REVIEWED BY TRISH MACKENZIE - © Fairfax NZ News

Sophie Elliot came into our lives, and the Elliot family into our hearts in January 2008 when the shocking news of her death at the hands of Clayton Weatherston became headline news across New Zealand.

REVIEWED BY CHRIS CHILTON - © Fairfax NZ News

If this was a movie, and it soon will be, you wouldn't believe Unbroken was a true story.

REVIEWED BY VIVIENNE JAMIESON - © Fairfax NZ News

It is June 14, 1941, in Lithuania. Lina Vikas has just turned 15 when she, brother Jonas and mother Elena are arrested and taken from her family home by fearsome NKVD officers (Russian secret police or the KGB).

REVIEWED BY MICHELLE LEE - © Fairfax NZ News

It's every parents' worst nightmare: A young British family of five are holidaying in Portugal when the eldest child Madeline (three and a half) is abducted from the same room as the younger children (twins, 2), as they sleep.

REVIEWED BY MARK HOTTON - © Fairfax NZ News

It's rare to pick up a book expecting it to be as dull as a council's draft annual plan hearing and find it's a rollicking read that generates new insight and understanding of a topic. Even if that topic is the complex world that is the American presidential race.

REVIEWED BY ROSEMARY SMITH - © Fairfax NZ News

Fabulous photos represent the range of aircraft seen in New Zealand skies over a century, many of them shown against magnificent scenic backdrops.

REVIEWED BY NAIDA MULLIGAN - © Fairfax NZ News

No disrespect to Annie Proulx, but I kinda wish I had not picked up this book.

REVIEWED BY F MULLIGAN - © Fairfax NZ News

This is the story of Thomas Davidson, one of the Pakeha survivors of the Boyd incident.

Book reviews in brief:

REVIEWED BY CHRIS CHILTON - © Fairfax NZ News

When Churchill's "few" saved Britain in 1940, New Zealanders were in the action over London.

REVIEWED BY F MULLIGAN - © Fairfax NZ News

Sebastian Junger is an American journalist and writer who took advantage of an opportunity to be 'embedded' in a US army unit in Afghanistan.

REVIEWED BY JILLIAN ALLISON-AITKEN - © Fairfax NZ News

If you've ever had to explain one of those special Kiwi terms to someone online, or to a visitor from overseas, this might be the perfect book for you.

REVIEWED BY F MULLIGAN - © Fairfax NZ News

Subtitled "The Epic Story of the Last Great Stand of Empire", Road of Bones recounts the events surrounding the Japanese offensive in Burma, which was aimed at the Indian border in early 1944.

REVIEWED BY F MULLIGAN - © Fairfax NZ News

Love him or hate him, Richard Till is well on his way to being a Kiwi icon. TV chef / promoter of shops that shall not be named, he is definitely well-known.

REVIEWED BY JILLIAN ALLISON-AITKEN - © Fairfax NZ News

The title of the book might not grab the immediate interest of the average punter but when you realise that this is a history of the popular annual Crank-Up at Edendale, you might find you interest growing.

REVIEWED BY F MULLIGAN - © Fairfax NZ News

The publication of a book that is set in war time Auckland brings back the events of the time to our protagonist Peter Sokol.

REVIEWED BY JILLIAN ALLISON-AITKEN - © Fairfax NZ News

All the emailing and texting going on these days must make it hard for the budding stamp collectors out there, which is really a shame.

REVIEWED BY JILLIAN ALLISON-AITKEN - © Fairfax NZ News

All the emailing and texting going on these days must make it hard for the budding stamp collectors out there, which is really a shame.

REVIEWED BY F MULLIGAN - © Fairfax NZ News

Starting in the far north and working its way south to Bluff, the guide covers its museums by region.

REVIEWED BY F MULLIGAN - © Fairfax NZ News

Whether a committed Christian or dyed-in-the-wool atheist, a follower of religious philosophy, or simply a fan of Ian Wishart's writing, this book will be of interest.

