The Best-selling Books Of Summer

NONFICTION

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

New Zealanders love advice. On Tuesday, September 30, Latta’s book went into stores around the country. He died from cancer that same day. Donna Fleming, in Woman’s Day: “It explores the three key principles that made such a difference to him. The first is: Drive the bus, or in other words, don’t be a passenger in your own life. The second: Focus on the things you can control. And third: Teamwork – the best work we ever do is with other people.”

2 Nourish by Chelsea Winter (Allen & Unwin, $49.99)

“The most famous of all my recipes is the chicken pie in At My Table,” Winter writes in her latest cookbook; she makes a sequel, Chicken Pie 2.0, with “a healthy, more nutritious spin”, which involves a creamy sauce using cauliflower, hemp seeds and basil leaves. It adds to the sense that Nourish is a kind of closing the circle, that she is tidying up her cookbook affairs, and leaving with a good taste in our mouths.

Good old Chelsea Winter, photographed in Nourish by Tamara West.

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

Eastern Times newspaper, December 28: “Celebrated Kiwi cook Nadia Lim has visited east Auckland to promote her latest book and chat with some of her many fans. She recently took time out of her busy schedule to take part in a book signing at Paper Plus Howick in Picton Street.” But relentlessly promoting her books and signing them is her busy schedule.

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

Advice.

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

I think it’s highly likely to make the Ockham national book awards longlist announced next week

6 Māori Ora by Hira Nathan (Allen & Unwin, $37.99)

Advice.

7 Mana by Tāme Iti (Allen & Unwin, $49.99)

First-rate memoir of the great social activist, heavily illustrated; I think it’s highly likely to make the Ockham national book awards longlist announced next week, either in the nonfiction or illustrated nonfiction category. But the book was ghosted by, or told to, Eugene Bingham; and ghosting is, aptly, a kind of grey area. Ockham eligibility rules state, “The principal author(s) must be the major contributor(s) of the book being submitted, with at least 50 percent input.” Well, all of Mana is Iti’s story, and pretty much all of it (definitely over 50 percent) is in his own words. I hope it’s eligible. Some of the best memoirs in recent years—I’m thinking Impossible by Stan Walker, and Straight Up by Ruby Tui—were both ghostwritten by Margie Thompson, and were more powerful and compelling than many memoirs written by the subject.

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

Advice.

9 Jacinda: The Untold Stories by David Cohen & Rebecca Keillor (Centrist Publishing, $39.99)

I think it’s highly likely to make the Ockham national book awards longlist announced next week.

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

Advice.

FICTION

1 The American Boys by Olivia Spooner (Hachette, $37.99)

Summer is the perfect time to sit back in the shade of beach umbrella and enjoy Spooner’s easy to read tale of a wartime romance.

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

Summer is the perfect time to sit back in the shade of a caravan awning and thrill to Chidgey’s ingenious novel about genetically engineered children who malfunction in terrible ways. I think it’s highly likely to make the Ockham national book awards longlist announced next week.

3 Good Things Come and Go by Josie Shapiro (Allen & Unwin, $37.99)

Summer is the perfect time to sit on the back porch and pass the time of day with Shapiro’s lively melodrama of an Auckland couple who visit the Coromandel to try to rebuild their shattered lives.

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

Summer is the perfect time to stay up late and creep out to Rankin’s thriller about a family hiding in the NZ bush, partly inspired by the ghastly Tom Phillips case.

Getty Images

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

Summer is the perfect time to sit at the kitchen table with a nice hot cup of tea and a biscuit, and nibble on Roche’s historical fiction about a woman in Queenstown in the 1860s goldrush.

6 The Shadow Weaver by Ivy Cliffwater (Hachette, $37.99)

Summer is the perfect time to imagine yourself a long, long way from New Zealand and living in the fantasy world created by Cliffwater in her “epic romantic fantasy filled with forbidden power, deadly secrets, and heart-pounding action”.

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

Summer is the perfect time to get a bit of space from the whānau and read Ngarewa’s story set in Taranaki during the 1940s, when locals refuse to join the Māori battalion because of the severity of their land confiscations.

8 Dead Girl Gone (The Bookshop Detectives 1) by Gareth and Louise Ward (Penguin Random House, $28)

Summer is the perfect time to switch on the fan and read part 1 of the their co-authored detective caper set in a bookshop.

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

And read part 2 as well.

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

Summer is the ideal time to sit on the front porch and take in Hoey’s novel set in Grey Lynn during the 1980s. I think it’s highly likely to make the Ockham national book awards longlist announced next week.

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