3 Jun 2025

What makes a political memoir a page-turner?

From Nights, 9:25 pm on 3 June 2025

Dame Jacinda Ardern's memoir A Different Kind of Power was released into the public today, charting her early life and political career through to its abrupt end in 2023. Reviews have described it variously as inspiring and insipid - intimate, but without revealing too much.

It's the latest in a string of political memoirs from New Zealand politicians: Steven Joyce, Judith Collins, Simon Bridges and Golriz Ghahraman have all put out books. 

Are they any good? Journalist and former National Party chief press secretary Janet Wilson joins Emile Donovan to weigh in.

Book cover image of A Different Kind of Power by Jacinda Ardern

Photo: Penguin Random House