REVIEWED BY JILLIAN ALLISON-AITKEN - © Fairfax NZ News

Southland might not be as big, or as flash, or even as cosmopolitan as some other provinces but our lovely little green corner of the world is a pretty awesome place.

REVIEWED BY F MULLIGAN - © Fairfax NZ News

Whether a committed Christian or dyed-in-the-wool atheist, a follower of religious philosophy, or simply a fan of Ian Wishart's writing, this book will be of interest.

REVIEWED BY NAIDA MULLIGAN - © Fairfax NZ News

This is a very interesting book about, as the subtitle suggests, the history of science education in New Zealand.

REVIEWED BY CHRIS CHILTON - © Fairfax NZ News

This book is a stunningly beautiful tribute to the New Zealand gemstone pounamu.

REVIEWED BY LESLEY SOPER - © Fairfax NZ News

The book opens with Te Rauparaha (1843) "Land is the foundation of all our trouble".

REVIEWED BY NATASHA HOLLAND - © Fairfax NZ News

Tagged with subtitle of  "A bushman's own story of his life on the land" describes this book perfectly. It is also what lets it down.

REVIEWED BY JILLIAN ALLISON-AITKEN - © Fairfax NZ News

We might not have the rich cultural traditions of some of the older countries out there but that doesn't mean we don't have a culture of our own.

New Zealand's No 1 online success story is the subject of two new books, reviewed by JILLIAN ALLISON-AITKEN.

REVIEWED BY SAGE FOREST - © Fairfax NZ News

With an unexpected eloquence this true story had me laughing and crying within the first few pages.

REVIEWED BY ROSEMARIE SMITH - © Fairfax NZ News

This will be a very nostalgic book for those who experienced war or were brought up in its aftermath and raised on wartime stories, but, more importantly, it's a very good introduction for younger generations to whom the war is pre-history.

REVIEWED BY CHRIS CHILTON - © Fairfax NZ News

REVIEWED BY NAIDA MULLIGAN - © Fairfax NZ News

If you take the Gospels as, well, gospel, you may be enraged that Bryan Bruce questions much of what Matthew, Mark, Luke and John have to say.

REVIEWED BY NAIDA MULLIGAN - © Fairfax NZ News

In our house, Alma Stevenson's book Old Red is one of the favourites. We have also enjoyed her other children's books, Old Blue and Old Yellow.

REVIEWED BY LESLEY SOPER - © Fairfax NZ News

When I read this book's description, it seemed so quintessentially the eccentric British story that I suspected a spoof.

REVIEWED BY F MULLIGAN - © Fairfax NZ News

Editor Matthew Wright has collated a selection of stories about Kiwi soldiers and their experiences/exploits behind enemy lines in Europe during World War II.

REVIEWED BY F MULLIGAN - © Fairfax NZ News

Voices from a Border War tells of the 1st Royal New Zealand Infantry Regiment's deployment to Malaysia in the early 1960s.

REVIEWED BY LESLEY SOPER - © Fairfax NZ News

Another book on Anne Boleyn and Henry VIII? Don't be misled.

REVIEWED BY NADINE HEMA - © Fairfax NZ News

New Zealand has had its fair share of criminals; Minnie Dean, Terry Clark and David Gray.

REVIEWED BY LESLEY SOPER - © Fairfax NZ News

I love Italy, and particularly Tuscany/Umbria, so giving me the sequel to Mayes' earlier two books Under the Tuscan Sun and Bella Tuscany was probably not choosing the most unbiased reviewer.

REVIEWED BY NAIDA MULLIGAN - © Fairfax NZ News

This book is worth buying just for the simple fact that all royalties go to Amnesty International, that great organisation that works to protect human rights all over the world.

REVIEWED BY ROSEMARIE SMITH - © Fairfax NZ News

Author Kim Traill belongs right up there in the pantheon of intrepid lady travellers, possessed of a facility for both making friends and telling their tales, along with her own astute observations and well-distilled research.

