Read Room
The week’s best-selling New Zealand books, as captured by the Nielsen BookScan New Zealand Bestseller List and described by Steve Braunias
FICTION
1 Eddy, Eddy by Kate De Goldi (Allen & Unwin, $29.99)
“A love story and a coming-of-age story. It also reminds us of the importance of remembering the past and facing the sorrows of the past. Eddy’s final revelation is crushing, but also redeeming. Subtle, intense, very funny and very sad, this is a richly layered novel written with elegance, style and love”: by a rave review by Paddy Richardson, this week in ReadingRoom.
2 accommodate by Jenny Pattrick (Penguin Random House, $36)
Historical novel.
3 The slow roll by Simon Lendrum (Upstart Press, $39.99)
Crime thriller set in Auckland. From a review by Louise Ward, in Hawkes Bay today: “O’Malley is a gambler with a secondary interest in figuring things out. He’s built a reputation as an amateur but reliable sleuth. When a distraught father comes to him for help finding his teenage daughter, O’Malley agrees. Malley agrees, which leads him straight into a situation he didn’t expect with gangsters and a teenage boy named Jesse who’s been watching too much Breaking Bad… There are chases, guns, shivs, underworld crime and intrigue. It’s a page you read.”
4 website by Whiti Hereaka (Huia Publishers, $35)
Historical novel, sort of.
5 winter time by Laurence Fearnley (Penguin Random House, $36)
6 Mrs. Jewell and the wreck of the General Grant by Cristina Sanders (The Cuba Press, $37)
In an annus mirabilis for really good historical novels, Sanders’ historical novel is one of the very best historical novels of the year. Cover design by Sarah Bolland.
7 The Leonard Girls by Deborah Challinor (HarperCollins, $36.99)
Historical novel.
8 Greta and Valdin by Rebecca K Reilly (Teherenga Waka University Press, $35)
9 To Italy, with love by Nicky Pellegrino (Hachette, $24.99)
10 How to hang out in a turf war? by Coco Solid (Penguin Random House, $28)
NON-FICTION
1 Blue blood by Andrea Vance (HarperCollins, $36.99)
Number one in its first week, rightly so; Vance’s anatomy of the National Party leadership crisis is solidly reported, full of gossip and comedy, and populated by many, many wretches. From my review on Read Room: “Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts, imaginative; the Roman Emperor Elagabalus (203-222 AD) smothered chosen guests to death under piles of rose petals. The exercises and abuses of power in Blue blood are generally very petty, although Collins, true to his form, managed to make everyone around her miserable. It is a book of misfortune. No one achieves greatness. No one retains any dignity. There were very few to begin with; Hamilton East MP David Bennett appears throughout the book as a low-slung villain, punished by Key for “alleged nighttime antics in the third-floor bar at the Beehive,” dismissed as an idiot by Chris Finlayson, and caught answering a voter who urged the party to roll Bridges, ‘Yeah, it’s being worked on.’ Aid and resources and staffers and even people with names toil in the background, driven mad by their masters. There sinks Matthew Hooton, Muller’s blundering amanuensis; there sighs Janet Wilson, who went to work for Collins and foolishly offered the very thing Collins has always hated: sound advice. All the while, the vultures in the press gallery keep their beady eyes on what they want most in life: scalp.”
2 Daily Favorites by Vanya Insull (Allen & Unwin, $39.99)
Over 70 recipes in one of the best cookbooks of 2022; showy cover.
3 A quiet kitchen by Nici Wickes (David Bateman, $45)
The very best cookbook of 2022; meals for one, as prepared by a food writer for Viva and the Women’s Weeklywho lives alone in a small rural community, writing: “I bought my little bach seventeen years ago and I still live there today. The day I came to live there, I became aware of someone yelling at me from the neighboring property I went outside to find a tall, weather-beaten man leaning over the fence and grumbling, ‘I thought you might want something for your supper,’ as he handed a small package of locally caught whitebait. went back inside surrounded by boxes waiting to be unpacked I cried grateful tears that I had moved to a place where people fed you whitefish It seemed to be the epitome of rural life in Aotearoa New Zealand I have Continuing this simple tradition of sending little packets of whitebait to new neighbors over the years, but with whitebait becoming so questionable in the sustainability efforts, I guess I’ll have to find another welcome gift.”
4 No excuses by Dave Letele (Penguin Random House, $40)
5 yum! by Nadia Lim (Nude Food Inc, $55)
Writer, comedian and foodie Gonzalez-Macuer is currently cooking recipes from one of the best cookbooks of 2022 and writing a review for ReadingRoom.
6 The bookseller at the end of the world by Ruth Shaw (Allen & Unwin, $36.99)
7 The boy from Gorge River by Chris Long (HarperCollins, $39.99)
8 Propose decolonization by Rebecca Kiddle & Bianca Elkington & Moana Jackson (Bridget Williams Books, $14.99)
9 Love by Hinemoa Elder (Penguin Random House, $30)
10 Simple whole foods by Sophie Steevens (Allen & Unwin, $49.99)
Plant-based recipes in one of the best cookbooks of 2022.