Pat Hanlon, "Global Airlines - Competition in a Transnational Industry" - published in 1996, this is the best recent book I have come across on the trend to form global alliances

Paul Harrison with Brian Lockstone and Andy Anderson, "The Golden Age of New Zealand Flying Boats" - the focus is on the RNZAF's Catalina and Sunderland operations

Peter Hart, "Bloody April - Slaughter in the Skies over Arras, 1917"

Carl Hoffman, "Hunting Warbirds - The Obsessive Quest for the Lost Aircraft of World War II"

David Isby, "How to Fly and Fight in the F/A-18 Hornet"

Lois Jones, "easyJet - The story of Britain's biggest low-cost airline"

Wolfgang Langewiesche, "Stick and Rudder - an Explanation of the Art of Flying" - the basics of flying

Cecil Lewis, "Sagittarius Rising" - flying with the RFC in the First World War

Matthew Lynn, "Birds of Prey: The War between Boeing and Airbus"

Alexander McKee, "The Mosquito Log"

Margi Moss, "Freedom of the Skies - Adventures Around the World in a Light Aircraft" - a Brazilian-based couple circle the Southern Hemisphere

Vincent Orange, "Park - The Biography of Air Chief Marshal Sir Keith Park" - a New Zealander who held key RAF commands during WWII

James Ott and Raymond Neidl, "Airline Odyssey - The Airline Industry's Turbulent Flight into the Future" - published in 1995, takes a less USA-centred approach than Petzinger

Thomas Petzinger, Jr., "Hard Landing - The Epic Contest for Power and Profits That Plunged the Airlines into Chaos" - discover what a game of musical chairs management of the US airline industry has been

Chris Rudge, "Missing! Aircraft Missing in New Zealand 1928-2000"

Karl Sabbagh, "Twenty-First-Century Jet - The Making and Marketing of the Boeing 777" - Boeing's latest new aircraft

Janine Shepherd, "Never Tell Me Never" - first volume of autobiography of an Australian who is seriously injured then takes up flying

Janine Shepherd, "Dare to Fly" - second volume of autobiography

Roy Sinclair, "Journeying with Aviators in New Zealand"

Frank Tredrey, "Pilot's Summer - A Central Flying School Diary" - learning to be an RAF flying instructor in the 1930s

Patty Wagstaff with Ann L. Cooper, "Fire and Air : A Life on the Edge" - the autobiography of a three time US aerobatic champion

Graham Wallace, "Flying Witness - Harry Harper and the Golden Age of Aviation" - covers the period 1906-1914

Douglas Waller, "Air Warriors - The Inside Story of the Making of a Navy Pilot"

Richard Waugh with Peter Layne & Graeme McConnell, "NAC - The Illustrated History of New Zealand National Airways Corporation 1947-1978"

Alexander Wells, "Air Transportation - A Management Perspective" - third edition published in 1994, a good basic text but orientated towards the US industry

Rowland White, "Vulcan 607" - bombing Port Stanley airport in the Falklands

Robert Wilcox, "Wings of Fury"  - covers USAF and US Navy fighter pilots in the post-Vietnam War era through to the Gulf War

Jeana Yeager and Dick Rutan with Phil Patton, "Voyager" - building and flying the aircraft that made the first non-stop aerial circumnavigation of the world without refueling

Computing

Tracey Kidder, "The Soul of a New Machine" - the making of a new mini computer at Data General

Bill Gates, "The Road Ahead", second edition - a thoughtful read with a focus on the Internet and the future

David Vise, "The Google Story"

Economics

Robert J. Barro, "Getting It Right - Markets and Choices in a Free Society"

Peter L. Bernstein NEW, "Against The Gods - The Remarkable Story of Risk"

Alan S. Blinder, "Hard Heads, Soft Hearts - Tough-Minded Economics for a Just Society"

Samuel Brittan, "Against the Flow" - economic commentary

Todd G. Buchholz, "New Ideas from Dead Economists - an Introduction to Modern Economic Thought"

Frances Cairncross, "The Death of Distance : how the communications revolution will change our lives"

Richard Cockett, "Thinking the Unthinkable - Think-Tanks and the Economic Counter-Revolution, 1931-1983" - an intellectual history of the so-called "New Right" with a British focus

