‘Continuous sustenance’: David Cameron’s life in books

Welcome to The Spinoff Books Confessional, in which we get to know the reading habits of Aotearoa writers, and guests. This week: David Cameron, owner of Scorpio Books and recipient of a Booksellers Association of Aotearoa New Zealand Lifetime Achievement Award 2026.

The book I wish I’d written

I did try to write a book when I was in standard six. Filled an entire exercise book, but thankfully that’s no longer in existence. I confess I was plagiarising a sci-fi novel that I’d enjoyed, but I lost interest in the project, and happily that cured me of the urge to write. It took too much time away from reading, anyway. But I suppose if pressed it would probably be A Memory Called Empire by Arkady Martine who I believe is actually a historian specialising in the Ottoman Empire, but she took time out to write science fiction. That book was so well conceived, so imaginative, rich in political depth, but also whimsical – there’s an entire planet whose people speak in verse. I do envy brilliant minds like hers.

The book everyone should read

Is there a book that everyone should read? Absolutely not. If there were, we’d be out of business. The best thing about literature is that there is no “one-size-fits-all”. Everything we do at Scorpio is about endeavouring to provide a diverse range of excellent books that appeal to a range of tastes and interests. There is no single book that appeals to everyone – and it would be a sad day for humanity if such a book were ever published. 

The book I want to be buried with

Well, the light down there would hardly be good enough, and I’ve never been one for re-reading – the “desert island” notion has always terrified me – but I suppose I would just want to be buried with whatever I was reading at the time so I could find out how it ends and not spend eternity wondering. Or maybe it would be a book that captures a whole life, from childhood to old age. Like William Boyd’s Any Human Heart. That’s certainly one that’s stayed with me. Through a lifelong series of journals, the flawed protagonist Logan Mountstuart, a fictional English writer, goes from boyhood to navigating adult relationships through to destitution in his dotage, but he encounters a raft of historical figures and events from the 20th century along the way – Hemingway, Woolf, Joyce, Ian Fleming; we see the rise of Fascism; the Second World War; he spends time in France and Nigeria during the Biafran War. It’s a novel with both an interesting structure and huge scope.

From left to right: the book that haunts Cameron; the book he wishes he’d written; and the first adult book he remembers reading by himself.

The first book I remember reading by myself

My memory isn’t what it used to be, so I don’t really remember books back that far into my childhood, but the first adult book I remember reading when I was 11 was The Cruel Sea by Nicholas Monsarrat. I was mad keen about reading. Just insatiable. I read everything I could get my hands on, which was the majority of the children’s library in Dunedin. My mother let me walk there on my own from when I was six or seven. I think the last book I read out of the children’s library was Hereward the Wake by Charles Kingsley, not really sure why that was there, it had a fair amount of murderous action too, lots of fighting. Maybe they mis-shelved it. It was after reading The Cruel Sea that I went to the librarian, Mrs White, and asked if I could please join the adult library. She didn’t take convincing, just said, “There will be some books that you cannot borrow”, but that never occurred – I had no problem borrowing, thank goodness.

The book that haunts me

The third book in Cormac McCarthy’s The Border Trilogy, Cities of the Plain. A young guy, who we’ve got to know over the course of the book, and he’s a decent guy, he gets stabbed to death in a knife fight, and I was just so sad about it for a long time afterwards – you get attached to characters sometimes. I mean most of McCarthy’s novels are pretty haunting, but that one’s really stayed with me.

The book that made me cry

I just started reading a biography by Miranda Seymour called I, Vera, about an extraordinary historical figure I’d never heard of: Vera Gedroits. She was a Russian princess who was the first woman professor of surgery, and the first woman to serve as a physician to the Russian imperial court. She was a lesbian, an ardent supporter of workers’ rights, a researcher, she performed surgical miracles, and ejected an inquisitive Rasputin from her operating theatre by throwing him down the stairs. But her incredible career was cut short when she and her lover were taken away at gunpoint during the Soviet purge of scientific intellectuals, and she eventually died in poverty. Her name was removed from Soviet medical records, and her tremendous contribution to medicine remains unacknowledged today. The waste and the injustice of it would surely make anyone cry.

