A Swim in the Pond in the Rain

George Saunders

“The focus of my artistic life,” says George Saunders in his latest book, “has been trying to learn to write emotionally moving stories that a reader feels compelled to finish.” This book is a distillation of a creative writing course he taught at Syracuse University for over twenty years, in which seven short stories by great Russian writers are springboards for examining the craft and reflecting on the significance of storytelling. 

The Salt Path

Raynor Winn

The memoir of a mature British couple who embark on a 630-mile arduous coastal walk, after losing their home and all their possessions in a failed financial venture. That Moth, the husband, has been diagnosed with a terminal neurological condition adds to the incredible hardship they endure, as they put one foot in front of another and move towards a different future.

Before You Knew My Name

Jacqueline Bublitz

Two young women’s lives are forever linked when one discovers the body of the other while out on a morning run in New York. Refreshingly original in both its structure and intent, this debut novel defies the classic ‘crime genre’ categorisation, asking much more than ‘Who killed the girl?’

Shuggie Bain

Douglas Stuart

This Booker-Prize-winning novel is set against the backdrop of an impoverished former mining settlement in Glasgow during the 1980s. It is a devastating account of one woman’s battle with alcoholism (and the social vulnerabilities addiction imports), and her young son’s efforts to make things right.

The Internal Flame

Dr Roderick Mulgan

The science behind the impact of silent inflammation in the body and the role of functional foods in enhancing longevity are succinctly and accessibly addressed by NZ General Practitioner and barrister, Dr Roderick Mulgan..

The Mars Room

Rachel Kushner

A young woman, Romy Hall, is serving two consecutive life sentences in an American prison. The Mars Room depicts life on the ‘inside’ and the circumstances leading to her conviction. Confronting, unsentimental, and moving, this story of one woman’s journey to prison addresses bigger questions regarding the American penal system and those who populate it.

The Strength of Eggshells

Kirsty Powell

A compelling and at times confronting family saga spanning three generations of women, offering some fascinating insights into the lives of rural New Zealanders, specifically in the period between the two world wars.

The Mirror Book

Charlotte Grimshaw

The writing of this memoir by Charlotte Grimshaw came about following an unexpected marital crisis. The sense of abandonment she experienced ushered in a period of refection and analysis, which saw her explore previously unaddressed/unacknowledged abandonment she felt growing up. In The Mirror Book she challenges 'the truth' curated and presented to the world by her literary family.

The Vanishing Half

Brit Bennett

Set in 1950s’ America, this is the story of identical twins of colour who are so fair-skinned they could pass as white. When they leave the Deep South as teens to forge a new life, their paths diverge – Desiree eventually returning with her black daughter, to escape a violent marriage, Stella severing all connections with her past to live as a white woman. The ramifications of their choices impact not only their lives and identities, but on that of their daughters.

Alchemy

Fiona Perry

It feels very appropiate to be posting about this debut collection of poetry on International Women's Day; many of the poems in it are about women – their strength, resilience, their stories. Perry has masterfully stacked so much beneath her words, that I keep coming back to the anthology, and there is always more to find.

All The Young Men

Ruth Coker Burks & Kevin Carr O'Leary

The remarkable true story of how one young woman, a solo mother from Arkansas, tended to young men who’d been shunned by society and left alone to die of the feared and little understood “gay disease”. Advocate, educator, carer and empath, Ruth Coker Burks fought prejudice and hypocrisy at every turn to afford comfort, support and a final resting place to many victims of the AIDS crisis. 

Transcendent Kingdom

Yaa Gyasi

A poignant, thought-provoking novel that sets the story of a young Ghanaian PhD student (studying the reward-seeking behaviour of mice in a Stanford University laboratory) against the backdrop of her religious upbringing, immigrant experience, and family tragedy – a brother lost to an opiod overdose and a mother suffering severe depression.

The Telling Time

P.J.McKay

In this captivating read, Pip Mackay weaves together two stories – a mother leaving her homeland of Yugoslavia in the 1950s to start a new life in New Zealand, and three decades later, her daughter travelling from New Zealand to Yugoslavia to unearth secrets of her mother’s past. Each story is greater in impact for its position beside the other, a powerful resonance existing between the two.

