Elizabeth Cox's book 'Mr Ward's Map' has been named a finalist in the 2026 Ockham Awards.
Massey University Press is celebrating a double dose of good news this month, with two of its titles named as finalists in the 2026 Ockham New Zealand Book Awards.
Mr Ward’s Map: Victorian Wellington street by street by Elizabeth Cox and Mark Adams: A Survey - He Kohinga Whakaahua by Sarah Farrar and Mark Adams, co-published with Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki, are both in the running for the prestigious BookHub Award for Illustrated Non-Fiction.
Breathing life into old Wellington
In Mr Ward’s Map, Wellington historian Elizabeth Cox takes readers on a wonderfully vivid journey through the capital as it was in 1891. Using surveyor Thomas Ward’s extraordinary map as her guide, she unearths the stories of the city’s streets, its neighbourhoods and the people who shaped them.
There’s also a proud Massey connection woven through the book. The elegant design is the work of Toi Rauwhārangi College of Creative Arts Senior Lecturer Dr Jo Bailey, while the intricate retouching was carried out by the College’s imaging specialist Peter Miles. The judges were clearly delighted, praising the book for its thoughtful pairings of photographs and map excerpts and noting that its design “brings navigational clarity to the complexities of the map.”
A landmark survey of a celebrated photographer
'Mark Adams: A Survey — He Kohinga Whakaahua' by Sarah Farrar and Mark Adams, co-published with Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki.
The second shortlisted title, Mark Adams: A Survey - He Kohinga Whakaahua, traces Adams’ photography practice across the Pacific, the United Kingdom and Europe. Created in collaboration with Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki and written by Dr Sarah Farrar, the gallery’s head of curatorial and learning, the book offers the first comprehensive look at Adams’ remarkable career.
Through images and essays, the publication explores the movement of cultural and artistic traditions and reflects the role of museums and photography in these ongoing exchanges. The judges described the book as a celebration of Adams’ rigorous research and storytelling, noting how the accompanying texts by Farrar, Ngāhuia te Awekōtuku and Nicholas Thomas provide rich context and depth.
Recognising excellence in Aotearoa New Zealand’s books
The Ockham New Zealand Book Awards are the country’s leading honour for locally written books. First established in 1968, they’ve carried several names over the decades — from the Wattie Book Awards to the Montana and New Zealand Post Book Awards but their purpose remains the same: to celebrate exceptional writing, design and publishing in Aotearoa.
The 2026 winners will be announced in Auckland on 13 May.
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