Self-portrait Marti Friedlander with Hugo Manson Auckland University Press, $60.00, ISBN 9781869407841 One day we will all be just a photograph, Marti Friedlander tells us in the closing pages of this entertaining and readable memoir. Coming as it does from…
The Lie That Settles Peter Farrell Ocean Books, $35.00, ISBN 978192721708 The Lost Pilot Jeffrey Paparoa Holman Penguin, $40.00, ISBN 9781742539201 A History of Silence Lloyd Jones Penguin, $38.00, ISBN 9780143569473 “The cradle rocks above an abyss,” writes Nabokov in…
The Colour of Food: A Memoir of Life, Love and Dinner Anne Else Awa Press, $12.00, ISBN 9781877551925 Back in the days when most New Zealanders ate the same stuff – mince, chops, sausages, a roast on Sunday – the…
Disraeli’s Daughter Catherine Styles Steele Roberts, $30.00, ISBN 9781877577963 Catherine Styles’s grandmother, Kate, was the illegitimate daughter of Benjamin Disraeli. Under his instructions, she was married off and banished to the colonies in order to avoid any stain on his…
Singing Historian: A Memoir Edmund Bohan Canterbury University Press, $30.00, ISBN 9781927145319 Sarah Vaughan Is not my Mother: A Memoir of Madness Maryjane Thomson Awa Press, $35.00, ISBN 9781877551802 Where the Rainbow Fell Down: A New Zealand Memoir Lynette Robinson…
Trial by Ambush: The Prosecutions of David Bain Joe Karam HarperCollins, $45.00, ISBN 9781869508340 I am reasonably new to the criminal justice system, having been appointed a judge in 2010, and seem to be one of the few people in…
The Owl That Fell from the Sky: Stories of a Museum Curator Brian Gill Awa Press, $35.00, ISBN 9781877551130 Stag Spooner: Wild Man from the Bush Chris Maclean Craig Potton Publishing, $50.00, ISBN 9781877517686 The Indescribable Beauty: Letters Home to…
Touchstones: A Memoir James McNeish Vintage, $30.00, ISBN 9781869799328 The first book I was ever asked to review, way back in the early 1970s, was James McNeish’s Mackenzie – a work as idiosyncratic, obdurate and strange as the man it…
Taming the Tiger: A Personal Encounter with Manic Depression Michael Morrissey Polygraphia, $39.00, ISBN 9781877332968 Sing No Sad Songs Sandra Arnold Canterbury University Press, $35.00, ISBN 9781927145067 Michael Morrissey’s account of his long encounter with mental affliction begins…
Road Markings Michael Jackson Rosa Mira Books, $US11.00 (digital), ISBN 9780986469435 One of Buddha’s most satisfying teachings is the simplicity of mindfulness. “When walking, walk; when standing, stand; when sitting, sit; when lying down, lie down.” And, if he…