In The Elephant to Hollywood, his second memoir, Caine says he always thinks back to the 10 years of hard work, misery, poverty and uncertainty he had to go through to get started. "As an out-of-work actor, I couldn't rent a room, borrow money from the bank or get insurance."
As he details his later good fortune, Caine delights in recounting tales of his friendship with a host of show business luminaries.
Possessed of an easy, chatty style, the actor's fine sense of humour and absence of pomposity stand him in good stead. A revealing insight into filmic highways and byways, the book has many illustrations.
• The Life and Times of a Brown Paper Bag
Kevin Milne
Random House, $39.99, pbk
Kevin Milne, recently-retired front man for TV1's Fair Go programme, provides a racy account of his 40 years in broadcasting in The Life and Times of a Brown Paper Bag.
Milne spent 27 of those years as both reporter and main presenter of a show dedicated to investigating complaints from viewers seeking redress after suffering minor and major injustices.
Fair Go has been deservedly popular, because year after year it has taken up the cudgels on behalf of men and women shafted by individuals or powerful commercial entities. Milne takes the reader behind the scenes as he outlines the modus operandi of the talented people who worked for Fair Go for many years past.
Full of admiration for the achievements of fellow practitioners, he is not hesitant in criticising some of television's shortcomings. The memoir is a full-blown record too of a life lived at full pace, and in which family ties are assessed as far more important than any of his notable career achievements.
The book is generously illustrated.
• Through Thick and Thin
Gok Wan
Ebury Press, $39.99, pbk
The name Gok Wan has become synonymous with a kind of caring campness. In Through Thick and Thin, Gok tells of his transition from a fat, 21-stone English Chinese - bullied at high school with taunts of "queer, fatty, bender, batty boy, faggot, stupid" - to a tall, svelte fashion stylist who later achieved fame on television by making women comfortable in their own skin.
In the television series How to Look Good Naked, the once very fat Gok won over his women subjects because he knew how to empathise with them, and television viewers took him to their hearts. Gok, a marked success in his field, obviously still harbours feelings of insecurity.
Proudly gay, this emotional man writes passionately about his admiration of women and his great love of family. But the reader could do without the plenitude of swear words. The book has a good quota of illustrations.
• Clarke Isaacs is a former chief of staff of the Otago Daily Times.
