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The Spinoff
04-06-2025
- Entertainment
- The Spinoff
All the finalists in the 2025 NZ Book Awards for Children and Young Adults
Announcing all the books – and their authors, illustrators, translators and publishers – in the running for this year's New Zealand Book Awards for Children and Young Adults. The winter months are an apt time to celebrate the creators of books that feed future creators of books. With long nights and days punctuated by weather, here's an opportunity to gather around the best Aotearoa has to offer and their promises of armchair adventure. There were 156 entries to the awards this year (slightly down on 2024's 176). The judging panels were assisted by 450 reviews submitted by school students from 51 schools around Aotearoa. Among this year's finalists are books that, according to convenor of judges Feana Tu'akoi, present 'big ideas from our past, present and possible dystopian futures are considered in absorbing and thoughtful ways, providing springboards for deeper discussion. Themes include identity, connection, mental health, our histories, traditional wisdom, indigenous languages, and the importance of being exactly who we are.' Before we dive into some analysis of each category, a recap of what they are and the monies attached. There are six categories: Picture Book, Junior Fiction, Young Adult Fiction, Non-Fiction, Illustration and te reo Māori. Winners are announced at a ceremony at Pipitea Marae in Wellington on August 13 and will each take home $8,500. Of those winners, one will be named the Margaret Mahy Book of the Year and will receive an extra $8,500. The Best First Book prize winner gets $2,500. The Bookhub Picture Book Award finalists Ten Nosey Weka by Kate Preece, illustrated by Isobel Joy Te Aho-White (Ngāti Kahungunu, Kāi Tahu) (Bateman Books) Titiro Look by Gavin Bishop (Tainui, Ngāti Awa), translated by Darryn Joseph (Ngāti Maniapoto, Ngāti Rereahu) (Gecko Press, Lerner Publishing Group) You Can't Pat a Fish by Ruth Paul (Walker Books Australia) Picture books are an artistic collaboration. Words, text, design and format all have to work together perfectly. These finalists are all pros. Gavin Bishop, Ruth Paul, Juliette MacIver have all been here before, as have illustrators Lily Uivel and Isobel Joy Te Aho-White. Kate Preece is new to the awards with her first-of-a-kind counting book revolving around those curious, sneaky wee birds, the weka. In this interview with The Sapling, Preece explains how the book is tri-lingual and is the first to include Ta rē Moriori, the indigenous language of Rēkohu, where Preece now lives. Wright Family Foundation Esther Glen Junior Fiction Award finalists Brown Bird by Jane Arthur (Penguin Random House New Zealand) Detective Beans and the Case of the Missing Hat by Li Chen (Penguin Random House New Zealand) The Apprentice Witnesser by Bren MacDibble (Allen & Unwin) The Raven's Eye Runaways by Claire Mabey (Allen & Unwin) V iolet and the Velvets: The Case of the Missing Stuff by Rachael King, illustrated by Phoebe Morris (Allen & Unwin) This is all very … strange, for me. I love writing. I love writing novels for young readers because at heart I am still a young reader. It's extremely odd to be writing with this books editor hat on about this award with my author hat on. But the books editor is saying well done to the author and the author is chuffed (if not quite awkward). Mostly because of the company my first novel is keeping here. Back for the second year in a row is the unstoppable Rachael King (who was also a finalist in 2024 for The Grimmelings); I adored Jane Arthur's self-described 'quiet novel' about a character who now looms large in my mind. Bren MacDibble is an absolute powerhouse writer whose work is admirable for its voice, its world building and its control. And Li Chen's Detective Beans and the Case of the Missing Hat has stunning visual worldbuilding and a cute as leading cat. Note the mystery theme: definitely a trend I've noticed in international