Live updates from the 2025 Ockham New Zealand Book Awards
Welcome to the 2025 Ockham New Zealand Book Awards! These are the awards for writing for adults across fiction and nonfiction. The prize money is the largest in the land and a win can change a book's life.
Tune in from 4pm for some warm-up posts, and from 7pm for a blow-by-blow of the ceremony as it unfolds.
The Spinoff Books section is proudly brought to you by Unity Books and Creative New Zealand. Visit Unity Books online today.
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The Spinoff
7 hours ago
- The Spinoff
The Unity Books bestseller chart for the week ending July 4
The only published and available best-selling indie book chart in New Zealand is the top 10 sales list recorded every week at Unity Books' stores in High St, Auckland, and Willis St, Wellington. AUCKLAND 1 Butter by Asako Yuzuki (4th Estate, $35) Butter has bumped Ardern's memoir from the top spot. The sales graph for this book must look like the Himalayan mountain range: what an extraordinary ride this brilliant novel has been on. 2 The Safe Keep by Yael van der Wouden (Penguin, $26) A stunning debut novel by a writer of rare talent. That sounds like a giant cliché but in this case it's absolutely true. You will not regret reading this lovely, powerful, perfectly formed novel set in the Netherlands of the 1960s. This debut novel also features on The Spinoff's list of books that write sex exceptionally well. 3 A Different Kind of Power by Jacinda Ardern (Penguin Random House, $60) Rachel Morris wrote a superb feature on Ardern for The New Yorker, in which she contextualised the memoir for American readers, and said of the book: 'The tale of what it was like for Ardern to go from being adored to being reviled so quickly would have made for an unmissable book. That's not the story she wanted to tell. A Different Kind of Power is her manifesto for a kinder, less cynical form of political leadership, with her own life story as evidence that such a thing is possible.' Highly recommend clicking on the link above and reading the rest of what Morris has to say. 4 The Book of Guilt by Catherine Chidgey (Te Herenga Waka University Press, $38) 'Chidgey's latest novel is uncannily similar to Kazuo Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go (which she has not read),' writes The Spinoff's Claire Mabey. 'It takes similar aim at British identity by puncturing its society with the normalisation of skewed medical ethics. What both novels have in common are questions of nature versus nurture and the eternal thought exercise of what does it mean to possess a soul? The two writers share an interest in the dehumanising potential of such questions. Both Ishiguro (one of the greatest novelists of all time) and Chidgey (fast becoming one of the greats herself) investigate how whole societies, entire countries, can enter a path of gross moral corruption one person, one concession, at a time.' 5 Broken Country by Claire Leslie Hall (John Murray, $38) Reese Witherspoon loves this novel. The actress/book club host says: 'Trust me—you are going to LOSE YOUR CHICKEN over it. Broken Country by Clare Leslie Hall is an unforgettable story of love, loss, and the choices that shape our lives… but it's also a masterfully crafted mystery that will keep you guessing until the very last page. Seriously, that ending?! I did not see it coming.' 6 Eurotrash by Christian Kracht (Serpents Tail, $30) This novel was longlisted for the International Booker Prize and we can see why: there's a lot more under the surface of this novel about a mother and son road-tripping across Europe. It's a reckoning with the past, with the self, and with family. 