Our politicians aren't just taking a break from Wellington this summer, most of them are taking a break from the piles of briefings, memos and correspondence.

If you fancy holidaying like a politician (and I'm not recommending it), try picking up one of the following doorstops:

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern told Stuff she'll be cracking into the many books she hasn't had the opportunity to finish the last couple of years. She has publicly declared that daughter Neve was developing a fondness for The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle.

Opposition leader Simon Bridges didn't give Stuff any concrete recommendations either, but said: "I probably read, swot, study think policy too much."Bridges said he was thinking about taking Paul Goldsmith's advice and read something more relaxing over summer.

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Green party co-leader Marama Davidson will be reading Still Lives: A Memoir of Gaza by Marilyn Garson, a memoir about moving to Gaza and working with the United Nations and NGOs.

The other Green party co-leader, James Shaw will be reading Overstory by Richard Powers; Agent Running in the Field by John Le Carre; and We are Here by Chris McDowall and Tim Denee.

ACT leaderDavid Seymouris readingGood Keen Manby Barry Crump. Seymour was recently given Crump's collectedstoriesand was so excited he sent Stuff four photos of him reading it.

Green MPGolriz Ghahraman has a long reading list including plenty of non-fiction and a smattering of graphic novels. She'll start off with The Interregnum a collection of essays edited by Morgan Godfery; Somewhere, Women's Stories of Migration, edited by Lorna Jane Harvey; No Friend but the Mountains by Behrouz Boochani; Rolling Blackouts by Sarah Glidden and Persepolis 2 by Marjane Satrapi. Ghahraman also has Christopher Wylie's Mindf*ck on her list, a book about the Cambridge Analytica scandal, but she's putting it off until she's had a bit of a break.

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Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern reads Hairy Maclary from Donaldson's Dairy as part of the new Goodnight Kiwi series. This summer she'll be cracking into the many books she hasn't had the opportunity to finish the last couple of years.

Finance Minister Grant Robertson told Stuff, "I haven't actually made my summer reading list yet, but a significant part of it will be cricket programmes". Robertson said Treasury was likely to sneak in some summer briefings and he'd be catching up on about 32 issues of The Economist"

His opposite number, National finance spokesperson Paul Goldsmith will be reading Red Notice: How I became Putin's No 1. Enemy by Bill Browder, and Bill Bryson's The Body, he will also be reading The Hobbit with his daughters

National housing spokesperson Judith Collins said she will be too busy writing her own book over the summer break, which she says will make her too busy to read other books.

Trade Minister David Parker has a summer of heavy reading with The Siberian Dilemma, by Martin Cruz Smith and The Triumph of Injustice - How the Rich Dodge Taxes and How to Make Them Pay by Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman, perhaps a harbinger of a tough new tax policy in 2020?

Conservation MinisterEugene Sagewill be reading the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment's report on the environmental impact of tourism, Pristine, popular imperilled? The environmental consequences of tourism growth -- quite intense reading for a holiday. She's also reading The Struggle for Maori Fishing Rights: Te Ika A Mori by Brian Bargh; The Reality Bubble: Blind Spots, Hidden Truths, and the Dangerous Illusions that Shape Our World by Ziya Tong.

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David Seymour will be reading Barry Crump this Christmas

On the fiction side of things, Sage will be cracking into The Island of Sea Women by Lisa See, and The Book of Dust by Philip Pullman.

Minister for Women and Associate Transport and Health Minister Julie Anne Genter plans to finish Between Debt and the Devil: Money, Credit, and Fixing Global Finance by Adair Turner, a book about the role of debt in the Great Financial Crisis.

Bonus points to Nicola WIllis for sending us not just a list of books, but a brief review of why she's reading them. It's a busy summer of reading for the National list MP, beginning with Tayi Tibble's Pokahangatus, with the poem "Hoki Mai" which Willis, a former English lit student said hit her with a boom at the 2018 ANZAC day ceremony. She's also reading These Truths: A History of the United States by New Yorker writer Jill Lepore. Willis visited the US this year which made her want to read more about it's history.

MONIQUE FORD/STUFF

Bookish Nicola Willis plans to squeeze in a lot of reading this summer.

She's also reading Fiona Kidman's This Mortal Boy, "I'm interested by the events leading up to the Mazengarb report into youth delinquency in 50s NZ". She also plans to read Boris Johnson's (yes, he writes books too) The Churchill Factor and Margaret Atwood's booker-prize winning The Testaments.

She's also catching up on issues of Cuisine magazine and The Economist andreading the Harry Potter novels to her children.

National's Transport spokesman Chris Bishop will also be reading a British political memoir, only this time from one of Johnson's opponents, Ken Clarke a pro-EU Tory MP until he resigned ahead of this year's election. Bishop plans to read Clarke's memoir, Kind of Blue.

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Debt, refugees, and a Very Hungry Caterpillar: What MPs plan to read this summer - Stuff.co.nz