The book that made me laugh

The Scarecrow by Ronald Hugh Morrieson. He was a New Zealand author who was first published in Australia in the 1960s, and for some reason his books weren’t widely publicised or available in New Zealand, as far as I recall. I remember first reading his books in the 70s and finding them great fun, because they were part comedy, part thriller, part adventure. It was great seeing small-town New Zealand brought to life on the page, and he nailed it.

The book I never admit I’ve read

One summer holiday when I was 11, we stayed in a house over at Waikouaiti, and they had this pile of women’s magazines that I’d never seen before, really upmarket ones. I don’t know if they were American or British or what, but they were in this huge stack in perfect chronological order. I started reading them, and they had these really good episodic stories in them. Romance but high-class; it was a bit of an education. I tore through them so ravenously that I’m afraid the chronology was rather muddled by the time we left. Don’t think I would have fessed up to those ones when I returned to school. Oh and I did read Georgette Heyer’s Devil’s Cub when I was in Standard Six. I remember thinking it was quite sophisticated, but I doubt at the time I would have fessed up to that either.

From left to right: the book that made Cameron laugh; the book that made him cry; and one of the books he’s reading right now.

Most underrated book

For a bookseller, the most frustrating thing is when a book is in demand and the publisher has underestimated it, so they haven’t printed or imported enough, and you can’t sell it when people are clamouring for it. It doesn’t happen all that often, but a few memorable instances over the last couple of years have been Olivia Laing’s The Garden Against Time and Chloe Dalton’s Raising Hare. We had a terrible bother chasing stock of those two wonderful titles that we would have sold a lot more of had we been able to get the stock into the country at a decent price!

Encounter with an author

Meeting Dava Sobel back in the 1990s was a standout author encounter. I read and enjoyed Longitude, but I enjoyed meeting her even more. She arrived at the shop unannounced, just passing through on her travels. She was a woman with a limp if I recall – but she just shone, was absolutely delightful, I was so impressed by her. Such a wide-ranging thinker and reader, so many interests, yet completely unaffected and cheerful. Great vibes.

Best thing about reading

The continuous sustenance it provides. It’s life. 

Best place to read

Wherever you are with a book! I mainly just read in bed now, and I don’t like it because it’s late at night and there’s not much time before I fall asleep. I used to get through a book a night back in the day, but now I’m lucky to get through a chapter, but my appetite is as strong as ever so I’ll just have to start working less so I can fit more reading in.

Dave and Coco. (Photo: supplied)

What I’m reading right now

I’ve just finished Tom’s Crossing by Mark Danielewski. It’s probably the longest book I’ve read at over 1200 pages, but it’s captivating – he’s one hell of a storyteller. Most of the action in his rule-breaking Western takes place over five days but he packs so much detail into that short time-frame it has the power of an epic. It’s got guns, ghosts, horse thievery, avalanches, but there’s also real emotional depth in the bond between the main characters and the horses they want to save, and the surprise reveals just keep coming! I’ll admit it’s a heavy book to read in bed, but it’s worth it. Absolutely unique.

Also I’ve been reading an advance copy of Kate Atkinson’s new standalone Our Nobel Selves that’s due out in September. It’s about a crime correspondent turned war reporter working in Singapore at the end of the Second World War. He returns to Britain for a quiet job working for a festival with a team of misfits and eccentrics when a woman goes missing. I’m not sure it’s going to be as good as her Jackson Brodie novels, but I’ll reserve judgement until the end.

I’m also reading the autobiographical comic Persepolis by the wonderful Iranian graphic novelist, Marjane Satrapi, who recently and very sadly died far too young. The comics were first published at the turn of the century in French, but remain incredibly relevant today.

Read the full list of award winners from this year’s Aotearoa New Zealand Book Industry Awards, here. Scorpio Books is celebrating 50 years this year, read the history of David Cameron’s beloved bookshop, here. ...