7 James by Percival Everett (Picador, $38) 'James offers page-turning excitement but also off-kilter philosophical picaresque,' writes Anthony Cummins in The Guardian 'Jim enters into dream dialogue with Enlightenment thinkers Voltaire and John Locke to coolly skewer their narrow view of human rights – before finally shifting gear into gun-toting revenge narrative when Jim's view of white people as his 'enemy' (not 'oppressor', which 'supposes a victim') sharpens with every atrocity witnessed en route. It's American history as real-life dystopia, voiced by its casualties, but as you might guess from The Trees – a novel about lynching that won a prize for comic fiction – solemn it is not: 'White people try to tell us that everything will be just fine when we go to heaven. My question is, Will they be there? If so, I might make other arrangements.'' 8 Girl on Girl by Sophie Gilbert (John Murray, $40) The subtitle of this book is: 'How pop culture turned a generation of women against themselves.' (Which sounds like a possible tagline for the The Substance – anyone else seen that little movie with Demi Moore and Margaret Qualley?) And here's the blurb: 'Sophie Gilbert identifies an inflection point in the late 1990s and early 2000s, when the energy of third-wave and 'riot grrrl' feminism collapsed into a regressive period of hyper-objectification, sexualization, and infantilization. Mining the darker side of nostalgia, Gilbert trains her keen analytic eye on the most revealing cultural objects of the era, across music, film, television, fashion, tabloid journalism, and more. What she recounts is harrowing, from the leering gaze of the paparazzi to the gleeful cruelty of early reality TV and a burgeoning internet culture vicious toward women in the spotlight and damaging for those who weren't. Gilbert tracks many of the period's dominant themes back to the rise of internet porn, which gained widespread influence as it began to pervade our collective consciousness.' 9 Who Have Never Known Men by Jacqueline Harpman (Vintage, $26) This novel was originally published in 1995 in French. It's now being rediscovered as the dystopia of the premise catches up with the dystopia of the present. 10 T he Let Them Theory by Mel Robins (Hay House, $32) She's baaaaaack! WELLINGTON 1 A Different Kind of Power by Jacinda Ardern (Penguin Random House, $60) 2 Ghost Kiwi by Ruth Paul (Scholastic NZ, $20) Ruth Paul has a double-whammy this week as she launches two books! Ghost Kiwi is a middle grade novel about Ruby, who runs away with her dog to the one place she feels safe … her treehouse in the forest. 'Joined by her friend, Te Ariki (aka 'Spider'), the pair soon make a surprising discovery – there's a kiwi living in a burrow nearby, caring for a newborn chick. A white kiwi chick. Accompanied by a strange talking doll, and aided by the ancient wairua of the bush, Ruby and Spider step up to become true forest guardians, risking their lives to stop unscrupulous wildlife smugglers from stealing this rare native treasure.' 3 Anahera: The Mighty Kiwi Māmā by Ruth Paul (Puffin, $21) Paul also launched this lovely picture book – the true story of Anahera, a rescue kiwi who now roams the hills of Wellington. 4 The Book of Guilt by Catherine Chidgey (Te Herenga Waka University Press, $38) 5 Caledonian Road by Andrew O'Hagan (Faber & Faber, $35) The new format release of this novel by O'Hagan is giving the best-selling novel another best-selling life. 6 Mātauranga Māori by Hirini Moko Mead (Huia, $45) A major publication by Hirini Moko Mead who explores and explains what mātauranga Māori is. 'He looks at how the knowledge system operates, the branches of knowledge, and the way knowledge is recorded and given expression in te reo Māori and through daily activities and formal ceremonies. Mātuaranga Māori is a companion publication to Hirini Moko Mead's best-selling book Tikanga Māori.' 8 Butter by Asako Yuzuki (4th Estate, $35) 9 Delirious by Damien Wilkins (Te Herenga Waka University Press, $38) The glorious award-winner from Wilkins. 10 Orbital by Samantha Harvey (Vintage, $26) Last year's galactic Booker Prize winner returns to this list like a comet in the night.