publishing. Young readers love intrigue just as much as anyone! Young Adult Fiction Award finalists Bear by Kiri Lightfoot, illustrated by Pippa Keel Situ (Allen & Unwin) Gracehopper by Mandy Hager (One Tree House) Migration by Steph Matuku (Ngāti Tama, Ngāti Mutunga) (Huia Publishers) The Mess of Our Lives by Mary-Anne Scott (One Tree House) The Paradise Generation by Sanna Thompson (umop apisdn press) Writing for young adults is a tall order. Young adults (otherwise known as teenagers) can be a tough crowd. What all of these books do is simply tell a story, build worlds, with teenage protagonists at the heart of them. Kiri Lightfoot's Bear is akin to acclaimed Patrick Ness novel, A Monster Calls, in that it uses a metaphoric beast to represent Jasper's rage, fear and consuming emotional undertow. Steph Matuku (no stranger to these awards) has written a brilliant dystopian sci-fi that reflects our present-day conflicts all too well. The Mess of Our Lives by Mary-Anne Scott is a story of overcoming an extremely challenging home life; while Mandy Hager (also no stranger to these awards) has written a story that centres on themes of identity and inclusion. First-time author Sanna Thompson is the wild card here: you can read an excerpt from The Paradise Generation over on Kete Books. Elsie Locke Award for Non-Fiction Finalists Black Magic by David Riley, illustrated by Munro Te Whata (Ngāpuhi, Ngāti Porou, Makefu) (Reading Warrior) Dear Moko: Māori Wisdom for our Young Ones by Hinemoa Elder (Te Aupōuri, Te Rarawa, Ngāti Kurī, Ngāi Takoto, Ngāpuhi nui tonu) (Penguin Random House New Zealand) Ruru: Night Hunter by Katie Furze, illustrated by Ned Barraud (Scholastic New Zealand) The Treaty of Waitangi / Te Tiriti o Waitangi by Ross Calman (Ngāti Toa, Ngāti Raukawa, Kāi Tahu) (Oratia Books) Tui Pea Luva by Mele Tonga Grant, illustrated by Luca Walton (Mila's Books) Huge names! These books are so crucial for education at home and at school: they condense complex subjects and present them in fluid, learnable ways via text, image and design. I love Ruru: Night Hunter for its immersive journey through the nightlife of our little owls. Ross Calman's The Treaty of Waitangi | Te Tiriti o Waitangi is extremely useful: highly illustrated, clearly written, an all-ages text, really. Mila's Books are the only all-Pasifika publishing house in the world and they consistently put out books made by and for Pasifika children and families. Tui Pea Luva is Grant's poetry collection which passes down the wisdom of Pasifika women. David Riley's Reading Warrior is a multi-faceted organisation that publishes books, creates projects in collaboration with communities, runs workshops and puts student writing into print. Black Magic continues Reading Warrior's focus on sporting heroics with the story of how we got our all black uniforms with a silver fern. Russell Clark Award for Illustration Alice and the Strange Bird by Isaac du Toit (Isaac du Toit) Hineraukatauri me Te Ara Pūoro, illustrated by Rehua Wilson (Te Aupouri, Te Rarawa), written by Elizabeth Gray (Ngāti Rēhia, Ngāti Uepōhatu, Tama Ūpoko ki te awa tipua, Ngāti Tūwharetoa anō hoki) (Huia Publishers) Poem for Ataahua, illustrated by Sarah Wilkins, written by Alistair Te Ariki Campbell (Reading Warrior) Sad Sushi, Anna Aldridge (Anna Aldridge) You Can't Pat a Fish by Ruth Paul (Walker Books Australia) It's always amazing to me how illustrators find angles, perspectives, and wordless narratives that bring a text to life. Sarah Wilkins' illustrations for Poem for Ataahua first caught my eye on Instagram: they're stunning, ethereal. Wilkins is longlisted for the World Illustration Awards 2025 for this same work (selected from 5000 entries from 81 countries). I also adore Ruth Paul's bold style: there's such comedy in the images that work so well with Paul's rollicking rhyme (hard to do but Paul does it so well). Wright Family Foundation Te Kura Pounamu Award Finalists A Ariā me te Atua o te Kūmara by Witi Ihimaera (Te Whānau a Kai, Rongowhakaata, Te Aitanga a Mahaki, Ngāti