A busy week in the latest Listener. C K Stead and Denis Welch independently ponder Vincent O'Sullivan’s Long Journey To The Border: A life of John Mulgan.

Good to see the opinionated Steve Braunias back, too: he reviews V S Naipaul’s pompously titled collection of essays, The Writer And The World, zooming in on the essay Michael X and the Black Power Killings in Trinidad.

Braunias also reviews two handsome books that stand as testaments to the late Guy Mannering, a photographer, editor, author and publisher: “One of those quiet, unheralded champions and enthusiasts of book publishing in New Zealand.” The first is Dick Georgeson's memoir The Leading Edge: A life in gliding. The second is The Seas Between, the letters of Desmond Martin, commander of the WWII submarine HM Tuna. Also noted: the “beautifully handset, printed and bound” Diary Of A Voyage In 1879.

Non-fiction, in brief: Fundamentalism by Lloyd Geering, Embracing The Witch And The Goddess by Kathryn Rountree, Leisure And Pleasure by Caroline Daley, While You're Away by Anna Rogers, On Blue Ice by Kim Griggs, A Twist Of Fate by Mary Ciurlionis, A Capital Perspective by Hilary Tipping, Canterbury Soccer by John Small, Prospero's Island by Judith Bassett , and the poetry collection Summer On The Cote d'Azur by Alistair Paterson.

And finally, Hedley Mortlock reviews a brace of crime novels: Truecrime by Jake Arnott, Shoedog by George P Pelecanos, Bangkok 8 by John Burdett and Candlemoth by Roger Jon Ellory.