1. (NEW) Habits of High Performers by James Laughlin (HarperCollins)
This “roadmap for everyday people to achieve extraordinary things”, by Christchurch-based mental skills coach and podcaster James Laughlin, has vaulted into the No 1 spot after just two days on sale. Laughlin has apparently worked with top performers and organisations around the world, including professional athletes, CEOs, billion-dollar companies and high-achieving sports teams.
From the publisher: “This collection of principles is a game-changer for anyone wanting to earn more, be healthier, grow, or be the best at what they do. Habits of High Performers will show you that high performance is hormonal and plays a massive role in your ability to perform at your best. Cortisol, dopamine and oxytocin all influence how we handle stress, stay motivated and build connections. This book will also show you that high performers focus on their strengths, take their MEDs, supercharge their belief systems, understand that desire is to a result what fuel is to a fire, and when your why is clear, your how is easy.”
2. (1) Become Unstoppable by Gilbert Enoka (Penguin)
Is the nation in a motivational slump as well as an economic one? Nudged into second place is this other just-out roadmap to high performance.
From the publisher: “In a career spanning almost three decades, visionary psychological coach Gilbert Enoka changed the way the All Blacks played their game. With a 77% winning record in test match rugby, the highest of any professional sports team, they are the only international team to have a winning record against every opponent. That is only possible because they leave no part of their preparation to chance. Their winning mindset and resilience are as important as the physical training and Gilbert Enoka was their secret weapon.
“For the first time, Gilbert distils his essential lessons to building unshakeable staying power – particularly at times of high pressure where others would crumble – creating a winning team mentality and leaving things better than how you found them so that we can all learn the All Blacks’ way. Discover how to build a winning culture, hone your leadership to inspire your team in times of need and establish iconic rules for performance that will become your competitive advantage for years to come.”
3. (2) Anything Could Happen by Grant Robertson (Allen & Unwin)
The biography from Jacinda Ardern’s longtime finance minister, now a university administrator, focuses at least as much on his early life as his time in politics.
From the publisher: “In this illuminating and beautifully written book Grant Robertson reflects on the major events in his life, from growing up in a loving but complex family, through to his highly successful career as a Labour politician and becoming finance minister in the Ardern government during one of New Zealand history’s most tumultuous times.
“A natural storyteller, Robertson writes memorably about his childhood and teen years in Dunedin: grappling with his sexuality, his passion for music and a fleeting career managing bands, his emerging political beliefs, and being told the shocking news that his father had been stealing from his employer and was facing imprisonment.
“Robertson paints a vivid picture of life inside Parliament — including his time in opposition, where he learnt at the feet of Helen Clark, and the immense privilege and responsibility of being finance minister, never more so than when the Covid-19 pandemic threatened to decimate New Zealand’s economy.
“In recounting the challenges he faced, Robertson writes honestly about how politics works and why it matters, and his belief in the unique potential of Aotearoa and his optimism for its future.”
Robertson’s interview with the Listener’s Russell Brown is here.
4. (3) A Different Kind of Power: A Memoir by Jacinda Ardern (Penguin)
The former PM’s memoir, the first such account since Jim Bolger’s, gets bumped down a place by her former finance minister.
Ardern’s book has generally found favour among reviewers, including Henry Cooke for the Listener. He thought it intimate and fluent, “compulsively readable, easily consumable in two or three sittings, and often very funny”, even if it barely explained her government’s policy decisions. “Ardernism was always more a sensibility than a full ideology. It was a way of looking at the world and reacting to it, not a theory of change.” Cooke says “there are some hints near the end of the book, that perhaps she isn’t so certain quitting was the right idea … There is little attempt to engage with the arguments against the latter half of the Covid period, when MIQ’s usefulness looked shaky and vaccine mandates radicalised thousands of people.”
Tracy Watkins, editor of The Post and Sunday Star-Times, agreed the book let us into some of Ardern’s emotional highs and lows. “We also gain some fresh insight into her own personal mechanisms for coping with such momentous events as the terror attack and Covid. But we don’t learn a lot more about what was going on behind closed doors within her government, which must, at times, have been under enormous strain.”
The Guardian considered it “an emotionally rich and candid read, [but] the downside of skipping the political detail is that it’s hard to get a sense of how exactly her astonishing early popularity ebbed away”.
Tim Stanley of The Telegraph was more acerbic, writing that the natural disaster at Whakaari White Island and the Christchurch mosque killings “brought out Ardern’s best: authoritative and sensitive, she has a fine temperament”. But “the practicalities of the job don’t interest her: this book hinges on how everything felt”.
5. (NEW) The Vanishing Place by Zoë Rankin (Moa Press)
A traumatised and hungry child emerges from the bush and is found in the only shop in the remote village desperately looking for food. The child bears an uncanny resemblance to another child who disappeared twenty years ago – the novel’s lead protagonist Effie, who now lives in Scotland, where she works in mountain rescue.
