Barry Soper hold on to the top spot in the list of best selling NZ books. Images / Supplied
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1. (1) One Last Question, Prime Minister by Barry Soper (HarperCollins)
Barry Soper’s memoir-through-Parliament, which has spent several weeks in the number one spot, is like its author: feisty, honest, no-nonsense. Soper signed up for the police aged 17, but within six months realised its hierarchy and requirement to bend to authority weren’t for him. Back in Gore, he ran into a writer for the Southland Times and the rest is history. It’s a very readable account, Soper’s views are refreshingly independent-minded, and his memory of people and events is elephantine. After a brisk personal account of his life, he jumps into what he thinks of 12 PMs from Muldoon to Luxon. Helen Clark he rates the highest; John Key comes not far behind. Jacinda Ardern he rates the weakest, due to her government being ineffective despite a huge majority. As for Hipkins and Luxon, for him the jury is still out.
2. (9) No Pit Stops by Grant Baker (Mary Egan)
From the publisher: “What drives success? It started with wide-open roads and a barefoot Kiwi childhood and has taken him to the top of New Zealand business. Grant Baker has done it all, driven all the way by ambition, resilience and a love of all things fast. In No Pit Stops, Grant recounts his highs and lows – from teenage exploits and early career lessons, to navigating a cancer diagnosis and financial crises, spearheading iconic brands like 42 Below, Ecoya, Trilogy and Turners, and supporting one of our country’s greatest racing exports.
“More than a story of business success, No Pit Stops is a portrait of a man powered by passion, fortitude, and a love for living life at full throttle. Full to the brim with humour, grit and wisdom, No Pit Stops is for anyone who’s dared to dream big, to zig when others have zagged, and simply wondered, what’s next?”
3. (3) All Her Lives by Ingrid Horrocks (Te Herenga Waka University Press)
Ingrid Horrocks’ collection of stories won the top prize for fiction at this year’s Ockham book awards.
From the Listener’s review: “All Her Lives is the first published work of fiction by Wellington biographer and poet Ingrid Horrocks. They’re substantial pieces: up to 12,000-plus words. There’s time for a narrative to change course, characters and settings to do the same, and Horrocks makes thorough use of such possibilities. They’re also pieces with factual underpinnings. Truby King’s Melrose garden, 1981 anti-Springbok tour protests, nuclear-free Devonport appear. So, repeatedly and ingeniously, do 18th century fictioneer and feminist Mary Wollstonecraft, her daughter Mary Shelley, and the latter’s Frankenstein.
The book is even found lying in a fraught late twentieth century teenager’s bedroom … Horrocks examines causes via plot rather than preaching, “and she makes a deft job of showing the frictions and fractures that happen within even the most committed groups … There’s a biographer’s awareness of defining moments or meetings, of motivation and revelation, of the social forces which shape behaviour. … Dialogue can sometimes feel a tad formal, but the writing is lucid and attentive. This may be the author’s first published fiction but she has a heap of word usage behind her. She does the small scenes neatly, and she’s good with nuances of feeling and relationship. Any parent will recognise the stunning, sulking teenage girl “in the full blooming flare of a new-found fury”.