REVIEWED BY LESLEY SOPER - © Fairfax NZ News

This is 10 chapters and an epilogue, chock-full of the inspiring stories of individuals around the world who decided to take action.

REVIEWED BY ROSEMARIE SMITH - © Fairfax NZ News

Gloriously illustrated, cheerfully and descriptively written, this book delivers exactly what the cover and title promise, an insight into remote Canterbury high country farm life – the animals, the people, the work routines and the challenges.

REVIEWED BY LESLEY SOPER - © Fairfax NZ News

September 19, 1893, the date NZ became the first country where women won the right to vote in parliamentary elections, deserves to be remembered as a milestone of social progress. Centenary year 1993 saw many works published (acknowledged in the bibliography).

REVIEWED BY ROSEMARIE SMITH - © Fairfax NZ News

Like Jon Krakauer's Into Thin Air, this is climbing writing at its best, captivating for the armchair adventurer, regardless of their personal interest in climbing.

REVIEWED BY NAIDA MULLIGAN - © Fairfax NZ News

If you were an adult in the 80s you most probably know about the Cartwright Inquiry into medical misadventure at National Women's Hospital in Auckland. Sir David Skegg, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Otago, has described the Inquiry as "a watershed in the history of medicine and health care in New Zealand".

REVIEWED BY F MULLIGAN - © Fairfax NZ News

Always seen as a watershed of eras and a commencement of a century of turmoil, the First World War has been discussed, analysed and usually condemned by many soldiers and scholars.

REVIEWED BY LESLEY SOPER - © Fairfax NZ News

It is often a source of astonishment to a younger generation used to modern war machines that men like my grandfather fought as mounted troopers in the 20th century, in European and Middle East campaigns.

REVIEWED BY JILLIAN ALLISON-AITKEN - © Fairfax NZ News

Leon Davidson is one of those rare authors who can write good non-fiction for young adults that makes history both real and engaging.

REVIEWED BY JILLIAN ALLISON-AITKEN - © Fairfax NZ News

When we think of Anzacs and war, for most of us our minds immediately go to Gallipoli but the Western Front campaign also had a huge impact for New Zealand and Australia.

REVIEWED BY MAREE FIELD - © Fairfax NZ News

An unnamed former soldier reflects on a story told to him in the dying days of World War II. Stationed in France, the narrator struck up a conversation with a fellow soldier, who told him of a brief, strange relationship he had with a French woman in Normandy, in 1944.

REVIEWED BY MAREE FIELD - © Fairfax NZ News

In The Greatest Show on Earth Richard Dawkins argues that the theory of evolution is not a theory at all, but scientific fact.

REVIEWED BY JOSEPH BEAUMONT - © Fairfax NZ News

So hot is the topic of climate change, if you'll forgive the pun, that in many ways this was the most controversial book of 2009. A bestseller, it aims to shoot down the current environmental orthodoxy that insists that human-generated carbon dioxide has doomed the planet and must be reversed.

REVIEWED STEVE MASON - © Fairfax NZ News

Mates and Lovers – A History of Gay New Zealand is a title that carries a lot of potential as a look back at the incidence of and attitudes to homosexuality in this young and developing nation.

REVIEWED BY GORDON HANCOCK - © Fairfax NZ News

In his recently released book The Lost Symbol, Dan Brown has turned his attention from Catholicism to the Freemasons.

REVIEWED BY ROSEMARIE SMITH - © Fairfax NZ News

Obviously, this is about a cat, a small black cat with an outsize personality, and its impact on a family in distress.

REVIEWED BY DARREN BROWN - © Fairfax NZ News

From the time of the New Zealand wars of the 1840s to the Gulf war of the 1990s Kiwis have been called into active service.

BY JILLIAN ALLISON-AITKEN - © Fairfax NZ News

We all know someone who seems to absorb weird and wonderful facts so here's the perfect book for all the those sponges of knowledge.

