The latest Nielsen BookScan New Zealand bestseller list, described by Steve Braunias (plus giveaway of a $75 masterpiece)
1 Birnam Wood by Eleanor Catton (Te Herenga Waka University Press, $38)
Number one for the sixth week – but its reign at the top is under threat. There are two new novels competing for attention, both commercial fiction, which is to say more commercial in aspect and intent than Birnam Wood, a thriller that isn't thrilling, really. Nicky Pellegrino's latest Italian romance is number two with a bullet in its first week (see below) and on Wednesday night I attended the launch for One Of Those Mothers by Megan Nicol Reed. There were a lot of middle-class women at the launch; they took up both floors of Grey Lynn bar Romulus and Remus, a perfect middle-class setting for a novel set among Auckland's middle classes. There are a lot of other middle-class women in New Zealand who will recognise their lives – as mothers, as lovers, as professionals, as anxious climbers of social and moral poles – in Reed's entertaining debut. Its appeal goes beyond our shores; Michelle Hurley from Allen & Unwin announced at the launch that one of Australia's biggest booksellers had put in an order for One Of Those Mothers, and the figure was larger than for any debut New Zealand novel, maybe ever. ReadingRoom is devoting an entire week to it, next week – our first week-long coverage of a book since … Birnam Wood.
2 P.S. Come to Italy by Nicky Pellegrino (Hachette, $36.99)
Expert blurbology: "Belle definitely isn’t falling in love. How could she love someone that she hasn’t met in person? Her home is in New Zealand and Enrico is in southern Italy. They find each other through an online support group and their friendship grows over time and distance … Still, the invitation to spend a summer with his family is unexpected. Come to Italy, Enrico says, and impetuously Belle agrees. He lives in Ostuni, a dazzling white hilltop town rising up from a plateau of olive trees. It seems like the escape she desperately needs. But when she arrives, nothing is quite what she expected…."
3 The Axeman’s Carnival by Catherine Chidgey (Te Herenga Waka University Press, $35)
Shortlisted for the fiction prize at this year's Ockham New Zealand national book awards.
4 Kāwai by Monty Soutar (David Bateman, $39.99)
Shortlisted for the fiction prize at this year's Ockham New Zealand national book awards.
5 Mrs Jewell and the Wreck of the General Grant by Cristina Sanders (The Cuba Press, $37)
Shortlisted for the fiction prize at this year's Ockham New Zealand national book awards.
6 How to Get Fired by Evana Belich (Penguin Random House, $37)
New collection of short stories. One of the stories, 'Me and My Girls', will appear soon in ReadingRoom; it's told by a desperate fellow, and opens, "All I ever think about is beautiful girls and how I’m never going to get them. And I think about all those dudes out there who are going to get them instead of me. Those are the dudes I can’t stand: the movie dudes. The musician dudes. Those are the dudes who get all the beautiful girls. The dream is being stolen by a handful of dudes who have been selected and blessed by an arse of a God. So, I’m going to go through my whole life and never ever get a single one. Maybe if I pay. But the girls you pay don’t really want you. They’re polite and all that. But their eyes go weird. They call you babes. At least the one I went to called me babes. Who calls anyone babes?"
7 Greta and Valdin by Rebecca K Reilly (Te Herenga Waka University Press, $35)
8 Rat King Landlord by Murdoch Stephens & United Renters (Lawrence & Gibson, $30)
The author's 2020 book isn't all that good – all heavy metaphors and agitprop – but the new special edition is cheap ($2!) and fun: it's printed as tabloid newspaper size, containing the full novel as well as 15 original illustrations by NZ artists, and additional resources and information for renters.
9 Always Italicise by Alice Te Punga Somerville (Auckland University Press, $24.99)
Shortlisted for the poetry prize at this year's Ockham New Zealand national book awards.
10 Eddy, Eddy by Kate De Goldi (Allen & Unwin, $29.99)
NON-FICTION
1 Straight Up by Ruby Tui (Allen & Unwin, $36.99)
It was announced this week that the great Tui will appear at the Auckland Writers Festival, chaired by Spinoff editor Madeleine Chapman, in May. It will surely sell out fast; buy a ticket now.
2 Aroha by Hinemoa Elder (Penguin Random House, $30)
3 Be Your Best Self by Rebekah Ballagh (Allen & Unwin, $32.99)
4 A Forager’s Life by Helen Lehndorf (HarperCollins, $39.99)
A copy of the author's brilliant book about the joys and methodology of foraging was up for grabs in last week's ReadingRoom giveaway. Readers were asked to describe any kind of foraging that they have indulged in over the years with whatever result.
There was a huge response. Catherine wrote of foraging for wild mushrooms: "They are best young with pink undersides." Margaret wrote of foraging for "shoots, leaves, rongoa plants, and twigs shells moss wild flowers for decorating my house". This, from Stephanie: "The foraging I can’t resist is to comb Little Kaiteriteri beach every time I visit, to collect cats eyes shells - the abandoned operculum front doors to the shellfish with the intriguing spiral green and brown swirls. We have jars of cats eyes collected over the years on various shelves, and often find a few deep in short pockets after a trip to the beach."
But the winner is Adriane Swinburn. I liked her email a lot. She wrote, "I have a bunch of fellow home-made tea lovers and I would love to know about foraged goodies I can add to the herbs I grow and dry myself so I can keep them better supplied. I stopped work after Covid put an end to my backpacker’s hostel and now I only do things I love for people I love for love."
A copy of A Forager’s Life by Helen Lehndorf is being dispatched to Adriane right this second.
5 Tales of a Vet Nurse by Jade Pengelly (HarperCollins, $39.99)
6 Wawata by Hinemoa Elder (Penguin Random House, $30)
7 The Drinking Game by Guyon Espiner (Allen & Unwin, $36.99)
I'd give up drinking, too, if the only alcohol on offer was craft beer.
8 Māori Made Easy by Scotty Morrison (Penguin Random House, $38)
9 The Sharesies Guide to Investing by Brooke Roberts & Leighton Roberts & Sonya Williams (Allen & Unwin, $36.99)
10 The South Island of New Zealand from the Road by Robin Morrison (Massey University Press, $75)
A copy of this masterpiece - New Zealand photography's equivalent to Dark Side of the Moon, a cosmic mindblowing classic - is up for grabs in this week's giveaway, making it the most expensive giveaway in ReadingRoom giveaway history. It's a work of art. I reviewed it a few weeks ago, and wrote, "Morrison's photos showed you a New Zealand you always knew existed but no one had captured. The South Island of New Zealand From the Road confirmed your sense of a land of space and sky and the bright light of the Pacific. He dealt in New Zealand characteristics. He turned the South Island into a kind of Kiwiana. It was hardcase. It was just making enough to make ends meet. It was empty, it was sad, it was down the end of lonely street; it was settler territory, and it was very white."
Louise Callan writes in the Introduction that there is such a thing as "a Robin Morrison moment" - that strange, laconic manner in which he photographed stucco cottages, old codgers, a lonely land. To enter the draw for this masterpiece, you have to take a photograph of something that in some way qualifies as your very own take or pastiche or imitation of "a Robin Morrison moment"; email it to stephen11@xtra.co.nz with the subject line in screaming caps I REALLY WANT THIS ROBIN MORRISON MASTERPIECE. The deadline is Tuesday midnight, March 28.