Remote Sympathy

Catherine Chidgey

Set in and around the Nazi concentration camp, Buchenwald, Catherine Chidgey skilfully explores ways in which individuals use distance, be that physical or emotional distance, to facilitate, justify, or ignore the perpetration of gross acts of inhumanity. A confronting and important read. 

Shepherds and Butchers

Chris Marnewick

Fiction grounded firmly in fact, this book makes for a harrowing read, as Chris Marnewick deftly and unflinchingly explores not only the barbarity of legalised hangings, but also the inevitable impact on those individuals charged with carrying them out. A story set in apartheid South Africa (with horrors peculiar to that terrible regime,) but with relevance for any country that endorses the death sentence. Marnewick climbs beneath sanitised, one-dimensional descriptions, to lay bare capital punishment and what its practice means for our humanity.  

I Wish I Wish

Zirk van den Berg

Winner of the Hofmeyr Prize for the Afrikaans edition, this gem of a book is the tale of how a terminally-ill young lad, close to death and fascinated with caskets, impacts on the life of a jaded mortician.

The XX Brain

Dr Lisa Mosconi

A look at the female brain and how it ages. Filling a gap in research specific to the female body, Dr Lisa Mosconi’s work explores the impact of female hormones on the brain, and offers evidence-based recommendations to women regarding how to maximise brain health in ageing.

Know My Name

Chanel Miller

An articulate and devastating account of sexual-assault-survivor Chanel Miller’s journey through a flawed legal system towards recovery and reclamation of herself. Her words have inspired and provoked change.

American Dirt

Jeanine Cummins

The engrossing story of a mother and son’s gruelling flight from Mexico to the USA, to escape cartel violence directed at their family. The book has courted controversy around whether Cummins, who is not of Mexican descent, could authentically represents the plight of Mexican migrants. It is worth reading the discussions around this.

Ripiro Beach

Caroline Barron

After confronting her own mortality in a near-death experience as a young mother, Caroline Barron embarks on an emotional and physical journey to recovery – a journey which embraces a fuller understanding of her heritage. This extremely honest and heartfelt memoir, while a very personal story, is also one of universal relevance, as Barron ponders the impact of ancestry on an individual’s trajectory.

A Portable Paradise

Roger Robinson

In this collection of poetry, which is imbued with such humanity. Rogers addresses a wide breadth of topics, including the Grenfell Tower fire, systemic racism, the Windrush generation, and the premature birth of his son. I will carry many of the words in this book with me always, in particular the poem after which the collection is named.

Auē

Becky Manawatu

This award-winning debut novel by Becky Manawatu is a powerful and moving story of two Māori brothers trying to shake off a legacy of violence and sorrow that has impacted so many in their extended whanau. 

Where the Crawdads Sing

Delia Owens

This refreshingly original story set in the 1950s has a murder mystery at its core. However, it also the tale a young girl’s bid to survive as she grows up alone in the swamps of Northern Carolina, nature both her teacher and refuge from a harsh and prejudiced world.

Girl, Woman, Other

Bernadine Evaristo

Twelve very different women navigate very different lives in different eras. The common denominator, in this Booker-Prize-winning compilation of interconnected stories, is the experience of being a black woman in Britain. A thought-provoking and important read.

Bridge of Clay

Markus Zusak

The first few chapters of this vast and beautiful novel were hard to get into, and I struggled to orient myself, but then the story opened up into a narrative of such emotional depth. 'Bridge of Clay' is the story of five brothers (and one in particular) who grapple as best they know how with the vicissitudes of life. As I turned the pages, this book quietly found a place on my shelf of all-time favourite reads .

The Scene of the Crime

Steve Braunias

Award-winning journalist Steve Braunias digs beneath the headlines to offer substantive and fascinating insights into twelve notable crimes of recent New Zealand history.

All Who Live On Islands

Rose Lu

An affecting compilation of personal essays exploring, in memoir-style, aspects of the migrant experience in New Zealand. An impotant read.

