NONFICTION
1 One Last Question, Prime Minister by Barry Soper (HarperCollins, $39.99)
I saw Barry the other night when I was waiting for a bus at Victoria Park in downtown Auckland. It was a cold winter’s evening and the floodlights were on at the park, illuminating rugby practice on the playing fields that looked the same colour and had the same smoothness as a snooker table. The plane trees had lost their leaves. There was a lovely romantic sensibility to the whole scene—the floodlights, the bare, black trees—and just then Barry Soper whizzed by on his bicycle. I thought of him heading home to Heather du Plessis Allan and their two infant children, the warm house, dinner cooking on a stove, the kids running around, and there seemed a high probability that he was travelling towards happiness, like a reward or a conclusion to all those years he spent covering politics as a parliamentary reporter, which he writes about in his memoir. I thought: Good on you mate. Go well. I can’t stand his book though, it’s a raving mess.
2 The Valley by Asher Emanuel (Bridget Williams Books, $39.99)
One of the best books of the year, in which the author follows two petty criminals on their endless appearances in the court system in Lower Hutt.
3 A Place to Stand by Clare Ward (Allen & Unwin, $37.99)
One of the best books of the year, in which the author writes a memoir of her profound experience as a country doctor in Hokianga.
4 Ringside by Mike Munro (Upstart Press, $39.99)
Another political memoir, by a government insider, but quite dull.
5 Lessons on Living by Nigel Latta (HarperCollins, $39.99)
How to be happy.
6 The Winner’s Formula by Kerry Spackman (HarperCollins, $39.99)
How to be successful.
7 Become Unstoppable by Gilbert Enoka (Penguin Random House, $40)
How to be successful.
8 “What Were You Thinking!?” by Nathan Wallis (Allen & Unwin, $39.99)
How to understand the brain science in childhood behaviour.
9 The Hollows Boys by Peta Carey (Potton & Burton, $39.99)
One of the best books of last year, shortlisted for the 2026 nonfiction Ockham prize, in which the author writes of loss and death in helicopter deer recovery in Fiordland.
10 501s: The Reluctant Returnees by Angus Gillies (Upstart Press, $39.99)
A free copy of the veteran maverick journalist’s study of 501 deportees is up for grabs in this week’s free book giveaway contest. In an excerpt published this week, the author argued in favour of welcoming 501s back to New Zealand, and making an attempt to reintegrate them into New Zealand life. He wrote, “If someone gives me a date and a time for the next planeload of 501s, I’ll be down at the airport waving and saying, ‘Welcome home. How can we help?’ The other way hasn’t worked.”
Is he right? Is he onto something, that we need to get ahead of their involvement in organised crime, and avert the problem by offering another solution? Or is he insane? Is he being performative, in an easy-for-you-to-say-mate way, without any actual intention of going down to the airport and singing in a Dave Dobbyn falsetto, “Welcome home”?
To enter the draw, share your thoughts on 501s, in any which way, preferably intelligent, by emailing stephen11@xtra.co.nz with the subject line in screaming caps WHAT TO DO WITH A PROBLEM CALLED 501 by midnight on Sunday, July 26.
FICTION
1 Murder and Mojitos (The Bookshop Detectives 3) by Gareth and Louise Ward (Penguin Random House, $38)
A free copy of the latest, and last, novel in the bookstore detective trilogy was up for grabs in last week’s giveaway contest. Because screen rights for the series have been optioned by South Pacific Pictures, readers were asked who they would like to play the bookstore detective couple, based on the authors, Gareth and Louise Ward, who own the wildly successful bookstore Wardinis in Havelock North.
It was a very popular contest. Among the best entries was this nomination, by Cynthia of Dargaville: “I think Elizabeth Easther and Te Radar would fit the bill. Comedic chops, great rapport (I certainly enjoy them as the RNZ comedians on a Friday morning). We have had a great debate here as my beloved says if they are pommie coppers you need pommie actors, he suggests Pierce Brosnan and Emily Blunt.”