“This ambitious debut is told through two alternating timelines, one in the present day and the other focused on 20 years earlier that details a young Effie’s experience growing up off the grid with her family, headed by a taciturn, difficult father. They live in a small hut set deep in the bush and rarely venture into Koraha, a fictional town inspired by small settlements on the West Coast.
The bush, both its dangers and its beauty, is captured with an eagle eye. The story carries an undertow of menace. There’s a lot going on and Rankin, for the most part, manages to draw the various plot lines together with dexterity. “The Vanishing Place is a solid debut, an evocative off-the-grid thriller with a memorable finale that marks out Rankin as a writer to watch.”
6. (4) The Unlikely Doctor by Timoti Te Moke (A&U)
Timoti Te Moke’s memoir of becoming a doctor at age 56 holds fast in the top 10.
From the publisher: “Born into love but then thrust into violence and shaped by struggle, Timoti Te Moke was never destined to be a leader. After an early start as a bright boy in the eastern Bay of Plenty, nurtured by his reo Māori-speaking grandparents, Timoti’s life changed sharply when his mother took custody of him when he was 6. He survived abuse, state care, gangs and prison, his life marked by trauma and pain.
“By 14, he was behind bars. By 20, he’d crossed the Tasman, trying to leave his past behind. But it was a moment in a prison cell – a glimpse of blue sky – that sparked a life-altering question: What if this isn’t all there is?
“Through grit and an unyielding drive for justice, Timoti transformed his life. He returned to Aotearoa, became a paramedic and, after facing racism and an unsupported manslaughter charge that nearly derailed his life, became a medical student in his 50s. Timoti is now a fully qualified doctor – proof that brilliance can come from anywhere, and that our society must change to allow it.”
7. (6) Leading Under Pressure by Ian Foster & Gregor Paul (HarperCollins)
Demonstrating the rule that rugby memoirs are a sure bet in NZ, Ian Foster’s account of his time as All Blacks coach also holds steady. I haven’t read Foster’s book, but I hope it goes into the – in my opinion – unedifying way he was replaced as coach. Only super-retrospective refereeing stopped his team of All Blacks winning the RWC.
From the publisher: “Appointed as head coach in 2019, Ian Foster led the All Blacks through one of the most tumultuous periods of the team’s 120-year history. Leading Under Pressure is a fascinating look into the pressure-cooker inner sanctum of the world’s most famous rugby team. With revelations about Foster’s time in the job, it also delves into the politics of rugby, and the events preceding the dramatic 2023 Rugby World Cup.”
8. (5) Underworld by Jared Savage (HarperCollins)
NZ Herald journalist’s latest book about New Zealand’s world of gangs and organised crime.
From the publisher: “The brutal execution of an innocent man. The undercover DEA agent who fooled the Hells Angels in a 400kg cocaine plot. The brutal execution of a not-so innocent man. The never-ending quest to bring down New Zealand’s most wanted gangsters. These stories read like a crime novel – delving into a parallel universe that many do not know even exists: the underworld.
“Jared Savage’s first book, Gangland, traced the evolution of the methamphetamine trade in New Zealand from the late 1990s to 2020. His second book, Gangster’s Paradise, focused on stories about the escalation of organised crime: more drugs, more guns, more money. Underworld follows that pattern but now the situation is even more dangerous, the stakes even higher.”
9. (7) Julia Eichardt by Lauren Roche (Flying Books Publishing)
Roche, the author of Mila and the Bone Man and who worked as a doctor before a spinal cord injury, returns with another NZ historical novel, this one based on fact.
From the publisher: “From famine-ravaged Ireland to the glittering goldfields of Australia and New Zealand comes the captivating true story of Julia Eichardt, a woman who defied every hardship life placed before her. Born into poverty and shaped by loss, Julia’s fierce determination and unbreakable spirit propel her on an extraordinary journey. In the rugged chaos of the gold rush era, Julia courageously navigates love, heartbreak and survival in a world dominated by men. Against the odds, she builds a legacy, reinventing herself as an influential figure in the burgeoning hospitality industry. Her resilience culminates in the creation of Eichardt’s, an iconic Queenstown hotel that still stands proudly today.”
10. (8) Bird of the Year (Penguin)
Bird of the Year (Penguin) celebrates 20 years of the annual vote for the nation’s favourite avian (and disturbingly, in 2021, a bat). The birds – all our natives of forest and shore and not just the crowd favourites – are ably illustrated by a gang of artists and stories and facts, including conservation status, provided by Forest & Bird’s Ellen Rykers, in a design layout and larger font size that’s probably tilted towards younger readers.
Source: NielsenIQ BookScan – week ending August 30.
