This week’s bestselling books – May 17

May 16, 2024 Stan

NONFICTION

1 The Last Secret Agent by Pippa Latour & Jude Dobson (Allen & Unwin, $37.99)

A free copy of this amazing story of a woman who operated behind enemy lines in Nazi-occupied France was up for grabs this past fortnight. Readers were asked to share a story of wartime bravery, honour, or sacrifice. I was swamped with emails and very many of them were extraordinary. I need to pay due respect to these stories. A selection will be published in a long article – including the announcement of the winner – next week in ReadingRoom.

2 Foraging New Zealand by Peter Langlands (Penguin Random House, $50)

3 Evolving by Judy Bailey (HarperCollins, $39.99)

4 Dame Suzy D by Susan Devoy (Allen & Unwin, $37.99)

5 Hine Toa by Ngāhuia te Awekōtuku (HarperCollins, $39.99)

Stunning memoir of a Māori lesbian kuia. From a review by Talia Marshall: “Even as a grandmother she is sexy as fuck. I pored over the glossy photographs that make up the middle of the book because back in the day she was hot stuff.”

6 Dinner, Done Better by My Food Bag (Penguin Random House, $40)

7 Otherhood by Alie Benge & Lil O’Brien & Kathryn van Beek (Massey University Press, $39.99)

A free copy of this new collection of essays by childfree women is up for … adoption, in this week’s free book giveaway. At turns poignant, and challenging, and proud, and staunch, and vulnerable, it opens with a quote from Helen Mirren: “Whenever boring old men went, ‘What? No children? Well, you’d better get on with it, old girl,’ I’d say ‘No! Fuck off!’”

Contributors include Golriz Gharaman, who writes, “The question isn’t just ‘Do I want to have a kid?’, but also ‘Should I actually have a whole lot more therapy and sit this one out?’”

My favourite essay is an incredible piece by Hinemoana Baker. It’s very personal, very powerful. It opens, “It’s 2011 and I am 43 years old.

“My partner, Christine, and I got together when I was 36. We had been friends for about 10 years before that. One of the first things I asked Christine was whether she wanted to have kids.

“I had just come out of a relationship with another woman who had desperately wanted children, but was newly and unreliably in recovery from drug and alcohol addiction, and therefore so was our relationship. We weren’t able to pay for inseminations so it would have to be a friend. She would say let’s do it, let’s just go for it, but then the minute we sat down to talk about a possible donor, she would find fault with all of them. Every guy we knew was unsuitable because, basically, he wasn’t her. She was also (legitimately) anxious about the legal situation for queer couples and her rights as a nonbiological parent. Every time we tried to talk about having children, we would end up having a hideous fight, and often I’d have to leave the house to get away from her anger.

“That relationship eventually blew apart. This new one with Christine, precisely because it was so much healthier and safer and more fun, made me want to have children even more. It was becoming unlike any other feeling I’d ever had…”

To enter the draw to win a copy of Otherhood, share your thoughts or a story about a childfree existence, and email it to [email protected] with the subject line in screaming caps I DEFINITELY WANT OTHERHOOD. Entries close at midnight on Sunday, May 19.

Quite a cover.

8 Fungi of Aotearoa by Liv Sisson (Penguin Random House, $45)

9 Feijoa by Kate Evans (Hachette, $39.99)

10 Whakawhetai: Gratitude by Hira Nathan (Allen & Unwin, $36.99)

FICTION

1 Take Two by Danielle Hawkins (Allen & Unwin, $36.99)

2 Amma by Saraid de Silva (Hachette, $37.99)

Inter-generational novel, reviewed very, very favourably in ReadingRoom next week by the ubiquitous Betty Davis, a graduate from the Whitireia Publishing course who was announced this week as the grand winner of the Greatest Book Giveaway of All Times, winning the entire haul of 16 books shortlisted for the Ockham book awards. The giveaway contest asked readers to name their favourite NZ book published in 2023. The overwhelming majority voted for Birnam Wood by Eleanor Catton. Betty voted for it, too – and has such a high opinion of Amma by Saraid de Silva that she is claiming it as the best NZ novel of 2024.

3 The Secrets of the Little Greek Taverna by Erin Palmisano (Hachette, $36.99)

4 The Space Between by Lauren Keenan (Penguin Random House, $37)

5 The Call by Gavin Strawhan (Allen & Unwin, $36.99)

6 The Girl from London by Olivia Spooner (Hachette, $37.99)

7 Bird Child and Other Stories by Patricia Grace (Penguin Random House, $37)

8 Ash by Louise Wallace (Te Herenga Waka University Press, $30)

“Ostensibly a novel about an individual woman’s rage, Ash shows the systematic shit-show that makes it impossible for Thea, a veterinarian, mother of two and wife to a man, to live with any degree of comfort or fulfilment. To carry out her work as a vet, Thea is reliant on her mother-in-law and paid childcare, demonstrating the impossibility of the nuclear family at the late stages of the capitalism that created it … Wallace has achieved something particular and exciting in Ash and I highly recommend it”: from a very favourable review by Pip Adam.

9 The Cleaner by Paul Cleave (Penguin Random House, $26)

Great blurbology for this crime novel set in Christchurch: “Meet Joe. He’s a nice guy out to catch a copycat killer. The one copying himself. Joe is in control of everything in his simple life, including both his day job at the police department and his ‘night work’. He remembers to feed his fish twice a day and visit his mother at least once a week, although he occasionally peppers her coffee with rat poison…”

One of the best covers of the year, maybe the very best.