Books: Prairie life and passion

Patrick Gale tells his tale with consummate skill. Photo / Supplied

Epic and elegiac story of an outsider forced to take on a new way of life

A Place Called Winter
By Patrick Gale (Tinder Press)

Exquisitely written and achingly sad, British writer Patrick Gale's latest novel is loosely based on part of his family history. Gale's great-grandfather, Harry Cane, left his wife and child in England and joined hundreds of other homesteaders lured to a new life in the Canadian prairies in the early 1900s. Gale has imagined his story, the how and the why, and created a memorable piece of fiction. The Harry Cane of A Place Called Winter is an outsider, a shy person married to a woman who is in love with someone else. He is struggling with his sexuality and, after illicitly falling for another man, is forced to avoid scandal by leaving his privileged London life and risking his hand at farming in the New World. When the first chapter opens he is being held in a mental institution. In flashbacks Gale unfolds the story of how he came to be there. This is not an especially long book but it's a big story, epic and elegiac. Gale tells of the harshness of his life and times, unsentimental to the last.

Stuff I Forgot To Tell My Daughter
By Michele A'Court (HarperCollins)

Move over Caitlin Moran, New Zealand has its own champion of comedy and feminism and she's just as spiky and outspoken. Performer Michele A'Court's first book is based on one of her stand-up shows and, like Moran's bestseller, How To Be A Woman, it's a clever mash-up of biography, wit and opinion. Whether writing about the realities of being middle-aged or body-shape issues or rape culture, A'Court is candid, colourful and wise. A lot of thought has gone into this book as well as generous amounts of funniness. I'm especially fond of her health advice: "A slice of cake, a walk, and another slice of cake when you get back. Think of it as an exercise sandwich." And she's equally as refreshing on the economics of shopping. Excellent reading for teenage daughters, mothers, friends, even husbands.

La Boca Loca
By Lucas Putnam and Marianne Elliott (Potton & Burton)
Mexican food is hot and if I lived in Wellington I'm quite certain I'd be a regular at the tables of La Boca Loca where they blend fresh New Zealand produce with smoky, spicy Mexican flavours. When it's done properly this is a sophisticated cuisine and to get it right will mean not just investing in the first cookbook to come out of the Miramar restaurant but curating a pantry of authentic ingredients. Fortunately there's plenty of advice on what to buy and where to find it. Once stocked up with masa harina (cornflour), Mexican oregano, sweet piloncillo and several kinds of chilli you'll be set to supply freshly made Mexican for every meal from breakfast to snacks and dinner. Recipes include La Boca Loca's most popular dish, the beef burrito, spiced and slow-cooked pork, chocolatey chicken with mole, as well as staples such as pot beans, tortillas and street-style corn. Plus for lovers of tequila there are several margaritas. An exciting book for keen cooks.

My Sunshine Away
By M.O. Walsh (Viking)

A mystery where the mystery is really just a side story, My Sunshine Away is a fantastic example of a plot-driven novel elevated by literary writing. The story is told by an unnamed narrator, looking back to his adolescence in Baton Rouge, Louisiana in the late 80s. Next door lives Lindy Simpson, a 15-year-old girl who is the object of his obsessive crush. One night Lindy is attacked and raped outside her house and the events that follow are devastating not only for her and her family but for the surrounding community. Ultimately the question of guilt and innocence is answered but Walsh is clearly far more interested in the slippery nature of memory and story. An impressive debut novel.

• Review by Ngaire Atmore Pattison who blogs about books at bookiemonster.co.nz

The Girl in the Photograph
By Kate Riordan (Michael Joseph)

Two women, separated by a generation, succumb to the haunting effects of the close, isolated valley they live in. Both are expecting a child, both are hiding from the truth.

Elizabeth, in 1898, suffers from a terrible post-natal depression that Alice, in 1933, gradually learns had disastrous effects on the family. The problem with running two narratives, turn-about, is that one can easily overtake the other in the reader's engagement. Elizabeth's story takes second place, most of it told once removed through Alice's eyes rather than in the few short chapters devoted solely to her.

Alice is filled with imaginary fears that begin to irritate - a creaking floorboard there, a vanishing light at the end of the hallway, a sudden wind in the valley that all come to nothing - so it's hard to warm to her. Just the same, The Girl in the Photograph kept me hanging in until the last page to find out just what had happened to Elizabeth.

• Review by author Felicity Price whose latest novel is A Jolt To The Heart (Blackjack Press)

Memoirs of a Neurotic Zombie
By Jeff Norton (Allen & Unwin)
Author Jeff Norton didn't like to read as a boy, preferring films, TV and video games.

His latest book is the perfect one to give boys just like his younger self. It's fast-paced and easy to read with plenty of toilet humour and complaints about parents. The book is focused on 12-year-old Adam Meltzer, who dies after being stung by a bee on his birthday and comes back three months later as a neurotic zombie. The usual middle-school dramas, such as dealing with a teenage crush and fitting in, are dealt with alongside the bigger issues of getting used to being a zombie. A good choice for reluctant readers aged 9 to12.

• Review by Danielle Wright creator of award-winning children's books and the news site: newsmummy.com

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The book I love most is ... Jane Ussher's Still Life: Inside the Antarctic Huts of Scott and Shackleton, a detailed and exquisitely beautiful photo essay.

The book I'm reading right now is ... Why does E=mc2 (And Why Should We Care) by Brian Cox and Jeff Forshaw. A great book that makes something that is super complex super interesting.

The book I'd like to read next is ... The Grand Design by Stephen Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow. One of the greatest minds the world has ever seen takes on the subject of the nature of the universe and how it all began.

My favourite bookshop is ... Scott Base Gift Shop, Antarctica. The range isn't huge but the view from the window may be the most incredible of any bookshop on Earth.

The book that changed me is ... The Road by Cormac McCarthy. It showed me the power of good writing.

The book I wish I'd never read is ... I can't remember the title but I was reading it in the lounge at Scott Base and someone beside me said a pod of orca had just surfaced in the sea ice. Did I see it? No, I was reading that stupid book.