FICTION
1 All Her Lives by Ingrid Horrocks (Te Herenga Waka University Press, $35)
Short stories.
2 The Storm Weaver by Ivy Cliffwater (Hachette, $37.99)
Speculative fiction.
3 Slash by Gavin Strawhan (Allen & Unwin, $37.99)
Crime fiction.
4 The Bruise Palette by Helen Lehndorf (Firestarter Press, $29.99)
Poems; sales were evidently brisk when the collection was launched at the Palmerston North City Library.
5 Malachite (Valmora Academy) by Ashley Andersen (Hachette, $37.99)
Speculative fiction.
6 The Other Catherine by Lauren Keenan (Penguin Random House, $38)
Historical fiction.
7 Maybe Baby by Emma Neale (David Bateman, $38.99)
Everything the Dunedin author writes is a pleasure to read and her latest novel has a lively premise. Blurbology: “Nate, a grieving widower, is determined to honour his late wife Kelly, and find a way to have the child they were desperate to create together. After exploring various possibilities, which all fail, he is compelled to try something radical: he leaves his Dunedin home to take part in a groundbreaking medical trial in London. En route, he meets Sadie, an independent, intelligent, self-sufficient woman and finds himself irresistibly attracted to her…”
8 The Black Monk by Charlotte Grimshaw (Penguin Random House, $38)
Literary fiction.
9 Tea and Cake and Death (The Bookshop Detectives 2) by Gareth and Louise Ward (Penguin Random House, $28)
Detective adventure fiction.
10 The Secrets of the Lost Vineyard by Erin Palmisano (Hachette, $37.99)
Commercial fiction.
NONFICTION
1 One Last Question, Prime Minister by Barry Soper (HarperCollins, $39.99)
Mr Barry John Soper of Auckland was named an Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit (ONZM) for his services to journalism in last weekend’s King’s Birthday Honours List.
2 No Pit Stops by Grant Baker (Mary Egan Publishing, $38)
Business memoir by an entrepreneur and venture capitalist. Successful guy! He told Victoria Young at Business Desk in 2022, “One thing I think of as more of a holistic failure is I got cancer, 15 years ago now. At the time, I was thinking about work and was stressed and all that sort of stuff. I had symptoms earlier, but not paying them any attention was probably my biggest failure ever. I underwent my first session of chemotherapy on the day of the first call with Bacardi [which bought 42 Below for $138 million].” And: “My best advice would be never run out of money. I know that sounds trite, but running out of money would always be your biggest problem.” Also: “I’ve got nine Ferraris at the moment. Over the years, I’ve had 35. I’ve got a lock-up, but my two biggest constraints are space and money.”
3 The Valley by Asher Emanuel (Bridget Williams Books, $39.99)
Dozens of people had to be turned away from the recent Wellington launch of this astonishing nonfiction novel; circle the date now for his Auckland launch, when Emanuel is in conversation with Max Harris at the Ellen Melville Centre on Freyberg Place on Wednesday, July 1, at 5.30pm.
A free copy of The Valley was up for grabs in last week’s giveaway contest. Readers were asked to nominate the best work of NZ nonfiction published this century. It was an immensely popular contest (everyone wants a piece of The Valley) and nominations included Redemption Songs by Judith Binney, The Mirror Book by Charlotte Grimshaw, Impact Erebus by Gordon Vette, Luke Smythe’s Gretchen Albrecht: Between Gesture and Geometry, my book Civilisation: 20 Places on the Edge of the World, Maurice Gee: Life and Work by Rachel Barrowman, Ghost Dance by Douglas Wright, and Ganglands by Jared Savage.
The winner is Clare Veltman, who nominated one of my favourite NZ books from the past 10 years, Hard By The Cloud House by Peter Walker. She wrote, “He explored stories from Aotearoa and the Middle East about a huge predatory bird, our extinct eagle Te Hokioi. What I wasn’t expecting, and cannot forget, was his account of how Maori near Kaiapoi were robbed of their traditional hunting grounds. One of them, Metehau, wrote directly to Queen Victoria in 1849 about it. Thirty years later, Maori brought notebooks to the Royal Commission investigating grievances at Kaiapoi, and recorded the evidence. Walker wrote ‘Metehau … knew that the written word had stubborn, unchanging value.’ I’m nominating Walker’s book because I can’t nominate Metehau, who will forever stay with me. My own great great grandmother signed birth and death registers with a cross (‘her mark’) in the same decade that Metehau wrote his beautiful copperplate letter, never forwarded to the monarch by NZ authorities.”
Fantastic entry. I’m forever dazzled by the intelligence and depth of ReadingRoom readers. Huzzah to Clare! She wins a free copy of The Valley by Asher Emanuel.
4 Lessons on Living by Nigel Latta (HarperCollins, $39.99)
5 Become Unstoppable by Gilbert Enoka (Penguin Random House, $40)
6 A Different Kind of Power by Jacinda Ardern (Penguin Random House, $40)
7 The Good Settler by Richard Shaw (Massey University Press, $39.99)
A free copy is up for grabs of the prolific Massey University lecturer’s latest thoughts on our place in post-colonial NZ. Shaw says: “Wherever you go, you will find yourself walking, living, or studying, or dying on land which has a problematic history. And I think being a good settler at the very basic level means reflecting on what that might mean for you.”
Hm. To enter, discuss Shaw’s proposition, and say what it means to you to stand on land “which has a problematic history”, by emailing stephen11@xtra.co.nz with the subject line in screaming caps THE NEW ZEALAND SETTLEMENT by midnight on Sunday, June 7.
Awesome cover by Rod Hill.
8 The Secret Life of Fungi by Jay Lichter (Allen & Unwin, $49.99)
Very beautiful colour photographs of fungi.
9 Champions Do Extra by Brad Thorn (HarperCollins, $39.99)
10 Te Kaikaukau: The Swimmer by Witi Ihimaera Smiler (Auckland University Press, $45)
