NZ Fiction
1 When It All Went to Custard by Danielle Hawkins (HarperCollins, $35)
ReadingRoom will take great pleasure next week in publishing a really marvellous profile of the Otorohanga novelist by Wintec journalism student Oskar Howell, who is set for a glittering career in the news media.
2 A Dream of Italy by Nicky Pellegrino (Hachette, $34.99)
3 Moonlight Sonata by Eileen Merriman (Penguin Random House, $38)
Novel about forbidden love and family secrets by a North Shore haematologist!
4 Legacy by Whiti Hereaka (Huia, $25)
A young adult novel about a 17-year-old kid who gets hit by a bus and wakes up 100 years ago as his great-great-grandfather fighting in Egypt with the Māori Contingent.
5 This Mortal Boy by Fiona Kidman (Penguin Random House, $38)
ReadingRoom would like to acknowledge the author for recommending Wellington short story writer Jackson C Payne. His grim story of sexual abuse The Spare Room is published tomorrow (July 13) in our weekly Saturday short story series.
6 The Unreliable People by Rosetta Allan (Penguin Random House, $38)
7 Wolf Rain by Nalini Singh (Hachette, $29.99)
Romances with wolves.
8 What You Wish For by Catherine Robertson (Penguin Random House, $38)
ReadingRoom would like to acknowledge the author for recommending two short story writers – Rijula Das, and Melanie Harding-Shaw – for our regular Saturday short story series. Their work (one story is set in India, the other at Oriental Bay) will be published in due course.
9 A Mistake by Carl Shuker (Victoria University Press, $30)
“Writing parts of A Mistake, especially the opening surgery sequence, was sometimes most glorious fun. When I knew what to do – when I had sufficient research to know what happened when and how to say it, and I simply had to hang on long enough to get it down and get to the end Because I Knew What I Was Going To Say – doing it was simply the most exciting thing I know of to do”: the author, in a remarkable personal essay at ReadingRoom.
10 Melt by Jeff Murray (Mary Egan Publishing, $35)
A young adult novel set in 2048 when a climate apocalypse forces New Zealanders to resettle on Antarctica.
NZ Non-Fiction
1 How to Escape from Prison by Paul Wood (HarperCollins, $37.99)
ReadingRoom is currently in delicate negotiations with a celebrated ex-con to review this self-help book by an ex-con.
2 A Conversation with my Country by Alan Duff (Penguin Random House, $38)
“It might more correctly be titled A Conversation with Myself, given how often he returns to previous proclamations – Māori must stop blaming colonialism for their ills, cultural tradition is no solution in and of itself, all that – and makes space for arguments he might once have dismissed, quite possibly derided”: from a review by Finlay Macdonald, at ReadingRoom.
3 The Book of Knowing by Gwendoline Smith (Allen & Unwin, $24.99)
4 The Note Through the Wire by Doug Gold (Allen & Unwin, $36.99)
“The love story of Josefine Lobnik, a Slovene resistance fighter, and Bruce Murray, a Kiwi prisoner of war. They met by chance when she passed a note through the wire of a POW camp seeking information on her brother Leopold who had been captured by the Nazis. Years later, they became my parents-in-law”: the author, in a personal essay at ReadingRoom.
5 The New Zealand Wars by Vincent O’Malley (Bridget Williams Books, $39.99)
6 What the Fat? by Grant Schofield & Caryn Zinn & Craig Rodger (Blackwell and Ruth, $49.99)
ReadingRoom will take great pleasure next week in publishing an essay by AUT food researcher George Henderson on this revolutionary low-carb cookbook; his insights include a brave attempt to justify the use of a laxative in the recipe for low-carb sausage rolls. A laxative!
7 Maori Made Easy by Scotty Morrison (Penguin Random House, $25)
8 Many a Close Run Thing by Tom Enright (HarperCollins, $39.99)
Cheerful account of 45 years of flying things like Tiger Moth jalopies and Vampire fighter jets.
9 Rich Enough? by Mary Holm (HarperCollins, $36.99)
Another Herald journalist has a book about financial advice in the works: Penguin will publish Tales of a Financial Hot Mess by Frances Cook in October. “I’m very excited about it,” Cook told ReadingRoom the other day.
10 Magnolia Kitchen by Bernadette Gee (Allen & Unwin, $45)
Includes a lemon and poppy seed loaf, with a citrus and lavender glaze; the picture in the book looks like someone has chucked a bottle of milk over it.
