the bookmark
Your Holiday Reading
JOURNEY UNDER THE MIDNIGHT SUN Keigo Higashino (Hachette) The author of The Devotion of Suspect X returns with a 500-plus page turner. A 20-year-old murder, a chain of unsolvable mysteries. Can one detective solve this epic riddle? Detective Sasagaki is handed the case, which he spends many years trying to solve. Smart and original, Higashino continues to elevate the modern mystery as an intense and inventive literary form.
PRECIOUS GIFTS Danielle Steel (Random House) A father’s love will change his family’s destiny. From Rome to Paris, New York to Venice, the plot ventures through elegant apartments, luxury hotels and a French chateau. There’s beautiful, strong women, and of course a cast of handsome men, some good and some villains. The perfect beach read.
TOM CLANCY'S COMMANDER IN CHIEF Mark Greaney (Penguin) No surprises here — at 700-plus pages, this is a good old-fashioned action/adventure tale of politics and intrigue. Greaney gives
the former CIA analyst, now US president, Jack Ryan more headaches in this latest thriller. Actually, it’s Russian president Valeri Volodin who's giving Ryan grief, working hard to cut him off from other world leaders while planning to upend world peace. Thank goodness Jack Ryan Jr is in the wings to help.
EVERYBODY RISE Stephanie Clifford (Hachette) It's 2006, in the Manhattan of the young and glamorous. At 26, bright, funny, and socially anxious Evelyn wants to belong. From the Lilly Pulitzer dresses to the debutante balls and regattas, Clifford expertly conveys the ambition of an outsider desperate to make her way into a rarefied world. Says Malcolm Gladwell, “a smart, moving tale of class, ambition and identity.”
BOUNDARIES Brian Turner (Random House) This will be my favourite “dip in and out” book this holiday. Turner’s name is synonymous with Central Otago, albeit one well removed from the tourist centres and vineyards. This handsome
collection is charged with candid prose, and an inspiring alternative vision. All set within the spectacular hills, rivers and big skies of Central Otago and accompanied throughout with stunning photography.
POUR ME: A LIFE AA Gill (Hachette) If you have a tendency to over-indulge, this might not be the book for you. Funny, frank and flamboyant and full of unvarnished truths, it’s exquisitely written, as you’d expect from Gill. Pour Me is about lost time and self discovery, of a commitment to drinking, addiction and sobriety. Lacerating, unflinching, uplifting, it is a classic about drunken abandon.
LITERARY LUNCH Various (Random House) A stellar cast of vintage authors showcase their talents. Food and drink are the writer’s friend. Faced with the need to establish a character as economically as possible, they send their imaginative inventions out for lunch. How and what we eat has been the novelist’s shorthand. A small but perfectly formed book. — Gail Woodward