This is richly imaginative food and there are some unusual combinations - Brussels sprouts in a risotto, an Indian ratatouille, kale and cheese pikelets - but there isn't a single recipe in the book that I don't yearn to try. Chapters are divided into the different techniques, such as tossed (salads), simmered, mashed, steamed and sweetened. You'll need a mandolin and food processor to make the most of Plenty More and you'll want to stock up on miso, tamarind paste and pomegranate syrup. Many of these recipes will liven up mealtimes, particularly over the Kiwi summer when we get our gluts of fresh produce such as sweetcorn and tomatoes. Plenty More is how I'd like to cook and eat all the time.
Green Modern
by Claire McCall (Penguin)
New Zealanders are fascinated by houses: buying and selling them, building and renovating, and perhaps most of all having a sticky-beak inside other people's homes. Claire McCall's visually tempting book takes us through 15 eco-conscious new builds. These are not hippie dwellings - even the one made from shipping containers makes a strong style statement. Nor are they all rich people's palaces - some occupy tiny sections and were completed on low budgets. The story behind each house is told in a chatty yet educational style, with details on materials, floor plans and architect Q&As. McCall has a loftier aim than just giving us a satisfying snoop. She wants to get us thinking about building and living more sustainably. So there are notes on green design and gardens plus a section on greening-up existing homes.
A New Zealand Nature Journal
by Sandra Morris (Walker Books)
A nature journal seems an antiquated idea in this digital age but Sandra Morris' book is stylish, interactive and interesting enough to tempt children away from their iPads. The idea is to get them outside and opening their eyes to the natural world, recording the changing colours, the growth of plants, the shapes of leaves, the numbers of spots on ladybirds. Kids won't need to go far to begin their journals. Even a walk in a small garden, a city street or a local park provides things to record. Morris also takes us to wetlands, the countryside, forests, mountains, the coast and even the zoo. A New Zealand Nature Journal is a slim, pictorial book with just the right amount of information. Equipped with a camera, drawing pad and pencils, curious children will have heaps of fun with it.
How to Be Both
by Ali Smith (Hamish Hamilton)
This extraordinary Booker-shortlisted novel, from one of Britain's most inventive authors, is written in two halves - which half you read first will depend on the particular copy you buy. I read George's story first - she's a modern teenager experiencing shock and grief and spending a lot of time looking at a particular 15th-century painting. This helped me to understand the other half, which is written from the point of view of the Renaissance painter. These two strands weave together in ways that are structurally innovative, layered and playful, exploring art and fresco technique, truth and fiction, love and injustice, form and time. It is splendidly unlike anything else I have ever read.
- Review by Carole Beu of Auckland's The Women's Bookshop womensbookshop.co.nz
Fallout
by Paul Thomas (Upstart Press)
This is Paul Thomas' fifth Tito Ihaka novel. All have been well received by readers and the fourth, Death On Demand, won the Ngaio Marsh Award and was picked by British and American critics as their crime novel of the year. Ihaka is a maverick Auckland cop who gets results using non-conventional methods. In Fallout the soon-to-retire Auckland District Commander calls on Ihaka to work on a cold case he wants solved before his retirement. At a 1987 election-night party a 17-year -old girl was brutally murdered and no one has been charged. Another cracking good read from "the Godfather of New Zealand crime writing".
- Review by Graham Beattie of beattiesbookblog.blogspot.co.nz
