Books

This is Rebekah Burgess’ third poetry collection. She is described as being “possessed by a genuine poetic spirit”, and reading Hope Floats, I found myself agreeing. “Genuine” is surely important and in this case signifies the sincerity of undisguised emotion and a welcome lack of intellectualising feelings and experiences. Missing is trendy social commentary and smart clichés about nothing in particular.

The first of the three sections is titled The opposite of love is fear. The initial poem Reduced is one of her most powerful. About her mother “screaming for her own voice”, it embodies not just her mother’s plight but that of others, especially women, at the mercy of circumstances beyond their control. Strawberries (should be a celebration) makes reference to COVID lockdowns and creates a metaphor memorable for its aptness.

In the second section, titled Peace, a lengthy poem commemorates Burgess’ great-grandfather Donal. The first two lines “The intoxication / Of a country life” set us up for nostalgia, wistfulness, and gratitude. If anything could entice us to exchange our urban life for a rural one, this would be it!

Speaking of rural, we get a centrepiece of prose that amounts to a brief autobiography expanding on the writer’s thankfulness for such a life. It concludes, however, with regret and warnings of the present times and their intimations for a doomed future. We forgot continues the theme, concluding with “we must remember / what life was / our gains / (not social) / are damned / ill-got.” An especially powerful photo emphasises this theme.

Motherhood consists of experiences and reflections on that theme. What a woman carries borders on the philosophical: “just as the one that made me / was always in my mother, /and the one that made her / was always in her mother.”

The suggestion embodied in Burgess’ title is where our writer is coming from. Her cover photo enhances it. Thankfully without anger, aggressiveness, or fancy language, she embroiders her theme with a needle blunted by gentleness and – well – hope.  

In Everything She Wanted, the opposite of the title turns out to be true. The ex-‘boyfriend’ of the past became everything author Martinette Williams didn’t want. In her debut novel, she carefully unfolds what feels like a time capsule from a period of her life that until this book, she had been yet to put to bed. Inspired by her own journals and songs written 10 years prior, Williams has created characters based on her real-life story.

Everything She Wanted centres on Madeline and the intoxicating pull of Daniel, a twenty-something musician that she is undeniably drawn to time and time again. Despite being pushed and pulled like a puppet on a string, she’s the underdog in a carefully engineered sport where one minute she’s a friend, the next an all-out friend with benefits, a pseudo girlfriend, a ‘pretty girl’, a close confidante, the next a nobody. Michael, Daniel’s best friend, finds himself a witness to the unhealthy relationship, wishing he could be with Madeline and do better.

Madeline’s journey of self-discovery recollects the heady, youthful feelings of passion and desire for relationships to be the stuff movies are made of but rarely ever are.  

Williams, a singer-songwriter and now published author, has included five songs she wrote back in 2012, each fraught with the feelings and words born of riding such an emotional roller coaster. All her songs can be streamed online by readers on SoundCloud. When Daniel tells her she’s not the right girl for him, and never will be, Madeline pens the song Everything I Wanted. The first two lines really sum up the song and the book.

“You were everything I wanted, just sitting there.
I couldn’t stay away – I’d follow anywhere.”

Something quirky and distinctive happens when a musician becomes an author and vice versa, opening up a whole new artistic lens. Williams offers a unique opportunity to take a pause from the page to instead listen and absorb the musicality of her words and the emotions deeply rooted and rendered throughout.

Everything She Wanted is a cathartic narrative of a story left untold, but one that’s weighed the heaviest.

Don’t be put off by the esoteric title of this remarkable collection. ‘Cycle’ is the operative word: each essay describes fascinating ways in which the present can be read in the past. We’re talking fossils here, dear reader. The distribution of ammonite fossils, for example, helps scientists to map previous iterations of our world, asserts audiovisual archivist and author Una Cruickshank.

‘Previous iterations’ have wide-ranging implications. I found one of the most riveting in the essay titled Waste. Sperm whales are under the microscope here – metaphorically speaking. Their voracious appetites involve ingesting octopus and squid amongst other delicacies. Trouble is the giant squid’s body includes indigestible parts like beak and eye lens. And what happens to those? If you’re amongst the fashionable rich whose perfume preference is Chanel, don’t read on! Waste indeed.

We are beholden to whales for many things: Cruickshank lists 20. Next time you ingest vitamins, use a tennis racket or a fishing rod, wear a corset, or open a parasol, spare a thought for the creature responsible for its beginnings.

A Little Spark May Yet Remain has as its opening sentence: “There were countless ways to die before your time in 18^th century London”, surely a reader enticement. Frequent drownings gave rise to an exploration of various ways to revive or resuscitate – one of the most notable being that of the thwarted suicide of Mary Wollstonecraft, who went on to write A Vindication of the Rights of Woman. A little spark in that case became a big one.