Cleo

Helen Brown

Cleo is the true story of how a small black kitten helps Helen Brown and her family (self-described dog people) heal after the tragic loss of nine-year-old son and brother, Sam. Heartfelt, humorous, and very sad.

The Good Nurse

Charles Graeber

The extensively researched, true story of American nurse Charlie Cullen who, over a 16 year period, is thought to have murdered hundreds of patients. A gripping and revelatory account of what it took to bring him to justice.

Family Instructions upon Release

Elizabeth Kirby-McLeod

This deeply moving and artfully constructed story is composed of poems which, read in narrative sequence, explore the author’s grief as she tries to make sense of her father’s suicide.

Interpreter of Maladies

Jumpa Lahiri

This short story collection places its Indian-born protagonists on a new continent, grappling with the challenges of living and loving in a foreign world. Lahiri explores the reality of exile through a cast of deftly drawn, endearing characters.

The Handmaid's Tale

Margaret Atwood

I was a latecomer to Margaret Atwood’s dystopian novel; however, thirty-plus years on from publication it could not be more pertinent. A radiation-toxic atmosphere, dying planet, fear of ‘the other’, intolerance of dissenters, dehumanisation of women, abuse of power . . . A grim, but stellar read. Looking forward to reading The Testaments – the Booker-Prize winning sequel.

Unnatural Causes

Dr Richard Shepherd

I was fortunate to hear Dr Richard Shepherd, one of Britain's leading forensic pathologists, speak at Bloody Scotland. His autobiography – 'Unnatural Causes' – offers a fascinating insight into his pursuit of truth, when dealing with the dead.

No Friend but the Mountains

Behrouz Boochani

Winner of the Victorian Prize for Literature and the Prize for Non-fiction (Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards 2019) this book has been compiled from hundreds of Farsi texts sent by Kurdish poet and journalist from Manus Island, where he has been illegally detained since 2013. Translated by Omid Tofighian, Boochani's account bears witness to the horrors and inhumanity of the Australian government’s treatment of asylum seekers.

Unravelling Oliver

Liz Nugent

The reason why a seemingly respectable and successful author beats his wife into a coma is unfathomable. Oliver Ryan takes us back to the beginning and tries to make sense of his monstrous transformation. A gripping pyschological thriller.

The Writing Class

Stephanie Johnson

Stephanie Johnson cleverly gives us both a novel about the lives of a group of students attending a university Creative Writing class, and a tutorial on how to write a novel. Interleaving through the story about writing teacher, Merle, and her students, are excerpts from Merle’s classes, affording the reader/would-be writer pointers on how to craft a narrative.

Milkman

Anna Burns

Set in 1970s during the Northern Ireland conflict, this humorous and disturbing story is narrated in a stream-of-consciousness style, by eighteen-year-old ‘middle sister’ – a young woman not interested in the troubles, but inevitably caught up in them. Political intimidation, sexual harassment, and the power of the faction are just some of the themes explored in this Booker-Prize-winning novel.

Always Another Country

Sisonke Msimang

Sisonke Msimang’s memoir traces her life in exile and subsequent return to post-apartheid South Africa. Fiercely honest, with fascinating reflections on what constitutes home.

Force of Nature

Jane Harper

‘Force of Nature’ is Jane Harper’s second police procedural, about five women who head out into the Australia’s Giralang Ranges for a corporate-bonding weekend, but only four return.

Normal People

Sally Rooney

Award-winning Rooney demonstrates astute observation of human behaviour in this book about the power of relationships to change lives. In 'Normal People', two youngsters afford each other a much-needed anchor, as both try to find their place in an often cruel and conformist world.

A House in the Sky

Amanda Lindhout and Sara Corbett

The true story of a young Canadian woman’s fifteen months in captivity after she was kidnapped and held for ransom in Somalia. A harrowing tale of her physical and spiritual survival in the face of unimaginable hardship.

Less

Andrew Sean Greer

50-year-old Arthur Less is a gay, has-been novelist, whose publisher has just rejected his latest novel,and whose ex-lover has just announced his impending marriage. In a desperate bid to avoid having to attend the wedding, Arthur cobbles together a journey to a variety of ‘literary’ events. The journey, intended as an escape, in facts lends Arthur’s life and career the perspective it very much needed.

