Anke Richter’s Cult Trip is a gripping, visceral, thriller-like investigation into Centrepoint, Gloriavale and Agama Yoga. In this session, Noelle McCarthy quizzes Richter about the dynamics that turn a group into a cult, and why we are all susceptible to undue influence. 

Cult Trip: Inside the world of coercion & control is an investigative personal deep dive into Aotearoa New Zealand’s most notorious present and former “high-control groups”, told in a personal journalism style by Anke Richter, one of the world's leading journalists on cults.

This book can be compared to Stasiland in style. Apart from sharing survivors' stories, the book also touches more lightly on international groups, such as Orgasmic Meditation in California, where Richter spent time in an OM-house and the former ashram of Osho in Pune, India, which she visited.

The chapters are introduced and woven together by Richter's personal experience as a former follower and now critic of one particular "school" that was transformational for her. She will describe her challenges of working in the field of cult reporting, of coming under attack by perpetrators and sometimes getting too close to victims and their trauma – and the lessons she learned.

In 'The Crucial Decade', Kim Hill invites Paul Tapsell (Te Arawa, Tainui), Mike Joy and Dave Lowe to explain how we can respond to the climate crisis and transform our lands, waterways and communities. Recorded on Sunday October 22 at the 2022 Nelson Arts Festival, as part of our Pukapuka Talks literary programme.

In Kāinga: People, Land, Belonging (BWB Texts) Paul Tapsell looks at the legacy of colonisation and how alienation from traditional Māori settlements and whenua (land) has become part of a wider story of environmental degradation and system collapse. He argues that only a complete step-change, one that embraces kāinga, can transform our lands and waterways, and potentially become a source of inspiration to the world.

In both Inherited Pollution and Mountains to the Sea (both published by BWB Texts) leading freshwater ecologist in Aotearoa Mike Joy calls for governments to listen to climate scientists and explores how we all need to play our part in supporting a shift away from growth at any cost.

Pre-2020, an alarmist was someone who exaggerated a danger, thus needlessly causing worry or panic, while today it describes someone who justifiably raises the alarm about a global danger to the Earth’s biosphere. In The Alarmist: Fifty Years Measuring Climate Change (THWUP), which won the E.H. McCormick Prize for a best first work of General Non-Fiction, Dave Lowe explains what he’s learned from 50 years of climate research and why he’s hopeful young people can make a difference.