This week's biggest-selling New Zealand books, as recorded by the Nielsen BookScan New Zealand bestseller list and described by Steve Braunias
FICTION
1 Kurangaituku by Whiti Hereaka (Huia Publishers, $35)
Number one for the second consecutive week.
2 Harbouring by Jenny Pattrick (Penguin Random House, $36)
3 The Leonard Girls by Deborah Challinor (HarperCollins, $36.99)
4 Greta and Valdin by Rebecca K Reilly (Victoria University Press, $35)
5 How to Loiter In a Turf War by Coco Solid (Penguin Random House, $28)
6 Slow Down, You’re Here by Brannavan Gnanalingam (Lawrence & Gibson, $25)
Looking to buy a funny, clever novel about sexual harassment in the workplace to read this Queen's Birthday Weekend? Wellington independent publishers Lawrence & Gibson have just the book for you: Down from Upland, by Murdoch Stephens, which I named at ReadingRoom this week as "the best New Zealand novel of the year to date". From my review: "It's a satire of the Wellington civil service – its anxieties, its directives, its sexual tensions – and Stephens handles it with great skill, including a long, excruciating scene where the main character blunders his way towards a complaint of sexual harassment. It takes place in a downtown bar. Stephens offers the reader a seat at their table. We hear the older male, younger female encounter at close range – his insistence on talking about sex, her silence and discomfit. It’s so awful to witness and also so compelling to read…It's very funny, and it ought to be a best-seller, bought in droves. This is a book anyone can read and take pleasure in recognising codes of conduct in 2022…. Send Down from Upland into the Nielsen top 10 best-seller chart at once."
The same publishers have another novel out at the moment, by Brannavan Gnanalingam, already in the chart, at number six; it's set on Waiheke Island, and the cover is below.
7 Loop Tracks by Sue Orr (Victoria University Press, $35)
8 tumble by Joanna Preston (Otago University Press, $27.50)
9 Embedded by David Burt (Mary Egan Publishing, $30)
10 Auē by Becky Manawatu (Makaro Press, $35)
A fantastic review appeared in the New York Times last week of the most successful New Zealand novel since The Wish Child and, before that, The Luminaries: "'Auē' is the Maori word for a howling cry, and this layered work weaves a striking tapestry of fierce love and unflinching violence worthy of its poetic title… Manawatu excels at enriching her characters and story lines with heartbreaking detail. The book’s plotting veers dangerously close to melodrama in its chaotic final act, but Manawatu recovers with a moving finish to this devastating, beautifully written tale imbued with Maori culture and language."
NON-FICTION
1 Yum by Nadia Lim (Nude Food Inc, $55)
You could do a lot worse this long weekend than to make a chicken soup recipe from Lim's latest cookbook. It's online, too, at the Herald, where the recipe appeared this week. It's for chicken, vegetable and pea soup. Basically what you do is boil a chook for 40 minutes, keep the stock, tear off the meat, cook some onions and celery, simmer yellow split peas in the stock for 30 minutes, then stir in the meat with herbs and kernels of corn. She writes, "There are few dishes more comforting than homemade chicken soup."
2 The Boy from Gorge River by Chris Long (HarperCollins, $39.99)
3 The Bookseller at the End of the World by Ruth Shaw (Allen & Unwin, $36.99)
4 Grand by Noelle McCarthy (Penguin Random House, $35)
5 Natural Care by Wendyl Nissen (Allen & Unwin, $45)
Nice cover, with helpful advice on wellness.
6 Aroha by Hinemoa Elder (Penguin Random House, $30)
7 Simple Wholefoods by Sophie Steevens (Allen & Unwin, $49.99)
8 I am Autistic by Chanelle Moriah (Allen & Unwin, $29.99)
9 Letters to You by Jazz Thornton (Penguin Random House, $30)
This week Thornton became the first author to win Dancing with the Stars, and all of New Zealand literature is celebrating.
10 Matariki: The Star of the Year by Rangi Matamua (Huia Publishers, $35)