Porou), illustrated by Isobel Joy Te Aho-White (Ngāti Kahungunu, Kāi Tahu), translated by Hēni Jacob (Ngāti Raukawa) (Penguin Random House New Zealand) *Hineraukatauri me Te Ara Pūoro by Elizabeth Gray (Ngāti Rēhia, Ngāti Uepōhatu, Tama Ūpoko ki te awa tipua, Ngāti Tūwharetoa anō hoki), illustrated by Rehua Wilson (Te Aupouri, Te Rarawa) (Huia Publishers) Ka mātoro a Whetū rāua ko Kohu i Rotorua by Hayley Elliott-Kernot, translated by Te Ingo Ngaia (Taranaki, Ngāruahine, Te Ātiawa, Waikato-Maniapoto, Ngāti Whakaue, Te Whānau-a-Karuai ) (Round Door Design) Ko ngā Whetū Kai o Matariki, ko Tupuānuku rāua ko Tupuārangi by Miriama Kamo (Ngāi Tahu, Ngāti Mutunga), illustrated by Zak Waipara (Ngāti Porou, Ngāti Ruapani, Ngāti Kahungunu, Rongowhakaata), translated by Ariana Stevens (Poutini Ngāi Tahu) (Scholastic New Zealand) * Ngā Kupenga a Nanny Rina by Qiane Mataa-Sipu (Te Waiohua, Waikato, Ngāpuhi, Ngāti Pikiao, Cook Islands), illustrated by Isobel Joy Te Aho-White (Ngāti Kahungunu, Kāi Tahu) (Penguin Random House New Zealand) * Indicates a finalist book originally written in te reo Māori A specialist judging panel was enlisted to analyse the merits of these books either translated into te reo Māori or originally written in te reo Māori. Many familiar names here including Mirama Kamo and Zak Waipara (who were finalists in 2019 for Ngā Whetū Matariki i Whānakotia, translated by Ngaere Roberts); and Witi Ihimaera and Isobel Joy Te Aho-White who were finalists in 2023 with Te Kōkōrangi: Te Aranga o Matariki (translated by Hēni Jacob). NZSA Best First Book Award Finalists Brave Kāhu and the Pōrangi Magpie by Shelley Burne-Field (Ngāti Mutunga, Ngāti Rārua, Te Ātiawa, Sāmoa) (Allen & Unwin) Play Wild by Rachel Clare (Bateman Books) The Raven's Eye Runaways by Claire Mabey (Allen & Unwin) The Witch of Maketu and the Bleating Lambs by Anika Moa (Ngāpuhi, Te Aupōuri), illustrated by Rebecca ter Borg (Penguin Random House New Zealand) The Writing Desk by Di Morris (Bateman Books) I don't think many of us on this list ever expected to see our names alongside queen Anika Moa. I loved her book based on the character in her superbly creepy song. Shelley Burne-Field is a gorgeous writer (you can read about why she writes for children on The Spinoff). Di Morris' The Writing Desk is a stunning graphic account of the lives of colonial women; and Rachel Clare's Play Wild is a guide to having little adventures outside (reminiscent of Giselle Clarkson's The Observologist, though more geared towards using natural materials to aid imaginative play). Thanks to the English and bilingual judging panel: Convenor of judges Feana Tu'akoi, a Kirikiriroa-based writer; Don Long, a children's and educational publishing expert; Linda Jane Keegan, a Singaporean-Pākehā writer and reviewer; Stacy Gregg (Ngāti Mahuta, Ngāti Pukeko, Ngāti Maru Hauraki), recipient of the Margaret Mahy Book of the Year at the 2024 NZCYA awards; and Mero Rokx (Ngāti Porou, Ngāti Awa, Ngāi Tai), an education specialist who is on the English-language and bilingual panel, as well as Te Kura Pounamu panel. And to the panel judging te reo Māori entries: Convenor Mat Tait (Ngāti Apa ki te Rā Tō, Rangitāne o Wairau, Ngāti Kuia), a freelance artist, illustrator, writer and te reo Māori tutor based in the Motueka area; Justice-Manawanui Arahanga-Pryor (Ngāti Awa ki Rangitaiki, Ngāti Uenuku, Ngāti Rangi, Ngāi Te Ruahikihiki), a kaitakawaenga / library programming specialist; and Maxine Hemi (Ngāti Porou, Ngāti Kahungunu, Rangitāne), a kaiako with over 30 years' experience teaching. And praise be for those who make the awards possible: Creative New Zealand, HELL Pizza, the Wright Family Foundation, LIANZA Te Rau Herenga o Aotearoa, Wellington City Council, BookHub presented by Booksellers Aotearoa New Zealand, New Zealand Society of Authors Te Puni Kaituhi o Aotearoa, the National Library of New Zealand Te Puna Mātauranga o Aotearoa, the Mātātuhi Foundation, and NielsenIQ BookData. The Awards are administered by the New Zealand Book Awards Trust Te Ohu Tiaki i Te Rau Hiringa.