The Spinoff
7 days ago
- The Spinoff
‘She had mettle': Anne-Marie Te Whiu on poetry, weaving and whakapapa
Claire Mabey talks with poet, weaver, Atlantic Fellow and cultural curator Anne-Marie Te Whiu about her new collection of poetry, Mettle. Claire Mabey: Kia ora Ani, it's very nice to be talking to you about your beautiful poetry collection, Mettle. Why did you dedicate the book to your younger self? Anne-Marie Te Whiu: Because she's still here. You know that whole thing of you've got to be turning into the person that your younger self would have looked up to? I feel like now I'm 52 I'm just becoming that person, so I'm in conversation with her now, that little kid. It's taken all these decades but it's really beautiful. CM: And why 'mettle'? What does that word mean to you? AMTW: Being a poet, I love playing with language. So when I tell people I've written a collection called Mettle, I love seeing their faces. You can see they're thinking 'Oh so you've written about the periodic table? Is it from a science lens? It is about, like, heavy metal?' I love that. The reason I used 'mettle' is because when I was doing research on my whakapapa and the connection with Whina [Dame Whina Cooper], my great aunt, I looked at archival works, newspaper articles, that kind of thing. I found that one of the words that was used to describe her was that she had 'mettle' and that word just really struck me. CM: So your whakapapa is here in Aotearoa, and you were born in Australia. What is that relationship like for you? Is your collection working into that? AMTW: Exactly. It's working to understand myself. I use poetry as a vehicle and a platform to work out who I am. What does it mean to have whakapapa? How do I acknowledge that whilst being born on and living on these unceded, stolen lands? How do I reconcile that relationship? It's kind of reconciling with myself, really. It's also a vehicle for understanding my siblings, particularly my youngest brother – for him to further understand who we are. CM: I really like the poem 'Blood Brothers', where you're trying to have a conversation with your brothers and they're distracted by the stuff of daily life. AMTW: Totally. Don't you have that with your siblings? CM: Yes! Do you relate to the idea that there's always one sibling who seems to lead the family 'work' so to speak? I've observed over the years that there often seems to be one in the family who works on whakapapa and makes the connections and reconnections. Does that ring true for you? AMTW: 100% relate. I think that's exactly right. I have three brothers, one who sadly passed away – but growing up I was always the fourth wheel. Like, we need to play handball and need a fourth, might as well be her. CM: I was really also struck by your poem, the Letter to Keri Hulme that you've dedicated to essa ranapiri. Is it a fictional letter? AMTW: You're the fourth person to ask that! Like, what? No, it's totally fictional. That was a gift of a poem that was written because essa, who edited Mettle, invited me to be part of a journal dedicated to the legacy of Keri Hulme. We were asked to create whatever we wanted. But how awesome that you think that there's the potential there for the letter to have been real. It brings me back to the question of 'why poetry?' Poetry is a portal. It allows us to stretch and play. CM: I love that. It feels like so many roads lead back to Hulme. Is there anything in particular about her work that you love? ANTW: Her relationship to water. Watching tides, watching waves, reading waves; that's what I really related to. The writer Melissa Lucashenko embodies something of the way Hulme's work enters into your blood. There's something incredibly sacred about the way all the parts work together. There's a power in Hulme's work, and in Lucashenko's too. CM: You're a weaver as well as a writer. There's a poem in the book about having a 'weaving hangover'. What does that mean? AMTW: Have you been a weaver before? CM: Never. But I used to paint a lot. AMTW: Perfect. Here's the comparison. Would you paint until 4am and then go, how did that happen? Then the next day what you did is still with you. That's the kind of hangover I'm talking about. The number of nights I've had where it's got to four, five in the morning just weaving. CM: How does weaving relate to poetry for you? Or does it? AMTW: It compliments poetry rather than that they definitely meet. But I lean on one and then the other, and throw in a couple of dog walks in there as well for physicality. They're both practices that require being still so you gotta balance it with that physicality. CM: Mettle is out in both Australia and New Zealand and I imagine they're two really different audiences, in some ways. AMTW: Massively. I don't know if you got the little insert in the book when it arrived? It has this message explaining that Mettle delves into my whakapapa and then in brackets it says 'Māori genealogy'. Obviously that's so patronising and so unnecessary for the Aotearoa audience, and so imperative if I want to connect with this audience here in Australia. I've had a couple of moments of 'how do I bridge this?' But that's the work. That's our work as writers, producers, artists. We're bridge builders. CM: Have you had feedback on the book so far? ANTW: I got a beautiful message on Instagram from a gorgeous Australian-born wahine, about a poem I have in the collection about understanding and not understanding in a te ao Māori space. To have feedback from someone that gets it is so sweet. I've had feedback from the most important people who are my whānau. The book is for my younger self but we always write for those we love, too. Hopefully all my family will look at it and go, yeah, that's great. CM: In your acknowledgements you talk about a class you did at the IIML at Victoria University with Victor Roger. What was the impact of that class? AMTW: It was so significant being in a room with other Māori and Paskifika writers. Nafanua [Percell Kersel] was there, Nicole Titihuia Hawkins, Kahu Kutia, and a whole bunch of amazing writers. Victor led our waka in such a joyful and challenging way. It was a very, very profound experience. Blood Brothers i recite a karakia for my brothersthey would prefer i bring kebabs i tell them about the Hokianga they tell me about their bills i explain tangata whenua they turn up the TV i dream of Tāne Mahuta they roll a cigarette i summon the names of our ancestors they take their medication i miss our marae they put out the bins – Anne-Marie Te Whiu Mettle by Anne-Marie Te Whiu ($30, University of Queensland Press) is available to purchase from Unity Books. The Spinoff Books section is proudly brought to you by Unity Books and Creative New Zealand. Visit Unity Books online today.
