title offers a fantastic introduction to, and a pictorial record of, New Zealand’s natural heritage.
Natural New Zealand is a celebration of this country’s remarkable natural heritage and our wonderfully diverse range of landscapes – mountains, glaciers, volcanoes, fiords, lakes, rivers and thousands of kilometres of rugged coastline. These landscapes are home to a fascinating array of plants and animals that, through millions of years of isolation, have evolved in unique ways, resulting in rarities such as the flightless kiwi, the takahe and the tuatara, as well as the magnificent rainforest for which New Zealand is so renowned.

In this new and comprehensively revised edition of Natural New Zealand, renowned writer and photographer Shaun Barnett has taken the original concept and greatly expanded it, using a series of short essays on the most important themes of New Zealand’s natural history to give more substance to his stunning sequence of photographs.
Natural New Zealand is a perfect and accessible momento for anyone who has been touched by this country’s extraordinary ecology. And as a bonus the book is profusely illustrated with the author's supernb photographs some of which are shown here although I cannot do justice to their superb quality.

My only complaint is that the book does not have an index. Unforgiveable with a work of non-fiction in my opinion. The book is a bargain at $29.99 but I would have preferred to have paid say $3 more and been provided with an index.
At the risk of sounding like a cracked record I have to say again that New Zealand publishers must regard an index in a work of non-fiction as absolutely essential. The judges of our various book awards are unlikely to regard seriously non-fiction titles without indices and neither they should.

On this subject I noticed the following comment at the end of Roger Hall's review of Billy T: The Life & Times of Billy T James (Harper Collins) in The Listener this week:
One negative note about the book.: it's infuriating that there is no index .(Nor is there in the recent Plume of Bee: A Literary Biography of CK Stead - what is the world coming to?)

Good on you Roger; let's have all reviewers complaining about this situation whenever it arises and see if we can't change some attitudes.