Book suggestions from clever people who love to read

Featured in Capital #80
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Kiwis spent $3.5 million on printed books last year. If you’re going to put down some dosh on a new read, why not let some bookworms steer you in the right direction?

Seven capital bibliophiles tell Sarah Lang what they’re currently reading, what they’d like to read next and what book they’d give as a gift.

Neil
Ieremia

Founder/artistic director of dance company Black Grace

I’m currently reading

Grace Jones’ autobiography I’ll Never Write My Memoirs (Simon and Schuster). I
picked it up at the Thames Market for $5 while on tour earlier this year. I don’t have any social media, so autobiographies and biographies are, generally, my equivalent of Facebook stalking! I choreographed a dance to Grace’s recording of La Vie En Rose for a recent show. Her album Island Life is still one of the best-ever compilation albums.

I’d like to read next

Whispers and Vanities: Samoan Indigenous Knowledge and Religion by Tamasailau Suaalii-Sauni (Huia). My eldest daughter Bella bought this for me for Fathers’ Day, probably hoping it’ll help me keep up during our numerous discussions over the BBQ this summer! In all seriousness, I’m interested in reading anything that can help expand my understanding of why and how I am who I am, and why I’m still confused about how I fit.

I would like to give

Santa a copy of Urban Sanctuary: The New Domestic Outdoors (Thames & Hudson) by
Anna Johnson and Richard Black,
with a bookmarked page of the house
I want to be gifted next Christmas!

Denise
Young

Hutt Valley High School Principal

I’m currently reading

Shuggie Bain (Pan MacMillan) by Douglas Stuart, the 2020 Booker Prize winner. The novel, set in Glasgow in the early 90s, is about poverty, addiction, consent, and the bullying of those deemed different. Shuggie is the different one – a kind young man, who cares for his alcoholic mother.

I’d like to read next

I have quite a few books on my Kindle and bedside table. Two have actually been waiting since last Christmas: the award-winning novel Auē by Becky Manawatu (Makaro Press), also Aroha by Dr Hinemoa Elder (Penguin,) about the timeless wisdom of Māori proverbs. A friend has given me Humble Inquiry: The Gentle Art of Asking Instead of Telling. Of course I’ll also be reading a thriller or two; something by Robert Dugoni, James Patterson, David Baldacci, Jonathan Kellerman, or Michael Connelly.

I would like to give

Imagining Decolonisation (BWB Texts) to anyone who wants to understand or learn about the true impacts of colonisation. It has seven authors, including Mike Rose, whose wisdom and guidance I’ve relied on to ensure tikanga (culture) and kawa (protocol) are understood and respected
at our Kura (school).

I’m currently reading

The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals (Penguin) by Michael Pollan – an illuminating look at our global food system, how we’ve got it wrong, and some examples of a more sustainable way forward. It has me excited about how to live a better, healthier, and more sustainable life.

I’d like to read next

Entangled Life (Penguin) by biologist Merlin Sheldrake. It’s about the incredible world of fungi, neither plant nor animal – a kingdom. I’m increasingly fascinated by. This bit from the book piqued my interest: “These endlessly surprising organisms have no brain but can solve problems and manipulate animal behaviour with devastating precision. In giving us bread, alcohol, and life-saving medicines, fungi have shaped human history… and their ability to digest plastic, explosives, pesticides, and crude oil is being harnessed
in break-through technologies.”

I would like to give

Anything by my favourite picture-book illustrator, Shaun Tan, to my six-year-old, Jimmy. The Red Tree is a reminder that there’s always something bright and brilliant to surprise you around the corner. Shaun’s books aren’t just for kids. They’re deep, moving, thought-provoking, and often simultaneously dark and beautiful.

I’m currently reading

Slouching Toward Bethlehem by Joan Didion. Published in 1968, it’s a collection of essays originally written for the Saturday Evening Post magazine. These are vignettes of 1960s California that reflect disarray and Didion’s dissociative observation of culture during that period. I wanted a glimpse into her life and thinking at that time. I’ve enjoyed her recent works, including A Year of Magical Thinking and Blue Nights, which are about her relationships and the loss, respectively, of her husband and daughter.

I’d like to read next

I bought Barack Obama’s biography A Promised Land (Penguin) last summer, but my partner Jack poached it. I haven’t had a chance to read it yet; it’s pretty hefty. I hear part two is coming, so I’d better get a move on with the first book! I loved reading Michelle Obama’s Becoming (Penguin).

I would like to give

The Gentlewoman: Modern Manners: Instructions for Living Fabulously Well (Phaidon) to female business mentors and friends who have supported and inspired me this year. It’s a witty new collection of conversational essays by contributors to The Gentlewoman magazine.

Nicola
Young

Wellington City Councillor

I’m currently reading

Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty (Pan Macmillan) by Patrick Radden Keefe. The Sackler family is famous for its philanthropy (billions of dollars) and infamous for its pharmaceutical company’s marketing of opioids like OxyContin, nicknamed Hillbilly Heroin. This is a shocking account of greed and robber barons.

I’d like to read next

I adore historical novels set in Britain, where I lived for 20 years, and I stayed up very late reading Booker Prize winners Wolf Hall and Bring Up The Bodies, the first volumes of Hilary Mantel’s trilogy about Thomas Cromwell’s rise to power in the court of Henry VIII. I’m saving the third, The Mirror & the Light (HarperCollins), for the holidays. It’s almost 900 pages long but, hey, I won’t have Council papers to read, which can sometimes be a similar length!

I would like to give

More New Zealand books to William, my three-year-old grandchild in London. Covid means I haven’t been physically with him since he was one, so I read to him over FaceTime. Hairy Maclary is a favourite, and I love that Lynley Dodd was first published by Wellington publishers Mallinson Rendel.

James
Renwick

Professor of Physical Geography at Victoria University, and internationally recognised climate-change researcher and commentator

I’m currently reading

About Time: A History of Civilization in Twelve Clocks (W W Norton Publishers) by David Rooney. It’s a fascinating tour through the last couple of thousand years, and details how time-keeping has been a scientific and engineering achievement and also a political tool. Rooney is a historian of technology and expert on clocks and timekeeping practices. I love clocks and the history of how we measure time, so this book is perfect for me!

I’d like to read next

Utopia Avenue (Sceptre) by David Mitchell. I’m a big fan of David Mitchell’s writing, and a fan of late 1960s and early 1970s music – and that’s the topic of his latest novel. It sounds like a fairly straightforward story, about the band Utopia Avenue, but I expect that there will be supernatural twists and turns, which I love in his storytelling.

I would like to give

I hope I get hit by inspiration for the adults in my life! I may get my four-year-old grandson Puffin the Architect, Hound the Detective, or Moose the Pilot (Penguin Random House) by local author-illustrator Kimberly Andrews.