The Age
14-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The Age
Wry humour, an underdog tale and banned novels: 10 new books
This week's book reviews traverse the genres, from a First Nations romcom to a dystopian vision, a guide to having an open marriage, a history of Scandinavia (those last two are not related) and some radical second-wave feminism. FICTION PICK OF THE WEEK The Sun Was Electric Light Rachel Morton UQP, $34.99 Rachel Morton's The Sun Was Electric Light won the Victorian Premier's Literary Award for an unpublished manuscript, and it's easy to see why. The deceptive austerity of Morton's writing rewards the reader with a richness of thought and feeling. The novel probes belonging and authenticity in the face of disillusionment, and follows Ruth – a New Yorker who decamps to a small lake town in Guatemala, where she had been happy many years before. Ruth strikes up two relationships with different women – the pragmatic, emotionally reserved Emilie becomes her lover, while the unreliable, intense and precarious Carmen provokes a fascination, and a sense of caring, that goes deeper than the erotic. The Sun Was Electric Light achieves unexpected profundity through condensation and contradiction. Ruth's musings – largely riven by futility and doubt – eschew obvious epiphany in favour of something like negative theology. Fleeting insights into belonging are often signalled through a poetic appreciation of its opposite, and wry humour ripples through the narrator's familiar, yet strikingly particular and perverse trains of thought. Commercial fiction from First Nations authors isn't entirely novel – there's been some deadly talent in the YA and Oz Gothic genres in recent years – though it does lag the literary world in attracting widespread attention. In Red Dust Running, Wiradjuri author Anita Heiss has produced an Indigenous romcom that should have broad appeal. Annabelle is a curator at a city gallery with a passion for art and activism – a passion that seems less complicated than her love life, which is still recovering from disaster. Luckily, her close bond with her tiddas – besties CJ and MJ and Angel – keeps her real, even when her heart leads her astray. When a smouldering attraction to Dusty, a smoking hot cowboy Annabelle meets at a rodeo, results in romance, Annabelle is the last to see what everyone else in her life intuits immediately – they don't have much in common. Will it last? Or will her friendship with a neighbour, Michael, kindle into something more than a slow burn? Red Dust Running is a relaxing read, but perhaps with too predictable an arc. The female characters are especially lively and warmly drawn, though the plot needs a few twists, and more humour, to make the com as good as the rom. Sea Change Jenny Pattrick Bateman Books, $37.99 A community of underdogs takes a stand against the conniving corporate baddie in Jenny Pattrick's Sea Change, set in a small coastal town on the South Island of Aotearoa-New Zealand. Disaster strikes when a massive earthquake triggers a tsunami, devastating the town. The survivors are being compelled to relocate by government fiat, but some defy the order and seek to rebuild, knowing that the government's decision has been manipulated by a property developer, Adrian Stokes, who wants to buy the whole place for a song and build a resort. The motley collection of holdouts includes the elderly Lorna, her blind neighbour Toddy, and Eru, a traumatised boy from a troubled home, and the plucky residents soon rustle up the know-how – from electricians to doctors – to revive and sustain their community without outside support. A bestselling author in her homeland, Pattrick's latest novel is a rather formulaic and unsubtle tale of good versus evil, but her characters are a diverse and charming bunch, and the survival story should appeal to the Australian love of the underdog too. Saturation William Lane Transit Lounge, $32.99 This dystopian novel from William Lane is set in a world where birth rates have plummeted after an enigmatic and unrevealed catastrophe, although ecocide and overpopulation seem to have played a role. Ursula and Ambrose are librarians. They're trying for a baby – a rare sight in a world hostile not only to children, but to the past these aspiring parents seek to preserve through books. A sinister entity named Yoremind directs and informs the populace, encouraging them to witness or participate in acts of brutality and dehumanisation. When a fascist demagogue seeks dictatorial powers, the persecution of librarians and the burning of books begins. Will Ursula and Ambrose survive? Lane writes risky fiction, and although Saturation builds sinister atmospherics, neither world-building nor social critique feel sharp enough to emerge from the shadow of influential fiction that has gone before. It's unfortunate, as current trends in the dance between society and technology – from the rise of AI and social media to the climate crisis and the