Diane Coyle, "The Soulful Science - What Economists Really Do and Why It Matters"

Tim Harford,  "The Undercover Economist" 

Paul Krugman, "Peddling Prosperity - Economic Sense and Nonsense in an Age of Diminished Expectations"

Paul Krugman, "The Accidental Theorist - And Other Dispatches from the Dismal Science"

Paul Krugman, "The Return of Depression Economics"

David Landes, "The Wealth and Poverty of Nations" - economic history

Paul Ormerod, "Butterfly Economics"

Paul Ormerod, "Why Most Things Fail - Evolution, Extinction and Economics"

Arthur Seldon, "Capitalism" - by the intellectual leader of the Institute of Economic Affairs

David Warsh, "Knowledge and the Wealth of Nations - A Story of Economic Discovery"

Entertainment

Anne Hart, "Agatha Christie's Hercule Poirot"

David Marshall, "Shaggy Dogs & Other Stories - Tales of a Kiwi Vet"

Barry Paris, "Audrey Hepburn"

History

Peter Ackroyd, "London - The Biography"

Stephen E. Ambrose, "Nothing Like it in the World: The Men who Built the Transcontinental Railroad 1863-1869"

Rollo Arnold, "New Zealand's Burning - The Settlers' World in the Mid 1880s"

Correlli Barnett, "Engage the Enemy More Closely - The Royal Navy in the Second World War"

Jacques Barzun, "From Dawn to Decadence - 500 Years of Western Cultural Life 1500 to the Present"

James Belich, "Making Peoples - A History of the New Zealanders - From Polynesian Settlement to the End of the Nineteenth Century"

William J. Bernstein, "The Birth of Plenty - How the Prosperity of the Modern World Was Created"

John Bierman, "Napoleon III and His Carnival Empire" - biography of the man who ruled France from 1848 to 1870

Geoffrey Blainey, "A Short History of the World" - very readable from the eminent Australian historian

H.W. Brands, "The Age of Gold" - Californian history

Bill Bryson, "Mother Tongue" - about the development of the English language

Bill Bryson, "Made in America" - about the development of American English

James Burke, "The Pinball Effect : how renaissance water gardens made the carburetor possible - and other journeys through knowledge"

Thomas Cahill, "How the Irish Saved Civilization" - the foundation and influence of Irish monasticism

Ron Crosby, "The Musket Wars - A History of Inter-Iwi Conflict 1806-45" - an excellent account of Maori history at the time of early European contact

Gregor Dallas, "1815 - The Roads to Waterloo"

Gregor Dallas, "1918 - War and Peace"

Gregor Dallas, "Poisoned Peace: 1945 - The war that never ended"

Norman Davies, "The Isles - A History" - a sweeping account that gives Scottish, Irish and Welsh history their due weight

Jared Diamond, "Guns, Germs and Steel - A Short History of Everybody for the Last 13,000 Years"

Stella Dong, "Shanghai 1842-1949 - The Rise and Fall of a Decadent City"

Niall Ferguson, "Colossus - The Rise and Fall of the American Empire"

Niall Ferguson, "Empire - How Britain Made the Modern World"

Niall Ferguson , "The Pity of War" - an excellent historical analysis of the First World War

Niall Ferguson, "The War of the World - History's Age of Hatred"

Will Ferguson, "Canadian History for Dummies"

Shelby Foote, "The Civil War - 1"

Robert Gildea, "France since 1945"

David Gilmour, "The Ruling Caste - Imperial Lives in the Victorian Raj"

Peter Hall, "Cities in Civilization"

Alistair Horne, "Seven Ages of Paris - Portrait of a City"

Lawrence James, "Raj - The Making and Unmaking of British India"

Paul Johnson, "The Birth of the Modern - World Society 1815-1830"

Paul Johnson, "A History of the American People"

Robert Lacey and Danny Danziger, "The Year 1000 - what life was like at the turn of the first millennium" - Anglo-Saxon England

Stewart Lamont, "When Scotland Ruled the World"

Torbjörn Lundmark, "Quirky Qwerty - The story of the keyboard @ your fingertips"

