The Unity Books bestseller chart for the week ending May 15

The only published and available best-selling indie book chart in New Zealand is the top 10 sales list recorded every week at Unity Books’ stores in High St, Auckland, and Willis St, Wellington. AUCKLAND 1  Auē by Becky Manawatu (Makaro Press, $35) Newly anointed winner of the Jann Medlicott Acorn Prize for Fiction. The judges were … Read more

The rise and triumphant rise of Mākaro Press

Mary McCallum found out last night that Becky Manawatu’s novel Auē, published by her tiny press, had won the richest prize in New Zealand literature.  Three of the best nights of my life have been at this country’s national book awards. The first time was 2008 when my novel The Blue, published by Penguin, was … Read more

Please welcome to the stage: Shayne Carter

Dead People I Have Known, a memoir, just won the General Non-Fiction category at the New Zealand Book Awards. The judges were Hocken librarian and documentary and cultural heritage collections advisor Sharon Dell, bookseller and reviewer Stella Chrysostomou and journalist Guyon Espiner. Their comments, per the press release:    “From the first page, Shayne Carter … Read more

Introducing the Ockhams-ready Spinoff book awards bingo card!

Pour some bubbly, stick some sausage rolls on a platter, and park yourself in front of the laptop – the lockdown Ockhams are being broadcast live tonight on YouTube. Courtesy of illustrator Toby Morris, we have just the thing to complete your viewing experience. Tonight, the 2020 Ockham New Zealand Book Awards ceremony goes live … Read more

The ghost of love will have her way: a poet responds to Auē

An essay-review of Becky Manawatu’s novel Auē, one of four finalists for the Jann Medlicott Acorn Prize for Fiction, the most prestigious of the Ockham New Zealand Book Awards.  There are ghosts. They are real. You are born with them. You will die with them. They are your inheritance and will be your legacy. Cest … Read more

The Unity Books bestseller chart for the week ending May 8

The only published and available best-selling indie book chart in New Zealand is the top 10 sales list recorded every week at Unity Books’ stores in High St, Auckland, and Willis St, Wellington. AUCKLAND 1  The Mirror & the Light by Hilary Mantel (Fourth Estate, $50) The author, to Vulture: “When I got towards the … Read more

A review of Attraction, the road trip novel we need right now

Take a vicarious roadie via Attraction, the novel by Ruby Porter that was longlisted for the country’s biggest fiction prize. Released last year, it’s now a slightly eerie snapshot of Aotearoa as we were.  Attraction is a New Zealand road trip novel with a heavy dose of postcolonial guilt. Whitewashing, cultural amnesia, reckoning with intergenerational … Read more

The Unity Books bestseller chart for the week ending March 6

The only published and available best-selling indie book chart in New Zealand is the top 10 sales list recorded every week at Unity Books’ stores in High St, Auckland, and Willis St, Wellington. AUCKLAND 1  Before the Coffee Gets Cold by Toshikazu Kawaguchi (Picador, $20) Six weeks at the top of the Auckland chart, now. … Read more

The Ockham finalists just got announced, and two very hot books are missing

Ladies and gentlemen we have a horse race. Below, books editor Catherine Woulfe offers up odds on the fiction contenders. But first, here’s the complete list of finalists for the 2020 Ockham New Zealand Book Awards. THE JANN MEDLICOTT ACORN PRIZE FOR FICTION Auē, by Becky Manawatu (Mākaro Press) Pearly Gates, by Owen Marshall (Vintage, … Read more

Fearless and perfectly formed: Rose Lu’s All Who Live on Islands, reviewed

Brannavan Gnanalingam reads Rose Lu’s groundbreaking essay collection – overlooked by the Ockhams judges – and finds it full of elevating yarns that make him feel seen.  The question many non-white people dread is, “where are you from?” The question is loaded – obviously, people have noticed your skin colour as different from the outset. … Read more

Breaking news: the Ockhams 2020 finalists, a chorus of triumph and travesty

At 5am this morning, like a dawn chorus, the embargo lifted on the Ockham New Zealand Book Awards longlist. Here are the 40 books that made it, followed by some frank thoughts from our books editor, Catherine Woulfe. ACORN FOUNDATION FICTION PRIZE The Absolute Book by Elizabeth Knox (Victoria University Press) Lonely Asian Woman by … Read more