Wellington journalist Mike White is probably best known for his crime reportage in North & South magazine, but he's also known in the capital's dog parks with his SPCA rescue dog Cooper. His new book is an extremely funny and poignant book about the joys of dog ownership. His portrayal of the community of dog-walkers and their dogs in Wellington is terrific, and the book includes brilliant cartoons by Sharon Murdoch. A lovely gift package for the dog-lover in your life.

This is a collection of Sarah Laing's personal comics/blog from 2010 to this year. It's witty, smart, disarmingly honest, finely observed and self-effacing. It's not a narrative like her Mansfield and Me (2017), but a collection of comic anecdotes of varying length, but they do hang together, and are always wise and profound.

Mark Boyle, a former business graduate, became disillusioned with the modern world, so a few years ago he spent three years living without money, and wrote about it in The Moneyless Man, which was a massive success and translated into over 20 languages. Now he has decided to live without modern technology: no running water, no electricity or anything it powers, no phone or internet; just a wooden cabin he built himself. In this book he tells of a year making fire, collecting water, foraging, fishing, existing and working in tune with the passing seasons and nature.