Walter A McDougall, "Let the Sea Make a Noise - A History of the North Pacific from Magellan to MacArthur"

Margaret MacMillan, "Paris 1919 - Six Month that Changed the World"

Malcolm McKinnon, "Treasury - The New Zealand Treasury 1840-2000"

Gavin McLean, "The Southern Octopus - The Rise of a Shipping Empire" - the Dunedin-based Union Steam Ship Company

Robert K. Massie, "Dreadnought - Britain, Germany, and the Coming of the Great War"

John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge, "The Company - A Short History of a Revolutionary Idea"

Caroline Moorehead, "Dunant's Dream - War, Switzerland and the History of the Red Cross"

Prof. W.P. Morrell, "The Provincial System in New Zealand 1852-76"

James Morris, "Heaven's Command - An Imperial Progress" - a history of the British Empire from 1837 to 1897 - the first book in the trilogy

James Morris, "Pax Britannica - The Climax of an Empire" - the second book in the trilogy - focusing on the British Empire in 1897

Alan Palmer, "Metternich - Councillor of Europe"

Alan Palmer, "Twilight of the Hapsburgs - The Life and Times of Emperor Francis Joseph"

Clive Ponting, "Thirteen Days - Diplomacy and Disaster - The Countdown to the Great War"

Simon Schama, "A History of Britain - At the Edge of the World? 3000BC - AD1603"

Simon Schama,  "A History of Britain - The British Wars 1603 - 1776"

Michael Smith, "New Cloak, Old Dagger - How Britain's Spies Came in from the Cold"

Barbara W. Tuchman, "The First Salute" - the American War of Independence

Barbara W. Tuchman, "The Proud Tower" - a portrait of the world before World War I: 1890-1914

Barbara W. Tuchman, "The Guns of August" - the start of World War I in 1914

Peter Watson, "A Terrible Beauty - The People and Ideas that Shaped the Modern Mind - A History"

Geoffrey Wawro, "The Austro-Prussian War - Austria's War with Prussia and Italy in 1866"

John E. Wills, Jr, "1688 - A Global History"

H. W. Wilson, "Battleships in Action - Vol. 1"

Admiral Sandy Woodward with Patrick Robinson, "One Hundred Days" - an account of the battle for the Falklands in 1982

Management and Other

Tom Bower, "Branson" - a critical account

Bryan Burrough and John Helyar, "Barbarians at the Gate" - the battle for control of RJR Nabisco in 1988

Tony Buzan with Barry Buzan, "The Mind Map Book" - a great method for organising your thoughts and for exam preparation (it helped me get an 'A+' and an 'A' in my Economics papers in 1995)

Bill Emmott, "20:21 Vision - The Lessons of the 20th Century for the 21st"

Michael Lewis, "Liar's Poker" - an insight into life as a financial market dealer in New York and London

Ira Matathia and Marian Salzman, "Next: Trends for the Future" - the writers are in the advertising industry

John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge, "The Witch Doctors - What the management gurus are saying, why it matters and how to make sense of it"

Peter Schwartz, "The Art of the Long View - Planning for the Future in an Uncertain World" - the focus is on the use of scenarios

Richard Saul Wurman, "Information Anxiety" - from the designer of the Access travel guides

Pets

Charlotte Schwartz, "A New Owner's Guide to Poodles"

Philosophy

Luciano de Crescenzo, "The History of Greek Philosophy Volume I - the Pre-Socratics"

Luciano de Crescenzo, "The History of Greek Philosophy Volume II - Socrates and Beyond"

Jostein Gaarder, "Sophie's World" - a Norwegian novel and an introduction to philosophy

F.A. Hayek, "The Road to Serfdom" - not a easy read but worth it to understand the criticisms leveled at economic central planning

Janine Shepherd, "Reaching for Stars - Reflections on a journey through life and living"

Politics

Jim Bolger, "Bolger - A View from the Top" - autobiography of the former New Zealand Prime Minister

Gyles Brandreth, "Breaking the Code - Westminster Diaries May 1990 - May 1997"

Simon Carr, "The Dark Art of Politics" - the author, formerly a speech writer for Prime Minister Bolger, is currently an ACT supporter