This Mortal Boy

Fiona Kidman

Eighteen-year-old Irishman Albert Black arrived in New Zealand as a ‘ten pound Pom’ in search of a better life. Two years later (1955) he was sentenced to death for the knifing of another young man in a milk-bar brawl. Black would be the second-to-last person hanged here before capital punishment was repealed. This is his story – superbly crafted, poignant, and offering a fascinating insight into 1950s New Zealand. 

Girl on the Train

Paula Hawkins

A young woman battling alcohol and a recent divorce witnesses something from a train window which sets in motion this fast-paced thriller. Nothing is what it seems, especially with alcohol and cheating partners thrown into the mix. 

Unsheltered

Barbara Kingsolver

Two stories interleave – one set in 1871, the other 2016. The common denominator and trajectory for both tales – a poorly build house which is slowly collapsing. ‘Unsheltered’ is a social novel, which through its convincing cast of characters, explores and reflects the tumult of the times – both America in the late nineteenth century and America under Trump. This book resonates long after the last page.

The Line Becomes a River

Francisco Cantú

In The Line Becomes a River, Francisoc Cantú reflects on his time working as a US field agent on the Mexican/American border. A moving and very human story about an arbitrary line drawn in the sand, and the human cost of defending it.

The Burgess Boys

Elizabeth Strout

An apparently racially motivated hate crime sees the disparate members of a dysfunctional family drawn together, their new proximity placing already tenuous relationships under greater tension. Events from the past rise to surface and the truth is revisited. An immensely satisfying, thought-provoking story.

The Death of an Owl

Paul and Piers Torday

This was Paul Torday’s last book, completed posthumously by his son Piers, also an author. A tale of thwarted political ambition, fractured relationships, and hidden truths, the book revolves around one key event, which sees the lives of all involved (either directly or vicariously) unravel. .

His Bloody Project

Graeme Macrae Burnet

It is 19th-Century Scotland. Three bloody murders are committed in a small crofting community. A 17-year-old lad confesses. Is he guilty, or was he insane at the time? Based on a true crime, this Booker-nominated novel offers up a cast of convincing characters and dialogue infused with incisive wit. The novel poses interesting questions about culpability, explored in the light of the law and criminology of the era, while never once detracting from the relentless pace of the story.

Educated

Tara Westover

Tara Westover grew up in Idaho in the shadow of religious fundamentalism. She was deprived of a formal schooling, exclusively exposed to extreme dogmas, and vulnerable to the vicissitudes of her father's mental illness and a sibling's violence . . . This is a harrowing memoir which celebrates the power of education to liberate, while also acknowledging the long reach of a traumatic childhood.

Lab Girl

Hope Jahren

This memoir by scientist Hope Jahren makes for a fascinating and affecting read. With a fierce intellect and disarming honesty, Jahren seamlessly marries the story of her scientific research with her own very human story.

Tenth of December

George Saunders

Winner of the Folio Prize, this book of short stories defies easy description. Ingenious, bizarre, confronting, moving . . . A testament to the humanity, imagination and skill of author George Saunders. You will find yourself pondering these stories long after reading them.

The Indian

Jon Gnarr

The first in a trilogy of memoirs by the much-loved Icelandic writer, comedian, and former Mayor of Reykjavik. Humour and heartache sit side-by side in this tragicomic account of Gnarr growing up with learning and emotional disorders – disorders which at that time were not yet fully understood and largely treated in the psychiatric hospitals.

The Long Drop

Denise Mina

A semi-fictionalised account of Peter Manuel – one of Glasgow’s most notorious serial killers operating during the 1950’s. Mina, who won the Mcllvanney Award for Best Scottish Crime Novel for this book, focuses not so much on Manuel's trial, as the bizarre night of drinking shared by him and William Watts, husband and father respectively to two of the victims, and one-time suspect of the murders. A fascinating exploration into the minds of both the guilty and innocent, and the social fabric of 1950’s Glasgow.

