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Jordan Hamel, poet of the moment (Photo: Supplied; Design: Archi Banal)

The Unity Books bestseller chart for the week ending 20 May

Jordan Hamel joins the phalanx of New Zealand poets who've topped these esteemed charts.

By The Spinoff Review of Books

Tin Shui Wai (Photo: K. Y. Cheng/South China Morning Post via Getty Images)

The Friday Poem: we miss, by Vaughan Rapatahana

kei te mate o mātou i roto | namamatay kami sa loob | 我們已死心

By Vaughan Rapatahana

(Illustrations: Ruby Santos-Jackson; Design: Archi Banal)

The day the Queen came to Birkenhead KFC

(Not based on a true story.)

By Annabel June Barlow and Ruby Santos-Jackson

(Design and illustration: Toby Morris)

The Spinoff Book Report #4: Covid edition

What to read when you feel like pure shite.

By Catherine Woulfe

Janet Charman and her new collection, The Pistils (Image: Supplied / Tina Tiller)

Backstory: Janet Charman on the losses we can prevent, and those we cannot

The story of a deeply moving poem.

By Janet Charman

Photo: Nazar Abbas Photography / Getty Images

The Friday Poem: Iron throne, submerged, by Mikaela Nyman

Who does the sand belong to anyway?

By Mikaela Nyman

Whiti Hereaka with her Acorn and the award’s rarely-sighted sponsor, Jann Medlicott (Photo: Marcel Trompe; Design: Tina Tiller)

The Unity Books bestseller chart for the week ending May 13

We end Ockhams week with lists full of exciting new entrants.

By The Spinoff Review of Books

Whiti Hereaka as Kurangaituku, her muse and main character (Photo: Tabitha Arthur)

Yahoo! Whiti Hereaka wins the 2022 Jann Medlicott Acorn Prize for Fiction

By Catherine Woulfe

Want $300 to read a book? Same

Want $300 to read a book? Same

We read the fine print on a job that sounds, well, amazing.

By Catherine Woulfe

When Harry Met Sally, the carpool scene. Number one on ScreenRant.com’s ‘Top 10 Rom-Com Meet-Cutes’.

The Friday Poem: Māui & Prometheus Have a Meet-Cute

it’s not that pottery scene from Ghost / or the sweaty handprint on glass in Titanic

By essa may ranapiri

Design: Tina Tiller

The Unity Books bestseller chart for the week ending 6 May

Featuring poetry! A guide to Wellington! And also a guide to the whole of the Earth's history!

By The Spinoff Review of Books

The perfect New Zealand tweet doesn’t exi–

The perfect New Zealand tweet doesn’t exi–

Our national psyche revealed in <140 devastating characters.

By Ashleigh Young

Image: Tina Tiller

Give it up for Cadence Chung

In her last year of high school she took on NZQA over its use of a racist poem in an NCEA exam. She also wrote a book of poems.

By Rebecca Hawkes

1987, Thorndon: Catherine Robertson, a few months before the abortion (Photo: Supplied)

Thank you for the abortion, Dr Sparrow

The story of my abortion – and the woman who performed it.

By Catherine Robertson

Image: Getty Images / Tina Tiller

Greenstick – a short story

A new story by one of the best short fiction writers in the country.

From left: Te Wairoa Piripi, Hekiera Te Rangai, Huihi
Pou-Patate, Te Huia Raureti, Mahu Te
Mona and Te Wharerangi Parekawa all fought in the Waikato War (Photo: James Cowan, c.1914,
Alexander Turnbull Library, 1/1-017975-g)

Difficult history: How we remember – and forget – the New Zealand Wars

When it comes to traumatic events in our history, whose memory counts?

Contributing writer

(Photo: Rafael Ben-Ari / Photodisc via Getty; Design: Tina Tiller)

The Unity Books children’s bestseller chart for the month of April

The books the kids have been begging you for.

By The Spinoff Review of Books

(Photo: Oksana Horiun / iStock via Getty; Design: Tina Tiller)

29th April, 2022

The Unity Books bestseller chart for the week ending April 29

This might be a record: 14 of the week's top 20 are New Zealand books.

By The Spinoff Review of Books

The Friday Poem: I Wish I Knew Hera Lindsay Bird, by Tim Grgec

29th April, 2022

The Friday Poem: I Wish I Knew Hera Lindsay Bird, by Tim Grgec

On one of the worst characters in the history of television.

Human not machine: how autistic writers are writing new space for themselves

26th April, 2022

Human not machine: how autistic writers are writing new space for themselves

We're not machines, ghosts, robots, changelings or aliens – but many of us like the idea of hanging out with them sometimes.

By Andi C. Buchanan