Best Books & Reviews




Best Books: Reviewed - radio or in print


2011: Under the Overcoat by Sue Orr (Random House), The Summer Without Men by Siri Hustvedt (Picador), 

2010 (not a full list): Under the Huang Jaio Tree, Jane Carswell (Radio NZ) and on my blog hereTrespass, Rose Tremain (NZ Listener Apr 3-9 2010),

2009: Auggie Wren's Christmas Story, Paul Auster (Radio NZ, Dec), Too much Happiness, Alice Munro (Radio NZ), Singularity, Charlotte Grimshaw (Radio NZ- May 21); The Winter Vault, Anne Michaels (Your Weekend April 25);  The First Touch of Light, Ruth Pettis (Radio NZ Mar 19), An Arsonist's Guide to Writer's Homes in New England, Brock Clarke (Radio NZ), Corvus A Life with Birds, Esther Woolfson (Radio NZ) , A Street without a Name, Kapka Kassabova (Radio NZ), The Spare Room by Helen Garner (Dompost)

Best Books: Personal Discoveries - links to blog reviews


2011: Little Criminals, David Cohen (Random), Gifted by Patrick Evans (VUP), In/let by Jo Thorpe (Steele Roberts)

2010 (not a full list): Katherine Mansfield The Storyteller by Kathleen Jones (Penguin NZ), Freedom by Jonathan Franzen (4th Estate), Ephraim's Eyes by Brian Walpert (Rose Pewter Press), How the Land Lies by Pat White (VUP), These I Have Loved edited by Harvey McQueen (Steele Roberts), Barefoot by Jennifer Compton (Picaro Press), Fugitive Pieces by Anne Michaels, Magnetic South by Sue Wootton, The Case of Exploding Mangoes by Mohammed Hanif (Random), The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters, The Good Parents by Joan London, Where Your Left Hand Rests by Fiona Kidman (Godwit: poetry),  The Cloudspotter's Guide by Gavin Pretor-PinneySomebody Loves Us All by Damien Wilkins [VUP]


2009: Magpie Hall by Rachael King [Vintage], Spirit in a Strange Land [a selection of NZ spiritual verse], ed. Paul Morris, Harry Ricketts & Mike Grimshaw [Godwit], The Taste of Sorrow by Jude Morgan , Netherland by Joseph O'Neill , The Lost Salt Gift of Blood by Alistair MacLeod , Novel about My Wife by Emily Perkins, 44 Things by Kirsty Gunn [Atlantic], The Blind Singer by Chris Price [AUP], The Double by Jose Saramago [Vintage], Rain by Kirsty Gunn , Beside the Dark Pool by Fiona Kidman [Vintage], The Philosopher and the Wolf by Mark Rowlands [Granta], The 10 PM Question by Kate de Goldi  (Longacre) blog , Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde by Robert Louis Stephenson , The Clothes on their Backs by Linda Grant, Misconduct by Bridget van der Zijpp (VUP), The Brooklyn Follies by Paul Auster and blog ; Hateship Friendship Courtship Loveship Marriage by Alice Munro (Penguin).

2008:The Love School: Personal Essays by Elizabeth Knox, Rita Angus, An Artist’s Life by Jill Trevelyan (Te Papa Press), Secret Heart (poetry) by Airini Beautrais (again), Outer Suburbia by Shaun Tan, The Leopard by Lampedusa, Mr Pip by Lloyd Jones (again), Opportunity by Charlotte Grimshaw, Taking Pictures by Anne Enright, Disgrace by J.M. Coetzee, At the End of Darwin Road by Fiona Kidman (Random).