Take your pick from this year's best books

Deputy books editor MARGIE THOMSON asked some of our regular book reviewers for their picks of the year

Dennis McEldowney is a writer and editor. His latest book is A Press Achieved, (AUP), a history of the Auckland University Press, where he was former managing editor:

"I would gladly nominate the year's biographical blockbusters, the fifth and (for the present) last volume of The Dictionary of New Zealand Biography, Michael King on Janet Frame and Barry Gustafson on Robert Muldoon, but have instead settled on four poets. Each quite different from the others, they are clear, witty, compassionate and sharply observant.

"Compassionate? Even the old master among them, C. K. Stead? Yes. Read his Cretan sequence in The Right Stuff (AUP). The others are husband and wife Gregory O'Brien (Winter I Was) and Jenny Bornholdt (These Days), both published by VUP, and the comparative newcomer Anna Jackson, whose book is The Long Road to Teatime (AUP)."

Gordon McLauchlan is a Herald columnist, host of Radio New Zealand's The Book Club and edited Morrieson's Motel:

"I've had such a great reading year it's difficult to narrow the field down to three, especially with another fine crop of New Zealand fiction. I'll use C. K. Stead's Talking about ODwyer as a symbol of the excellent stories I've read by Kiwi authors this year. It's a richly New Zealand novel that mines our history and has been extraordinarily well received overseas, too.

"I also enjoyed enormously Losing Nelson by Barry Unsworth, the story of an obsession by a contemporary, reclusive Englishman who attempts to live Nelson's life vicariously. It's full of Nelson lore and asks questions about the morality of the man and his times.

"A small book that will delight literary buffs is Ex Libris, Confessions of a Common Reader by Anne Fadiman. It's a collection of personal essays by a member of a famous American literary family who is now editor of the magazine, The American Scholar. Charming and always amusing."

Laura Kroetsch manages a Wellington bookstore:

"For anyone curious about kitchens Anthony Bourdain's Kitchen Confidential is a must-read. Audacious and arrogant, Bourdain is endlessly entertaining.

"For a collection of simply great writing, look no further than The Best American Sports Writing 2000. It includes an essay on cockfighting that is possibly the best piece of sports writing you will ever read. Or try the extraordinary undertaker poet, Thomas Lynch. With Bodies in Motion and At Rest, Lynch is a dazzling writer who manages to be wry, generous, fearless and deeply sane when it comes to living and dying."

John Connor is an Auckland lecturer and writer:

"Eddie's Bastard by William Kowalski peels back the warm-hearted Norman Rockwell-world of smalltown America to reveal something that looks more like it was painted by Heironymus Bosch. But Kowalski is such a sensitive and accomplished writer that the essential humanity of even the most abject of his characters shows through.

"Dream Birds, Rob Dixon's history of ostrich-farming in South Africa, had me fascinated from the first to last page. It is packed with hopes, greed, adventure, fantastic fortunes and fantastic failures, told with a whimsical charm and sense of loss which is both sad and appealing.

"Losing Nelson by Barrie Unsworth is the best novel I have read in a long time. Through his unlikely hero, a complete neurotic mess called Charles Cleasby, Unsworth explores, with great skill, the abiding themes of love, loss, the search for truth and meaning in a world full of lies and how not to stay sane in that world."

John McCrystal is an Auckland writer:

"It's got to be a good sign when your favourite three books for the year are by New Zealanders. Television funny man Peter Hawes has produced a novel, The Dream of Nikau Jam, which is hilarious and touching and captures beautifully the flavour of life in regional New Zealand.

"Michael King just keeps on getting better with age, and in Janet Frame he has found another topic worthy of his skills as a biographer. Wrestling with the Angel is a detailed and limpid portrait of a great New Zealander.

"I hadn't read Dead Sea Fruit, Charlotte Randall's acclaimed first novel, so The Curative took me completely by surprise. It's hard to describe the plot in a way which makes it sound attractive - have pity on the blurb-writer - but don't be put off. This is a terrific novel and it's hard to see anything that will come close to it in the Montana Book Awards next year."

Elspeth Sandys is an Auckland author:

"If you've ever doubted that literature affects life then read The Hours by Michael Cunningham, an unforgettable portrayal of lives profoundly affected by the ghost of Virginia Woolf. The Archivist by Martha Cooley is another novel of literary haunting. This time it's the ghost of T. S. Eliot that hovers over the narrative. A subtle examination of post-Holocaust guilt, and the place of the writer in the moral universe. An immensely impressive debut novel.

"Stones from the River by Ursula Hegi is one of those novels which tell how it was to live through a particular time (from the end of the First World War to the end of the Second) and place (a small German village). A powerful, moving story.

Jane Westaway is a Wellington writer:

"Experience by Martin Amis. He's such a show-off. I'm reluctant to admit to this, but Amis' memoir is juicy and unputdownable. Skylark Lounge by Nigel Cox. Like its hero, Jack Grout, I'm not a paranormal sort of person, but this novel is charming.

"The Blood of Strangers by Frank Huyler offers all the medical drama you could want, from the gory to the macabre, through the imaginative eye of an American poet and doctor. Amy and Isabelle by Elizabeth Strout is a beautifully written, poignant and sensitive novel about a love affair between teenage Amy and her teacher, and the repercussions in her relationship with her mother.

Jenny Jones is an Auckland writer:

"I came up with two I found profoundly disturbing, balanced by one with a light but challenging touch. January was dominated by second-time Booker prize-winner J. M. Coetzee's Disgrace. Set in modern, seriously damaged South Africa, it showcases an ageing serial seducer, throwing into stark relief social values that hold human dignity a commodity for the ravaging.

"In April, the erotic classic, Pauline Reage's Story of O, had me in its maw. Kicking and screaming my way through its relentless insistence on one woman's journey towards selfless surrender, by the end I was hypnotised by its oceanic beauty and, considering Abraham and Isaac, Job, and brides of Christ in a new light, though these were never mentioned. Perverse maybe, but because these books had the power to disturb they were able to enlarge my perceptions of what it may mean to be human, and that's so rewarding it could loosely be termed enjoyable.

"Relief in June with Marilyn Duckworth's Camping on the Faultline. Duckworth joins the league of three for her demonstration that to those possessing the skill to live vulnerably with courage, life offers rich pickings, especially to she who can write."

2000: Year in review

2000: Month by month