Beginning in Northland and heading into the blue beyond, Always Song in the Water is a book of encounters and epiphanies, a dinghy ride through New Zealand's oceanic imagination. In this book, O'Brien takes his metaphorical dinghy to the edges of New Zealand–starting with a road trip through Northland and then voyaging out into the Pacific, to lead us into some under-explored territories of the South Pacific imagination. O'Brien suggests how we New Zealanders might be re-imagining ourselves as an oceanic people on a small island in a big piece of water. Always Song in the Water is a book of encounters, sightings and unexpected epiphanies. It is a high-spirited, personal and inventive account of being alive at the outer extremities of Aotearoa New Zealand.