{"id":96994,"date":"2025-10-23T18:22:54","date_gmt":"2025-10-23T18:22:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/96994\/"},"modified":"2025-10-23T18:22:54","modified_gmt":"2025-10-23T18:22:54","slug":"the-bestselling-nz-books-at-labour-weekend","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/96994\/","title":{"rendered":"The bestselling NZ books at Labour Weekend"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>NONFICTION<\/p>\n<p>1 Nourish by Chelsea Winter (Allen &amp; Unwin, $49.99)<\/p>\n<p>We devoted all week to coverage of the latest cookbook by Her Divine Chelseaness. <a href=\"https:\/\/newsroom.co.nz\/2025\/10\/20\/chelsea-winter-on-eating-meat\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Monday:\u00a0<\/a>an exclusive personal essay by Chelsea on her reasons for returning to meat.\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/newsroom.co.nz\/2025\/10\/21\/julie-biuso-on-chelsea-winter\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Tuesday:\u00a0<\/a>Julie Biuso reviews\u00a0Nourish.\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/newsroom.co.nz\/2025\/10\/22\/chelsea-winters-premonition\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Wednesday:\u00a0<\/a>Steve Braunias on Chelsea\u2019s classic dish Oozy Quesadillas. <a href=\"https:\/\/newsroom.co.nz\/2025\/10\/23\/book-of-the-week-leah-mcfall-on-chelsea-winter\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Thursday: <\/a>Leah McFall on the Chelsea Winter phenomenon.<\/p>\n<p>We conclude the week with the results of our giveaway contest to win a free signed copy of Nourish. Readers were asked to write something from the heart about their feelings for Chelsea and\/or her recipes. Many readers did exactly that. The loveliest came from Jen, who wrote, \u201cChelsea\u2019s recipes have been a part of my kitchen for years. There\u2019s something about the way she writes that makes cooking feel like an act of love rather than a task. I can almost hear her voice when I\u2019m stirring or kneading, that calm reassurance that even if things get messy, it\u2019ll be delicious in the end.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhen she went vegan for a while, I admired her conviction (even if I panicked slightly about the fate of the pulled pork). But her return to recipes with meat feels like an old friend coming home, familiar, generous, full of flavour and comfort.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cChelsea\u2019s food has fed my family, soothed depression and anxiety, and made ordinary days feel less ordinary. Winning her new book would be like getting another beautiful chapter in a story I already love.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Huzzah to Jen. She wins a free signed copy of Nourish by Chelsea Winter.<\/p>\n<p>2 Nadia\u2019s Farm Kitchen by Nadia Lim (Nude Food, $55)<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s not easy to find anything interesting about the Lim Brand\u00a9 but dogged persistence always pays off and I can report that among her possessions at her 1200-acre Raybourn Station spread between Wanaka and Queenstown is an original painting by good old Douglas Badcock. Douglas Badcock! He was the go-to alpine landscape painter of the nation for many, many years, prints of his Tip-Top vanilla ice-cream mountains and yellow Sunlight Soap pastures decorating tens of thousands of homes. They were nationalised wallpaper. They were signs and symbols. They were the New Zealand way. He won the prestigious Kelliher prize for landscape art in 1966; the government presented his work to Queen Elizabeth, and the King of Thailand; and he was the author of three books of his work.<\/p>\n<p>I have a copy of My Kind of Country (1971). Nice book. He writes, \u201cI came to Queenstown after World War II having been discharged from the air force because of ill health [asthma]. I had spent a short period in Hamner hospital recuperating. There, when health allowed it, I spent my time doing watercolours of the surrounding country or drawing charcoal portraits of my fellow patients. I managed to sell the few paintings I had done for modest sums.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSome of my hospital companions had extolled the beauty of Queenstown and I determined to go there when I recovered. After acquiring a 1922 Buick, I bought from a farmer a dilapidated caravan, which contained some cupboards, a wire mattress and coal range. I set off for Queenstown. The tyres were showing canvas, and a stream of blue smoke combined with the dust as I approached my Shangri-La.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The rest is Kiwiana, and now a place in the Lim Brand\u00a9.<\/p>\n<p>3 Perspective by Shaun Jonson (Penguin Random House $40)<\/p>\n<p>Lessons on living.