REVIEWED DARREN BROWN - © Fairfax NZ News

Beyond the Battlefield is a record of the development of New Zealand as a diplomatic player with its Allies during World War II.

REVIEWED BY JOSEPH BEAUMONT - © Fairfax NZ News

Thanks to his celebrity status, the latest offering from Simon Schama – bestseller historian and award-winning television presenter – is always an event.

REVIEWED BY KEN MACKAY - © Fairfax NZ News

When we think about World War II and indeed subsequent wars carried out in various continents, the people who get the most recognition are those in the armed forces.

REVIEWED KEN MACKAY - © Fairfax NZ News

Karl Greenfield has written an amazingly sensitive account of his growing up with an autistic younger brother Noah.

REVIEWED BY LYNETTE KLAVER - © Fairfax NZ News

This is the story of Phil Cooper, son of Neville aka Hopeful Christian (leader of the Cooperites) and his children, Phil's experiences within and eventual escape from the sect, the rescue of his children, the unsuccessful abductions of his first wife Sandy, and the effect of his upbringing on Phil the adult and on his children.

REVIEWED BY ROSEMARIE SMITH - © Fairfax NZ News

This is an update of the popular 2004 title and, as asserted by a quote from Michael King on the jacket, it's an excellent book of its type.

REVIEWED BY SHANE COWLISHAW - © Fairfax NZ News

For New Zealand, Vietnam was the war it decided to forget.

REVIEWED BY ANDREI ROBERTSON - © Fairfax NZ News

Ron Crosby's NZ SAS: The First Fifty Years was an interesting and thoroughly insightful book.

REVIEWED BY MICHELLE CHILTON - © Fairfax NZ News

Here is yet another horrifying tale to come out of the Middle East but this one has an extremely unpleasant after-taste.

REVIEWED BY NAIDA MULLIGAN - © Fairfax NZ News

It is worth buying this book for two reasons. One: proceeds go to the worthy charity Canteen and two: it's a good read. In 2007 this intrepid couple set out to ride from Cape Reinga to Bluff and back.

REVIEWED BY ROSEMARIE SMITH - © Fairfax NZ News

This is a heart-tugging tale of two women, mother and daughter, and their love of life, truth and family.

REVIEWED BY JILLIAN ALLISON-AITKEN - © Fairfax NZ News

Historian Michael King died in a 2004 car crash but his work continues to have an impact on New Zealand culture.

REVIEWED BY GLYNN HARDY - © Fairfax NZ News

Forty years ago this past Monday, I sat enthralled with my standard 3 classmates, part of the an earthbound multitude of viewers and listeners to history in the making.

REVIEWED BY GWEN CHALONER - © Fairfax NZ News

This is not just a book for dedicated ornithologists despite what the cover may lead you to think.

REVIEWED GWEN CHALONER - © Fairfax NZ News

Felicity Campbell has an association with Wanganui that dates from the 1840s but Southlanders will be interested in this true story, since two people originally from Orepuki, Ethel Bennier (nee Beckham) and her brother Albert Beckham, feature in it.

REVIEWED BY NADINE HEMA - © Fairfax NZ News

This appropriately titled memoir is a quick and accessible account of one child's survival of the Holocaust.

REVIEWED BY JILLIAN ALLISON-AITKEN - © Fairfax NZ News

Books in brief:

REVIEWED BY JILLIAN ALLISON-AITKEN - © Fairfax NZ News

There are already plenty of books around that showcase the beautiful scenery of our country — the mountains, oceans and rivers.

REVIEWED BY FRANK GLEN - © Fairfax NZ News

Every 10 years or so books appear that deal with subjects and historiography that has been well and truly written about for many decades past.

REVIEWED BY F MULLIGAN - © Fairfax NZ News

Ed Macy is a former Apache attack helicopter pilot for the British Army. In Apache, the Man, the Machine, the Mission, he recounts the events of his last combat tour, which was in Afghanistan in 2007.

