By the end of this book I was trying to understand why on earth I could relate to the narrator. I have nothing in common with Oxford student, James who falls in with a crowd beyond his own sophistication and wealth. He lives the life of excess with a ready-made circle of friends and finds – by the end of it – that he’s been in love with both his stable, sensible violinist girlfriend Jess and the over-indulging somewhat chaotic Mark.

The first person narrative reminded me of Fitzgerald’s Nick Carraway in the reflective tone and sense of awe at the people he is mingling with. The great skill in this novel is definitely the characterisation as, although I don’t know people like this, I totally believed in their existence, their reactions and disappointments.

Beyond the Oxford years, life goes on and when tragedy strikes, the characters respond in the same ways they’ve always responded: moving on, dropping out or sticking hopelessly nearby. The novel spans over 10 years of these characters lives but there’s something timeless about them. The lack of references to modern society is subtle enough that, I imagine, any generation would recognise in this their own awkward shift from university to the ‘real world’.

Every moment feels crucial and convincing as James describes relationships, secrets and his own failings to be quite the person he thought he was.

This book has received mixed reviews, some marvelling at Grimshaw’s sparce and satirical prose and others questioning the credibility of characters. The Night Book started its life as a short story (published in The Listener, January 2009) and this remains as the first part of the book. However, you can almost see where it’s been stitched together and, for me, I felt the polished, mysterious, compelling beginning belied the rest of the story.

Set in Auckland, Dr Simon Lampton is battling family problems and an uneasy relationship with his two daughters, one of whom is adopted. Meanwhile, Roza Hallwright – wife of the Hallwright – is battling her own demons and trying to stay out of the lime-light as her husband becomes Prime Minister. Simon and Roza’s connection came as no surprise to the reader but, somehow, it felt that this connection was holding the whole story together. While some characters were clearly based on real-life New Zealand policital and public figures, others seemed flimsy and, at times, embarrassingly stereotypical. Simon flees his home troubles to slum it in South Auckland with poor, solo Mereana and Roza seeks comfort in a shallow friend whose life seems to consist of manicures and getting high.

The underlying idea in this novel was an intriguing one. However, as I didn’t connect with the selfish main characters or really believe in the way they behaved, I was left questioning whether this was a comment on society or just an observation of a small part of it.

This is a delightful collection of poems. Moving through her own history now, Anna presents poetry on family life, connections and her time in Mid-west America. The final poems refer openly to her mother’s illness and all the moments that have breezed along in the earlier poems seem all the more poignant by the end of the book.

I love the way she speaks to the people in her life through these poems with many ‘characters’ appearing in dedications again and again.

Where Anna’s debut, Good Luck, felt like the clever work of an academic mind, this collection feels satisfyingly personal and reflective.

There are some really fascinating aspects to this book. I love the idea of collecting as a compulsion and form of preservation and our desire to re-write history – especially when family’s involved.

When Rosemary moves back to her Grandfather’s farm to work on her thesis, she becomes obsessed with the lives of earlier inhabitants. She imagines the fey Dora, first wife of Great-Great-Grandfather Henry, joining the secret world of tattooing as a way of collecting and connecting to Henry’s own obsessions. In her isolation, Rosemary starts to over-identify with Dora and feel the ghostly presence of a more immediate tragic past.

Rosemary’s strongest connection to her late Grandfather was through their mutual interest in Taxidermy, which is another fascinating aspect that is explored. The idea of stuffing rarities to preserve the memory of an endangered species is both tragic and ironic.

There are several self-conscious nods to gothic novels – especially Northanger Abbey and Wuthering Heights – which work in that they’re openly acknowledged through Rosemary’s work, but at times seem a little clunky. The sense of history –  imagined, hoped for and ultimately accepted – brings to light the skeletons and specimens that lurk in our own cabinets of curiosity.