Brian of Rangiora wrote, “For Gareth I propose Shane Cortese. With a beard he would even look like Gareth and he is, in my view, the ideal actor to play this role. And for Louise an easy one … Tracy Lee Gray. Like Louise she is a very attractive woman and is a wonderful actress. I reckon she would be perfect.”
Louise wrote, in screaming caps, “JACKIE VAN BECK, of course! She wouldn’t mind henna’ing her hair red. She’s caring, serious, funny, slightly distraught and a red wine drinker! Paired with JEMAINE CLEMENT. Perfect ex-policeman, steampunk, fantasy-writer, cook and pastry lover.”
And Liz ventured, “Cohen Holloway and Claire Chitham, stars of Fresh Eggs (2019). They would make a great detective couple. I enjoyed Fresh Eggs because it showed up the idiotic urge of some townies to move to lifestyle blocks, with perils for which they are ill-prepared. The pair had to use detective skills in that story as an adjunct to small scale farming, much like those bookshop detectives.”
I reached out to Louise Ward to judge who she thought had the best idea of who should play her and Gareth.
She replied, “I’ve always had a bit of a thing for Cohen Holloway and am not averse to being tangentially compared to Emily Blunt, but …
“Louise has hit the nail on the head, not only in spotting that Eloise is ‘slightly distraught’ in perpetuity, but in choosing comic actors. The Bookshop Detectives series is essentially comedy wrapped in mystery. Should a screen version ever come to pass, we would love to see Jackie and Jemaine bring our kind of chaos to the characters.”
There you have it, from the horse’s mouth: huzzah to Louise of the screaming caps. She wins a copy of Murder and Mojitos (The Bookshop Detectives 3) by Gareth and Louise Ward.
2 The Nowhere Boy by Anne Cleary (Allen & Unwin, $37.99)
I wrote a rave review of the Tauranga writer’s exciting debut thriller on Thursday. “A little boy goes missing. His birth name is Oliver, but everyone calls him Apple Man. He was with his father Scott at Muriwai Beach. Scott left him in the car with the windows down, and came back to find—nothing. But the author doesn’t waste her time or yours by contriving some kind of mystery about Apple Man’s disappearance. She tells you exactly what happened and who snatched him and why. What follows is a series of quite brilliant character sketches of Apple Man’s separated parents, Scott and Fae, and his abductor, lonely Tessa. The mystery is whether they will get him back from Tessa or sink beneath the weight of grief, alcohol, and their idea of themselves as bogan losers … Very good story, very successfully told.”
3 Orchids and Camellias by Sophie Rogers (Flying Books Publishing, $36.99)
4 Dead Girl Gone (The Bookshop Detectives 1) by Gareth and Louise Ward (Penguin Random House, $28)
5 Tea and Cake and Death (The Bookshop Detectives 2) by Gareth and Louise Ward (Penguin Random House, $28)
6 All Her Lives by Ingrid Horrocks (Te Herenga Waka University Press, $35)
7 Malachite (Valmora Academy) by Ashley Andersen (Hachette, $37.99)
8 The Rehearsal by Eleanor Catton (Te Herenga Waka University Press, $28)
I’m not sure how or why Catton’s debut novel, published in 2009, has made the bestseller list, but it’s a good excuse to feature the stunning cover, by the late Keely O’Shannessy. I asked Eleanor Catton what she remembered of the experience of seeing her first book given the Keely treatment, and she wrote, “I loved it at first sight, and as we continued to make small changes in the months leading up to publication, Keely suggested more ideas: the uncoated cover, which would make handling the book a sensual experience, almost like touching fabric; the large flaps, which would give the book a literary heft … I’m struck by how much of the book is there in her design—not just plot elements, but moral implications, authorial intentions, tone. Her cover has indelibly fused with the story in my mind—it is the book.”
9 Slash by Gavin Strawhan (Allen & Unwin, $37.99)
10 The Book of Guilt by Catherine Chidgey (Te Herenga Waka University Press, $28)
