The latest Nielsen BookScan New Zealand bestseller list, described by Steve Braunias
NON-FICTION
1 Smithy by Wayne Smith & Phil Gifford (Upstart Press, $49.99)
Number one with a bullet in its first week - and a free copy is up for grabs in this week's giveaway contest. To win a copy of Gifford's book about the great Wayne Smith, who coached the Black Ferns to Rugby World Cup glory last year, predict the score for this Sunday's Rugby World Cup quarter-final between the All Blacks and Ireland, and email it to stephen11@xtra.co.nz with the subject line in screaming caps I WISH WAYNE SMITH WAS IN CHARGE OF SUNDAY'S MATCH. Entries close at 8am on Sunday, October 15. The prediction closest to the actual result will win.
Meanwhile, to the results of last week's free book giveaway, Rewi by Jade Kake & Jeremy Hansen (Massey University Press, $75), a beautifully designed book that pays tribute to the late architect Rewi Thompson (Ngāti Porou, Ngāti Raukawa), told in 456 pages with plans, drawings, sketches and photos. Readers were asked for their favourite piece of New Zealand architecture. Helen Villiers sent in a photo of the extraordinary Te Rewa Rewa bridge over the Waiwakaiho river in New Plymouth, designed to frame Mt Taranaki in all its glory. Mark Grimstone sent in a poignant, rather Robin Morrison photo of an aquarium on the Kaikoura waterfront.
Good stuff; but the winner is Jillian Sullivan, who wrote of the hut she helped build in Central Otago, "It's a mudbrick writing studio, around 10 square metres, built without plan or consent or experience, and as lovely a dwelling as I could have imagined.
"The hut sits north, facing the mountains, and in the sunlight is a tawny gold. Its red corrugated iron roof matches the farm buildings in the valley, and the houses in the village. It has white windows of small panes of glass on the north and east walls, a door in the north wall and walls built from 100-year-old bricks.
"At 20 to 25 kilos each, made mostly of a grey- brown loam and short tussock, flawed bricks sometimes collapsed as we carried them from wall to trailer, yet in the walls the bricks’ strength is unmistakeable. Horizontal snow and rain, and wind so strong that branches of the willows come loose across the paddock and bikes blow over, makes no difference. Inside the hut it’s calm and still. There’s a queen bed with patchwork quilt under the window, a bed so warm and wide and sun-filled it’s here I do my writing, propped against the mudbrick walls. Roman engineer Vitruvius’s Triad, from his 1st Century book De architectura, required buildings to fulfil three qualities - firmitas, utilitas, venustas , that is, to be strong, useful and beautiful. My hut is all of these. It has its back to the wind and its eyes to the sun, and to see it arising from its girdle of tussock, is to remember again the meaning and beauty of shelter."
Huzzah to Jillian; a free copy of Rewi is hers. Below: the making of the hut.
2 Untouchable Girls by Jools & Lynda Topp (Allen & Unwin, $49.99)
Photos, anecdotes and memories from the ever-awesome Topps.
3 The Dressmaker and the Hidden Soldier by Doug Gold (Allen & Unwin, $37.99)
4 Summer Favourites by Vanya Insull (Allen & Unwin, $39.99)
5 Our Land in Colour by Jock Phillips & Brendan Graham (HarperCollins, $55)
6 Aroha by Hinemoa Elder (Penguin Random House, $30.00)
7 The Art of Winning by Dan Carter (Penguin Random House, $40)
"Nobody wants to be an ex forever", Dan Carter writes in his bestselling self-helper.
8 Fungi of Aotearoa by Liv Sisson (Penguin Random House, $45)
9 Whakawhetai: Gratitude by Hira Nathan (Allen & Unwin, $36.99)
10 Modern Chinese by Sam Low (Allen & Unwin, $49.99)
FICTION
1 The Bone Tree by Airana Ngarewa (Hachette, $37.99)
Number one for the eighth consecutive week.
2 Kāwai by Monty Soutar (David Bateman, $39.99)
3 Birnam Wood by Eleanor Catton (Te Herenga Waka University Press, $38)
4 Pet by Catherine Chidgey (Te Herenga Waka University Press, $38)
I read Pet last week and enjoyed it as a terrific piece of entertainment, very cleverly and carefully plotted, even though for the longest time I thought: The most dramatic thing to happen so far is that a schoolgirl has lost her favourite pen. It had that kind of Famous Five or Sweet Valley High vibe; the author very easily got inside the head of her protagonist, a 12-year-old girl, and was faithful to a 12-year-old's New Zealand existence, where nothing much happens but everything is deeply felt. And then, eventually, flagged quite heavily, things did begin to happen, until they happened with incredible violence. In his Newsroom review, Philip Matthews wrote, "There is a threatening, sickly atmosphere throughout..At its heart, Pet is a story about the temptations of charismatic and attractive characters who can take advantage of weakness and vulnerability." Good insights; I also read it as a page-turner with depth, and although I ultimately had the same problem with Chidgey's novel that I had with Eleanor Catton's entertainment, Birnam Wood - the ending, and its kill-kill-kill garish melodramatics - the fact is I liked it a lot.
5 The Penguin New Zealand Anthology (Penguin Random House, $45)
Hm. This is kind of...ironic. The book is an anthology of 50 short stories to celebrate 50 years of publishing by Penguin in New Zealand, selected by the great fiction editor, Harriett Allan - who only recently was made redundant by Penguin. Strange to think of her superiors plotting her dismissal as she busied herself with the task of editing a book commemorating the publisher's commitment to New Zealand writing. It's an excellent collection of stories published from 1973-2023, with all the big names (Gee, Frame, Stead, Grace, etc) and more recent stories by Eleanor Catton, Dominic Hoey, Charlotte Grimshaw and Alice Tawhai. "This book is about the authors," Allan writes in the Introduction, with typical humility; one of those authors, Fiona Kidman, has written a tribute to Allan that will appear in ReadingRoom next week, in honour of her friend and colleague.
6 The Axeman’s Carnival by Catherine Chidgey (Te Herenga Waka University Press, $35)
7 Everything is Beautiful and Everything Hurts by Josie Shapiro (Allen & Unwin, $36.99)
Paddy Gower's new favourite book.
8 Ocian’s Elven (Tarquin the Honest 2) by Gareth Ward (David Bateman, $34.99)
9 The Whale Rider by Witi Ihimaera (Penguin Random House, $15.99)
10 The Witching Tide by Margaret Meyer (Hachette, $37.99)