psychological impact of information overload – are begging for incisive, dark sci-fi treatment. Called by police to discuss his sister's suicide nine years earlier, introverted public servant James Harper is compelled to reveal that he was abused by his stepfather. It's 1999, and the 27-year-old is busy losing himself in the adrenaline of competitive bike racing (moderated by hanging with stoner mates and playing video games). Revisiting the past is the last thing he wants or expects, but as coming-of-age story merges with crime drama, James finds himself drawn to discover whether his own experience and his sister's death were related, and to seek justice for what he has suffered. The grim legacy of child sexual abuse and the shortcomings of the legal system in addressing it have become painfully clear this century, and Daniel Oakman puts readers in the shoes of a victim-survivor navigating the hard road to restitution, while trying to avoid being retraumatised. Stylistically and structurally, this debut novel has flaws – from jagged pacing to overuse of the first-person pronoun at the start of sentences – though Oakman's portrait of growing up in the 1990s can be vivid. NON-FICTION PICK OF THE WEEK Inconvenient Women: Australian Radical Writers 1900-1970 Jacqueline Kent NewSouth, $34.99 When New Zealand born Jean Devanny published her debut novel in 1926 about a woman having an extra-marital affair, she was reviled as 'disgusting, indecent and communistic'. The book went on to be Australia's first banned novel. Not bad for a first go! She's just one of the formidable figures in this study of the women writers who prepared the ground for the second-wave feminism of the 1970s. Some are not so well known now, but it's also a glittering gallery that includes Miles Franklin, Eleanor Dark, Christina Stead and so many more. They were resolute and brave – not just in what they wrote but how they lived and loved, as in Lesbia Harford's concentrated 36 years. They were also defined by generally radical political views, usually Marxist and varying shades of socialist. Highly informed, engaging, often wittily observed, this is also an impressively orchestrated study of groundbreaking writers and the tumultuous times they mirrored and interpreted. The Next Day Melinda French Gates Macmillan, $36.99 Melinda French Gates acknowledges at the start of this combination of memoir and meditation that she's had a privileged life, but she's also taken in a number of life's lessons. The key to her thinking is recognising that transitions in life are precisely that: both end and beginning, closure and opening. In seven chapters she covers such things as landing extremely supportive parents – while also learning that nobody is a perfect parent. As much as she might have aspired to perfection when she first gave birth, in that transition period between being what she was and becoming a mother, she learnt to let go of the self-imposed shame of being a working mother and being a 'good enough' parent instead. The writing is especially strong when addressing her decision to leave her husband, Bill Gates. Here she incorporates the importance of Zen teachings, mindfulness and learning to listen to the inner voice of the authentic self. There are times when the philosophising can veer on the side of a motivational speech, but, overall, it's a poised reflection on her first 60 years. There are times when this memoir, charting the author's path to an open marriage, reads like a first-person novel. Deepa Paul, a TV scriptwriter among other things, looks back on her Catholic youth in Manila with detached irony, describing how she met her husband, moved to Singapore and then Amsterdam, where they still live with their daughter. In the liberating atmosphere of Amsterdam, she realised she wanted more than the traditional marriage and experimented with online dating in secret, was found out, and over a lengthy period of time, at one point consulting a therapist, renegotiated the marriage. After various affairs (which she details, sometimes displaying a strange naivety, along with a combination of strength and fragility), she now describes herself as polyamorous, having both a husband and a lover. As well as being a mother. In writing that is vivid, sad and funny, she takes the reader into the world she and her husband have created, answering all sorts of questions with engaging, candid openness. The Shortest History of Scandinavia Mart Kuldkepp Black Inc, $35 Mart Kuldkepp's bracing short history of Scandinavia – the region being comprised of not just Sweden, Norway and Denmark, but Finland and Iceland as well – is an admirably condensed study. Naturally, the Vikings – who for most of the time were farmers and peaceful traders, until business got difficult and the swords came out – loom large. But it also charts the rise and fall of absolutism, regional wars, the conversion of the pagans to Christianity and the emergence of the modern welfare states Scandinavia is