This week's biggest-selling books at King's Birthday Weekend
1 The Book of Guilt by Catherine Chidgey (Te Herenga Waka University Press, $38)
'She [Chidgey] seems to get a ridiculous amount of promotion through your column,' moaned Newsroom reader Louise Bryant in the comments section this week. Oh well! Here we go again, then, paying too much heed to the author widely regarded as the best living New Zealand novelist who appears to be at her peak, with her latest novel settling into its Number 1 bestseller position for the third consecutive week and likely holding onto that status for quite some considerable time to come as word of mouth continues to recommend The Book of Guilt as a scary, literary, absorbing story of children kept as lab rats. A free copy was up for grabs (alongside Delirious by Damien Wilkins) in last week's giveaway contest. The entries were so interesting – readers were asked to make some sort of comment about Chidgey – that I wrote a story about them on Thursday. The winner is Madeleine Setchell, chairperson of Fertility NZ, 'a small but mighty charity that walks alongside all New Zealanders facing infertility'. Huzzah to Madeleine; she wins Delirious by Damien Wilkins, as well as a copy of the cheerfully over-promoted The Book of Guilt by Catherine Chidgey.
2 Delirious by Damien Wilkins (Te Herenga Waka University Press, $38)
3 See How They Fall by Rachel Paris (Hachette, $37.99)
4 1985 by Dominic Hoey (Penguin Random House, $38)
A free copy of this tough new tale of Grey Lynn noir is up for grabs in this week's giveaway contest. Hoey is a sort of literary establishment outsider. So, too, is American writer Alex Perez, who posted an apparently controversial rant on Substack this week about one of the themes of Hoey's novel, the crisis of masculinity. He writes, 'The literary man is constantly haunted by the specter of masculinity. This is obviously an elite—and striver—problem, because working-class men, unless they somehow meet a New Yorker staffer on the construction site, haven't been aware that this discourse has been ongoing for a decade. The non-online man, warts and all, just is. He might be misogynist; he might be a brute. But he's just whatever kind of dude he is, and that's that. Most of my time is spent hanging out with regular dudes who aren't obsessed with their masculinity, so the neurotic behavior of the literary man is always jarring …'
To enter the draw to win 1985, read Perez's Substack argument, and remark upon it at whatever length in an email to stephen11@xtra.co.nz with the subject line in screaming caps A WORKING CLASS HERO IS SOMETHING TO BE by midnight on Sunday, June 1.
Good cover.
5 Tea and Cake and Death (The Bookshop Detectives 2) by Gareth and Louise Ward (Penguin Random House, $38)
6 Black Silk and Buried Secrets (Tatty Crowe 2) by Deborah Challinor (HarperCollins, $37.99)
7 Dead Girl Gone (The Bookshop Detectives 1) by Gareth and Louise Ward (Penguin Random House, $26)
8 The Good Mistress by Anne Tierman (Hachette, $37.99)
9 Sea Change by Jenny Pattrick (David Bateman, $37.99)
10 All That We Know by Shilo Kino (Hachette, $37.99)
I very briefly ran into the author at the recent Auckland Writers Festival. I got a bit lost trying to find the correct venue to watch Noelle McCarthy chair a Norwegian author, blundered into a room I thought was right, but instead saw Shilo Kino waiting to go onstage with Jeremy Hansen in a session about humour. Shilo said, 'Hi Steve!' I replied, 'Hi Shilo!' Then I turned and fled, pausing to say to Jeremy, 'You look younger every time I see you.' Anyway, it must have been a good session; Shilo's very funny novel was published over a year ago, but sales at the AWF have resurrected it into the top 10.
NONFICTION
1 Whānau by Donovan Farnham & Rehua Wilson (Hachette, 29.99)
2 Full Circle by Jenny-May Clarkson (HarperCollins, $39.99)
'Over time,' writes the presenter of Breakfast in her new memoir, 'the scrutiny wears you down. Not just the actual things that people say but the awareness of what they might say. When I started in television, the comments were mostly about my appearance. But, as I settled into my role at Breakfast, that started to change. Of late, a lot of the negative comments I get have been centred on who I am. My Māoritanga. I don't look at them, don't even get the Breakfast inbox emails on my computer, because if I had to read some of what comes in, I just wouldn't ever be able to say anything again. But every now and then, I'll catch something someone's said before I've been able to look away.
'The other day, I spotted a comment where someone was complaining about my use of te reo Māori. 'Don't like watching her, sick of her pushing too much Māori on to people, just speak English.' That sort of thing. Worse, usually. You know the style. I used to get absolutely thrown by comments like that but they don't rock me now. I just think, How bizarre. And how sad. Because it is sad. Sad that someone thinks it's okay to talk about another person like that. Sad that they don't accept that my reo is a big part of who I am as a person and that I am not only selected but endorsed by my employer, TVNZ. Sad that they don't realise te reo Māori is one of the official languages of our country, so there's no such thing as 'too much'. Sad that they don't know how precious and amazing it is that we have our reo.'
Striking cover.
3 Everyday Comfort Food by Vanya Insull (Allen & Unwin, $39.99)
4 Three Wee Bookshops at the End of the World by Ruth Shaw (Allen & Unwin, $39.99)
5 No Words for This by Ali Mau (HarperCollins, $39.99)
6 Atua Wāhine by Hana Tapiata (HarperCollins, $36.99)
7 Fix Iron First by Dr Libby (Little Green Frog Publishing, $39.95)
Self-helper all about iron. Blurbology: 'When iron levels are low, everything feels harder. Your energy fades. Your mood shifts. Your resilience diminishes … What's not recognised often enough is that low iron doesn't just make you tired. It can alter your brain chemistry, slow your metabolism, impact your thyroid, disturb your sleep and lower your emotional resilience … This book is for anyone who has ever felt persistently tired, anxious, low in mood, or disconnected from their spark – and not known why. It's for parents watching a child struggle with energy or concentration. It's for women navigating the rhythms of their menstrual cycle or the shifts of perimenopause. It's for anyone who feels like they're doing everything right but still doesn't feel like themselves – or who has tried, unsuccessfully, to restore their iron levels and is still searching for answers.'
8 Northbound by Naomi Arnold (HarperCollins, $39.99)
Two excellent books about the great New Zealand outdoors have been published in 2025. Northbound is the author's account of walking the Te Araroa track; Fire & Ice: Secrets, histories, treasures and mysteries of Tongariro National Park by Hazel Phillips is an illustrated book about the central plateau, and was reviewed very favourably this week.
9 The Last Secret Agent by Pippa Latour & Jude Dobson (Allen & Unwin, $37.99)
10 Hine Toa by Ngāhuia te Awekōtuku (HarperCollins, $39.99)
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