1. (1) View from the Second Row, by Samuel Whitelock (HarperCollins)
All Blacks lock Sam Whitelock’s memoir begins with 14 full lines of the injuries he’s suffered playing rugby, the outcome of which was five surgeries under general anaesthetic. And then deciding to play in the 2023 Super Rugby Pacific final with an Achilles tendon injury. With the help of sports journo Dylan Cleaver, the most capped AB in history speaks about his career, which covers four World Cups and 153 appearances in the black jersey, his life and his family.
Whitelock (he’s called Samuel by most of his family, Sam by his friends) knew when to toggle as captain between rooster and sheepdog, says ABs coach Scott Robertson in the foreword: leading from the front or guiding his flock. Whitelock has serious rugby lineage on both sides. He claims not to be a complicated guy: “family, footy and farming” are at the centre of his life.
2. (2) Serviceman J, by Jamie Pennell (HarperCollins)
There’s a famous photo of NZ soldier and Victoria Cross winner Willie Apiata emerging from some grim fire fight, gaze and jaw fixed, looking like a still from a Jerry Bruckheimer movie. The bloke next to him is Jamie Pennell. From the publisher: “In 2011, following the Taliban siege on Kabul’s Intercontinental Hotel, an SAS soldier identified only as Serviceman J was awarded New Zealand’s second-highest military honour by showing outstanding gallantry in the face of danger. After 18 years in the New Zealand SAS, ex-commander Jamie Pennell is now ready to tell his story.”
3. (3) The Bookshop Detectives: Dead Girl Gone, by Gareth Ward & Louise Ward (Penguin)
“When we opened Sherlock Tomes, people warned us that we’d made a terrible mistake. People warned us that e-readers were taking over. People warned us that we’d never compete with Amazon. The one thing they didn’t warn us about was the murders.” And so begins this first joint novel from actual Hawke’s Bay booksellers Gareth and Louise Ward, a cosy murder-mystery that promises bookshop insider titbits and literary puns galore. The plot has Garth and Eloise and their dog Stevie, who, telling the story in alternate chapters, “are drawn into the baffling case of a decades-old missing schoolgirl. Intrigued by the puzzling, bookish clues, the two ex-cops are soon tangled in a web of crime, drugs and floral decapitations, while endeavouring to pull off the international celebrity book launch of the century.” You can read more about Gareth and Louise Wright here.
4. (NEW) Sam the Trap Man, by Sam Gibson (A&U)
Sam Gibson is a Gisborne-based trapper, hunter and conservationist who’s become something of an Instagram star as Sam the Trap Man. He established a project to restore the whio, the native blue duck, to rivers on the East Coast, which is starting to bear fruit. From the publisher: “From shooting his first deer, to labouring through freezing cold South Island winters as a young trapper, to the time he woke up somehow covered in blood, each chapter weaves together the story of an incredible life full of adventure, hard work and a deep love for the bush and the native creatures who live in it. Protecting these animals and ecosystems is a life’s calling for Sam – every decision he makes in the bush is made to help it thrive.”
5. (3) Home Truths, by Charity Norman (Allen & Unwin)
The Hawke’s Bay-based writer, formerly a barrister in the UK, writes about how far down the conspiracy rabbit hole people can go when they’re going through trauma. From the publisher’s blurb: “Livia Denby is on trial for attempted murder. The jury has reached a verdict. Two years earlier, Livia was a probation officer in Yorkshire, her husband Scott a teacher. Their children, Heidi and Noah, rounded out a happy family – until the day Scott’s brother died. Grief and guilt leave Scott searching for answers, a search that takes him into the world of conspiracy theories. As his grip on reality slides, he makes a decision that will put the family on a collision course with tragedy. Livia’s family has been torn apart, and now her son’s life is hanging in the balance. Just how far will she go to save the ones she loves?” You can read the Listener review here.
6. (4) The Road to Chatto Creek, by Matt Chisholm (A&U)
The former TV presenter reveals what happened after he and his family – wife Ellen and three kids – exited the big smoke to buy land in Chatto Creek, Central Otago, to build a house and rear some sheep and cattle. There are insights into rural life, farming, family and mental health, with splendidly bucolic photographs.