Later, electricity in the form of shocks and even electric eels to revive the dead captured the imagination as well as the pockets of the wealthy. As a sideline, we are informed that “London pornographers began offering electric eel erotica”. Well, there’s nothing like sex to revive the spirit!

Cruickshank says she wrote the book to ward off “existential dread”. She may not have succeeded in such a lofty aim but her meticulously researched and idiosyncratic findings will surely offer a welcome respite.  

From being appointed Queen’s Counsel in 1994 to being the first New Zealander elected to the International Court of Justice in 2006, I think it is safe to say that Kenneth Keith’s work as a barrister and judge has hit all the highs it possibly could. It is fitting then that he would write Without Fear or Favour: A Life in Law, a book that delves deep into the intricacies of law.

In this memoir, we learn about international law and how it can apply to the laws we have at home, plus how it affects Te Tiriti o Waitangi in New Zealand. The breadth of Keith’s knowledge truly astounds as he digs into issues such as human and information rights, piracy, and much more. He has great passion and respect for the law, and it is clear to see why: without proper safeguards to protect us, everything would be thrown into chaos and the somewhat peaceful life that we have all grown accustomed to would literally go up in smoke.

My favourite part of the book was learning how international and national law interacted with each other and sometimes overlapped. I appreciated the real-world examples Keith gave, which made me realise how immensely complicated it all is, and how much hard work a barrister has to go through to get the job done. 

My only negative is that if you do not know much about law or are uninterested in the nitty gritty of it all, you may not be able to follow everything in this book. But if you keep at it like me – a reader with no legal background – I think you’ll be able to overcome these obstacles and enjoy what is on offer here. My recommendation is that if you have an interest in law, give Without Fear or Favour: A Life in Law a go because there can be no greater teacher than Kenneth Keith.

It’s hard not to be impressed by Kirsty Baker’s Sight Lines: Women and Art in Aotearoa. With its lofty heftiness and fabric cover, it’s a work of art even before the first page’s turn.

What Baker has compiled is a stunning account of the extraordinary creative genius of women across Aotearoa: those who have come before and those who continue to create in contemporary times. 

Not limited to one genre, Baker offers an almost panoramic view of an art history constructed by women that – though not exhaustive by the author’s own admission – spans mediums and decades, from curators and photographers to sculptors, poets, and writers to name just a few.  

What’s interesting is how Baker has brought the artists’ collective and individual voices to the fore, their words as fluid and engaging as the art they have created. Through images and essays, their storytelling is reflective and impactful. The book covers the influences, history, and connections to time, place, and space that have informed the artists’ work. Political, cultural, societal, and gendered contexts wind, thread, and integrate like branches through both the narrative and the art, sometimes subtle, sometimes profound. 

I found artist Yuki Kihara’s work Quarantine Islands interesting. Much of it focuses on challenging societal norms and concepts. Through a series of lenticular photographs made during the global pandemic, Kihara speaks to the themes of isolation, contagion, and quarantine. It’s like the present meets the past. “The series of work follows a long history of human confinement across the land and ocean that she pictures”, Baker writes.

This collective and collaborative account from Baker and contributing writers is nuanced, interesting, and bold, told through the eyes of women. I thoroughly enjoyed this striking collection and I’m sure it will resonate with many art enthusiasts.

The Anatomy of Sand is an extraordinary poetry collection with an esoteric nature that enhances the already salutary content and tone.

Mikaela Nyman’s grasp and use of English is strikingly confident and erudite. As a poet myself, I do sometimes question, should reading a poem require a dictionary? Does a lack of plain English make a poem inaccessible? Reading The Anatomy of Sand, I frequently needed to check out a mythological reference or the meaning of an unfamiliar word or technological term. Take, for example, The Hybinette process. Impressive! What is a Hybinette!

Imagine a poem in praise of hyperaccumulators: plants that are apparently capable of pulling out high concentrations of certain metals! Ah, but the notes help: we learn that this poem contains found descriptive language about Nyman’s great grandfather, an inventor of – wait for it – extractive metallurgy. “He was a Victor and a Noak, a Noah of the Nordics. Metal was his ark.” “Yet did he ever pause to consider?” asks his great granddaughter. The final lines set the theme of further poems and let us know our poet has her own ark.

I loved Whakapapa in a whalebone church – recognised all four whale types! It’s a heartfelt tribute to both the writer’s Nordic roots and her current dwelling place of Taranaki.

