Dubai is known for its luxury and excess, but scratch the surface and you’ll find the glitzy tourist destination isn’t quite so bright and shiny. The laws in Dubai are much more strict than in the West, and the consequences…
Category: General non-fiction
True story is gripping reading
Hanns and Rudolf, by Thomas Harding (Random House, RRP $38): Subtitled “the extraordinary true story of the Jewish investigator who pursued and captured one of Nazi Germany’s most notorious war criminals”, Hanns and Rudolf shows that a true story can…
What do rats dream about?
The Wandering Mind: What the Brain Does When You’re Not Looking, by Michael C Corballis (Auckland University Press, RRP $35): As often as I stop to think, then forget to start again, I am also plagued by bouts of my…
Revelations rocked newspaper industry
Hack Attack: How the Truth Caught Up with Rupert Murdoch, by Nick Davies (Chatto & Windus, RRP $40): While the 2011 News International phone-hacking scandal might not have been the huge news here that it was in the northern hemisphere,…
Fairy-tale life that turned sad
Empty Mansions, by Bill Dedman and Paul Clark Newell Jr (Atlantic Books, RRP $40): It’s human nature that we have a fascination with the lives of the rich and famous, but sometimes the lives of the incredibly wealthy are also…
Return to the manor a treat
Dog Gone, Back Soon, by Nick Trout (Allen & Unwin, RRP $37): I’m not entirely sure how it happened, but I missed the buzz over author Nick Trout’s earlier novels. The biggest buzz of all has been about 2013’s The Patron Saint of Lost Dogs. I eventually managed to…
Grylls delivers – and some
True Grit Junior Edition, by Bear Grylls (Corgi Juvenile, RRP $20): I wasn’t really expecting to enjoy this book but am pleased to say I was proved wrong. Let me begin by owning up to one thing in particular: I’m not…
Satire fails to fire
The Baby Boom: How It Got That Way (And It Wasn’t My Fault) (And I’ll Never Do It Again), by P J O’Rourke (Grove Press UK, RRP $37): Author P J O’Rourke has a knack for making hilarious observations on…
Martyn a true flight history scholar
A Passion for Flight: New Zealand aviation before the Great War Volume Three, by Errol Martyn (Volplane Press, RRP $55): No sooner had volume two of this detailed history of early New Zealand history hit the decks after being published…
Celebrating Starship’s first 21 years
Starship: Inside Our National Children’s Hospital, edited by Lochie Teague (Random House, RRP $50): For a generation of young Kiwis, Starship hospital has always been there: the place the the very young and very sick can rely on to provide…