REVIEWED BY FRANK GLEN - © Fairfax NZ News

When it comes to the matter of the New Zealand Land Wars that cost thousands of lives and stirred this troubled colony for more than 16 years of the 19th century, modern historians would generally concede there was little more left to write about.

REVIEWED BY FRANK GLEN - © Fairfax NZ News

For Your Tomorrow, A Record of New Zealanders Who Have Died While Serving with the RNZF and Allied Air Services since 1915 is the final volume of Errol Martyn's magnificent three volume trilogy (volume 1, 1998; volume 2, 1999) and is a masterpiece of research.

REVIEWED BY HELEN BISSLAND - © Fairfax NZ News

In the first 50 years of its existence the Burns Fellowship has been awarded to many well-known writers. Nurse to the Imagination is a compact record of the first New Zealand literary residency.

REVIEWED BY JILLIAN ALLISON-AITKEN - © Fairfax NZ News

Here it is: everything you could ever want to know about New Zealand's traditions, ideas, folklore and history.

REVIEWED BY FRANK GLEN - © Fairfax NZ News

New Zealand military history during the past 150 years has with some hesitation and reluctance recorded the place of New Zealand women at war.

REVIEWED BY JUDY CLEINE - © Fairfax NZ News

You are lashed to a pole with your wrists tied tightly behind you. Your wrists support most of your upper-body weight because your feet, lashed to the base of the pole, can't quite touch the ground.You are left there in all weathers for up to 28 days and four hours at a time. Your hands turn black. The pain is maddening.

REVIEWED BY PAT VELTKAMP SMITH - © Fairfax NZ News

If Sunday morning television Praise Be is church for those who can't make it, George Bryant's New Zealand without God might be the print equivalent.

REVIEWED BY NAIDA MULLIGAN - © Fairfax NZ News

This book is available via the author's website for $5. Go to www.nonentiti.com and you can order your very own copy or even multiple copies. Why would I want to I hear you ask. Good question.

REVIEWED BY HELEN BISSLAND - © Fairfax NZ News

Gavin McLean a senior historian has written Kiwitown's Port: The story of Oamaru Harbour, an informed and affectionate coverage of his home town.

REVIEWED BY JILLIAN ALLISON-AITKEN - © Fairfax NZ News

Non-fiction reviews in brief:

© Fairfax NZ News

Book reviews in brief:

© Fairfax NZ News

Book reviews in brief:

REVIEWED BY JUDY CLEINE - © Fairfax NZ News

Starting with the old Express Building in Cathedral Square, Christchurch — designed in 1905 and hailed as New Zealand's first skyscraper — this book celebrates New Zealand's public and private love affair with concrete, steel, clean lines and plate glass.

© Fairfax NZ News

The Tribes Triumphant: Return Journey to the Middle East is a personal analysis of the twisted politics of the Middle East — the very politics that had led to the kidnapping of author Charles Glass and his imprisonment by the Hizballah in 1987.

© Fairfax NZ News

Book reviews in brief:

© Fairfax NZ News

Brought to you in Franklin Gothic typeface, the environmentally friendly Guinness World Records 2009 comes to you with all-new 3D photography (glasses included).

© Fairfax NZ News

It's exactly what it says it is. A collection of briefs chronicling "the most ridiculous, bizarre and astonishingly stupid deaths" in recorded history.

© Fairfax NZ News

Top Gear is a very popular TV programme and Matt Masters is one of the writers and testers for the spin-off magazine.

© Fairfax NZ News

If your heart breaks when you see tussock, schist, blue hills and brooding skies captured on a page this is the book for you.

© Fairfax NZ News

Philip Temple is recognised as one of New Zealand's leading modern day authors having a long list of novels, children's books and non-fiction books to his credit.

REVIEWED BY JILLIAN ALLISON-AITKEN - © Fairfax NZ News

Woody Allen is many things: playwright, screenwriter, actor, director, father, husband and — at least once — dodgy photographer. However, beyond all that, he's also pretty funny.