Dead Lemons

Finn Bell

From Finn Bell comes this award-winning book which will keep you on the edge of your seat all read. A man moves to a remote cottage in the South of New Zealand to escape his previously self-destructive life. However, he soon finds himself increasingly embroiled in a mystery with deadly connections to his new sanctuary.

Born a Crime

Trevor Noah

Trevor Noah’s memoir – a mix of humour and heartache in Noah’s portrayal of his childhood, as a person of mixed-race growing up in apartheid and post-apartheid South Africa. .

A Gentleman in Moscow

Amor Towles

When the Bolsheviks sentence Russian aristocrat Alexander Rostov to house arrest in the Metropol Hotel, he is left to learn of the changes afoot in his country from the vantage point of his hotel window, and through the people who pass through the doors of the grand building. An elegantly written, character-driven novel.

Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal

Jeanette Winterson

From ‘The author of Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit’ comes this heartbreaking, at times bluntly honest, and moving memoir of Winterson’s early life.

The Glass Castle

Jeanette Walls

The memoir of a young girl and her siblings, who defy all odds to carve out a future for themselves, despite growing up in a deeply dysfunctional family. One of my top reads for 2017.

The Trauma Cleaner

Sandra Krasnostein

This work of non-fiction interleaves the biography of Sandra Pankhurst with stories of the people she assists through her work as a trauma cleaner.An extraordinary book about a remarkable woman.

The Heart's Invisible Furies

John Boyne

Cyril Avery is born in Ireland to a sixteen-year-old woman out of wedlock. As social mores of the time demand, he is adopted out to an unconventional couple, who offer little more than a roof over his head. Cyril’s life spans a period from post-war Ireland (an era regimented by the church) to the more liberal and open-minded country of today. It is this changing backdrop of societal pressures and prejudices which dictates his story, as he come to terms with his sexuality and tries to find his place in the world.

The Dry

Jane Harper

A murder mystery set in the parched, unforgiving Australian Outback. Kiewarra, a small town suffering from unremitting drought, is the backdrop for a family murder, which initially appears clearcut. That is until a policeman with historical ties to the town starts digging.

Lincoln in the Bardo

George Saunders

American is on the brink of civil war, Abraham Lincoln's eleven-year-old son has just died, and a congress of ghosts inhabit the bardo – an intermediate state between death and the afterlife. This is a masterful novel that tips the conventional structure of the novel on its head, addressing universal themes of grief, love, good and evil, in a refreshingly new way. Long-listed for the Booker Prize.

What it Means When a Man Falls From the Sky

Lesley Nneka Arimah

Arresting and sophisticated storytelling in this debut collection of short stories, most of which are set against set against the backdrop of Nigeria or the USA. The opening of the story  'Light' is an example of Arimah's powerful prose:

"When Enebeli Okwara sent his girl out in the world, he did not know what the world did to daughters. He did not know how quickly it would wick the dew off her, how she would be returned to him hollowed out, relieved of her better parts."

The Book of Forgiving

Desmond & Mpho Tutu

Archbishop Desmond Tutu and his daughter Rev. Mpho Tutu have joined forces to write this practical guide to forgiveness. Drawing from lessons learnt during The Truth and Reconciliation Commission, and from personal tragedy, they have devised a fourfold pathway to forgiveness applicable in many scenarios. Underpinning the book is the impact forgiveness (both requesting and granting it) can have on an individual and the wider community.

Things That Matter

David Galler

Intensive Care specialist David Galler shares stories from a life spent caring for those who have navigated the line between life and death. Grounded in anatomical specifics, but reflecting on the spiritual and metaphysical, 'Things That Matter' explores the meaning of modern medicine in its broadest sense.

Insomniac City

Bill Hayes

This is a beautiful book – beautiful in its tenderness, humanity, observations, and writing. It offers Bill Hayes' reflections on his relationship with the inimitable Oliver Sacks and his relationship with New York City. If you read one book this year, read this seminal work of non-fiction.

The Girl With Seven Names

Hyeonseo Lee

The true story of the author's defection from North Korea. A shocking insight into the tyranny of Kim Jong-un's dictatorship, and the near insurmountable hurdles for those who attempt to escape it.

Can You Tolerate This?

