Shayne Carter, of Straightjacket Fits and Dimmer fame, grew up in very tough circumstances in Dunedin. Drinking, drugs and violence were prevalent. A very young Shayne Carter sought escape through music, first pop, and after an almost religious experience seeing Chris Knox, punk. He writes with great power and humour, about making music, being let down by other musicians and record companies, drinking, sex etc. This is a no holds barred music memoir, extremely honest, passionate and confronting. He's also very funny. A quite brilliant book.

I've never been all that much of a Wilco fan, but this book came with a big reputation, and I do like music memoirs. I wasn't disappointed, in fact, this is one of the best music memoirs I've read, and you don't need to know anything about Wilco (or Uncle Tupelo, his previous band) to enjoy it. He grew up in Illinois, and still lives in Chicago. He was, by some years, the youngest in his family, so he grew up almost an only child. It was a tough, gritty, working class life, and he soon found music was a way out of that kind of life.

This is a kind of companion book to his Dark Star Safari (2002) in which he travels from Cairo to Cape Town, overland, down the right side of Africa. In this book, he attempts to travel south to north on the other side: 'until I find the end of the line, either on the road or in my mind'. He travels north from Cape Town, across Namibia, and into the terrifying, relentlessly dysfunctional Angola.

I read this after reading her most recent book, Normal People. I wish I'd read this first, as it's a slightly less refined version of her very particular style of storytelling, which is not to say that it's not enormously enjoyable and satisfying in its own right.

David Neiwert is reputed to be one of the leading commentators on the rise of the far right in America in recent years, seemingly emboldened by the emergence of Donald Trump and his legitimisation of white supremacy. This book is prescient in the context of the terror attack on the mosque in Christchurch in March, as we here in NZ are no longer immune from this kind of radicalisation in the time of the internet. The book is well researched, authoritative, clearly written, and extremely disturbing.

I've just reread this terrific novel. It's set mostly in Greece, and concerns a somewhat oblique character, a risk assessor for an American insurance company, who stumbles upon a murderous cult living in a cave in a remote part of the country. He becomes fascinated by their method of choosing victims, which he comes to believe is based on ancient languages. There is a large cast of characters who eat and drink, discuss the state of the world in restaurants and bars, have affairs with each other, and travel.