synonymous with, along with populations that are often referred to as the happiest in the world. It is, after all, the region that gave us ABBA and Hans Christian Andersen. But there's also a Nordic-noir dark side to the story, especially some dubious wartime alliances and misplaced ideas about eugenics resulting in forced sterilisations (an estimated 30,000) which went on into the 1970s. Popular, accessible history by a Nordic specialist. It was German philosopher Martin Heidegger who, more or less, first spoke of authentic and inauthentic living in his 1927 book Being and Time – later taken up by Sartre. But I doubt either of them could have envisaged the emergence of these terms in many of today's popular guidebooks to better living. Motivational speaker Sheila Vijeyarasa, for example, urges her readers to be brave in embracing change when embarking on what she calls their 'journey to a more authentic life'. It's a journey that involves a series of crucial steps, often small ones, which are all detailed in her 'roadmap guide through this dance with change'. She not only draws on her own story, the 'miracle' of her IVF baby (filmed for TV), but also the stories of her clients. Incorporating ways of dealing with, for example, shame (in cases that involve divorce and separation), as well as the importance of self-love and being open to life's possibilities, she is by turns realistic and thoughtful, sometimes with a telling image, but there's also a certain pervasive happy-clappy positivity that you either go with or don't.
Sydney Morning Herald
14-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Sydney Morning Herald
Wry humour, an underdog tale and banned novels: 10 new books
This week's book reviews traverse the genres, from a First Nations romcom to a dystopian vision, a guide to having an open marriage, a history of Scandinavia (those last two are not related) and some radical second-wave feminism. FICTION PICK OF THE WEEK The Sun Was Electric Light Rachel Morton UQP, $34.99 Rachel Morton's The Sun Was Electric Light won the Victorian Premier's Literary Award for an unpublished manuscript, and it's easy to see why. The deceptive austerity of Morton's writing rewards the reader with a richness of thought and feeling. The novel probes belonging and authenticity in the face of disillusionment, and follows Ruth – a New Yorker who decamps to a small lake town in Guatemala, where she had been happy many years before. Ruth strikes up two relationships with different women – the pragmatic, emotionally reserved Emilie becomes her lover, while the unreliable, intense and precarious Carmen provokes a fascination, and a sense of caring, that goes deeper than the erotic. The Sun Was Electric Light achieves unexpected profundity through condensation and contradiction. Ruth's musings – largely riven by futility and doubt – eschew obvious epiphany in favour of something like negative theology. Fleeting insights into belonging are often signalled through a poetic appreciation of its opposite, and wry humour ripples through the narrator's familiar, yet strikingly particular and perverse trains of thought. Commercial fiction from First Nations authors isn't entirely novel – there's been some deadly talent in the YA and Oz Gothic genres in recent years – though it does lag the literary world in attracting widespread attention. In Red Dust Running, Wiradjuri author Anita Heiss has produced an Indigenous romcom that should have broad appeal. Annabelle is a curator at a city gallery with a passion for art and activism – a passion that seems less complicated than her love life, which is still recovering from disaster. Luckily, her close bond with her tiddas – besties CJ and MJ and Angel – keeps her real, even when her heart leads her astray. When a smouldering attraction to Dusty, a smoking hot cowboy Annabelle meets at a rodeo, results in romance, Annabelle is the last to see what everyone else in her life intuits immediately – they don't have much in common. Will it last? Or will her friendship with a neighbour, Michael, kindle into something more than a slow burn? Red Dust Running is a relaxing read, but perhaps with too predictable an arc. The female characters are especially lively and warmly drawn, though the plot needs a few twists, and more humour, to make the com as good as the rom. Sea Change Jenny Pattrick Bateman Books, $37.99 A community of underdogs takes a stand against the conniving corporate baddie in Jenny Pattrick's Sea Change, set in a small coastal town on the South Island of Aotearoa-New Zealand. Disaster strikes when a massive earthquake triggers a tsunami, devastating the town. The survivors are being compelled to relocate by government fiat, but some defy the order and seek to rebuild, knowing that the government's decision has been manipulated by a property developer, Adrian Stokes, who wants to buy the whole place for a song and build a resort. The motley collection of holdouts includes the elderly Lorna, her blind