Landmarks

. . . once again we've got this quite remarkable display of talents of, as you say, three of our leading creatives . . . their powers haven't in any way faded, it's a hugely impressive book. . . it's a very successful book . . . what comes through mostly is of course their commitment to the area . . . and their celebration of really, as I say, what is one of our remarkable areas of landscape.

David Hill, National Radio

In LANDMARKS (Godwit, $75), Sydney's landscapes - sprawling, eerie, usually unpeopled - are perhaps even more majestic alongside new poems from Turner and verse and fiction from Marshall. Sydney adds a touching story about his idol, Janet Frame, and her biographer, his friend Michael King.

NZ Listener

a love story dedicated to the landscape of Central Otago

Simon Henderson, Lakes District & Central Otago News

Featuring some previously unpublished work, Landmarks celebrates not only a love of the landscape but four decades of friendship between three of our most singular literary and artistic treasures. . . . A painter (Sydney), a poet (Turner) and a writer of prose (Marshall) - but really, all are philosophers at heart.

Weekend Herald

Cambrian-based Grahame Sydney's paintings from the last quarter century, rarely peopled (although Top Nosh includes the proprietor and a customer of the pie cart), continue a tradition of big skies, magic light and mysterious landscapes which the locals and visitors have recognised as showing the spirit of the place like no other artwork. Poet Brian Turner, now an Oturehua old-timer, has kept at it. He is now so much part of the place that every line in every poem seems to reek of the wind, the hills, the heat, the frosts and the rivers of his beloved stamping ground. For Owen Marshall, regular visits to Central Otago have recharged his muse, and his stories, universal in their sentiments, are embedded with nuggets of local gold. . . . Landmarks is full of good things. . . . By now Landmarks is probably in almost every home in Central Otago. If not, it should be.

Jim Sullivan, Otago Daily Times

Sydney's paintings might seem a little bleak at first, until you realise they are pitting you against the sheer immensity of the landscape. Marshall's prose peoples the landscape and fleshes it out with a sense of longing, and Turner's poems, which so often reveal hidden layers of the countryside, take on a political edge, a lament about intensive dairying.

Peter Shand, Wairarapa Times Age

It’s not like anyone is ever not going to like Grahame Sydney’s landscape painting. They are clearly very desirable things. Landmarks is lovely. It’s a beautiful book, an exquisite book. Big, well bound, glossy in all the right places and lots of pictures. Beautiful, exquisite pictures …

Andrew Paul Wood, Reading Room

Landmarks brings together three men who have invested much time in Central Otago. The coming together of Owen Marshall, Grahame Sydney and Brian Turner is truly something special.

Tony Nielsen, Daily Post

Three extraordinary New Zealand come together to produce the stunning book, Landmarks. . . Landmarks is an extraordinarily beautiful book, one that you will want to spend time savouring the timeless images, but also enjoying stories and poetry that are an immersion into the sounds and textures of southern Aotearoa. This is a book that will resonate with anyone who holds this part of the world dear, it’s loving tribute to a unique place in New Zealand. Some of the images and words gave me goosebumps, that’s how good this book is!

NZ Booklovers