101 INGENIOUS KIWIS – HOW NEW ZEALANDERS CHANGED THE WORLD by Tony Williams. Card covers with 176 pages and a selection of black and white photos. Published by REED Publishing Auckland in 2006.

“This ingenious book captures the very essence of the Kiwi character and is a spectacular celebration of over 100 examples of pioneering Kiwi ingenuity, profiling shed mechanics like Burt Munro and John Britten to those who used overseas resources to win Nobel Prizes like Ernest Rutherford and Alan McDiarmid, or those who earned international success like Peter Jackson and Peter Blake.

Other ingenious Kiwis include Jean Batten, Fred Hollows, Steve Gurney, Kate Sheppard and Alan Duff. We follow the inventive process, showing how--lacking resources and facing overwhelming difficulties--Kiwi ingenuity cracked the problem. Inventors and pioneers include Bill Hamilton and his jet boat, Kelly Tarlton and his underwater world (and treasure hunting), Alan Mitchell and the world's fastest machine gun, Harold Gillies and Archie McIndoe's pioneering plastic surgery on wounded fighter pilots, Richard Pearse and his experimental plane (was he the first to fly?), Dame Marie Clay and her literacy programme, William Pickering getting men to the moon and other ingenious Kiwi discoveries such as the tranquiliser gun, the thermette, electric fences, the referee’s whistle, dinosaurs and DNA.

This local book is in excellent shop-shelf condition and comes from a smoke-free home.