neighbour Toddy, and Eru, a traumatised boy from a troubled home, and the plucky residents soon rustle up the know-how – from electricians to doctors – to revive and sustain their community without outside support. A bestselling author in her homeland, Pattrick's latest novel is a rather formulaic and unsubtle tale of good versus evil, but her characters are a diverse and charming bunch, and the survival story should appeal to the Australian love of the underdog too. Saturation William Lane Transit Lounge, $32.99 This dystopian novel from William Lane is set in a world where birth rates have plummeted after an enigmatic and unrevealed catastrophe, although ecocide and overpopulation seem to have played a role. Ursula and Ambrose are librarians. They're trying for a baby – a rare sight in a world hostile not only to children, but to the past these aspiring parents seek to preserve through books. A sinister entity named Yoremind directs and informs the populace, encouraging them to witness or participate in acts of brutality and dehumanisation. When a fascist demagogue seeks dictatorial powers, the persecution of librarians and the burning of books begins. Will Ursula and Ambrose survive? Lane writes risky fiction, and although Saturation builds sinister atmospherics, neither world-building nor social critique feel sharp enough to emerge from the shadow of influential fiction that has gone before. It's unfortunate, as current trends in the dance between society and technology – from the rise of AI and social media to the climate crisis and the psychological impact of information overload – are begging for incisive, dark sci-fi treatment. Called by police to discuss his sister's suicide nine years earlier, introverted public servant James Harper is compelled to reveal that he was abused by his stepfather. It's 1999, and the 27-year-old is busy losing himself in the adrenaline of competitive bike racing (moderated by hanging with stoner mates and playing video games). Revisiting the past is the last thing he wants or expects, but as coming-of-age story merges with crime drama, James finds himself drawn to discover whether his own experience and his sister's death were related, and to seek justice for what he has suffered. The grim legacy of child sexual abuse and the shortcomings of the legal system in addressing it have become painfully clear this century, and Daniel Oakman puts readers in the shoes of a victim-survivor navigating the hard road to restitution, while trying to avoid being retraumatised. Stylistically and structurally, this debut novel has flaws – from jagged pacing to overuse of the first-person pronoun at the start of sentences – though Oakman's portrait of growing up in the 1990s can be vivid. NON-FICTION PICK OF THE WEEK Inconvenient Women: Australian Radical Writers 1900-1970 Jacqueline Kent NewSouth, $34.99 When New Zealand born Jean Devanny published her debut novel in 1926 about a woman having an extra-marital affair, she was reviled as 'disgusting, indecent and communistic'. The book went on to be Australia's first banned novel. Not bad for a first go! She's just one of the formidable figures in this study of the women writers who prepared the ground for the second-wave feminism of the 1970s. Some are not so well known now, but it's also a glittering gallery that includes Miles Franklin, Eleanor Dark, Christina Stead and so many more. They were resolute and brave – not just in what they wrote but how they lived and loved, as in Lesbia Harford's concentrated 36 years. They were also defined by generally radical political views, usually Marxist and varying shades of socialist. Highly informed, engaging, often wittily observed, this is also an impressively orchestrated study of groundbreaking writers and the tumultuous times they mirrored and interpreted. The Next Day Melinda French Gates Macmillan, $36.99 Melinda French Gates acknowledges at the start of this combination of memoir and meditation that she's had a privileged life, but she's also taken in a number of life's lessons. The key to her thinking is recognising that transitions in life are precisely that: both end and beginning, closure and opening. In seven chapters she covers such things as landing extremely supportive parents – while also learning that nobody is a perfect parent. As much as she might have aspired to perfection when she first gave birth, in that transition period between being what she was and becoming a mother, she learnt to let go of the self-imposed shame of being a working mother and being a 'good enough' parent instead. The writing is especially strong when addressing her decision to leave her husband, Bill Gates. Here she incorporates the importance of Zen teachings, mindfulness and learning to listen to the inner voice of the authentic self. There are times when the philosophising can veer on the side of a motivational speech, but, overall, it's a poised reflection on her first 60 years. There are times when this memoir, charting