Top picks
Goodreads
The Best Books of 2021 as decided by readers
IndieBound Booksellers
IndieBound is a community-based movement that supports local, independent New Zealand bookshops. Check out the Indie Top 20 for this week.
The Guardian
Authors choose their favourite books on their chosen theme. Including the Vikings, Authentic Romances, Voyeurs, Megacities in Fiction and many more!
New York Times
The week’s best sellers of combined Print and ebook Fiction. Also available is Non-fiction, Children’s and Monthly Lists, which include Crime, Business, Celebrities, Food and Diet, Science, Travel and Education.
NPR Books
NPR’s Book Concierge Guide to great reads. Use filters to explore more than 300 recommended titles.
Award Winners
New Zealand Book Awards
Celebrating excellence and identifying the very best books for adult readers written by New Zealanders. The awards are judged in four main categories: Poetry, Fiction, Illustrated Non-fiction and General Non-fiction.
The Pulitzer Prize for Fiction
The prize for Fiction is one of the seven that are annually awarded for Letters, Drama and Music. Recognising distinguished Fiction by an American author.
The Man Booker Prize
Leading UK literary prize, awarded each year for the best original novel published in the UK.
Award Winners – Children’s Books
New Zealand Book Awards for Children and Young Adults
These awards are a unique celebration of the contribution New Zealand authors and illustrators make to building national identity and cultural heritage.
The Newbery Medal
Named for eighteenth-century British bookseller, John Newbery this prize is awarded by the American Library Association.
The CILIP Carnegie and Kate Greenaway Medals
The UK’s oldest and most prestigious Children’s Book Awards.
Ockham New Zealand Book Awards 2022
The winners were announced at a ceremony in Auckland on 11 May 2022.
Fiction (The Acorn Foundation Fiction Prize)
- A Good Winter by Gigi Fenster
- Entanglement by Brian Walpert
- Greta & Valdin by Rebecca K Reilly
- Kurangaituku by Whiti Hereaka
General Non-fiction (The Royal Society Te Apārangi Award)
- From the Centre: A Writer’s Life by Patricia Grace
- The Alarmist: Fifty Years Measuring Climate Change by Dave Lowe
- The Mirror Book by Charlotte Grimshaw
- Voices from the New Zealand Wars | He Reo nō ngā Pakanga o Aotearoa by Vincent O’Malley
Illustrated Non-fiction
- Dressed: Fashionable Dress in Aotearoa New Zealand 1840 to 1910 by Claire Regnault
- NUKU: Stories of 100 Indigenous Women by Qiane Matata-Sipu
- Shifting Grounds: Deep Histories of Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland by Lucy Mackintosh
- The Architect and the Artists: Hackshaw, McCahon, Dibble by Bridget Hackshaw
Poetry
- Rangikura by Tayi Tibble
- Sleeping with Stones by Serie Barford
- The Sea Walks into a Wall by Anne Kennedy
- Tumble by Joanna Preston