Black swan diaries is easier on the intellect with its notes of familiarity – if an unwelcome one. Recalling the days of COVID and lockdowns, here are some truly memorable poetic vignettes: “Teddy bears pop up in cars and windows”, “sourdough refuses to rise”, “people of Chinese origin are being snubbed”, and “we know how to craft a mask from the armpit of an old T-shirt”.

Examining as it does our relationship with nature and the environment, involving both laments and suggestions, The Anatomy of Sand is unquestionably a book for our times.

Set in the backdrop of a Japan recovering from World War II, Rising Sun Falling Rain is about forbidden love and all the pain that comes with it.

As a child of mixed ancestry, the central story of Mick Mitchell and his lover, and later his wife Emiko, struck me harder than it perhaps would another reader. Like them, my parents came from different worlds, and like them faced opposition in the face of traditional norms. It was not too long ago that even in a country like New Zealand, mixed marriages were almost taboo. This is the situation that Mick and Emiko find themselves in when they fall in love and break tradition by marrying.

Trish Devine’s writing is amazing. She captures the atmosphere of post-war Japan perfectly. Rising Sun Falling Rain never shies away from the harsh realities of war and its devastating effects on the average person. Some of it just rips your heart out, and the fact it’s based on real-world suffering adds to the book’s atmosphere.

Devine provokes heartfelt empathy for the characters and their circumstances. The two main characters feel alive and I loved watching their story unfold. My favourite aspect of the book was Emiko’s arc as she goes from a wide-eyed innocent who had always been sheltered by her father and other guardians to someone who becomes more self-aware. Mick’s journey was equally as satisfying: from small-town farm boy to suddenly being thrust into a world where the customs and adherence to age-old traditions must’ve boggled his mind.

If you love drama then you will love Rising Sun Falling Rain. While it deals with some weighty issues regarding love, acceptance, and pain, there are moments of genuine joy that made me smile – Mick’s fish-out-of-water approach and moments of Kiwi ingenuity often got a knowing chuckle out of me.

This was a lovely read. If you like a good tearjerker with solid characters, then Rising Sun Falling Rain will be the book you are looking for.  

From the mind of actor, comedian, and singer Alexander Armstrong comes Evenfall: The Golden Linnet, a story about Sam, a 13-year-old who finds himself thrust into a world of powerful magic and an adventure that will change his life forever.

If that seems a bit overblown, it is because Sam’s world is crazy, full of secret societies and Bond-style villains who want to control the world. For a book that is not very long, it packs one heck of a punch and leaves me on the edge of my seat wanting more.

Armstrong’s writing is on point, bringing the characters to life and at the same time making me care about them. Their world is fresh and the villains that Sam finds himself up against come across as plausible threats that even frighten me a little. Strangely enough, while I enjoy all the characters, the bad guys grab my attention the most. The two antagonists seem to have a genuine, dare I say loving connection. While I will not spoil anything here, for me, their relationship rises above the stereotypical ones I’ve come to expect. It’s refreshing, unexpected, and fun.

Unlike so many other reads that take an age to get to their juicier plot points, it is not long before Sam is on the run and discovering powers he never knew he had. Evenfall: The Golden Linnet is a thrilling adventure, and the buildup to the final confrontation is well worth the time I invested in the book.

Don’t be put off or fooled by the fact that the novel is aimed at young adults aged from nine to 12: the writing is clever, intelligent, and I suspect will engage audiences of all ages. The bottom line is if you see this and want to enjoy a brand-new adventure, pick it up. For me, Evenfall: The Golden Linnet is the highlight so far of 2025 and I can’t wait for more (if more’s coming).

The earliest evidence of ships is from Egypt during the fourth millennium BCE. Ships have since become an indispensable way of life on a planet that is 70 percent water. From finding new trade routes to meeting (and sometimes conquering) new civilisations, they are at the forefront of human civilisation.

Fifty Ships that Changed the Course of History shows us how important ships were, are, and how they changed our history for the better – or in some cases, the worse. From the German battleship Bismarck that haunted the allies during World War II, to the Mayflower that transported the first pilgrims to the ‘new world’, aka America, in the 17^th century, the book explains it all in great detail and why each one rightfully has a place in maritime history. It is a fascinating read into the past that will undoubtedly give you a better appreciation of these vessels.

While it might be a bit bias, my favourite ship charted in Fifty Ships that Changed the Course of History has to be our very own Rainbow Warrior. I cannot put my finger on it but the idea of a little country thumbing their nose at a greater power just fills me with a certain pride, as I am sure it will for almost every New Zealander who reads this book. Unfortunately, this brings me to the one negative: it might not appeal to everyone simply because of its subject matter. If you think a book about ships is not for you, chances are you will simply give it a miss, which would be an incredible shame as it’s a treasure trove of everything sailing.