Ashleigh Young

It is no surprise that Ashleigh Young won the Wyndham-Campbell Literature Prize for this collection of personal essays. The essays, bold and surprising in their honesty, are crafted with skill and astuteness, leaving the reader reeling from their power. 

Gratitude

Oliver Sacks

Four essays written by Oliver Sacks in his final months with terminal cancer. Sacks reflects on his life, and attempts to come to terms with his impending death. These essays were published in The New York Times, and  it is not hard to undertsand why the paper referred to him as 'the poet laureate of medicine'. The writings and refections of this physician and prolific author reveal a man with heart, humanity and eloquence.

My Name is Lucy Barton

Elizabeth Strout

For five days an estranged mother sits at her sick daughter's bedside. Their often detached pieces of conversation, and the memories these unleash, afford a moving exploration of the complex mother-daughter relationship. Beautifully observed, with the weight of what is not articulated, as powerful as that which is shared.

My Own Country

Abraham Verghese

Infectious disease specialist Dr Abraham Verghese's encounter with HIV as the disease began to manifest in small town America. An exploration of prejudice and compassion in the face of a medical crisis.

The Secret Life of Luke Livingstone

Charity Norman

Luke Livingstone is a successful barrister who, after thirty years of marriage, finally confronts something he has kept hidden for almost all of his life – gender dysphoria. Author Charity Norman does a superb job of exploring Luke’s reality and its impact on those he loves. 

The Wonder

Emma Donoghue

Set in mid-nineteenth century Ireland, this is the story of an eleven-year-old girl who has supposedly survived on nothing but 'manna from heaven' for four months. An English nurse and a local nun are sent to observe the child for a fortnight to confirm or refute the claims. Is the child a saint, the victim of  fervent Catholicism characteristic of the era, or the victim of something more sinister?

The Conservationist

Nadine Gordimer

Nadine Gordimer’s 1974 novel was a joint winner of the Booker-McConnell Prize. Through exploring the complex relationship a wealthy white businessman has with his rural ‘weekend’ farm, Gordimer proffers a wider commentary on the more subtle evils of the apartheid era.

Hitler, Verwoerd, Mandela and Me

Marianne Thamm

Journalist Marianne Thamm grew up in a world where the philosophies of Hitler, Verwoerd and Mandela would directly impact her. This is an affecting and at times humorous memoir about one woman’s search for her place, and that of her children, in a bigoted world. 

Snow Falling on Cedars

David Guterson

A Japanese man is accused of murder in a small, tightly-knit American community. Is he guilty, or is his trial more a reflection of racial prejudice and anti-Japanese sentiment in the wake of the Second World War? An excellent read!

Orbiting Jupiter

Gary Schmidt

A Young Adult book about a troubled teen's temporary sanctuary with a foster family. A beautifully crafted novel which derives its power as much from what is not said, as what is on the page.

The Secret Life of James Cook

Graeme lay

The first book in a trilogy comprising the fictional biography of explorer James Cook. This first in the series offers a fascinating account of Cook's early life and first major voyage of exploration. The account is grounded in fact and skilfully expanded on by Lay.

Everywhere I look

Helen Garner

A collection of essays and slice-of-life reflections by the award winning journalist and author Helen Garner. Her subject matter is varied, exquisitely observed, often personal, and poignant. This is writing at its best. A book I will always keep.

The Antipodeans

Greg Mcgee

This big novel spans three timeframes. At the core is the impact on WW11 on three generations of Italian and New Zealand families. The riddle of present day characters' lives is interpreted against the backdrop of what went on in Northern Italy between 1942-44.

When Breath Becomes Air

Paul Kalanithi

As a neurosurgical resident, Paul Kalanithi dealt with death daily. But when, at the age of thirty-six, he was diagnosed with metastatic lung cancer, he had to face his own mortality. A moving account of his journey from a doctor at the top of his field to a terminally-ill patient and new father.

The Light Between Oceans

M.L.Stedman

A boat washes up on a remote Australian island. Inside are a dead man, and a baby. The childless couple, who discover the boat, make a decision that comes to haunt all the characters in the book.