7. (6) The Last Secret Agent, by Pippa Latour with Jude Dobson (A&U)
It’s 80 years since D-Day. Pippa Latour, who died in West Auckland late last year aged 102, helped lay the groundwork for the operation’s success by acting as a secret agent in France for Britain during World War II. “I was not a James Bond-style spy,” said Latour. “I was a secret agent whose job it was to blend into the background and cause quiet chaos.” It was exhausting work; she was unable to trust anyone, had several code names and was often hungry. It was desperately perilous, too. Many of the 13,000 agents were killed, including 14 women out of 39 in France. The average life expectancy of male wireless operators in France when she served was six weeks. Latour’s was a truly remarkable life all around, and The Last Secret Agent, co-written with Jude Dobson, is a clear and fluent account. You can read more about the book here.
8. (Return) The Life of Dai, by Dai Henwood (HarperCollins)
For a long time, comedian Dai Henwood never told anyone he had incurable cancer. He was diagnosed with stage 4 bowel cancer in April 2020, during lockdown, and told a small group of friends via WhatsApp. Turns out the large tumour found had circulated itself to his liver and beyond.
It was not until early 2023 that he went public via a TV interview with his friend, comedy writer and actor Jaquie Brown. The Life of Dai, written with Brown, came out of interviews done between chemo sessions in 2023. Unsurprisingly, it’s anything but linear, Dai-gressive even. Split into three sections called Comedy, Love and Peace, it’s half memoir, half spiritual search-cum-life advice for those going through cancer diagnosis and treatment. It begins with his early life and influences, Monty Python, Eddie Murphy, Robin Williams. He was a comedy geek. There is his father, the teacher-turned-toxicologist-turned-actor, his mother the judge, who underwrote his early shows. Despite the subject, the tone is generally light, honest, loving in his familiar style. He adores his wife, his children, his friends. Loves rugby league. The book doesn’t shy from details of the “horrendous, life-saving poison” that is chemotherapy, the surgeries, his fear and anger and acceptance. “I’ve made the conscious decision to live now.”
9. (RETURN) Nine Girls, by Stacy Gregg (Penguin)
Stacy Gregg’s funny and suspenseful coming of age tale is back in the bestsellers thanks to taking out the Margaret Mahy Book of the Year and the Esther Glen Award for Junior Fiction. In the 1980s, Titch has to move from wealth in Auckland to Ngāruawāhia, where she and her cousins hear about a stash of gold apparently buried on family land. A talking taniwha helps Titch understand herself and what’s happening around her. An extract:
I was six when my goat left home to go work for Santa.
Looking back, nothing sticks out as extraordinary about that day. It was my second year at Vicky Ave Primary, but only my first year in Miss Batty’s class. I clearly remember, when I left for school that morning, seeing Twinkle tethered to the lawn, nibbling happily on Mum’s gardenias. When I got home again that afternoon he was gone, and Mum was in the kitchen making afternoon tea as if nothing was wrong!
“Where’s Twinkle?” I asked her.
“Santa Claus took him,” Mum said.
“But why?”
“Because one of the reindeer is sick.” Mum kept cutting sandwiches. “Santa’s got a busy schedule with Christmas coming up. Twinkle is filling in.”
I did cry a bit at first, and even refused the peanut butter and banana sandwich on account of my grief. But Mum was positive about Twinkle’s decision to go. “Think of all the kids who need toys,” she said. “Twinkle is helping all the children in the whole world.”
10. (8) All That We Know, by Shilo Kino (Moa Press)
In her first adult novel, Kino, the award-winning writer of the YA novel The Pōrangi Boy, casts a youthful eye over the fraught business of being a Māori activist in contemporary Aotearoa. Māreikura is full of good intentions, though. As the Listener review notes, she tends to see things “in black and white and as absolutes – because she’s young, because she’s human, because she’s learning”.
The author manages to mostly keep the didactic voice of the novel contained within her characters, though it does sometime spill out over the edges of this frame. “But satire when it’s this close to the bone isn’t the easiest thing to pull off. Fortunately, Kino provides a nice balance to Māreikura’s relentlessness, with a cast of utterly delightful, authentic and well-written secondary characters whose take on things te ao Māori is less vehement … The writing is consistently tight and a joy to read as it rattles along at pace with frequent laugh-out-loud moments, mainly in my instance at the intense self-involvement of the various young characters.” To read the Listener review, go here.
