Short takes: Non-fiction

Reviewed by GORDON McLAUCHLAN

Andre Comte-Sponville: A Short Treatise On The Great Virtues: The Uses Of Philosophy In Everyday Life

How to live a good life - good, that is, in moral terms, not material comfort? At this ultra-consumerist point in our culture's history this isn't a question we often ask ourselves, or debate publicly, especially not outside the confines of religion. The French, who revere philosophers, are more open to intellectual debate than we are, and this thoughtful, delving, curious work spent 14 months on the bestseller lists there, and has since been translated into 24 languages. Sick of dumbed-down aphorisms that merely pretend to offer wisdom about the complexities of life? Give this a try: it's very accessible. Comte-Sponville moves through 18 great virtues one by one, beginning, surprisingly, with politeness and ending with love. It's very practical, too: "Good is not something to contemplate," he says, "it is something to be done."

(Vintage, $27.95)

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Vanessa Collingridge: Captain Cook

Just out in paperback, Collingridge's intimate recounting of Captain Cook's travels, during which he discovered more of the earth's surface than any other person, is thoroughly engaging. She explores his psychology and traces his development from humane and placid leader to the "vexed and prickly tyrant" he became on his last voyage. She recreates also the life of his wife and the tragic loss of their children, and then unfortunately links herself to the story through including her ancestor George Collingridge, who insisted the Portuguese had got to Australia before Cook - an interesting enough story in itself, but doesn't deserve the same status as Cook's own.

(Ebury Press, $27.95)

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Richard Holmes: Wellington: The Iron Duke

He was an extraordinary man, a legend in his own lifetime who began life as Arthur Wesley, a shy boy from an impoverished Anglo-Irish family who went on to become the "Iron Duke" and save Europe from Napoleon. Today, it's hard to appreciate what the Duke of Wellingtonmeant to his contemporaries. Suffice to say Queen Victoria, weeping bitterly, called him "the greatest man the 19th century had produced", and so many thousands came to see his body that several were killed in the crush. He was a military man, and this is a military history, but Holmes nevertheless recreates his hero as a wit (he was a tremendous aphorist - "publish and be damned" is his), a beau, a cynic in love and idealist in politics.

(HarperCollins, $24.99)

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David J. Bercuson and Holger H. Herwig: Bismarck

The Bismarck was the pride of Hitler's army, a battleship "shrouded in myth, an awesome and mysterious behemoth of destruction", the authors evocatively explain. She was 45,000 tonnes and, when the British forces finally managed to overcome her in a fierce battle, 2206 crew were lost. This is an account of that dramatic moment in the war, before the United States entered the fray, placing the event in the wider context of international negotiations at the time. Reviewers have pointed to annoying inaccuracies in the text, but the New Statesman called it "the definitive popular reconstruction of the affair".

(Pimlico, $45)

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Wynne Haysmith, Jackie Langsford and Bevan McKenzie, editors: Pride Of The Lion: The People And The Place

Designed and produced by Gordon Ell

This brings up to date the remarkable story of the people of Northland's Waipu settlement, which celebrated its sesquicentennial in January. The early history of the Scots who made their way to Waipu via Nova Scotia has been compellingly covered in several books by former Auckland journalist the late Neil Robinson, so with the 150th anniversary, the trust asked people with local connections to cover the past 61 years. The result is a fine, if inevitably uneven, book.

(Bush Press)