Auckland professor of psychology Niki Harré has won this year’s $10,000 Ashton Wylie Mind Body Spirit Book Award for The Infinite Game, a work that teaches us how to live and work co-operatively together, for the good of ourselves and the planet.

Awards’ convenor of judges Joan Rosier-Jones says Harré’s book is an intelligent, thoughtful, philosophical view of the difference between the finite and the infinite players in the modern world.

“This is a book that will inspire readers to consider our common future particularly in sustainability and ecological context providing for human well being and to think about what is important to them and use that to inform how they live their lives with less concentration on competition and status and more emphasis on community ,” she says.

In The Infinite Game, Niki Harré asks us to imagine our world anew. What if we are all part of a different type of game entirely - a game in which playing matters more than winning, a game that anyone can join at any time, a game in which rules evolve as new players turn up. Deeply informed by psychological research and a life of social activism, Niki Harré’s provocative book teaches us all how we might live life as an infinite game.

“This year’s finalists were of exceptionally high quality, each of them beautifully produced, compelling works. It made our job in selecting a winner and the runner’s up very difficult,” says Ms Rosier Jones.

Matamata resident Averill Richardson won the Unpublished Manuscript category for her work The Love Path.

Ms Rosier-Jones says this year’s Unpublished Manuscript winner uses all of her varied life experiences to produce a well-written, soundly researched work which is also based on empirical evidence.

“The Love Path takes the reader step by step through the exploration of the development of love in humans over a lifetime. Each step has its own dynamic and requires a specific attitude and skill to master. Using Carl Jung’s insight into the integration of science and religion, the manuscript offers us all much food for thought.

“Each of the five manuscript winners are from writers that hold great promise and we sincerely hope they are published and received by a wide audience.”

The judging panel, comprising publisher Bob Ross, writer Joan Rosier-Jones and writer and publisher Keith Hill were unanimous in their overall choice of the winning works, which took the honours from a total of 10 finalists.

The 2019 Ashton Wylie Mind Body Spirit Book Awards’ winners and runners’ up (in order) are:

Book Category

	Niki Harré - WINNER - The Infinite Game Auckland University Press
	Leila Lees Into the World: A Handbook for Mystical and Shamanic Practise Lasavia Publishing Ltd
	Joy Cowley Veil Over Light: Selected Spiritual Writings FitzBeck Publishing
	Gwen S Francis Standing Upright Here: Global Ethics for the 21st Century Austin Macauley Publishers Ltd
	Charlotte Mildon He Atua Wahine at the Source of Ancient Māori Healing Wisdom in Aotearoa, New Zealand Tamariki Ora Books Ltd

Manuscript Category

	Averill Nichole Richardson - WINNER - The Love Path
	Trisha Hanifin The Time Lizard's Archaeologist
	Gabrielle Harris The Language of Yin
	Anca Sarah Joicey You Are Loved: Extraordinary Things Happening to Ordinary People
	Jacquelyn E Lane Deva: The Song at the Heart of the Matter

A record number of 57 entries were received in this year’s Unpublished Manuscript category.

The Awards are unique in New Zealand for their encouragement of writing in the mind body spirit genre.

 

2019 Awards Gallery
2018 Winners