Picking out the best reads of the year

By MARGIE THOMSON, Books Editor


After countless hours at my workstation - read, comfy sofa - I still can't pretend to have read everything published this year - nowhere near. No one could, and I defy anyone to keep up even with all the New Zealand books published in a year.

In the past few months alone we have seen fiction from many of the best-known names in local lit: Barbara Anderson, Catherine Chidgey, Maurice Gee, Witi Ihimaera, Fiona Kidman, Elizabeth Knox, Shonagh Koea, Sarah-Kate Lynch, Anthony McCarten, Victoria McHalick, James McNeish, Sarah Quigley, Elizabeth Smither, Chad Taylor, Paul Thomas, Albert Wendt - as well as many first-time novels, some of which have done extraordinarily well. Jenny Pattrick's Denniston Rose, for instance, sat in the bestsellers list for many weeks; James George's Hummingbird also did unusually well after being supported by Whitcoulls as its Book of the Month.

The relationship between sales and quality is not always automatic, and sometimes there is no relation at all, as all too many local authors know. However, in the case of my choice for book of the year, both factors are present and accounted for.

Michael King's luminous Penguin History of New Zealand has been praised by reviewers for the depth, synthesis and interpretation of its research, and bought in astonishing quantities by its target audience, New Zealand readers. It's a phenomenon: nearly 40,000 copies have been bought already, and many more copies are likely to be given as Christmas presents, to be read over the summer, a classic New Zealand beach holiday the perfect, benevolent venue from which to contemplate our past and what it all means.

Mostly, though, I won't pretend to pass judgment, other than in the most subjective way. Looking back over the books I've read this year, some now seem a little ho-hum, while the titles of others continue to provide that little exhilaration that reminds me, "Oh yes, that was such an enjoyable read!" It's these I offer here as a reminder of books that you may like to settle down with this holiday season.

New Zealand Fiction:

Catherine Chidgey: The Transformation

Lustrous hair, sinister wig-maker in 19th-century Florida.

Anne-Marie Jagose: Slow Water

Leisurely but beautiful: 19th-century English evangelist is undone on the voyage to the Antipodes.

Nicky Pellegrino: Delicious

Romance and food in Italy and England.

Sue Emms: Parrot Parfait

Romance and parrots with wit in New Zealand.

New Zealand Non-Fiction:

Anne Salmond: The Cannibal Dog

Captain Cook re-examined.

Kenneth Sandford: Mark of the Lion

The story of Charles Upham VC and Bar. Thrilling military history and heroism.

Four Winds Press second and third series of Essays, edited by Lloyd Jones
Margaret Mahy, John Saker, Paula Boock, Bill Manhire, David Burton, Simon Morris.

Peter Calder: Travels With My Mother

Entertaining, self-deprecating, thoughtful.

* The Auckland Writers and Readers Festival introduced us to new international writers who pushed our sense of the world into new territories. Who could forget the sheer, poignant humour of Anita Rau Badami (Hero's Walk), the intensity of Aminatta Forna (The Devil That Danced on the Water), the passionate campaigning zeal of Norma Khouri (Forbidden Love), the extraordinary bounciness and sky-high storytelling ability of William Dalrymple (White Mughals)? All highly recommended.

In November, Margaret Atwood visited here also, with her apocalyptic visionary novel, Oryx and Crake that, for sheer genius and imagination, sits at the top of my choices for international fiction.

International Fiction

Monica Ali: Brick Lane

Pakistani woman lives cloistered life in Britain.

Pat Barker: Double Vision

Intelligent thriller from a wordsmith.

Peter Carey: My Life as a Fake

Australian history with bizarre twist.

Christopher Castellani: A Kiss From Maddalena

Italian love story set in World War II.

Anne Donovan: Buddha Da

Glaswegian bloke embraces Buddhism.

Philippa Gregory: The Queen's Fool

Elizabeth and Mary fight for the throne.

David Guterson: Our Lady of the Woods

God moves in the strangest ways.

Kate Jennings: Moral Hazard

Alzheimer's, Wall St, morality.

Jhumpha Lahiri: The Namesake

Identity, heritage, Indian exiles in the US.

Colum McCann: Dancer

Kaleidoscopic re-enactment of Nureyev's life.

Ann-Marie MacDonald: The Way the Crow Flies

Compulsive drama in 1960s Canadian suburbia. Big, fat, a perfect summer read.

Valerie Martin: Property

Plantation slaves, white owners, Orange Prize.

Mikael Niemi: Popular Music

Bizarre, surreal, hilarious Swedes.

DBC Pierre: Vernon God Little

Crazy-paced, deeply moving, Man Booker winner.

Rose Tremain: The Colour

Romance and villainy on South Island goldfields.

International Non-Fiction

Chandler Burr: The Emperor of Scent

Eccentric scientist revolutionises smell, but no one wants to know.

Mary S. Lovell: The Mitford Girls

Mad, mad Mitfords do the 20th century.

Caroline Moorhead: Martha Gellhorn

Campaigning war reporter, mid-20th century.

Atul Gawande: Complications

A Surgeon's Notes on an Imperfect Science.

Sebastian Haffner: Defying Hitler

Memoir of growing up in Hitler's Germany.

D.J. Taylor: Orwell the Life; George Orwell, Gordon Bowker

Controversial anti-fascist, author of Animal Farm and 1984. Tumultuous times.

* Top of my pile for summer catch-up reading is Lars Christiansen's The Half Brother, Maurice Gee's The Scornful Moon, Victoria McHalick's The Taming, and Peter Wells' Iridescence.