Thomas Friedman, "The Lexus and the Olive Tree" - a look at globalisation by the NYT foreign affairs columnist

Thomas Friedman, "The World is Flat - A Brief History of the Globalized World in the 21st Century"

Bernard Ingham, "Kill the Messenger" - memoirs of Margaret Thatcher's Chief Press Secretary

Nigel Lawson, "The View from No.11 - Memoirs of a Tory Radical" - good insights into economic policy making from a former British Chancellor of the Exchequer

Mary Matalin and James Carville, "All's Fair - Love, War, and Running for President" - they were key figures in the 1992 election campaigns of Bush and Clinton and later they married

Austin Mitchell, "Pavlova Paradise Revisited"

Bruce D. Porter, "War and the Rise of the State - the Military Foundations of Modern Politics" - this could equally be listed under History

Richard Prebble, "What Happens Next" - thoughts from the leader of ACT

Stella Rimington, "Open Secret" - former Director-General of the UK Security Service (MI5)

Bob Woodward, "The Agenda" - the development of economic policy in the early days of the Clinton Administration

Science

David Bodanis, "E=mc2 - A Biography of the World's Most Famous Equation"

Bill Bryson, "A Short History of Nearly Everything"

Mark Buchanan, "Nexus - Small Worlds and the Groundbreaking Science of Networks"

Brian Cathcart, "The Fly in the Cathedral - How a small group of  Cambridge scientists won the race to split the atom"

Jared Diamond, "The Rise and Fall of the Third Chimpanzee"

James Le Fanu, "The Rise and Fall of Modern Medicine" - covers medical advances in the second half of the 20th century

Richard P. Feynman, "Surely you must be joking, Mr Feynman" - memoirs of a great theoretical physicist with a sense of humour

Richard P. Feynman, "What Do You Care What Other People Think? - Further adventures of a curious character" - the second half focuses on his role in the inquiry into the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster.

James Gleick, "Chaos - Making a New Science"

Richard Hamblyn, "The Invention of Clouds" - covers the classification of clouds

Steven Johnson, "Emergence - The Connected Lives of Ants, Brains, Cities and Software"

Eric Lax, "The Mould in Dr Florey's Coat" - penicillin

John Felix de Lisle, "Sails to Satellites - A history of meteorology in New Zealand"

Allan and Barbara Pease, "Why Men Don't Listen and Women Can't Read Maps"

Bill Phillips and Michael D'Orso, "Body for Life" - physical fitness and diet advice

Edward O. Wilson, "Consilience - The Unity of Knowledge"

Travel

Bill Bryson, "A Walk in the Woods" - hiking in the Eastern USA

Bill Bryson, "Notes from a Small Island" - around the UK

Bill Bryson, "Down Under" - around Australia

Victoria Clark, "The Far-Farers - A Journey from Viking Iceland to Crusader Jerusalem"

Jeremy Clarkson, "Clarkson on Cars"

Katie Daynes and Nicole Irving, "Usborne Easy French"

Alexander Frater, "Beyond the Blue Horizon - on the Track of Imperial Airways" - the author follows as closely as possible the original air route from London to Brisbane, Australia. This book could equally be listed under Aviation or History

Roy Jenkins, "Twelve Cities - A Memoir"

Bernard Levin, "To the end of the Rhine" - from the Alps to Holland with a top British journalist

Bernard Levin, "Hannibal's Footsteps" - across Southern France on foot

Bernard Levin, "A Walk up Fifth Avenue" - an in depth look at one of the best known streets in New York

Peter Mayle, "A Year in Provence" - a former advertising executive and his wife escape to live in Southern France

Peter Mayle, "Toujours Provence" - the sequel which follows a year in their new life

Peter Mayle, "Encore Provence"

Peter Mayle, "Bon Appetit - Travels through France with Knife, Fork and Corkscrew"

Jan Morris, "Fifty Years of Europe: An Album"

Jan Morris, "Sydney" - this Welsh travel writer has an excellent sense of the history of the cities s/he writes about

Theodore Zeldin, "The French" - not strictly a travel book but a great introduction to the French people

Last modified 31 August 2008

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