I loved my time with this title, where Ian Graham’s passion for his subject shines through. Even a landlubber like me could easily understand the content thanks to the accessibility of the author’s writing and his infectious enthusiasm.

Nafanua Purcell Kersel is of Samoan heritage though raised in Aotearoa. And it is her heritage that she celebrates in this debut collection, as well as giving voice to her impressions and experiences of life in her adopted country.

The title Black Sugarcane is evocative in its juxtaposing of the dark and the sweet: we discover in the eponymous poem that black sugarcane is in fact a remedy for centipede stings. And that’s the metaphor underlying many of the poems here. “Every Sina from Samoa has bitten skin, / welts like visa rejection stamps -  / one for every time she fobs out”.

And in Admissions interview, perhaps predictably, faced with twin sisters Nua and Sina, “The office clerks ask Mum to leave the room”. Then, when unwillingly satisfied: “The clerks look at each other / and shrug, like, / Okay then, I suppose.”

Thankfully, bitterness is often gentled by humour, self-deprecation, or sadness as in baby brother / one love, which recounts the funeral of a four-year-old boy. “Our poem was a cornered thing in my pocket” recalls the writer; and “I spoke our poem, the corners got stuck in my throat”.

Much of my enjoyment of this collection springs from my linguistic leaning. The five sections are each titled with a macroned vowel, and in the ō section we get Vā: Glossary. Here is a lengthy linguistic take on this Samoan word, concluding with Ova “is when you overdo it and don’t know / where to stop with the vā metaphor.”

We work our way through a veritable alphabet of recollection, family stories, and humorous observations. Chief among the recollections are those of the devastating tsunami that struck between two Samoan islands in 2009. Near the end, we read Double crowns, the story of Fuatia who was born with them in her hair. Decades later, the poem’s writer watches her mother graduate, her double crowns having gifted her with academic success and a career.

Black Sugarcane is more than a remedy: it’s an immunity boost!

Whenever a murder is solved, the majority of the praise always seems to go to those who are in the spotlight. Too often, no one thanks the pathologists who work behind the scenes to help bring about justice.

Leading New Zealand pathologist Cynric Temple-Camp attempts to rectify that with his third and final book The Final Diagnosis. This fascinating title helps shed light on work that never seems to ever get enough credit. Right away, readers will be drawn into an unfamiliar world (for some) that deals with the dead and gives those left behind some much-needed closure.

From accidental deaths to sneaky viruses trying to escape a pathologist’s eagle eye, The Final Diagnosis will leave you on the edge of your seat. Temple-Camp’s writing is simple and easy to read, ensuring that almost anyone with even a passing interest in pathology can pick it up and enjoy it. You can tell that the author has a love for pathology, as he imbues his anecdotes with a real sense of adventure. One that stuck out for me was the young man who was so convinced there was something wrong with him that he impersonated a doctor so he could have more tests done on himself.

As well as telling us stories that are sometimes stranger than fiction, Temple-Camp gives his perspective on New Zealand’s high-profile cases, such as the Mark Lundy murders and the disappearance of Ben Smart and Olivia Hope.

The subject matter might put some people off, but I implore you not to pass The Final Diagnosis up. On average it can take 13 years of hard study to become a forensic pathologist, so for many of us, this may be the best chance we get to peek behind the curtain and see how and why they do what they do.

The Royal Free centres on James Ballard, who is freshly reeling from the death of his wife and the responsibilities of being a single dad to baby Fiona. In the background, riots are taking place in the city and the ensuing violence makes it almost seem like World War III could break out.

We follow James as he juggles fatherhood and his job as medical editor at the Royal London Journal of Medicine. We meet the sometimes scary, sometimes eccentric cast of characters he works with daily. For anyone who has ever worked in an office, this is something I bet they can relate to, and as usual, author Carl Shuker uses his medical background to give us an on-the-ground view of what goes on behind the scenes in this kind of workplace.

James is definitely the hero of this story, and I enjoyed his journey as a solo father trying to navigate his way through parenthood. I wish we had focused on him more and less on his job and his colleagues. While I enjoyed reading about his co-workers, who seemed interesting, there were just so many of them that by the end I could not remember who was who. I want to point out that this is more of a ‘me’ problem and not a real critique. I just think there might be too many ‘work’ characters. Fortunately, it is not long before James has a run-in with some of the rioters and things really kick off into high gear (I won’t spoil anything here).

The detail that Shuker puts into his writing is top-notch, and James’ world feels like one that’s alive – not to mention very dangerous. I enjoyed my time with The Royal Free and would thoroughly recommend it. If you are a fan of Carl Shuker’s work, then you will not be disappointed.