OILMIN FIELD SERVICES

OILMIN is a PNG owned and registered company that has been operating throughout PNG since 1992.

OILMIN has grown from the rigorous demands of supporting seismic and exploration within PNG. OILMIN have developed the capacity to deliver quality logistics solutions to the most hostile and remote parts of PNG, a country notoriously difficult to navigate.

OILMIN’s Services include:

Camp Management

Catering

Civil Works

Community Affairs

Construction

IT and Radio Communication

Rig Pad Construction

Seismic Support Services

CONTACT US

Sec: 32, Lot: 30, Lawes Road, Ogoa Street

Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea

PH: +675 321 3153 • E: info@oilmin.com www.oilmin.com

BY GABRIELLA MUNOZ

THE ROYALS Spare

By Prince Harry, The Duke of

(Penguin Random House)

Also available as an audio book (narrated by Prince Harry)

Adventure

Explorer: The Quest for Adventure and the Great Unknown

Sussex

The Duke of Sussex and his immediate family have been at the centre of a heated (and very public) debate surrounding their privacy, rights and place as working royals. And since every story has two sides, this is Harry’s attempt to provide his version and perhaps put an end to the great divide between ‘team Harry’ and team ‘The Crown’. Yet, it would be best to read Spare not as a document with an ulterior motive but as the trauma-to-healing memoir of a man who lost his mother, Princess Diana, at a very young age and is still grieving. Harry also laments the way in which she died – and he doesn’t shy away in criticising the media and the paparazzi, who played a role in Diana’s death, and continue to try to expose him and his family. With extraordinary detail, Spare provides a glimpse of Harry’s teenage years, his relationship with his father and brother, his time in the military, his struggles with mental health issues and, of course, his relationships with the two women who seem to have been the most prominent in his life so far: Princess Diana and his wife, Meghan Markle.

Memoir

The Bookseller at the End of the World

By Ruth Shaw (Allen & Unwin)

After two heartbreaking pregnancies, Shaw sailed across the Asia Pacific to ease the pain, spending time in PNG, where she worked as a cook, and in Australia, where she helped drug addicts and prostitutes in Sydney’s King’s Cross during the 1980s. Back in New Zealand, she opened two tiny bookshops in the remote village of Manapouri in Fiordland, and populated them with children’s books and other stories about the area. Her memoir is filled with vivid imagery, her favourite books, and incredible encounters with people (both at her shop and at sea) with fantastic stories of grit and love. The Book Seller at the End of the World reminds us of the power of storytelling and how sharing books can prove more rewarding than anything else.

By Benedict Allen (Allen & Unwin)

In 2017, English journalist and explorer extraordinaire Benedict Allen returned to Papua New Guinea to find the Yaifo tribe. His mission: to locate and thank the man who helped him cross the Central Range unharmed 30 years earlier. Allen was dropped in Bisorio Mission, East Sepik Province. He carried no mobile phone or radio. Weeks later, newspapers around the world reported he was missing – a concern amidst a mining conflict in the area. In Explorer, Allen narrates how as a child, he wanted to explore the world, just like his father; he reflects on some of his first expeditions, revisits his first lifechanging (and life-affirming) trip to PNG and explains why we need to disconnect and see the world through the eyes of others to understand nature and conflict. Beautifully written, this is an ode to the explorers that have made history, to curiosity and to the power of keeping a promise.

Biography

The Northumbrian Kiap: Bush Administration in Self-governing PNG

By Robert Forster (self published)

British-born Robert Forster settled in PNG in 1968, where he worked as a kiap or bush administrator for about seven years. Forster, an award-winning journalist, starts this book with the story of his family, which is from the most remote and least populated part of England, Northumbria, drawing parallels between the remoteness of his place of birth and the remoteness of PNG to understand the connection that bound people to their land. With descriptions of a shifting landscape and aided by photographs and maps, Forster gives readers a taste of what it was like to work as kiap and settle with your family in a country that was transitioning to independence and modernisation. He captures the struggles most Papua New Guineans faced to adapt to the new reality, and highlights their fierce love for their land. This book is an interesting recount of modern PNG history, but from the perspective of a bush administrator. n

GLENN DUNKS