NONFICTION
1 Saving Elli by Doug Gold (Allen & Unwin, $37.99)
WWII story.
2 Ara by Hinemoa Elder (Penguin Random House, $30)
Spiritual advice.
3 Become Unstoppable by Gilbert Enoka (Penguin Random House, $40)
Motivation for men to do something about it.
4 A Different Kind of Power by Jacinda Ardern (Penguin Random House, $59.99)
I fondly remember commissioning Wintec journalism student Candice Jones to interview Ardern back when she was a promising Labour MP.
Favourite movie? “For a lot of years it was Shawshank Redemption. I love that film. Run Lola Run would also be up there too. It’s a German film.”
Favourite album? “I was asked the other day to bring in an album to a radio station that I thought shaped my life so I took in Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band by The Beatles.”
5 Just a Mum’s Kitchen by Anna Cameron (Allen & Unwin, $45)
Recipes.
6 The Unlikely Doctor by Timoti Te Moke (Allen & Unwin, $37.99)
Medical memoir.
7 Habits of High Performers by James Laughlin (HarperCollins, $39.99)
Motivation for men to leave the house.
8 Edible Weeds Handbook by Andrew Crowe (Penguin Random House, $35)
Best book about edible weeds published in 2025.
9 Everything But the Medicine by Lucy O’Hagan (Massey University Press, $39.99)
A free copy of this excellent new memoir by a Wanaka GP is up for grabs in this week’s giveaway contest. I think it’s one of the best books of nonfiction of 2025, up there with Route 52 by Simon Burt, Northbound: Four Seasons of Solitude on Te Araroa by Naomi Arnold, Underworld by Jared Savage, and, you know, that book about bloody old Polkinghorne.
It deals with personal issues such as her brother’s death, the end of her marriage, falling in love with her best friend, her son’s epilepsy and her burnout. O’Hagan says, “I think it’s unusual for a doctor’s book because it’s so personal. I am honest and open about myself and about how it is to sit in the room with all that distress and suffering, but also honest about the culture of medicine. These are things doctors don’t often talk about in the first person. I wanted to write a book about how it is to be the doctor, rather than a book that just peers into patients’ lives as if they are interesting cases. It’s a tricky balance because to describe being the doctor, you have to have a character called patient. I think I have tried to uphold the mana of all.”
To enter the contest, share a personal story about a GP in your life. Names can be withheld on request. Be honest. Be kind if you wish or seething with rage if you prefer. Tell all or tell some. Email your story to stephen11@xtra.co.nz with the subject line in screaming caps DR LIVINGSTONE, DR MENGELE, DR ZHIVAGO, DR ROPATA by midnight on Sunday, October 5.
Awful cover.
10 Underworld by Jared Savage (HarperCollins, $39.99)
One of the best books of nonfiction of 2025, up there with Everything But the Medicine by Lucy O’Hagan and, you know, that book about bloody old Polkinghorne.
FICTION
1 The Vanishing Place by Zoe Rankin (Hachette, $37.99)
Number 1 for the fifth consecutive week, this thriller about a family hidden in the bush was spookily published in the same month as the Tom Phillips case reached its deadly end, and has really captured the public imagination.
2 Julia Eichardt by Lauren Roche (Flying Books Publishing, $36.99)
3 The Book of Guilt by Catherine Chidgey (Te Herenga Waka University Press, $38)
Là Chidge will preside at a special literary event next weekend in Hamilton: as the convenor of the Sargeson Prize, New Zealand’s richest short story award, she will be on hand when the winner and finalists are announced. Stories placed first, second and third, as well as the winner of the secondary schools division, will be published at ReadingRoom on consecutive Saturdays from October 17. I know the names of the winners but haven’t been sent the stories, judged by Elizabeth Knox; I look forward to reading them and hopefully look forward to publishing them.
4 See How They Fall by Rachel Paris (Hachette, $37.99)
5 Dead Girl Gone (The Bookshop Detectives 1) by Gareth and Louise Ward (Penguin Random House, $26)
6 Tea and Cake and Death (The Bookshop Detectives 2) by Gareth and Louise Ward (Penguin Random House, $38)
7 Hooked Up by Fiona Sussman (David Bateman, $38.99)
A free copy of the new thriller by a master of crime writing was up for grabs in last week’s giveaway contest. The premise for the book is that a serial killer is at large in Auckland. I loved the book but hated the premise; and readers were invited to send in their thoughts on the remote possibility that New Zealand would ever harbour a serial killer. It was not an overly popular contest and most of the entries were kind of incoherent, which I think is apposite to the book’s premise.
One entry was particularly gnomic. I do not know what it is getting at but I like it, and it qualifies as the winning entry. Margaret wrote, “Too many babies, hard work and a weak heart made my grandmother an old lady at sixty.
“Nana kept her little state house neat as a pin and the smell of her delicious baking, and her loving arms welcomed you in.
“When I would stay with her in the school holidays in the 1950’s, I was included in her morning ritual.
“After her chores were completed, she would prepare morning tea on a tray. She would take off her pinny and fold it neatly in her lap as we sat down by the radio to wait in hushed anticipation for the start of the serials.
“Portia Faces Life and Doctor Paul were her favourites.
“They have all been killed off.
“QED.”
What? Oh well; huzzah to Margaret, who wins a copy of Hooked Up by Fiona Sussman.
8 May You Always Know by Jessica Urlichs & Bethany Gale (Hachette, $24.99)
Instapoems.
9 Everything is Beautiful and Everything Hurts by Josie Shapiro (Allen & Unwin, $27.99)
Tauranga writer Anne Cleary was announced this week as the winner of the 2025 Allen & Unwin fiction prize. Her winning entry, Apple Man, a psychological thriller about a young boy who goes missing while on a fishing trip with his father, merits her an $10,000 advance and publication with Allen & Unwin. It’s a hell of a good prize and it can change a writer’s life. The inaugural winner of the fiction prize was Everything is Beautiful and Everything Hurts by Josie Shapiro, published in May 2023, which has sold more than 12,000 copies. Shapiro’s second novel, Good Things Come and Go, is published by Allen & Unwin at the end of this month. Look out for it; when this author tells a story, she tells a story.
10 Wonderland by Tracy Farr (The Cuba Press, $38)
Fiona Kidman describes it as “passionate”. The blurbology is passionate, too: “Miramar Peninsula, Wellington 1912. Dr Matti Loverock spends her days and nights bringing babies into the world, which means her daughters—seven-year-old triplets Ada, Oona and Hanna—have grown up at Wonderland, the once-thriving amusement park owned by their father, Charlie. Then a grieving woman arrives to stay from the other side of the world, in pain and incognito, fleeing scandal. She ignites the triplets’ curiosity and brings work for Matti, diverting them all from what is really happening at Wonderland. In a bold reimagining, Marie Curie—famous for her work on radioactivity—comes to Aotearoa and discovers both solace and wonder.”
Marie Curie! Dr Matti Loverock!
Great cover.
