FICTION

1 The Last Living Cannibal by Airana Ngarewa (Hachette, $37.99)

Oho! Number 1 with a bullet in its first week in the shops, Ngarewa’s keenly anticipated second novel centres on a  Māori family and is set in 1940s Taranaki. A free copy is up for grabs in this week’s giveaway contest. To enter, share a story or insight about Māori life in Taranaki from a previous decade of your choosing, of the 20th or 19th  century, and email it to stephen11@xtra.co.nz with the subject line in screaming caps UNDER THE MOUNTAIN by midnight on Sunday, October 12.

2 The Vanishing Place by Zoe Rankin (Hachette, $37.99)

3 Julia Eichardt by Lauren Roche (Flying Books Publishing, $36.99)

4 The Book of Guilt by Catherine Chidgey (Te Herenga Waka University Press, $38)

5 Hooked Up by Fiona Sussman (David Bateman, $38.99)

6 Dead Girl Gone (The Bookshop Detectives 1) by Gareth and Louise Ward (Penguin Random House, $26)

7 Tea and Cake and Death (The Bookshop Detectives 2) by Gareth and Louise Ward (Penguin Random House, $38)

8 Dead Ends by Laura Borrowdale (Tender Press, $30)

Blazingly original short stories by a master of the form. One will appear in ReadingRoom soon; it’s titled “The Bullpit”, in reference to a hollow in a field where children go to play. Strange how such bullpits are a common feature of New Zealand childhoods. Borrowdale writes, “The bullpit was dark and shadowy, separated from the golden summer grass that filled the rest of the large field by a dense pine plantation and a fence. It had been dug out for shingle by the previous owners, leaving a deep earthy hole in the ground. That was a long time ago though, and the steep sides of the quarry had slipped down and grown into grassy slopes the children could roll down. It seemed very far away….”

9 Where in All the World by Vanessa Croft (David Bateman, $38.99)

10 1985 by Dominic Hoey (Penguin Random House, $38)

NONFICTION

1 Lessons on Living by Nigel Latta (HarperCollins, $39.99)

Vale, Nigel Latta, born July 3, 1967 in Oamaru, died September 30, 2025 in Auckland.

2 Nadia’s Farm Kitchen by Nadia Lim (Nude Food, $55)

3 Perspective by Shaun Jonson (Penguin Random House $40)

Sports bio of the league leader. 

4 The Hollows Boys by Peta Carey (Potton & Burton, $39.99)

Really exciting account of the helicopter deer recovery era in Fiordland, told through the lives of three brothers, Gary, Mark and Kim Hollows. A really exciting extract will appear in ReadingRoom next week.

Good cover.

5 Ara by Hinemoa Elder (Penguin Random House, $30)

6 Become Unstoppable by Gilbert Enoka (Penguin Random House, $40)

7 A Different Kind of Power by Jacinda Ardern (Penguin Random House, $59.99)

Political bio of the Labour leader.

8 Saving Elli by Doug Gold (Allen & Unwin, $37.99)

9 Everything But the Medicine by Lucy O’Hagan (Massey University Press, $39.99)

A free copy of the Wanaka GP’s excellent memoir was up for grabs in last week’s giveaway contest. O’Hagan writes very personally, of herself and not just her patients; as such, readers were asked to share a personal story about a doctor. Many of the entries were…peculiar. Most were lacking in affection. Nicholas wrote about a Polish doctor who got upset: “It looked like smoke was going to start pouring out his ears and nostrils.” Jeffrey wrote about the doctor in Blackball who reluctantly agreed to look at a hawk with a broken leg, but when he gave it anaesthetic, it died.

The winning entry came from Annabelle, who wrote, peculiarly, and I think affectionately, “Over a couple of weekends every autumn, he’d perch above the deck of an old Bedford truck that diesel-crawled its way along the leaf-strewn streets of Arrowtown and play the piano, to the surprised stares and cheers of last week’s bad coughs and buggered knees.  On the deck there was just enough room for a fellow on banjo, another on fiddle and a piano accordion player at the back.  It was local history – gold mining, settlers, hardship – dressed up as festival entertainment.  His red top hat bowed over ivories that trotted out old-school singalongs like Side by Side and Goodnight, Irene.  It was the village doctor having fun.

“Thirty-five years on, the daily piano workout honours Debussy, Schubert, Cole Porter and Dave Brubeck, the old tunes now bottom-drawered for occasional singalong sessions, the daily practice times luxuriously long.  He’s become a landscaper, building steps and curvaceous boardwalks and safety barriers on a steep and rocky island garden.  He’ll come in for coffee and a scone and often he’ll linger, watching a rugby replay or reading a book on his phone.  He’s discovering space and craftsmanship, shedding an intense life that asked much of him for almost fifty years.  No more midnight summonses to deliver a baby, no more death certificate signings nor careful pronouncements of terminal illness within the quiet walls of his surgery, while the next and the next wait on hard seats down the passage.

“The doctor is at leisure now.”

Huzzah to Annabelle. She wins a free copy of Everything But the Medicine by Lucy O’Hagan.

10 Gold Under the Mānuka by Bill Mouat & Carolyn Mouat (David Bateman, $49.99)

Hm. Interesting blurbology: “True story of how the Mouat family of Mangaorapa Station transformed a block of seemingly worthless scrubland into one of New Zealand’s most successful, innovative farming operations.”