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1. The Last Secret Agent, by Pippa Latour & Jude Dobson (Allen & Unwin)
On June 6, it will be 80 years since D-Day. Pippa Latour, who died in West Auckland late last year aged 102, helped lay the groundwork for the operation’s success by acting as a secret agent in France for Britain during World War II. “I was not a James Bond-style spy,” said Latour. “I was a secret agent whose job it was to blend into the background and cause quiet chaos.” It was exhausting work; she was unable to trust anyone, had several code names and was often hungry. It was desperately perilous, too. Many of the 13,000 Special Operations Executives were killed, including 14 women out of 39 in France. The average life expectancy of male wireless operators in France when she served was six weeks. Latour’s was a truly remarkable life all around, and The Last Secret Agent, co-written with Jude Dobson, is a clear and fluent account. Read the review here.
2. Foraging New Zealand, by Peter Langlands (Penguin)
Kiwis clearly love the idea of foraging our forests and fields and riverbanks for edible wild plants, and in current times there’s probably an economic element as well. Liv Sisson’s Fungi of Aotearoa sold pallet-loads when it came out last year, and we can expect Peter Langlands’ book, from the same publisher, to do the same. Langlands is perhaps the country’s only professional forager, collecting wild flora for restaurants and running workshops. It’s a chunky guide, 500 pages, that picks out 250 plants and fungi from about 7500 edible species. The book warns of stuff not to touch, and plants that look like others but are verboten. The range is impressive. You may know you can eat samphire and wild chervil but be surprised that you can scarf parts of rengarenga, pōhutukawa stamens, wandering willie. You can read an interview with Peter Langlands here.
3. Evolving, by Judy Bailey (HarperCollins)
In which the person who presented our TV news from 1986 to 2005 (“I just fell into it”) offers an “inspiring and personal guide to ageing well and with happiness”. It covers older health, fitness (she does Pilates), finances and embracing joy, as well as the inevitable losses and griefs of a life. Bailey says being in your 70s today is a world away from what it used to be. “We’re out there doing things and we’ve got a lot to contribute,” she told the Australian Women’s Weekly NZ.
4. Dame Suzy D, by Susan Devoy (Allen & Unwin)
Petra Bagust describes Dame Susan Devoy’s autobiography as “a rollicking story of a life well lived”, and John Campbell says the book is “the story of becoming Suzy D – in all her determined, triumphant and unabashed singularity”.
In her own words – and in the straight-up style that won her legions of new fans on Celebrity Treasure Island – Dame Susan tells the story of her life so far: the wins, the losses, the battles, as well as the bonds that got her through life’s hardest challenges.
Some might be surprised to learn that as well as being a sporting champ, chief executive and Race Relations Commissioner, she also answered the call when our horticulture industry needed staff and worked as a kiwifruit picker.
5. Hine Toa, by Ngāhuia te Awekōtuku (HarperCollins)
Ngāhuia te Awekōtuku is a respected Māori scholar, an expert on tā moko, and now an emeritus professor. But in 1981, she was the first Māori woman to be awarded a PhD in New Zealand. To achieve her success, she had to fight against family pressure, peer contempt, the academic and Māori establishment, racism, sexism and homophobia. And she would take up political fights, leading protests for the Vietnam War, the 1970 All Blacks tour of South Africa, Waitangi Day, women’s liberation.
Her childhood, centred around “the pā”, Ōhinemutu, on the western shore of Lake Rotorua, is richly evoked in this memoir. “This was a place of drifting thermal mists and streams of trout and crayfish; her family had its own bathhouse, mostly open to the sky and sandy below.” But if anyone still imagines New Zealand in the 50s and 60s as a wholesome pastoral idyll, Hine Toa will dispel those illusions. “Ngāhuia’s parents separated, but to attend her local school she had to live with her abusive father. He beat her and perhaps more.”
The memoir is ultimately a contradiction, “honest but often frustratingly oblique; explicit in some places and coy in others … And yet this is an important book: vital to write, vital to publish and vital to read.” Read the review here.
6. Dinner, Done Better, by Nadia Lim and My Food Bag (Penguin)
The food delivery company and chef Nadia Lim offer 80 “tasty and convenient” recipes, selected from the most popular from the past decade. Based on Lim’s Nude Food philosophy, aimed at “eating real, fresh food from the land, sea and sky”, it promises meals intended to be quick and big on flavour but light in the dishwasher, healthy options, meatless offerings, ones for the weekend that might take a bit more effort, and recipes for the sauces and spice mixes the company offers.
7. Take Two, by Danielle Hawkins (A&U)
Laura is a successful communications manager on a break from work and back in her home town for a visit before walking from one end of New Zealand to the other. But her plans get thrown out the window when the family of her long-term ex-boyfriend, Doug, come back into her life. Then Doug’s kid brother, Mick, begins to take an interest.
From the Listener’s review: “Take Two is a great small-town drama in which local gossips try to make mischief with Laura’s situation, while the family bookshop needs to be kept running and a murky property development is being sold to vulnerable locals. It’s a cosy read, though the author isn’t afraid to broach some bigger issues such as how families manage illness, women deal with infertility and the sometimes tricky relationships between mothers and daughters.”
8. Otherhood: Essays on being childless, childfree and child-adjacent, edited by Alie Benge, Lil O’Brien and Kathryn Van Beek (Massey University Press)
The number of people who, for whatever reason, are “childless, childfree and/or child-adjacent” is growing. Otherhood brings together a number of writers who, according to the promotional blurb, “felt on the outside looking in, who’ve lived unexpected lives and who’ve given the finger to social expectations.” Through thought-provoking, reflective, poignant and sometimes funny essays, Otherhood shares their points of views.
9. Fungi of Aotearoa, by Liv Sisson (Penguin)
Fungus enthusiast Sisson’s popular guide to foraging our fields and forests for mushroom morsels is back in the bestsellers after coming out in May. She makes them sound delicious: “Here are some of the most interesting fungi foods I’ve come across in Aotearoa. Slippery jack mushroom burgers, grilled over charcoal, with a dash of pine oil, served over a bed of creamy mushroom-stock polenta. Mushroom mince dumplings. A porcini mushroom chocolate mousse Yule log. Those first two dishes come from Max Gordy, and the third from Vicki Young – both are top Wellington chefs. When we think outside of the ‘mushrooms on toast’ box, we find that fungi offer us untapped foodie potential.”
10. Feijoa, by Kate Evans (Moa Press)
A new guide to and history (with recipes) of our second-favourite oval fruit. David Hill in the Listener said: “Feijoas: there doesn’t seem to be any middle ground with them. You either breathe in their sun-and-summer scent as you anticipate that first honey-lush slide of them over the papillae (indeed, I’m salivating), or you recoil from contact, going ‘Ewww! Too perfumed! Too sickly!’ … Foreign? Well, yes: they originated some 30 million years ago, in Brazilian highlands and Uruguayan valleys. There’s something pleasingly incongruous about a plant with such provenance becoming commonplace in Kiwi side streets.
“Raglan-based, internationally published journalist Kate Evans offers this as ‘a book about connections’. So it is: connections with other feijoa fanatics (Evans neatly calls them ‘disciples’); between plants and the animals who spread their seeds; between ‘tamed’ varieties and environments; and, of course, between humans and nature. No plant is an island.
“Evans is an irrepressible investigator, phoning or visiting experts across multiple continents. From its origins in South America, the feijoa was studied in Germany, collected in France, domesticated in the US, transplanted to NZ. She heads to virtually all venues.”
You can read more from Kate Evans about feijoas here.
(Source: Nielsen Bookscan NZ – week ending May 11)