<\/p>\n<p>4 Mana by T\u0101me Iti (Allen &amp; Unwin, $49.99)<\/p>\n<p>A free copy of Iti\u2019s newly published memoir is up for grabs in this week\u2019s free book giveaway. To enter, share what it is you admire about this activist, revolutionary, ex-con, painter, sculptor, carver, author, wrestling champion, bowler-hat model and singular character in New Zealand public life, either by telling a story or expressing your views, and email it to <a href=\"https:\/\/newsroom.co.nz\/2025\/10\/24\/the-bestselling-nz-books-at-labour-weekend-2\/mailto:stephen11@xtra.co.nz\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">stephen11@xtra.co.nz<\/a> with the subject line in screaming caps MR ITI WOULD LIKE YOUR ATTENTION by midnight on Monday, October 27.<\/p>\n<p><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"753\" height=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/tameeeeeeeeee.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-410669\"  \/><\/p>\n<p>5 Lessons on Living by Nigel Latta (HarperCollins, $39.99)<\/p>\n<p>More lessons on living.<\/p>\n<p>6 Become Unstoppable by Gilbert Enoka (Penguin Random House, $40)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Yet more lessons on living.<\/p>\n<p>7 A Different Kind of Power by Jacinda Ardern (Penguin Random House, $59.99)<\/p>\n<p>Lessons on empathy.<\/p>\n<p>8 Ara by Hinemoa Elder (Penguin Random House, $30.00)<\/p>\n<p>Lessons on spiritual wellness.<\/p>\n<p>9 M\u0101ori Ora by Hira Nathan (Allen &amp; Unwin, $37.99)<\/p>\n<p>More lessons on spiritual wellness.<\/p>\n<p>10 Edible Weeds Handbook by Andrew Crowe (Penguin Random House, $35)<\/p>\n<p>Nature lessons. The author of numerous compact little field guides to identifying spiders, seashells, birds, and native ferns turns his attention to edible weeds with reliably excellent results. <\/p>\n<p>FICTION<\/p>\n<p>1 Angels of Clay (Matakana Series 3) by Madeleine Eskedahl (Matheson Bay Press, $36.99)<\/p>\n<p>Sales were evidently brisk at the book launch held recently at The Vintry in Matakana. It\u2019s her third book in\u00a0 a mystery franchise. The premise is excellent: \u201cAt the beginning of summer, a young Lotto millionaire is found dead in the clay pit of a renowned pottery retreat. The body is laid out in the shape of an X, with markings in the earth that resemble an angel-deliberate, unsettling and inexplicable.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Spooky cover.<\/p>\n<p><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"683\" height=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/spooky.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-410667\"  \/><\/p>\n<p>2 The Last Living Cannibal by Airana Ngarewa (Hachette, $37.99)<\/p>\n<p>A review by Jordan Tricklebank will appear in ReadingRoom next week.<\/p>\n<p>3 The Vanishing Place by Zoe Rankin (Hachette, $37.99)<\/p>\n<p>4 Julia Eichardt by Lauren Roche (Flying Books Publishing, $36.99)<\/p>\n<p>The author of possibly the best historical novel of the year will be onstage at the Queenstown Writers Festival next weekend. <a href=\"https:\/\/qtwritersfestival.nz\/event\/the-gold-in-these-hills\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Tickets\u2013said to be selling fast\u2013are available online.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>5 The Book of Guilt by Catherine Chidgey (Te Herenga Waka University Press, $38)<\/p>\n<p>6 Where in All the World by Vanessa Croft (David Bateman, $38.99)<\/p>\n<p>7 Delirious by Damien Wilkins (Te Herenga Waka University Press, $38)<\/p>\n<p>I will be chairing the author at an event next weekend at the Queenstown Writers Festival. <a href=\"https:\/\/qtwritersfestival.nz\/event\/delirious-damien-wilkins\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Tickets\u2014said to be selling fast\u2014are available online. <\/a>The three-day programme also features authors such as Tina Makereti; Diana Wichtel; Monty Soutar; Liam McIlvanney; Mike McRoberts; Owen Marshall; and Jenny Pattrick.<\/p>\n<p>8 Dead Girl Gone (The Bookshop Detectives 1) by Gareth and Louise Ward (Penguin Random House, $26)<\/p>\n<p>9 Landfall Tauraka 250: Spring 2025 by Lynley Edmeades (Otago University Press, $35)<\/p>\n<p>The 250th anniversary issue of the most distinguished literary journal in New Zealand letters.<\/p>\n<p>10 Tree of Nourishment (K\u0101wai 2) by Monty Soutar (David Bateman, $39.99)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NONFICTION 1 Nourish by Chelsea Winter (Allen &amp; Unwin, $49.99) We devoted all week to coverage of the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":96995,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[489,156,111,139,69,3632],"class_list":["post-96994","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-books","tag-books","tag-entertainment","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-nz-best-sellers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96994","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=96994"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96994\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/96995"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=96994"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=96994"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=96994"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}