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Planet Key, Jack Vowles

John Key: Portrait of a prime minister
John Roughan
Penguin Books
ISBN 9780143570752

The early to mid-career prime ministerial biography has become an established genre of publishing well represented in New Zealand. This is one of the better examples. The publisher commissioned The New Zealand Herald editorial writer John Roughan, and the book was written with the co-operation of John Key. But it is not an authorised version: Key did not see or comment on the text prior to publication.

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Moral force, John Campbell

The Mighty Totara: The Life and Times of Norman Kirk
David Grant
Random House, $50.00,
ISBN 9781775535799

I was 10 when Norman Kirk died. It was the first death I had ever registered. When the news came through, my parents became so silent (our house was never silent) that I remember it 40 years on: the radio and an absence. My memory also contains a physical location. It is the staircase between the living-room and our bedrooms. I am sitting on it, looking down, and my parents are below me at the big table. It is a photo in my head. An external sense, as if someone else was there to describe it, of me waiting for them to make sense of it all, as parents always do. But they can’t. I tell that story now because Norman Kirk’s death often seems to occasion the sharp remembrance of a closer loss, even in people who never met him. Mine is an almost story book recollection that I carry with me.

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Refugees and New Zealand compassion, Verica Rupar

Refuge New Zealand: A Nation‘s Response to Refugees and Asylum Seekers Ann Beaglehole Otago University Press, $45.00, ISBN 9781877578502 Andris, Where are You? From Latvia to New Zealand: The Family Story of Andris Apse Ron Crosby Craig Potton Publishing, $40.00,

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Posted in Biography, History, Non-fiction, Politics & Law, Sociology

Philanthropy and fighter aces, Edmund Bohan

Frontiers: A Colonial Dynasty Simon Best Steele Roberts, $55.00, ISBN 9781927242216 This book traces the lives and times of four generations of the remarkable family founded by that rugged Yorkshireman, William Barnard Rhodes (1807-78): master mariner, whaling captain, trader, land

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Room at the top, David Grant

White-collar Radical: Dan Long and the Rise of White-collar Unions        Mark Derby Craig Potton, $40.00, ISBN 9781877517174 Dan Long was an esteemed public servant and political and union activist from the late 1950s until his premature death

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The scholar’s conscience, Rachael Bell

J C Beaglehole: Public Intellectual, Critical Conscience Doug Munro Steele Roberts, $25.00, ISBN 9781877577802 In 1946, Victoria University College historian J C Beaglehole wrote of New Zealand’s nascent national identity and the historian’s contribution to the development of national life.

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Eye-witness, Francis McWhannell

William Colenso: His Life and Journeys by A G Bagnall and G C Petersen Ian St George (ed) Otago University Press, $65.00, ISBN 9781877578151 When it was first published in 1948, A G Bagnall’s and G C Petersen’s William Colenso:

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Magnificent obsession, Spiro Zavos

Graham Henry: Final Word Bob Howitt HarperCollins, $50.00, ISBN 9781869509736 Here is an heroic assertion. Graham Henry is the greatest coach in the history of rugby. His rivals for this title include Danie Craven, Carwyn James, Fred Allen and, possibly,

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Posted in Biography, Non-fiction, Review, Sport

Becoming heroic, Garth Baker

The Open Side Richie McCaw (with Greg McGee) Hodder Moa, $50.00, ISBN 9781869712761 Valerie: The Autobiography Valerie Adams (with Phil Gifford) Hodder Moa, $50.00, ISBN 9781869712624 Let’s start with the numbers, all big. The initial 60,000 print run of Richie

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Walking upon ashes, Harry Ricketts

The Search for Anne Perry Joanne Drayton HarperCollins, $45.00, ISBN 9781869508883 So Brilliantly Clever: Parker, Hulme and the Murder that Shocked the World Peter Graham Awa Press, $42.00, ISBN 9781877651123 On 22 June 1954, in Victoria Park, Christchurch, 16-year-old Pauline

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