1 Flesh by David Szalay (Jonathan Cape, $38)

The 2025 Booker Prize winner! Hungarian-British writer David Szalay has taken out one of the flashest lit prizes with a rags to riches tale. Chair of judges, Roddy Doyle said:

‘The judges discussed the six books on the shortlist for more than five hours. The book we kept coming back to, the one that stood out from the other great novels, was Flesh – because of its singularity. We had never read anything quite like it. It is, in many ways, a dark book but it is a joy to read.

At the end of the novel, we don’t know what the protagonist, István, looks like but this never feels like a lack; quite the opposite. Somehow, it’s the absence of words – or the absence of István’s words – that allow us to know István. Early in the book, we know that he cries because the person he’s with tells him not to; later in life, we know he’s balding because he envies another man’s hair; we know he grieves because, for several pages, there are no words at all.

I don’t think I’ve read a novel that uses the white space on the page so well. It’s as if the author, David Szalay, is inviting the reader to fill the space, to observe – almost to create – the character with him. The writing is spare and that is its great strength. Every word matters; the spaces between the words matter. The book is about living, and the strangeness of living and, as we read, as we turn the pages, we’re glad we’re alive and reading – experiencing – this extraordinary, singular novel.”

2 Bread of Angels by Patti Smith (Bloomsbury, $39)

From the blurb: “The most intimate of Smith’s memoirs, Bread of Angels takes us through her teenage years where the first glimmers of art and romance take hold. Arthur Rimbaud and Bob Dylan emerge as creative heroes and role models as Patti starts to write poetry, then lyrics, merging both into the iconic songs and recordings such as Horses and Easter, ‘Dancing Barefoot’ and ‘Because the Night’.”

3 Tāmaki Makaurau 2025: Essays on Life in Auckland edited by Damien Levi (Auckland City Libraries, $32)

Aucklanders are loving these personal essays about living in Auckland!

4 A Different Kind of Power by Jacinda Ardern (Penguin, $60)

She’s back! The Spinoff’s Mad Chapman reviewed this memoir of the year, right here.

5 The Eleventh Hour by Salman Rushdie (Penguin, $38)

Five stories reckon with life and death.

6 The Strength of the Few: Hierarchy #2 by James Islington (Text Publishing, $38)

Genuinely found the blurb to this book very hard to follow. However fans of book one in this series will no doubt know what’s going on.

7 The Land in Winter by Andrew Miller (Spectra, $28)

This is the novel tipped to win the Booker this year, but it did not.

8 Raising Hare by Chloe Dalton (Canongate, $28)

The biggest human-animal memoir since H is for Hawk.

9 Mother Mary Comes to Me by Arundhati Roy (Hamish Hamilton, $40)

Roy’s gripping, illuminating mother issues memoir.

10 The Rose Field by Philip Pullman (Penguin, $38)

Huge news. The final instalment of Lyra Silvertongue’s epic story is out and has encountered some perplexed reviews, including in The Spinoff, here.

WELLINGTON

1 The Reluctant Homeopath by Vanessa Young (The Cuba Press, $35)

“I find myself wondering how I ended up here – a homeopath. What a ludicrous system of medicine it seems to be. Based on ‘similars’ and utilising highly diluted substances, it doesn’t get much weirder than this. And yet here I am. How do we reconcile the parts of ourselves that are seemingly at odds? And how to do this when we need to reframe everything we understand to be certain?”

A curious and searching book of essays about science, alternative health and understanding one another.

2 Bread of Angels by Patti Smith (Bloomsbury, $39)

3 Bonfires on the Ice by Harry Ricketts (Te Herenga Waka University Press, $25)

A blazing new book of poetry from one of New Zealand’s best. And fun fact: Ricketts’ acclaimed creative nonfiction course is where the number one book, above, started life.

4 Flesh by David Szalay (Jonathan Cape, $38)

5 New Zealand Place Names – Common, Contested and Curious Names from Aotearoa to Zalatown by Peter Dowling and A. W. Reed (Oratia Press, $40)

A brilliant book for name nerds: full of quirks and facts.

6 Te Whanganui-a-Tara Wellington Architeture: A Walking Guide by John Walsh and Patrick Reynolds (Massey University Press, $37)

“126 buildings and five routes around our capital city.”

7 The Loneliness of Sonia & Sunny by Kiran Desai (Hamish Hamilton, $38)

Another of the shortlisted Booker Prize novels that didn’t win but is, nevertheless, superb.

8 Mother Mary Comes to Me by Arundhati Roy (Hamish Hamilton, $40)

9 The Rose Field by Philip Pullman (Penguin, $38)

10 Hoods Landing by Laura Vincent (Aporo Press, $35)

A stonkingly good debut novel about families.