the author's path to an open marriage, reads like a first-person novel. Deepa Paul, a TV scriptwriter among other things, looks back on her Catholic youth in Manila with detached irony, describing how she met her husband, moved to Singapore and then Amsterdam, where they still live with their daughter. In the liberating atmosphere of Amsterdam, she realised she wanted more than the traditional marriage and experimented with online dating in secret, was found out, and over a lengthy period of time, at one point consulting a therapist, renegotiated the marriage. After various affairs (which she details, sometimes displaying a strange naivety, along with a combination of strength and fragility), she now describes herself as polyamorous, having both a husband and a lover. As well as being a mother. In writing that is vivid, sad and funny, she takes the reader into the world she and her husband have created, answering all sorts of questions with engaging, candid openness. The Shortest History of Scandinavia Mart Kuldkepp Black Inc, $35 Mart Kuldkepp's bracing short history of Scandinavia – the region being comprised of not just Sweden, Norway and Denmark, but Finland and Iceland as well – is an admirably condensed study. Naturally, the Vikings – who for most of the time were farmers and peaceful traders, until business got difficult and the swords came out – loom large. But it also charts the rise and fall of absolutism, regional wars, the conversion of the pagans to Christianity and the emergence of the modern welfare states Scandinavia is synonymous with, along with populations that are often referred to as the happiest in the world. It is, after all, the region that gave us ABBA and Hans Christian Andersen. But there's also a Nordic-noir dark side to the story, especially some dubious wartime alliances and misplaced ideas about eugenics resulting in forced sterilisations (an estimated 30,000) which went on into the 1970s. Popular, accessible history by a Nordic specialist. It was German philosopher Martin Heidegger who, more or less, first spoke of authentic and inauthentic living in his 1927 book Being and Time – later taken up by Sartre. But I doubt either of them could have envisaged the emergence of these terms in many of today's popular guidebooks to better living. Motivational speaker Sheila Vijeyarasa, for example, urges her readers to be brave in embracing change when embarking on what she calls their 'journey to a more authentic life'. It's a journey that involves a series of crucial steps, often small ones, which are all detailed in her 'roadmap guide through this dance with change'. She not only draws on her own story, the 'miracle' of her IVF baby (filmed for TV), but also the stories of her clients. Incorporating ways of dealing with, for example, shame (in cases that involve divorce and separation), as well as the importance of self-love and being open to life's possibilities, she is by turns realistic and thoughtful, sometimes with a telling image, but there's also a certain pervasive happy-clappy positivity that you either go with or don't.
RNZ News
07-05-2025
- Entertainment
- RNZ News
Kiwi author's Sherryl Jordan's final book reveals her methods
Photo: Supplied: Bateman Books New Zealand author Sherryl Jordan's first published book was actually the 13th she'd written: Rocco. She went on to publish a number of works for children and young adults, including The Juniper Game and The Raging Quiet. In her later life she suffered from Occupational Overuse Syndrome and was told to stop writing - which she thought was akin to being asked not to breathe. She was later diagnosed with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. Before her death in December 2023, she'd sent in her final book to publisher Louise Russell at Bateman Books - one that documented her writing journey and the challenges and triumphs along the way. She never knew it had been accepted for publication. Fellow author Tessa Duder joins Kathryn to talk about Sherryl Jordan's remarkable writing ability and her last book, Descending Fire.
RNZ News
05-05-2025
- Entertainment
- RNZ News
How a trip to Spain inspired a cookbook
Photo: Supplied: Bateman Books We all lament the end of a holiday and the return to normality - but one of my next guests found a novel way to keep the spirit of her trip alive. Melanie Jenkins and her friend Claudia Kozub had a blast in Spain, admiring Gaudi's architecture in Barcelona and the streets of Ibiza's old town. Then there was the food.... As a photographer, Mel had well documented what she saw over there. Her friend, food writer and stylist Jo Wilcox, was intrigued - the result is a collaboration between the pair called 'Take Me to Spain'. It's chock-full of the flavoursome Spanish fare - from Patatas Bravas, paellla and boiled orange and olive oil cake - to a sangria cocktail with a simple tapas side. They both join Kathryn to talk about why the book is a passport to the flavours and friendships of Spain.
