David McGill: Good Old Kiwi Identities - The Folk Who Put The Kiwi Into Kiwiana

(Grantham House $24.95)

The long-winded title is an ill-fitting frame for this collection of 28 interviews.

McGill says his book is a meditation on emerging New Zealand identity; a journalist interviewing notable Kiwis about what is making us so.

Well, it's not really. Sure, his subjects are all New Zealanders, and interesting ones at that, but they are simply random, and sometimes rambling, profiles taken from three decades of McGill's career, showcasing both the best and the worst of his recognisable style.

He is discursive, colourful, informed and sometimes charmingly self-deprecating, at the same time as always honouring his subjects for their achievements and qualities.

But he can also be undisciplined, unpolished and confusing. Still, good for dipping into, as long as you're prepared to read between the lines on the matter of Kiwi-ness.

And it's a good reminder of some of our colourful personalities: Relda Familton, for instance, and Shona Laing, an 84-year-old John A. Lee, Harry Seresin, Kiri Te Kanawa and 22 others, including politicians, sportspeople, poets, cartoonists, even civil servants.