The Spinoff
27-06-2025
- The Spinoff
The Unity Books bestseller chart for the week ending June 27
The only published and available best-selling indie book chart in New Zealand is the top 10 sales list recorded every week at Unity Books' stores in High St, Auckland, and Willis St, Wellington. AUCKLAND 1 A Different Kind of Power by Jacinda Ardern (Penguin Random House, $60) The Spinoff's own Madeleine Chapman reviewed Ardern's memoir – here's a snippet: 'Whether or not Ardern wrote this book herself (there is an 'editor' profusely thanked in the acknowledgements) is by the by. It is the story that she wanted to tell, or at least the parts of it she wanted to tell. Ardern ends her book by referring to herself as a 'speechwriter'. And her speeches are what have defined her career, whether impromptu or nervously rehearsed. But they're also deliberately limiting in what they offer. As a memoirist, Ardern has taken the same approach – offering just enough while still holding her cards close to her chest. It's an impressive move from someone who will now continue to be able to live a very private life while being extremely famous and a successful memoirist.' 2 The Safe Keep by Yael van der Wouden (Penguin, $26) A stunning debut novel set in the Netherlands of the 1960s. Beautifully written, surprising, and hopeful even while it offers insights into traumatic episodes in history. 3 Papatūānuku: A Collection of Writings by Indigenous Wāhine by multiple contributors (Awa Wāhine, $30) The latest, beautiful publication from indie indigenous publisher Awa Wāhine. Here's the blurb: 'A collection of writings by Indigenous wāhine is a powerful anthology of writing by Māori and Pacific women, offering a fresh, raw, and deeply personal tribute to Papatūānuku, the Earth Mother. Through these stories, poems, and reflections, the contributors explore the sacred connections between land, identity, and Atua Wāhine (Māori goddesses), bringing ancient wisdom into the present moment.' 4 James by Percival Everett (Picador, $38) One of the great novels of the decade is this Pulitzer Prize-winning retelling of Huckleberry Finn. Here's the blurb: 'When Jim overhears that he is about to be sold to a man in New Orleans, separated from his wife and daughter forever, he runs away until he can formulate a plan. Meanwhile, Huck has faked his own death to escape his violent father. As all readers of American literature know, thus begins the dangerous and transcendent journey by raft down the Mississippi River toward the elusive and unreliable promise of the Free States and with the electrifying humour and lacerating observations that have made Everett a literary icon, this brilliant and tender novel radically illuminates Jim's agency, intelligence, and compassion as never before. James is destined to be a major publishing event and a cornerstone of twenty-first century American literature.' 5 Butter by Asako Yuzuki (4th Estate, $35) The hugely successful true crime novel that has stayed in the bestseller charts for over a year now. Way back in 2024 Josh Weeks reviewed Butter in The Guardian: 'Based on the real-life case of the 'Konkatsu Killer', in which a con woman and talented home cook called Kanae Kijima was convicted of poisoning three of her male lovers, Butter uses its sordid source material to interrogate the impossible beauty standards to which Japanese women are held.' 6 Eurotrash by Christian Kracht (Serpents Tail, $30) A black comedy about a mother and a son and a roadtrip. 