This week's biggest-selling New Zealand books, as recorded by the Nielsen BookScan New Zealand bestseller list and described by Steve Braunias
FICTION
1 Loop Tracks by Sue Orr (Victoria University Press, $35)
The biggest-selling and best-reviewed New Zealand novel of 2021. From a review by Paddy Richardson, at good old ReadingRoom: "It's a novel rich in reflection and debate over issues such as addiction, ageing, autism, abortion and euthanasia; should men have a say over abortion; should the government control how we should end our lives? Should we trust logic or emotions?...Loop Tracks is a remarkable novel, beautifully and sensitively written."
2 Bug Week by Airini Beautrais (Victoria University Press, $30)
Six weeks at number one, and the best collection of New Zealand short stories in an age.
3 Rangikura by Tayi Tibble (Victoria University Press, $25)
The biggest-selling and best-reviewed New Zealand poetry collection of 2021, although a recent Listener review claimed a section of the book dealt with "a failed love affair". This was news to the author, who regards the love affair as successful and enduring.
4 Auē by Becky Manawatu (Makaro Press, $35)
5 Inside the Black Horse by Ray Berard (David Bateman, $34.99)
6 The Author's Cut by Owen Marshall (Penguin Random House, $36)
Oho! A new collection of short stories by a master of the form. I simply must get this reviewed and I know exactly who to ask and I hope she says yes.
7 Greta and Valdin by Rebecca K. Reilly (Victoria University Press, $35)
Hilarious debut novel by this week's bookcase star, pictured above, sans bookcase.
8 Back to You by Tammy Robinson (Hachette, $29.99)
9 Blood on Vines by Madeleine Eskedahl (Squabbling Sparrows Press, $34.95)
10 The Nine Lives of Kitty K. by Margaret Mills (Mary Egan Publishing, $34.99)
NON-FICTION
1 Mental Fitness by Paul Wood (HarperCollins Publishers, $36.99)
The most successful self-help book of 2021, in its second week at number one. It looks at stress as something worthwhile, like an energy that can be harnessed to make you a better and more successful person. "Stress is the mechanism by which our bodies and minds respond to a challenge. The sensation of psychological stress is no different to thirst or hunger: it’s there to encourage you to take the action that’s necessary to respond to the challenge, prevail and then return to your comfort zone", etc.
2 Aroha by Hinemoa Elder (Penguin Random House, $30)
3 Labour Saving by Michael Cullen (Allen & Unwin, $49.99)
"Sometimes Cullen writes in personal detail. We learn of his childhood, his affair and subsequent divorce, his depression, and other health battles he has faced. But whereas something such as the enactment of the Local Government Reform Act gets a number of pages, these significant personal matters get no examination. I would have loved to have learned the texture of his fear and how he harnessed it, the smell of the rooms and the like. They would have given the book more humanity…It's an honest, accurate work of history, despite its failings to inspect the more personal aspects of a serious New Zealand politician and his times": from a review by good old Simon Bridges, at ReadingRoom.
4 Tikanga by Francis Tipene & Kaiora Tipene (HarperCollins Publishers, $39.99)
I asked their PR to ask them to pose for a bookcase photo but their PR said they declined.
5 Matariki by Rangi Matamua (Huia Publishers, $35)
6 Supergood by Chelsea Winter (Penguin Random House, $50)
7 The Forager's Treasury by Johanna Knox (Allen & Unwin, $45)
8 The Mirror Book by Charlotte Grimshaw (Penguin Random House, $38)
The best book of non-fiction of 2021. From a review by Philip Matthews, at ReadingRoom: "The explosive story of how the daughter denounced the father, Sylvia Plath-style…But that’s only part of it. There is a less sensational memoir woven through it that is a story of a lonely and neglected adolescence. Like many children of liberal parents, the young Grimshaw was unsupervised. It was the kind of childhood we hear so much about, often nostalgically: kids could go where they wanted without the nanny state insisting on bike helmets. But there was a darker side that we forget. As a teenager, she roamed free. She suggests that Kay’s lack of boundaries and control led to a sexual assault when she was 13, after a man in his 40s took an unhealthy interest in her. When Grimshaw showed Kay the man’s love letters, Kay didn’t do anything about it and wasn’t at all alarmed, she reports. Yet it also seems odd that Grimshaw passes over an obviously traumatic event in a couple of paragraphs and moves on. It is especially puzzling in a book that otherwise returns again and again to particular moments and precise recollections of conversations, with an almost obsessive focus."
9 Māori Made Easy by Scotty Morrison (Penguin Random House, $38)
10 To Be Fair by Rosemary Riddell (Upstart Press, $39.99)
