The Listener opens its reviews this week with a look at historian Rachel Barrowman’s 500-page biography, Mason: The Life of RAK Mason. Mason (pictured) was one of New Zealand's best ever poets, but his dark, melancholic personality led to a short-lived period of brilliance. Reviewer Kevin Ireland was acquainted with Mason in the 1950s, and is much taken with Barrowman's work. "I put this superb book down with regret that I'd reached its last page."

Nickei Falconer is equally taken with her set reading matter: Douglas Kennedy’s A Special Relationship. It's a story about a single woman in Cairo, and her descent into a personal hell. "This is not a novel full of the lightness and delights of a new relationship, or the joys of parenthood. It is an exacting portrayal of a woman struggling to tread water as she is swamped by her rapidly disintegrating mental health and a deteriorating marriage."

Elsewhere, Chris Else reviews Jonathan Raban’s Waxwings and finds it a little disappointing. "This is a mild-mannered book. It's sensitive, well-written and, at times, laugh-aloud funny – but by the last page I felt curiously unengaged."