The Waters by Carl Nixon
Category: Fiction
A novel in 21 stories. One family. Forty years. The Waters kids ― practical, athletic Mark; the physically beautiful dreamer Davey; and the baby of the family, Samantha ― have had to face more than their fair share of challenges. 1979 was the year their father sold up the farm and invested all the fam ...Show more
We Need To Talk About Norman - New Zealand's Lost Leader by Denis Welch
Category: Best Non Fiction
Norman Kirk was Prime Minister for only 90 weeks but in the early 1970s he inspired us by leading a visionary government with a clear moral purpose. His work also defined New Zealand as a progressive small state with a deep internationalism which became central to our national identity. When he died, we ...Show more
Biter by Claudia Jardine
Category: Best Poetry Books
Ancient Greek epigrams drive a bitingly contemporary first poetry collection.Filled with hickeys puttanesca and tart wit, BITER is an apt title for Claudia Jardine's debut collection of verse. Fresh translations of erotic Greek epigrams are threaded through boozy sonnets, ecstatic odes and startlingly v ...Show more
Tung by Robyn Maree Pickens
Category: Best Poetry Books
Tung is the keenly anticipated debut collection from award-winning Otepoti-Dunedin poet, Robyn Maree Pickens. Earth-centred and life-affirming, these poems offer sustenance and repair to a planet in the grips of a socio-ecological crisis. Pickens is an eco-pioneer of words, attuned to the fine murmuri ...Show more
There's a Cure for This - A Memoir by Emma Wehipeihana [Emma Espiner]
Category: Biography
The striking debut memoir from award-winning doctor and writer, Emma Wehipeihana [Emma Espiner]. "I graduated as a doctor in 2020 and arrived into the Covid-19 pandemic with my ta moko on my arm, my hospital lanyard, my stethoscope and a purpose. I don't know why medicine felt like coming home. I had no ...Show more
At The Point of Seeing by Megan Kitching
Category: Best Poetry Books
At the Point of Seeing is the extraordinary debut collection from Ōtepoti Dunedin poet Megan Kitching. Poised, richly observant and deftly turned, Kitching’s poems bestow a unique attention upon the world. Her eye is finely attuned to the well-trodden yet overlooked – the places between ‘dirt and thumb’ ...Show more
Birnam Wood by Eleanor Catton
Category: No Category
Birnam Wood is on the move… A landslide has closed the Korowai Pass in New Zealand’s South Island, cutting off the town of Thorndike, leaving a sizable farm abandoned. The disaster presents an opportunity for Birnam Wood, a guerrilla gardening collective that plants crops wherever no one will notice. Bu ...Show more
Transposium by Dani Yourukova
Category: LGBTQI
Part philosophy thesis and part psychosexual Ancient Greek fever dream, Dani Yourukova' s Transposium adapts Plato into poetry, featuring queer longing, a choose-your-own-adventure apocalypse, Les Misé rables slash fiction and love poems about dead philosophers.Shameless, witty and hot with curiosity, t ...Show more
Not Set in Stone by David Vass
Category: Best Non Fiction
Between the 1980s and 2015, Dave Vass became one of New Zealand's leading mountaineers. In 'Not Set in Stone' he recounts the beginning of his outdoor life caving and rafting, before turning to climbing, first around Arthur's Pass, and then at Aoraki/Mount Cook National Park. A move to Wanaka saw him ...Show more
Talia by Isla Huia
Category: Best Poetry Books
Talia is the debut poetry collection from Isla Huia (Te Āti Haunui a-Pāpārangi, Uenuku). It is a critique of hometowns, an analysis of whakapapa, and a reclamation of tongue. It is an ode to the earth she stands on, and to a sister she lost to the skies. It is a manifesto for a future full of aunties an ...Show more
Privilege in Perpetuity - Exploding a Pākehā Myth (BWB Texts) by Peter Meihana
Category: Best Non Fiction
'The idea of Maori privilege continues to be deployed in order to constrain Maori aspirations and maintain the power imbalance that colonisation achieved in the nineteenth century.' The 'idea of Maori privilege', as Peter Meihana describes it, is deeply embedded in New Zealand culture. Many New Zealande ...Show more
Our Land in Colour by Jock Phillips, Brendan Graham
Category: Best Illustrated Books
A breathtaking collection of 200 photographs expertly colourised by Aotearoa New Zealand's premier colourist, Brendan Graham, with commentary from award-winning historian Jock Phillips ONZM Our Land in Colour celebrates the rich story of Aotearoa through the restoration of images never before seen in co ...Show more