Noelle McCarthy picks her top three NZ books for NZ Book Month

Noelle McCarthy is a broadcaster and writer who lives in Auckland. She began her radio career as news and editorial director at independent radio station 95bFM where she made a name for herself as an astute political interviewer in the lead up to the last election. She is a columnists at the New Zealand Herald, writing a weekly column for the Weekend paper. Her TV work this year included a regular commentary slot on TVNZ arts show Frontseat. In her spare time she enjoys reading ghost stories and listening to country and western music.
A native of Cork City, Ireland, she has made New Zealand her home and has no intention of leaving while life here remains so interesting.

Electric by Chad Taylor.
Chad Taylor's books were my introduction to the Auckland I can't help wishing I lived in. It's a secretive, shifty sort of city, not without glamour, but haunted in its own way by the lonely people who live there, and all of their risky gambles and regrets. "Electric" is inspired by a real life episode in the history of the city; the power cuts that put out the lights all over Auckland in the summer of 1998.
Taylor's writing has been touted as "hip" and "noir-ish" since it was first published, and I suppose that is true, but he that isn't the full secret of his appeal. Rather it is his skill as a compassionate,perceptive observer of broken people, and the lovely precision of his prose that makes this novel such a pleasure to read.

Holmes: The Autobiography by Paul Holmes.
I bought this in an op-shop for $2, hardback. I'd willingly have paid triple that for such a fascinating and frank insight into the singular life and mind of Mr Holmes. Paul Holmes is a broadcaster who is enraptured by language, intoxicated by the grandeur and flow of words.
Reading this book, like listening to him on the radio, leaves one with the sense of an untrammelled energy, a real thirst for knowledge, and above all, a great vigour and appetite for life. Who cares if the quasi-Proustian tone of sober rememberance sometimes drifts into the realms of self-parody? Paul had a front row seat for 4 decades of NZ history, which makes this a handy (if highly subjective) reference tool as well. I knew this book was special when I forced my friends to listen to me read the chapter about the infamous Denis Conner interview aloud in the middle of a party once. I may or may not have had a drink taken at the time.

The Scarecrow by R.H. Morrieson.
Justly celebrated for having one of the most arresting opening lines in NZ literature, this book is a dark delight. It scared the hell out of me when I read it last year, Morieson's evocation of evil is all the more affecting for its portrayal in the resolutely quotidian surrounds of small town New Zealand. The central theme of the vulnerability of innocence is explored through a simple story of a community invaded, and then defiled by a dangerous predator. The young people in this novel are captured pefectly as they drift on the boundaries of social and sexual maturity, their changing minds and bodies making them the focus of the worst kind of adult attention.The scene where Prudence is almost caught by Hubert Salter on her walk home is not one I re-read often late at night. The thought of that monster lying in wait for the beautiful, straight-talking Prudence is truly terrifying.
"Proo-oo-dence, Proo-oo-dence" Even typing it makes me shudder.