'Eurotrash is a knowing book,' writes Marcel Theroux, 'with excursions into German history and allusions to Shakespeare, myth and pop culture. Part of its charm is the voice of its narrator, a self-aware snob-insider who is anatomising the avarice and insecurity of the privileged class he was born into.' 7 There Are Rivers in the Sky by Elif Shafak (Penguin, $26) A moving novel about the ways water connects people, place and time. 8 Nesting by Roisin O'Donnell (Simon & Schuster, $40) Another 'unforgettable voice in Irish fiction'. Here's the blurb: 'On a bright spring afternoon in Dublin, Ciara Fay makes a split-second decision that will change her life. Grabbing an armful of clothes from the washing line, Ciara straps her two young daughters into her car and drives away. Head spinning, all she knows for certain is that home is no longer safe. It was meant to be an escape. But with dwindling savings, no job, and her family across the sea, Ciara finds herself adrift, facing a broken housing system and the voice of her own demons. As summer passes and winter closes in, she must navigate raising her children in a hotel room, searching for a new home and dealing with her husband Ryan's relentless campaign to get her to come back. Because leaving is one thing, but staying away is another.' 9 The Book of Guilt by Catherine Chidgey (Te Herenga Waka University Press, $38) A magnificent new novel from one of New Zealand's great fiction writers. Here's a snip from The Spinoff's books editor Claire Mabey's review: 'Fading seaside towns are microcosms for faded histories and dreams – and the UK's coastline is littered with them. The layered architecture of eras gone by affects a kind of haunting; the bright surfaces and ice cream shops pasted on top peddle dreams of beachside holidays often, in reality, rudely spiked by hyper-aggressive, Hitchcockian seagulls. Pastel-coated shopfronts and dusty vintage stores soften the detection of darker underbellies and thinly disguise the failures of capitalism to inject the buoyancy required to keep the nostalgia at bay.' 10 The River Is Waiting by Wally Lamb (Simon & Schuster, $40) An epic new novel from the superstar that is Wally Lamb. WELLINGTON 1 A Different Kind of Power by Jacinda Ardern (Penguin Random House, $60) 2 A Beautiful Family by Jennifer Trevelyan (Allen and Unwin NZ, $37) Narrated by a 10-year-old girl, this immersive summer holiday novel is awash with a sinister undertow. Read a review of A Beautiful Family on The Spinoff, right here. 3 If I Must Die by Refaat Alareer & Yousef Aljamal (OR Books, $59) Renowned poet and literature professor Refaat Alareer was killed by an Israeli airstrike in Gaza City alongside his brother, sister, and nephews in December 2023. He was just forty years old. This book is a collection of his essays and poetry about literature, politics, and family. 4 The Book of Guilt by Catherine Chidgey (Te Herenga Waka University Press, $38) 5 The Safe Keep by Yael van der Wouden (Penguin, $26) 6 Bombard the Headquarters! by Linda Jarvin (Black Inc., $32) For anyone interested in China then and China now: 'In 1966, with the words 'Bombard the Headquarters!' Mao Zedong unleashed the full, violent force of a movement that he called the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. By the time he died ten years later, millions had perished, China's cultural heritage was in ruins, its economic state was perilous, its institutions of government were damaged and its society was bitterly divided. The shadow of these terrible years lies heavily over the twenty-first-century nation. The history of this period is so toxic that China's rulers have gone to great lengths to bury it – while a few brave men and women risk their freedom to uncover the truth. For as both they and the Party know, to grasp the history of the Cultural Revolution is to understand much about China today.' The award-winning novel about ageing, loss, and living. The Spinoff's Gabi Lardies and Claire Mabey loved it. A succinct guide to the conflict – essential reading. 9 James by Percival Everett (Picador, $38)