The Goldfinch

Donna Tartt

13-year-old Theo Decker survives a bomb blast at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, which kills mother. In the chaotic aftermath, he steals her favourite painting from the museum – Carel Fabritius's The Goldfinch. The painting comes to assume greater and greater significance for Theo as he navigates a troubled teenagehood, and becomes embroiled in an underworld of drugs, art theft and murder. Around the periphery of his life are good people. Which world ultimately wins out is the impetus behind this Bildungsroman.

Mudbound

Hilary Jordan

A harrowing story of ordinary lives tethered to the land and a country's history. It is 1946 in the Mississippi Delta . . . Each  player is as authentic and keenly evoked as the next. A recommended read.

Do Not Disturb

Robert Glancy

A satirical tale told by a cast of characters whose lives become embroiled in the machinations of 'Bwalo' - a fictitious African autocracy. 

This House of Grief

Helen Garner

Helen Garner follows the court case of Robert Farquharson, who was charged with driving his car into a dam with the intent of killing his three small sons in an act of revenge against his ex-wife . Garner documents this emotive case with clarity and skill, while giving a fascinating account of the law at work. The subject matter, however, is incredibly sad.

Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone

J K Rowling

My children told me I couldn't call myself an author is I hadn't read any of the Harry Potter series. I'm not one for fantasy, but as I rather reluctantly began the read, something magical happened . . .   I was completely swept up in the world of child wizards, Hogwarts, the Dark Arts and the dreadful Dursleys. J K Rowling is indeed a storyteller extraordinaire.

Chappy

Patricia Grace

A young man's quest to find himself leads him to New Zealand, where he learns of the beautiful, but beleaguered love-affair between his Māori grandmother, Oriwia, and his deceased Japanese grandfather, Chappy. Their story grounds him in his past and takes him forward into the future. A lovely, gentle tale exploring man's need to belong.

Message To My Girl

Dr Jared Noel with David W.Williams

A young doctor with terminal bowel cancer shares his very personal journey, reflecting on mortality, faith, thwarted aspirations and his impending death.

Burial Rites

Hannah Kent

This story is based on true events. Set in Iceland in 1829, it centres around a young woman sentenced to death for her role in the murder of two men. With no prisons in Iceland, she is sent to stay with a family on their farm for the winter leading up to her execution.The relationship she develops with these strangers forms the crux of this fascinating and moving historical novel.

Under the Wide and Starry Sky

Nancy Horan

A novel exploring the fascinating and often fraught relationship between Fanny Van de Grift Osbourne and Robert Louis Stevenson. A mostly engaging, interesting read that sets Stevenson's works against a complex, personal backdrop.

Between the World and Me

Ta-Nehisi Coates

A letter from the author to his fifteen-year-old son about what it means to be black in America. An unflinching look across America's history at the notion of race and racism. A disturbing and very necessary read.

Bird by Bird

Anne Lamott

Sage advice for writers, leavened with a good dose of humour. Lamott steers well clear of didacticism, focusing instead on the experiences that make up a writing life. Real and relatable. A valuable resource for the writer at any stage of his/her career.

Redeployment

Phil Klay

The war in Iraq told through a series of short stories, each with its own distinct voice. Without any frills, euphemisms or platitudes, this National Book Award winner by Marine veteran Phil Klay, makes for a harrowing, devastating read.

One Life: My Mother's Story

Kate Grenville

All The Light We Cannot See

Anthony Doerr

H is for Hawk

Helen Macdonald

The fascinating account of Helen Macdonald's training of a goshawk in the wake of her father's death. The taming of Macdonald's grief parallels her taming of this wild bird. A beautiful book for its prose, its difference, its honesty. I highly recommend it.

OWLS DO CRY

Janet Frame

First published in 1957, Janet Frames's debut novel is a powerful commentary on the New Zealand of her era. Through the story of the Withers family, Frame explores the grind of poverty, the horror of mental institutions, and the artifice and insincerity of so much of the adult world. She deftly juxtaposes this with the honesty and instinctive hope of childhood. Acutely observed, masterfully narrated and deeply human – a book which resonates with the reader even half a century after it was first written.