Station Life in New Zealand, by Lady Mary Anne Barker

This is a nonfiction book consisting of the letters home of a white lady who travelled to New Zealand in the 1860’s to take up sheep farming with her husband and stayed for three years. Lady Barker is a charming correspondent who knows how to tell a story, and I thoroughly enjoyed listening* to her various adventures, opinions, descriptions of life, and occasional real hardships. It’s, you know, a colonial book about colonialism, but you know what you’re getting into in a book like this and it was still very much a good example of the kinds of things I like about 19th century women’s travelogues so I feel well satisfied with my experience.

*I experienced this book as a free librivox audiobook to entertain me while walking places. The volunteer reader was very good!