Best of the year: Nonfiction

Fairburn And Friends, edited by Dinah Holman and Christine Cole Catley

This book celebrates the centenary of the birth of A. R. D. Fairburn, poet, satirist and essayist. There's nothing devotional about this readable collection of essays about Fairburn and his many friends, including Sir Douglas Robb, Harold Innes, Maurice Duggan and others who were stand-out personalities of their time.

* Cape Catley, $39.99


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Dance Of The Peacocks by James McNeish
A highly readable biography that illuminates history. The Peacocks were famous expatriates John Mulgan, Dan Davin, James Bertram, Geoffrey Cox and Ian Milner.


* Viking, $34.95

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Sir Peter Blake: An Amazing Life by Alan Sefton (Penguin, $49.95) 


This should not be mistaken for a mere sports book. Blake was the super-sailor of the 20th century, an adventurer in the fullest sense of the word, an organiser and motivator, and Sefton does him justice.


* Penguin, $49.95

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Long journey to the border: A life of John Mulgan by Vincent O'Sullivan

An accomplished biography of a mythical New Zealand figure, scholar, novelist and soldier, a brilliant, brave young man who killed himself in Cairo at the end of a distinguished war, an act that has never been fully understood.

* Penguin, $49.95

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After the fireworks: a Life of David Ballantyne by Bryan Reid


A readable biography of a journalist who had his first novel published in America before he was 30, succeeded on Fleet Street, and returned to disillusion. This is an excellent commentary on New Zealand cultural life in his time.

* Auckland University Press, $45